The One Safe Place (9 page)

It was the right key. In a moment the house was filled with a silence almost as deafening as the siren, and the intruder turned on Marshall, who was trying not to betray that he'd been about to flee through the vestibule. "What's so fucking funny?"

"Find out," Marshall yearned to say, or better, "You'll find out if you don't let me go," but his words were as uncontrollable as his mouth. "Nothing," he pleaded.

"I'll give you fucking nothing. Get here." The man dug his fingers into Marshall's collar, fingernails scraping his spine. "You can show us round while we're waiting, give us the tour."

"You're choking me."

"I fucking will less you do as you're told. Drop the bag for a start. What do you think you look like, a burglar with some fucking swag."

Marshall let his schoolbag fall with a thud. Doing so felt like relinquishing a weapon. The man threw open both doors opposite the staircase as he dug a knuckle into Marshall's spine to urge him to the kitchen, and only seizing that doorknob saved Marshall from being used to batter the door open. The man jerked him to a halt in the doorway and sniffed the faint trace of spice in the air. "Your mam a Paki or summat? No wonder you're a wimp if she feeds you muck like them lot eat. You want to get her to give you some roast beef and Yorkshire, that'd build you up."

Marshall saw the extended family of knives offering their points to him from the rack on the wall above the marble chopping block between the fitted oven and the freezer. "If you have to defend yourself..." He poised himself to duck out of the man's grasp, just as the man reached past him and slammed the door in his face. "Can't stand that stink. What's in here that's worth anything?"

He marched Marshall into the dining room so fast that the boy felt like an intruder himself. The chandelier jingled, bottles rattled in the wine rack by the oak sideboard; the oval table seemed about to flap its folded wings. "Toffees, eh? Fucking toffos," the man muttered, and stared through the French windows at the lawn stretching to the picnic table beneath the silver birch before he took exception to the bowl of dried flowers Marshall's mother had placed on the veined marble mantelpiece. "Someone die in here?" he snarled, and dragged Marshall to the front room.

For a few seconds he seemed content to play with the dimmer switch, turning the overhead lamp beneath its stained-glass shade up to full and fading it then brightening it again, causing the muscular leather suite and the nest of tables inlaid with minerals and the black shiny tower of the hi-fi to shift stealthily, all of which made Marshall feel as though his eyes were being tweaked in and out of his skull. Then the man twisted the knob, leaving a faint wasteful glow in the bulb, and shoved Marshall to his knees on the thick Oriental carpet while he stooped to grimace at the video recorder. "Pretty flash," he mumbled. "How much, eh?"

A grotesque notion that the man was proposing to make an offer almost tempted Marshall to respond to the illusion of friendship. All he knew was that the machine was the most expensive in the Panasonic range and played both British and American tapes. If he persuaded the intruder he could take it, the man would have to let go of him to do so, and then Marshall could dash out of the room and shut him in and twist the key that was still in the control panel, if the sweat which felt as though it was soaking the carpet beneath his hands didn't cause them to slip, if his legs were able any longer to raise him to his feet... He almost sprawled on his face as the man leaned on him so as to crane over and squint at the cassettes which Marshall's mother had been examining. "Hey up, what's these? These aren't toffo films. Into nasties, eh, you sly little twat?"

Being accused of slyness seemed as bad as anything that was happening to Marshall. "My mom teaches them at the University," he blurted.

"The Texan Chaysaw Massarree. Henry, Porter of a Seal Killer. Terrors at the Orepa
." The man's voice had ground almost to a halt when he snarled "I've seen some of these. Who are you trying to kid they get taught?"

"My mom," Marshall insisted, outraged almost to the point of forgetting his own situation.

"Peeping Top. The One Two Oh Days of Sod."
Without warning the man hauled Marshall upright. "She was on telly."

"I was too."

"My missus saw her. She'll watch any crap. Silly bitch." The man was staring around the room, perhaps in search of a target for his growing anger. "Who's paying her? Where the fuck's the money coming from?"

"Who?"

"Whatever the bitch's name is. Your mam. Whose money are they spending on that crap?"

"You stop calling my mom names."

The man peered at him as if he'd almost forgotten Marshall was there, then aimed him at the doorway. "Let's see more of their little fucking secrets."

Before Marshall could resist he was being forced upstairs, and the key in the control panel was out of reach. Halfway up the first flight he grabbed the banister with both hands and hung on. "No," he said.

