The Great Pursuit (18 page)

'There goes my past,' she murmured. Piper turned to look at her. Her hair straggled down her
head and her face was naked of its pancake mask. Only her eyes seemed real and in the reflected
glow Piper could see that they shone with a demented joy.

'You're out of your tiny mind,' he said with uncharacteristic frankness. Baby's fingers
tightened on his arm.

'I did it all for you,' she said. 'You understand that, don't you? We have to plunge into the
future unfettered by the past. We have to commit ourselves irrevocably by some free act and make
an existential choice.'

'Existential choice?' shrieked Piper. The flames had reached the decorative dovecotes now and
the heat was intense. 'You call setting fire to your own house an existential choice? That's not
an existential choice, that's a bloody crime, that is.'

Baby smiled happily at him. 'You must read Genet, darling,' she murmured and still gripping
his arm pulled him away across the lawn towards the trees. In the distance there came the wail of
sirens. Piper hurried. They had just reached the edge of the forest when the night air was split
by another series of explosions. Far out across the bay the cruiser had exploded. Twice. And
silhouetted against the second ball of flame Piper seemed to glimpse the mast of a yacht.

'Oh my God,' he muttered.

'Oh my darling,' murmured Baby in response and turned her face to his.

Hutchmeyer was in a foul temper. He had been insulted by an author, he had proved himself an
inept yachtsman, had lost his sails, and finally his virility had been put in doubt by Sonia
Futtle's refusal to take his overtures seriously.

'O come on now, Hutch baby,' she had said, 'put it away. This is no time to be proving your
manhood. Okay, so you're a man and I'm a woman. I heard you. And I don't doubt you. I really
don't. You've got to believe me, I don't. Now you just put your clothes back on again and...'

'They're wet,' said Hutchmeyer. 'They're soaking wet. You want me to catch my death of
pneumonia or something?'

Sonia shook her head. 'Let's just get on back to the house and you can be nice and dry in no
time at all.'

'Yeah, well you just tell me how I'm going to get us back home with the mainsail in the water.
So all we do is go round in circles. That's what we do. Aw come on, honey...'

But Sonia wouldn't. She went up on deck and looked across the water. In the cabin doorway
Hutchmeyer, pinkly naked and shivering, made one last plea. 'You're all woman,' he said, 'you
know that. All woman. I got a real respect for you. I mean we've got...'

'A wife,' said Sonia bluntly, 'that's what you've got. And I've got a fiancé.'

'You've got a what?' said Hutchmeyer.

'You heard me. A fiancé. Name of Peter Piper.'

'That little ' but Hutchmeyer got no further. His attention had been drawn to the shoreline.
He could see it now quite clearly. By the light of a blazing house.

'Look at that,' said Sonia, 'somebody's having one hell of a house-warming.'

Hutchmeyer grabbed the binoculars and peered through them. 'What do you mean "somebody"?' he
yelled a moment later. 'That's no somebody. That's my house!'

'That was your house,' said Sonia practically, before the full implications of the blaze
dawned on her, 'oh my God!'

'You're damn right,' Hutchmeyer snarled and hurled himself at the starter. The marine engine
turned over and the yacht began to move. Hutchmeyer wrestled with the wheel and tried to maintain
course for the holocaust that had been his home. Over the port gunwale the mainsail acted as a
trawl and the Romain du Roy veered to the left. Naked and panting, Hutchmeyer fought to
compensate but it was no good.

'I'll have to ditch the sail,' he shouted and at that moment a dark shape appeared silhouetted
against the blaze. It was the cruiser. Travelling at speed towards them she too had begun to
burn. 'My God, the bastard's going to ram us,' he yelled but the next moment the cruiser proved
him wrong. She exploded. First the jerry-cans in the cabin blew up and portions of the cruiser
cavorted into the air; second what remained of the hull careered towards them and the main fuel
tanks blew. A ball of flame ballooned out and from it there appeared a dark oblong lump which
arced through the air and fell with a terrible crash through the foredeck of the yacht. The
Romain du Roy lifted her stern out of the water, slumped back and began to settle. Sonia,
clinging to the rail, stared around her. The hull of the cruiser was sinking with a hissing
noise. Hutchmeyer had disappeared and a second later Sonia was in the water as the yacht keeled
over, tilted and sank. Sonia swam away from the wreckage. Fifty yards away the sea was alight
with flaming fuel from the cruiser and by this eerie light she saw Hutchmeyer in the water behind
her. He was clinging to a piece of wood.

