River of Darkness (26 page)

Pike. It was always on his mind. Almost the last thing I remember him saying before we got hit by that shell was how he wasn't going to let it rest. He was going to take it up with someone.' Tozer fell silent. He stared at the floor. Sinclair coughed. 'It's my impression you served under a fine officer, Mr Tozer.' 'I did that, sir.' The blue eyes lifted. 'And I deeply regret the injury you suffered. I think the force is the poorer for it.' Tozer made a quick bobbing motion with his head. The chief inspector got to his feet and Tozer followed suit. They shook hands. 'We may need to get in touch with you again. But in the meantime I'd be grateful if you'd keep this to yourself. We'll get Pike's photograph into the newspapers, but we need to be careful what appears in print.' 'Don't worry, sir. I won't breathe a word.' He shook hands with Madden and nodded to the other two men. 'Constable Styles will see you out.' Sinclair sat down. 'And thank you again.' Tozer had his hand on the doorknob when he checked and turned to face them. 'There's one more thing I'd like to say, sir . . .' 'Go ahead.' The chief inspector looked up. 'When you catch up with him, with Pike, you'll watch yourself, won't you?' 'Indeed we will,' Sinclair replied. 'And thank you for the warning. But why do you say that?' 'I forgot to tell you before, I should have mentioned it. We met him, the captain and me.' 'No, by God, you didn't mention it.' Sinclair was on his feet again. 'Only we didn't know, of course. Not then Tozer bit his lip. 'It was when the captain was interrogating those men from B Company. Pike was the man who marched them in.' 'The company sergeant major. Of course! What about him, Mr Tozer?' 'Well, the funny thing is we talked about him afterwards, Captain Miller and me.' Tozer frowned. 'The captain was just saying he didn't think it was any of the lads he'd questioned, and then he laughed and said: "But did you get a look at that sergeant major? Now if he'd been in the line-up . . ." And I knew just what he meant, because I'd had the same feeling myself. As soon as Pike walked in, I thought: Now there's a killer! Eyes like stones.'

Pike was able to keep to his schedule that Saturday morning. Mrs Aylward had caught the nine-twenty train to Waterloo, as planned, confirming with her last words to the household staff her intention of returning the following Tuesday. He had the weekend free, and although his employer had asked him to attend to some outdoor tasks on Monday he had no intention of obeying her wishes. He knew that neither the maid, Ethel Bridgewater, nor Mrs Rowley, the cook, would report his absence to their mistress. They took care not to cross him. It was ten minutes past eleven by his hunter -- the watch was engraved with his father's initials and had been his parting gift to him -- when he opened the wooden gate in the back fence and stepped into Mrs Troy's garden. Already his excitement was stirring, throbbing in the pit of his stomach like a deep, slow pulse. He was impatient to be on his way. But he'd been troubled by the memory of the old woman's distress on his last visit. He regretted having departed in haste then without first determining its cause. Unease had plagued him all week. Now he walked past the shed and went directly to the kitchen door, entering without knocking as he always did. He deposited the parcel of food he had brought on the kitchen table and continued soft-footed through into the narrow hallway. The door to the front parlour was open. He paused on the threshold and looked in. She was in her customary chair by the window with the tortoiseshell cat on her lap. The knitted shawl she favoured was draped about her shoulders and a plaid blanket covered her knees. The day was cloudy, the air cool and autumnal. Pike shifted on his feet, making a small sound. He didn't want to startle her. 'Mr Biggs . . .?' She turned eagerly. 'No, it's me,' Pike said gruffly. 'Grail.' His words had an astonishing effect on her. She started in shock and clutched involuntarily at the cat, which she had been stroking. It let out a yowl of surprise and sprang from her lap. Her eyes stared blindly at him. 'What's the matter, Mrs Troy?' He seldom used her name. Her mouth opened and shut. She seemed unable to speak. 'Are you sick? Can I get you something?' He had never made such an offer before. 'No . . .' At last she managed to produce a word. 'No, thank you Pike checked an impulse to approach nearer. He saw that she was terrified, but couldn't think why. He was accustomed to causing fear in others. In the past he had reduced men bigger and stronger than he to white-faced silence with a single look. They had sensed the menace he presented, terrible in its stillness. But he had never by word or action sought to intimidate her. The word 'irony' was not in his vocabulary, but he would have appreciated its significance in this instance. She was the one person who had nothing to fear from him. Her physical well-being was almost as precious to him as his own. He lived in perpetual anxiety that she might die suddenly, ending his occupation of the shed, bringing havoc to his enterprises. The situation was beyond him. In the whole of his bleak existence he had never learned how to coax or comfort. He could no more have led her gently, by degrees, to the point of revelation than he could have soothed a sick child. He saw only that it was his presence that disturbed her and he acted accordingly, turning on his heel and leaving the room. But his mind was in turmoil as he paused briefly in the kitchen to put away the food he had brought. Mr BiggsP Pike had never heard the name before. He walked quickly across the small patch of lawn to the shed and unsnapped the heavy padlock. Daylight flooded the dark interior as he flung open the door and at once he noticed the white envelope lying on the cement floor at his feet.

