Pretty Lady (16 page)

Without closing the drawer, he went back into the hall way. The stairs were straight ahead now and the drawing-room was behind the closed door at the top. Even as he looked at them, they seemed to grow steeper and higher.

He couldn't manage them carrying all this stuff, but Merelda had said he'd have to have the gun. He bent and deposited the airline bag at the foot of the stairs. Blackness swooped at him like a bat as he straightened up.

He clung to the stair rail until his head cleared. Then, slowly, he began to climb. He wished the music wasn't so loud and noisy. It hurt his head, the thunder on the drum vibrating through him, accentuating the heavy pulsing of his blood. The stairs were beginning to sway in evil rhythm with the drums, too. He'd never reach the top, it was like trying to go up a down escalator, no matter how many steps you took there still seemed to be the same endless number to go. He dosed his eyes and that made it a little better. When you couldn't see how far you had to go, it didn't seem so bad.

The stairs lurched under him abruptly and he had to fight to open his eyes, they wanted to stay closed. He had reached the top. He shifted the gun to his right hand and stood there, staring at the closed door.

He wanted to sit down on the top step and rest a while. He wanted it more than he could remember wanting anything in his whole life. More than a puppy dog, even. Much, much more than being home in his own bed – that had been earlier. Now, he was so far from home, in distance and in time, that it might have been just a pleasant dream he'd had once. The reality was here, in the aching weariness, all the things he still had to do, and the shadows reaching out to close around him.

He crossed to the door and leaned against the wall beside it. Even that little had cost him nearly as much energy as climbing the stairs. Maybe it wouldn't matter if he sat down and sort of rested for a few minutes before –

On the other side of the door, a woman screamed. Or was it something to do with the music –a singer hitting a high note? He couldn't be sure. But Merelda was behind that door with the bad man. He couldn't rest now – maybe she was being hurt.

He fumbled for the door knob, but it slipped away from his grasp. He had to try again, pushing at the door as he did so. Then, abruptly, he was in the room with them. Blinking in the bright light, he brought the gun up to point at the man.

They were both on the couch, Merelda leaning back against the cushions, the man's hand at her throat. They froze as they saw him.

‘You leave her alone!' he blurted. ‘You stop hurting her!'

They seemed to move in slow motion. The man withdrew his hand, Merelda turned her head. Very carefully, they levered themselves to a sitting position. The woman's voice screamed again – it was coming from the record machine.

‘I –' The man swallowed and spoke in a cautious, conciliatory tone, his eyes on the gun. ‘I'm not hurting her, lad.'

‘You're not?' Denny asked uncertainly.

‘I wouldn't hurt her for the world. She's my wife – you know that, don't you? I love her.'

‘You do?' Denny looked at him in confusion. He didn't seem like a bad man. Not like Merelda had said. He wondered if he'd got the right man. But this was the man who had pulled her away from the window, had had his hands round her neck. Still uncertain, he turned to Merelda.

‘Why, Denny ...' Her face lit with a welcome only he could see. ‘What a surprise. What are you doing here? And –' her eyes slid sideways to look at her husband – ‘and where did you get that gun?'

‘In the desk,' he said amply. ‘It was right where you said it was.'

‘What's that?' The man whirled on Merelda. ‘Were you fool enough to –?'

‘Don't you touch her,' Denny said quickly. ‘You leave her alone!' He waved the gun, reinforcing his commands.

‘I'm not touching her.' The man subsided, his eyes darting from the gun to the expanse of carpet separating him from Denny.

‘Then don't.' Denny began to feel vaguely pleased. It was all going the way Merelda had said. The man was scared. Now, what else was it he had to do? Oh, yes.

‘Promise,' he said. ‘Promise you won't hurt her again.'

‘I never hurt her,' the man said. ‘I've never raised a finger to her.' He looked at the pointing gun again and abandoned argument. ‘All right,' he said, ‘if it will make you feel better, I promise. I've never hurt her – and I never will.'

‘That's good.' Denny lowered the gun. He looked at Merelda in elation, waiting for her praise. He'd helped her, saved her. Now they could all be friends.