'Are you okay?' she called.

Hutchmeyer whimpered. It was obvious that he was not okay. Sonia swam over to him and trod
water. 'Help, help,' squawked Hutchmeyer.

'Take it easy,' said Sonia, 'just don't panic. You can swim, can't you?'

Hutchmeyer's eyes goggled in his head. 'Swim? What do you mean "swim"? Of course I can swim.
What do you think I'm doing?'

'So you're okay,' said Sonia. 'Now all we got to do is swim ashore...'

But Hutchmeyer was gurgling again. 'Swim ashore? I can't swim that far. I'll drown. I'll never
make it. I'll...'

Sonia left him and headed towards the floating wreckage. Maybe she could find a lifejacket.
Instead she found a number of empty jerry-cans. She swam back with one to Hutchmeyer.

'Hang on to this,' she told him. Hutchmeyer exchanged his piece of wood for the can and clung
to it. Sonia swam off again and collected two more jerry-cans. She also found a piece of rope.
Tying the cans together she looped the rope round Hutchmeyer's waist and knotted it.

'That way you can't drown,' she said. 'Now you just stay right here and everything is going to
be just fine.'

Hutchmeyer, balancing on his raft of cans, stared at her maniacally. 'Fine?' he shrieked.
'Fine? My house is being burnt, some crazy swine tries to murder me with a fireboat, my beautiful
yacht is sunk underneath me and everything is just fine?'

But Sonia was already out of earshot, swimming for the shore with a steady sidestroke that
would not tire her. All her thoughts were centred on Piper. He had been in the house when she
left and now all that was left of the house...She turned over and looked across the water. The
house still bulked large upon the horizon, a yellow, ruddy mass from which sparks flew
continually upwards, and as she watched a great flame leapt up. The roof had evidently collapsed.
Sonia turned on her side and swam on. She had to get back to find out what had happened. Perhaps
poor darling Peter had had another of his accidents. She prepared herself for the worst while
taking refuge in the maternal excuse that he was accident-prone before recognizing that Piper's
accidents had not after all been of his making. It had been MacMordie who had arranged the riot
on their arrival in New York. She could hardly blame Piper for that. If anyone was to blame it
had been...

Sonia shut out the thought of her own culpability by wondering about the boat that had
careered out of the darkness at them and exploded. Hutchmeyer had said someone had tried to
murder him. It seemed an extraordinary notion but then again it was extraordinary that his house
had caught fire. Put these two events together and it argued an organized and premeditated
action. In that case Piper was not responsible. Nothing he had ever done had been organized and
premeditated. He was plain accident-prone. With this reassuring thought Sonia reached the beach
and clambered ashore. For several minutes she lay on the ground to get her strength back and as
she lay there another dreadful possibility crossed her mind. If Hutchmeyer had been right and
someone had really tried to murder him it was all too likely that finding Piper and Baby alone in
the house they had first...Sonia staggered to her feet and set off through the trees towards the
fire. She had to find out what had happened. And supposing it had been an accident there was
still the chance that the shock of being present when the great house ignited had caused Piper to
blurt out to someone that he wasn't the real author of Pause. In which case the fat would really
be in the fire. If the fat wasn't already. It was the first question she put to a fireman she
found dousing a blazing bush in the garden.

'Well if there was he's roasted to a cinder,' he said. 'Some crazy guy loosed off a whole lot
of shots when we got here but the roof fell in and he hasn't fired since.'

'Shots?' said Sonia. 'You did say shots?'

'With a machine-gun,' said the fireman, 'from the basement. But like I said the roof fell in
and he hasn't fired no more.'

Sonia looked at the glowing mass. Heat waves gusted into her face. Someone firing a
machine-gun from the basement? It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. Unless of course you
accepted Hutchmeyer's theory that someone had deliberately set out to murder him.

'And you're quite sure nobody escaped?' she asked.

The fireman shook his head.

'Nobody,' he said. 'We were the first truck to get here and apart from the shooting there
hasn't anything come out of there. And the guy who did the shooting just has to be a goner.'