"Don't you say fucking no to me. Don't you ever." The man gave him a shove that wrenched Marshall's wrists. "What you hiding up there?" he said, and dug a hard object into his kidney. "That's right, you twat, jump."

It was a gun, no doubt the very one he'd pulled on Marshall's father. It had started such an ache in Marshall's kidney that he couldn't judge whether it was still poking into him or only pointing at him, but he didn't dare glance back. He dragged himself upward, his wet palms slipping on the banisters, and felt as though he was dragging the weight of his captor as well.

When Marshall reached the landing the man jerked him across it to open the nearest door, but spared the Sharon Stone posters and the chair laden with discarded clothes and the bookcase stuffed with Stephen King and books recommended by him no more than a glance. "Don't need to ask whose room that is. You're all the same, you little twats."

Since thumping the next door with Marshall didn't budge it, the man twisted the knob and punched the door open. Brightness shone out from the twin white wardrobes, from the picture of greenery that was the double bed and from the arbour of the wallpaper, but all Marshall could see was the image in the dressing-table mirror of himself helpless in his captor's grip, which tightened on his collar at the sight of someone in the room. Once the man realised it was only a reflection he muttered his favourite word, perhaps at himself, and Marshall felt his collar button dig into his windpipe. Then the man held him at arm's length and blundered him into the room, and Marshall saw there was no gun in his hand.

He must have shoved the weapon into the belt under his jacket. Its concealment only made it more threatening. Anything might provoke the intruder—even, apparently, the hint of perfume which Marshall's mother had left in the bedroom like a reminder that Marshall was alone with the man. "Fucking whorehouse," he said, sniffing, then dragged Marshall around to face him. "Or is it your da wears the scent? Plays with you, does he? Likes your arse?"

His mounting fury was as incomprehensible as it was terrifying. Marshall couldn't speak for being choked, but he didn't have to speak. "If you have to defend yourself..." A kick with all his strength in the man's crotch should set him free, and there was perfume on the dressing table to spray in the man's eyes, and his mother's metal comb whose handle tapered to a point. He didn't care about the gun—he'd had enough. He pivoted on his left foot, and heard a car draw up outside the house.

The engine died, and he heard the familiar slam of the door. It was the Volvo. His father had come home. For an instant he was dizzy with relief, and then he remembered the gun, which of course was meant for his father. He threw his weight on his left foot just as the man ground a knuckle into his spine and projected him toward the floor-length windows, in time for him to see over the balcony his father opening the gate.

He tried to call out, but the man twisted his collar so that he couldn't even draw breath. His father was too preoccupied with the small pile of books in his hands to look up. As his approach took him out of sight, the intruder pulled the higher of the bolts which locked the right-hand window, and Marshall was hauled onto his tiptoes as though by a noose. The bolt slid out of its socket, and then the man must have realised that he might be observed on the balcony, because he swung Marshall and himself toward the door of the room.

Marshall's lungs felt like bruises inside his chest. Darkness was starling to grip his eyes. His fingernails scrabbled at the knot of his tie, and then one fingertip probed into it, and it was loose. At once the thread of his collar button snapped, and the button pinged against the dressing-table mirror. He felt the hand at the back of his neck shift to grab him by the scruff, and hurled himself away from it, two more of his shirt buttons springing across the carpet. Then he was free and not quite believing it, and yanking the lower bolt of the window out of its socket, and staggering onto the balcony, where the impact of his stomach with the railings almost drove the breath he'd just drawn out of him. "Dad, don't come in," he screamed. "He's got a gun."

He saw the intruder charge at him, throwing the jacket wide and pawing at the skull-faced belt of the jeans and staring stupidly at it. For a moment he looked as convinced as Marshall had been that he was carrying a gun. Marshall's father appeared, trotting backward on the garden path, the books under one arm, keys wagging in his other hand. "How's that again, son? What did you say?"

The man knocked him aside. The next moment Marshall's father dropped the books, something Marshall would never have expected to see in all his life, and clenched his fists. "If you touch him again—" he warned, and gasped as the intruder grabbed the railings and climbed up on them. "Teach you to fucking say I look like that," he yelled, and launched himself at him.