But Merelda was frowning. And she seemed so far away. The whole room seemed remote, misty and swaying. What was the matter?

“Oh, Merelda.' He sank into a chair, blackness swooping around him again. ‘Merelda, I feel awful.'

Peter finished his call and rang off. He came out of the telephone kiosk to stare at the sketch with them. ‘They'll check the area where I saw Denny with the pup,' he said glumly. ‘But, if he wasn't thinking about dogs –'

And he wasn't, they knew that now. He was thinking about women – probably one particular woman. And that meant – Sheila pressed her hand against her lips, battling the impulse to cry, to scream, neither of which would do Denny any good right now. That meant they were really lost –
he
was lost. Somewhere in this big city – on his way to some unknown woman.

And what about Mum? She ought to call the hospital. She started into the kiosk, but Peter put his hand on her arm, stopping her.

‘There's no news,' he said. ‘I asked. “Doing as well as can be expected.” That's all they'll ever tell you, anyway.'

‘If I can get Aunt Vera,' she said, ‘she might tell me more.' But she flinched from talking to Vera, from hearing the veiled eagerness in Vera's voice when she enquired about Denny. From the false heartiness that would assure her, ‘Everything's going to be all right'; knowing that, for her and Vera, ‘all right' meant two different things. It was all right with Aunt Vera if Denny died.

She allowed Peter to draw her away from the door. They went back to staring hopelessly at the sketch on the wall – it told them so much, and so little.

And yet, there was something it ought to tell her. She tried to concentrate her mind, push Mum into the background. Mum was already in hospital, everything possible being done for her; talking to Matron, or Aunt Vera, wouldn't change anything. It was Denny they had to think about now. Denny.

She tried to think back. To earlier today, aeons ago, the world on the other side of the chasm, when everything had been calm and safe and normal, when getting the tea ready on time had been the heaviest problem she had to face.

Tea.
And Denny, sitting at the table, smiling and happy, and trying to confide something to her in his inarticulate way. But half her mind had been on Mum, worrying about what the doctor would tell her. She hadn't been paying much attention to Denny's wanderings. But he had said something –

‘Is she local?' Rembrandt asked. The two men were still squinting at the sketch.

‘Hard to tell.' Peter turned his torch on the drawing, holding it close, as though additional light might tell him something more. ‘It isn't much of a portrait, you know.'

‘It's as good as you could get with your Identikit,' Rembrandt argued. ‘You ought to be trained to distinguish suspects at a glance.'

‘If I've seen them before,' Peter said. ‘What about your artist's eye? And you work this area a lot. If she's local, perhaps you've seen her before.'

‘
If
she's local,' Rembrandt said. They both stared soberly at the drawing.

‘The river!' It came back to Sheila suddenly. ‘Denny said he'd been to tea this afternoon with a pretty lady who lived along the river.'

‘It's a long river,' Rembrandt said slowly.

‘But Denny passed this way.' Peter turned towards the river. ‘There's no pathway downriver from here, it's cut off by playing fields. That means he must be heading upriver. It's a residential district, plenty of houses and blocks of flats.'

They began walking towards the river. Sheila tried to be calm – it was ridiculous to hope. Just because the search had narrowed a bit. It was still a long river, as Rembrandt had pointed out – and Denny, with his long loping stride, could cover a lot of territory in an hour or so. There was no knowing how much of a head start he had on them. He could be anywhere by this time.

Where was he going? And what did he think he was going to do when he got there?

‘Her name was Merelda!' Sheila remembered. Neither Peter nor Rembrandt reacted. The name was no help to them.

They turned a corner and were at the river. It flowed, dark and deep, below the embankment on the opposite side of the street. Along this side, a row of town houses looked out over the misty depths. They were blank and anonymous, giving no clue to the identity of their occupants. Denny could be inside any one of them.

Or he could be lying in a heap in some shadowed doorway, or on the river bank. The street itself was deserted, except for themselves.

‘I'll just check.' Peter left them, crossing the street to flash his torch over the wall. ‘All clear to the end of the row,' he reported, coming back to them.