So was Sonia. For a moment she tried to steady herself and then she collapsed. The fireman
hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her to an ambulance. Half an hour later Sonia Futtle
was fast asleep in hospital. She had been heavily sedated.

Hutchmeyer on the other hand was wide awake. He sat naked except for the jerry-cans in the
back of the Coastguard launch that had rescued him and tried to explain what he had been doing in
the middle of the bay at two o'clock in the morning. The Coastguard didn't appear to believe
him.

'Okay, Mr Hutchmeyer, so you weren't on board your cruiser when she bombed out...'

'My cruiser?' yelled Hutchmeyer. 'That wasn't my cruiser. I was on board my yacht.'

The Coastguard regarded him sceptically and pointed to a piece of wreckage on the deck.
Hutchmeyer stared at it. The words Folio Three were clearly visible, painted on the wood.

'Folio Three's my boat,' he muttered.

'Thought it just might be,' said the Coastguard. 'Still if you say you weren't on her...'

'On her? On her? Whoever was on that boat is barbecued duck by now. Do I look like I
was...'

Nobody said anything and presently the launch bumped into the shore below what remained of the
Hutchmeyer Residence and Hutchmeyer was helped ashore, wrapped in a blanket. In single file they
made their way through the woods to the drive where a dozen police cars, fire trucks and
ambulances were gathered.

'Found Mr Hutchmeyer floating out there with these,' the Coastguard told the Police Chief and
indicated the jerry-cans. 'Thought you might be interested.'

Police Chief Greensleeves looked at Hutchmeyer, at the jerry-cans, and back again. He was
obviously very interested.

'And this,' said the Coastguard and produced the piece of wood with Folio Three written on
it.

Police Chief Greensleeves studied the name. 'Folio Three eh? Mean anything to you, Mr
Hutchmeyer?'

Huddled in the blanket Hutchmeyer was staring at the glowing ruins of his house.

'I said, does Folio Three mean anything to you, Mr Hutchmeyer?' the Police Chief repeated and
followed Hutchmeyer's gaze speculatively.

'Of course it does,' said Hutchmeyer, 'it's my cruiser.'

'Mind telling us what you were doing out on your cruiser this time of the night?'

'I wasn't on my cruiser. I was on my yacht.'

'Folio Three is a cruiser,' said the Coastguard officiously.

'I know it's a cruiser,' said Hutchmeyer. 'What I'm saying is that I wasn't on it when the
explosion occurred.'

'Which explosion, Mr Hutchmeyer?' said Greensleeves.

'What do you mean "which explosion"? How many explosions have there been tonight?'

Police Chief Greensleeves looked back at the house. 'That's a good question,' he said, 'a very
good question. It's a question I keep asking myself. Like how come nobody calls the Fire
Department to say the house is burning until it's too late. And when we get here how come
somebody is so anxious we don't put the fire out they open up with a heavy machine-gun from the
basement and blast all hell out of a fire truck.'

'Somebody opened fire from the basement?' said Hutchmeyer incredulously.

'That's what I said. With a goddam machine-gun, heavy calibre.'

Hutchmeyer looked unhappily at the ground. 'Well I can explain that,' he began and
stopped.

'You can explain it? I'd be glad to hear your explanation, Mr Hutchmeyer.'

'I keep a machine-gun in the romper room.'

'You keep a heavy-calibre machine-gun in the romper room? Like to tell me why you keep a
machine-gun in the romper room?'

Hutchmeyer swallowed unhappily. He didn't like to at all. 'For protection,' he muttered
finally.

'For protection? Against what?'

'Bears,' said Hutchmeyer.

'Bears, Mr Hutchmeyer? Did I hear you say "bears"?'

Hutchmeyer looked round desperately and tried to think of a reasonable answer. In the end he
told the truth. 'You see one time my wife was into bears and I...' he tailed off miserably.

Police Chief Greensleeves studied him with even keener interest. 'Mrs Hutchmeyer was into
bears? Did I hear you say Mrs Hutchmeyer was into bears?'

But Hutchmeyer had had enough. 'Don't keep asking me if that's what you heard,' he shouted.
'If I say Mrs Hutchmeyer was into bears she was into goddam bears. Ask the neighbours. They'll
tell you.'

'We sure will,' said Chief Greensleeves. 'So you go out and buy yourself some artillery? To
shoot bears?'

'I didn't shoot bears. I just had the gun in case I had to.'