Harold Biggs paused in the shadow of the hawthorn hedge to dry the sweat on his forehead. He was thankful that the days were growing cooler. If he was perspiring heavily it was only partly due to the two mile walk from Knowlton to Rudd's Cross. His nervousness had been increasing all morning. 'You're going out there again?' Jimmy Pullman had professed disbelief when Biggs announced his plans for that Saturday in the Bunch of Grapes. 'You should tell old Wolverton to go hopping sideways. What's the old girl's problem, anyway? What's it you're supposed to be doing for her?' Biggs had been vague in his reply. Some minor legal business, he implied. He didn't tell Jimmy either that Mr Wolverton had given him the whole day off in recognition of his spontaneous offer to return once more to Rudd's Cross in order to deal with the Grail situation. The thought of the tankards in Mrs Troy's silver cabinet had weighed on Harold's mind all week. Even now, as he approached her cottage through the stubbled fields, he didn't know whether, in the end, he would have the nerve to act on his plan.

But he'd come prepared. He had brought his briefcase, a bulky, old-fashioned article with clumsy straps which he wanted to change for the sleeker, more modern versions now on sale. Today, though, he was glad of its size. The mugs would fit inside it comfortably. He knocked on the front door of the cottage and then waited patiently, remembering how long it had taken her to get to the door on his last visit. After a full minute he knocked again. There was no response from within. Biggs walked around the cottage to the kitchen door. As he pushed it open he heard a subdued tapping coming from the direction of the garden shed behind him. The green wooden door was shut, but the padlock had been removed. He could hear someone moving about inside. So Grail had come, and presumably was getting his things together preparatory to moving out. Harold felt his stomach tighten. It was all going according to plan. Once Grail had departed, no doubt angry and resentful at having been turfed out at such short notice, he could remove the tankards from the cabinet, safe in the knowledge that their disappearance, if it was noted at all, would be laid to the other man's account. But he still didn't know if he had the courage to do it. . . Harold took a deep, calming breath. He went into the kitchen, calling out in a low voice as he did so, 'Mrs Troy, are you there? It's Mr Biggs from Folkestone ..." Again there was no reply. Removing his checked cap, he laid it on the kitchen table alongside his briefcase. Then he went through to the hallway and looked into the parlour. The chair by the window was empty. His glance shifted automatically to the glass-fronted cabinet on the opposite side of the room. The tankards were where he had left them. Biggs was nonplussed. He couldn't conceive of the old woman having left the house for any reason, particularly in view of their appointment. He had formed a picture of her life in which she was confined to the cottage. It was hard to imagine her even stepping into the garden. A doorway on the opposite side of the hall stood ajar, giving a glimpse of a dining-table and chairs. Just past it a narrow stairway led to the upper floor. Harold paused at the foot of this. He had detected the glow of two eyes in the darkness at the top of the carpeted stairs, and as his own grew accustomed to the gloom he made out the shape of a cat. He remembered the animal from his earlier visit. It sat there with paws folded looking down at him. 'Mrs Troy?' he called up the stairs. After a moment's hesitation he climbed to the upper landing, stepping over the cat, which made no move to get out of his way. Two doors stood ajar. A third was shut. He knocked on that and heard a voice respond faintly from within. Harold opened the door and saw Mrs Troy's figure stretched out on a bed, half sitting, half lying, propped against a bank of pillows. She wore the same dark bombazine skirt as before and her upper body was wrapped in a plaid blanket. The curtains had been three-quarters drawn on the window overlooking the back garden and the dull light entering the room left the corners in shadow. 'I'm sorry, am I disturbing you?' Harold hesitated on the threshold. He saw her face turning from side to side, like a plant seeking the sunlight. He recalled the clouded milky gaze. 'It's me . . . Mr Biggs, from Folkestone.' 'Oh, Mr Biggs!" The words were accompanied by a gasp of relief. 'I wasn't sure you'd come.' 'I said I would.' He spoke resentfully, as though he had been misjudged. 'He's here. . .' Her agitated whisper barely reached his ears. 'Mr Grail 'Yes, I know. I heard him in the shed. I'll just slip down now and have a word with him. See that everything's in order.' 'Mr Biggs . . .' Now a note of anxiety had come into her voice. She held out her hand to him from the bed. He pretended not to see it. He had come here on business. He didn't want this human contact between them. But her hand remained there between them and in the end he had to come forward and take it in his. 'Be carefulY 'Why? What do you mean?' He recoiled from her clutching fingers. 'Just ask him to go nicely . . . Tell him I'm sorry, it can't be helped Nicely! Harold stoked his rising temper. The thought of what he planned to do - of the advantage he meant to take of this frail old creature - made him dislike her all the more. He withdrew his hand from hers. 