A cold wind blew in off the river, carrying the mist before it. Sheila was not the only one who shivered, and the increasing chill had nothing to do with it. The street stretched endlessly along the river, at least a mile to the next bridge. After a brief giving way to the commercial district crouched at the end of the bridge, the residences took over again, continuing for miles. What chance had they of finding Denny in time?

They began walking, by tacit consent, down the street, towards the distant bridge, Sheila between the two men. Not too quickly, their urgency slowed by the need to look twice at each clump of black shadows, eyes probing to make certain no human form lay curled there.

They passed one cross-street, then another. The row of houses immediately ahead had something odd about it, struck a jarring note not instantly discernible. There was just a certain disorder about it which reminded one instinctively of Denny. Sheila quickened her steps, the others kept pace.

Midway down the row, a flower-pot lay shattered at the foot of a flight of steps. Other flower-pots flanked a doorway in tipsy array. Denny's handiwork? They stopped in front of the house, staring up at k.

‘A dog,' Rembrandt said uncertainly, ‘or a cat. It doesn't prove anything.' They would have to go inside to prove anything. Ask questions. They were not quite prepared to take those steps yet. The evidence was indicative, but not conclusive.

‘The dog –' Peter turned his torch on the doorway – ‘left his key in the latch.'

‘Shine that torch down here,' Rembrandt directed suddenly, squatting to look at something. The beam swung down to illumine a yellow chalk squiggle on the bottom step.

‘He's been this way,' Rembrandt said. ‘Whether he's in this house, or not –?' He shrugged.

‘At least, we can ask.' Sheila started up the steps.

The men were staring after her, indecisive about following, when the first shot rang out upstairs.

The second shot shattered the picture window above their heads.

The imbecile! The great overgrown lout! What was he doing? What was wrong with him? He slumped in the big armchair, his eyes opening and closing, shaking his head dazedly. Was he going to fall asleep right in the middle of the scene? Or be sick?

Behind her, she felt Keith stir, his muscles tensed as he edged forward. If he got to that gun first ...

‘Stay still,' she whispered. ‘You'll set him off again. Let me deal with it. He thinks I'm his friend.'

‘Be careful, lass.' Keith caught her arm to hold her back. ‘You can't tell what he'll do. He's not just daft – he's raving mad with it.'

‘It will be all right,' she said softly. ‘I can get closer to him than you can. He trusts me.'

So did Keith. She smiled as he released her arm. ‘Be careful,' he said again. ‘If anything happens to you, I'll kill that maniac.'

You aren't going to be in a position to kill anyone.
The thought was so exhilarating she nearly voiced it aloud. But not yet. Not until she had her hand on the gun.

‘Merelda?' Denny opened his eyes, searching for her, without seeming to see her. ‘Merelda? Everything's all funny. I don't feel good.' He slumped lower in the chair. ‘I want my mother.'

‘It's all right, Denny,' she cooed. ‘I'm right here. I'll help you.' She slid off the couch and started towards him, cautiously enough to reassure Keith; smoothly enough to encourage Denny.

‘Merelda?' Once more the curiously blank gaze travelled past her. ‘Merelda, it's so dark here.' His hand, as though unaware it still held the gun, came up to rub at his eyes, his forehead.

Keith, scenting an enemy's disadvantage, rose to his feet and started forward, ignoring her signal to stay where he was. She tried to wave him back, but he kept advancing steadily.

‘Stop that!' she said sharply. ‘You're frightening me!' As she had hoped, each man thought she was speaking to the other.

‘You leave her alone!' Denny reacted immediately, bringing the wavering gun to aim in Keith's general direction. Keith froze, only his eyes moving as he sought an opening.

‘Steady on, lad,' Keith said. ‘Steady.' The effect was unsteadying.

Denny struggled to his feet, his mind unreeling to the beginning of the scene, to the task he fed come here to perform. ‘You hurt her,' he accused. ‘You frightened her. You're a bad man!'

‘That's right, Denny.' Merelda drew closer to him, speaking low, hypnotically. Keith was too far away to hear. He still watched her hopefully, waiting for her to charm the gun out of Denny's hand.