Marshall's father sidestepped. The man hurtled past him, arms flailing, into the flower bed. His right foot landed on Marshall's plant with a crack so loud that Marshall wondered how such a thin stalk could have made it, until he realised that the rock behind the plant had snapped the man's ankle. A shriek with some syllables in it exploded from the man's lips as he tried to stand up and fell into a low bush. Marshall's father watched him as he began to crawl through the flower bed, tearing plants up by the roots and cursing in a shriek, then gathered the books from the path and ran into the house.

Marshall had to press one hand against the wall, leaving sweaty handprints on the leafy paper, so as to cross the room. He wavered onto the landing and clung to the banister as his father let himself into the house. "Marshall, talk to me, son. Are you all right? Did he—"

"I'm okay. I'm fine," Marshall protested, hoping he wasn't about to be sick down the stairwell. "But catch him. He's escaping. Call the police."

"And that was the end of him," said the husband of a history professor. "So perish all burglars who fancy themselves athletes," said his wife.

"Here's to more criminals dealing with themselves."

"And saving the rest of us a few bob."

"To muggers who beat themselves up."

"And joyriders who can't get out of first gear."

"And gunmen whose weapons fire out of the wrong end."

"And rapists whose—Why, here's the hero of the epic posing as a wine waiter. Some more of the Chardonnay would be welcome, Marshall. How are you this evening? None the worse for your adventure?"

"I'm okay. I'm fine."

"Your mother was just regaling us with your sangfroid in the face of the enemy. What transpired after the ill-advised leap?"

"Did mom tell you he broke his ankle? Dad called the police, and I watched to see where he went."

"You don't have to talk about it if you'd rather not."

"I'm fine, truly, mom. Well, he crawled as far as the gate, and he managed to pull himself up and hold on to the fence so he could hop to his car, except he kind of fell across the sidewalk to it. Then he had to hop around it, and it must have taken him, I think it took him five minutes to climb in, but then he couldn't drive, you know, only having one foot that worked. He kept starting the engine and the car would jump a few inches and stall. Then the police came and dragged him out of it, and they didn't seem to want to know he broke his ankle. I tried to tell them, but they just told me to go in off the balcony so I wouldn't fall, as if I would. Then they threw him in their van, and some of them came to talk to me, and—Sorry, mom, did you want some wine?"

"Quite spellbinding, Marshall," the history professor said. "Only I hope you aren't feeling sorry for this person. He deserved what he did to himself."

"We all do or we wouldn't do it," her husband said.

"I do wish you wouldn't turn Freudian whenever you've had a few drinks. All I was trying to say, Marshall, is that you should forget about him. He's out of your lives now, wouldn't you say, Susanne?"

"I would, Bea," Susanne said, although she was remembering having come home to find Don and Marshall being questioned by the police. For an absurd moment she'd thought that it was her fault—that it was the result of some comment she might have refrained from uttering on the television show. When she'd discovered the actual reason it had seemed progressively less of a relief, even when she'd satisfied herself as far as possible that no harm had come to Marshall. She'd opened all the windows, and she'd felt like scrubbing the whole house, especially her and Don's bedroom. She had been sure she kept smelling a faint stench of male sweat in the house, and she'd felt compelled to take a prolonged shower herself. In bed both she and Don had lain listening in case Marshall had had one of his nightmares, only for Marshall to sleep the soundest of the three of them and to be eager to describe his encounter to his friends. Now she watched him listen to an argument between Film and English until the two lecturers drained their glasses with a simultaneity which looked rehearsed, and then she went to check on the other guests.

Philosophy and spouses were in the dining room, lingering over the salads Don had prepared and the meats she had. A Mancunian crime novelist was demonstrating to members of the English department who'd had her lecture to their students how to play shove-halfpenny on the picnic table beyond the open windows. Some philosophical disagreement was being fuelled by the wine in the kitchen, to judge by a line Susanne overheard: "I don't want to harp unfashionably on logic, but I do think it might occasionally be invoked for old time's sake." She made for the next floor, where someone unidentified was expelling random phrases from Wagner in the bathroom while another guest hopped from foot to foot outside. The novelist's husband emerged from the guest room with an English professor's slightly more than teenaged daughter, dabbing at his nostrils with a knuckle and declaring rapidly "Absolutely no question whatsoever in any shape or form at all. Well, except—" and grew red and silent as he saw Susanne. She raised her eyebrows at him as he and his companion hurried snuffling downstairs while she set out to discover what the joke at the top of the house was.