'Don't worry, Mrs Troy,' he said curtly. A fresh idea had just occurred to him and he hastened to put it into words. 'You just lie there. After I've spoken to Grail I'll make you a cup of tea and bring it up. I can see this is upsetting you. You must stay here and rest.' He'd been nerving himself all morning to remove the mugs in the cabinet from under her nose, under her near-sightless gaze, but this was an unlooked for piece of good fortune. {'You're a lucky devil!' He grinned, remembering.) Already he was breathing easier. As he turned towards the door he caught sight of his reflection in the dressing-table mirror: his solid figure, on the verge of being overweight, bulged at the waistline. He drew in his stomach. 'Just leave Grail to me,' he said. He hurried down the stairs, out through the kitchen and into the garden. He would do it! The certainty had come to him as he stood beside the bed and looked down at her helpless figure. He had found the courage after all! Impatient now to bring matters to a conclusion Grail must be sent on his way without further delay he strode across the small square of lawn and rapped sharply on the shed door. 'Mr Grail?' Without waiting for a response, he pushed open the door and went inside. A wave of heat enveloped him. The dark interior was lit by a paraffin lamp, which burned brightly on an upturned box in one corner of the room. A man, naked to the waist, was bending down, arranging the folds of a dun-coloured dust cloth over some large, irregularly shaped object in the middle of the shed. Biggs had a fleeting impression he'd been taken by surprise. Then all thoughts were driven from his mind by the sight of the half-clad figure as it rose and turned towards him. The muscular torso, scarred in several places, was shiny with sweat. A high, rank odour like the smell from an animal's cage assailed his nostrils. 'Grail?' Harold waited for some response from the man, who said nothing. He noticed a metallic object lying on a work-table at the end of the shed. It looked like a piece of machinery, or a motor part. Tools lay beside it. 'Now what's all this?' Biggs put his hands on his hips. 'I take it you got my letter. You're supposed to be moving out of here today.' He found to his consternation that he couldn't look the man in the face. The single glance he had given him had revealed a close-cropped head and lips drawn down in a thin line. But it was the eyes. They were brown and flat and when Biggs had sought to meet them with his own, to impress his irritation and impatience on this half-dressed ruffian, he had had to look away almost at once. There was something inhuman in his gaze, Harold thought with alarm. The image of an animal came into his mind again. A carnivore. He was forced to move, to ease the cramp that all at once invaded his limbs, and without any conscious intention he walked forward, further into the shed towards the menacing figure of Grail who nevertheless, surprisingly, made way for him, moving to one side and then a little around so that Harold now stood beside the covered object and Grail was closer to the door. 'Well?' The word sprang unbidden to Harold's lips. He spoke because he could not remain silent in the midst of the greater silence that radiated like a force from the other man. 'You're meant to be leaving here,' he repeated helplessly. 'Moving out. Don't you understand?' Grail's only response was to move again. Harold saw with mounting panic that his way out of the shed was now blocked. 'What are you doing here, anyway?' He didn't want to know, but he couldn't still his tongue. When he moved himself it was with an involuntary lurch, his cramped leg muscles jerking in a sudden spasm. His foot, dragging along the cement floor, caught in a fold of the dust cloth. Distractedly, he tried to work it free, kicking out in desperation, tugging at the cloth, which gradually worked loose from the object it was covering. When he saw what was revealed beneath it Harold went deathly pale. He stared in horror at the handlebars of the motorcycle - the machine was still half covered by the cloth - and the red pointed nose of the sidecar. At that same instant he recalled, with an emotion akin to grief, the article he had read in the newspaper the previous Friday. He looked up into the flat brown eyes. He couldn't hide his knowledge from them, he was too afraid. And now he found his own gaze held fast by the lifeless stare. A warm stream of urine ran down his leg inside his plus-fours. Harold saw the face of his mother - she had died in the last year of the war. Other images flocked to his mind. He saw the girl he had picked up in the high street, Jimmy Pullman leaning on the bar in the Bunch of Grapes, Mr Wolverton's freckled scalp, the cat's eyes glowing at the top of the stairs . . . His life sped by like the frames of a hand-cranked cinematograph in a penny arcade. And all the while he stared into Grail's eyes. At the last, like a drowning man clutching at a spar, he put his hand in his pocket and felt for his key ring and his good-luck shilling. It brought him no comfort in his agony. Even as he ran his thumb frantically back and forth along the milled edge, Grail moved towards him and he knew then, with the finality of death, that his luck had run out.