Dorothy Eden (40 page)

Helplessly, her eyes went to the clock. It was just on eight o’clock. The time that had been specified in the note.

And Fred was going out. It was useless to ask him where because he would not tell her.

Supposing he had been in league with that silly, giggling Millie, and somehow between them they had planned something diabolical.

It was no use, she could no longer carefully feel her way, she had to burst out in her high worried voice, “Fred, you’re not going to the park?”

He turned, his handsome face full of outraged innocence.

“You mean, follow Mrs. Lacey! Don’t be daft, Ma! You might as well call the police and be done with it. I’m not going to put a hitch in the works that way. If those kids are to come back safe and sound no one must interfere. There’s a desperate man in this, and I know what a desperate man’s like, because I’ve had experience of them, see? Mrs. Lacey’s got to play this game the way he says, or else. Me going to the park! Certainly I’m not!”

“Then where—”

His big hands rested momentarily on her shoulders. But he did not become angry this time with her inquisitiveness.

“It’s none of your business, old lady. You want to know too much.”

“Fred—”

“I’m not going far, and I’m not going with a girl. If Millie rings up you can tell her that.” He grinned. “Cheerio, Ma. Be seeing you.”

It had begun to snow in scattered flakes. Nevertheless, Harriet decided to walk on her errand. It was horrid, but she felt furtive and suspicious. People on the bus, she thought, would stare at her. A taxi driver would query her strange desire to be dropped at the park gates on a dark and blustery night.

She would walk. She would time herself to take exactly twenty minutes from Manchester Court to the lonely seat half way across the park. In another twenty minutes she would be home.

And then she could allow herself the luxury of beginning to hope.

“Don’t be away long, ma’am,” Millie begged piteously, as the door of the flat closed behind her.

Harriet saw no one as she went out. She thought that Fred might be lurking about to wish her good luck, but the red-carpeted foyer was empty, the double glass doors unattended.

The wind struck her as she rounded the corner. High Street, well-lit and populated with hurrying top-coated forms, stretched ahead. No time to look in shop windows, no time to linger by Woolworth’s and note again the spot of the children’s disappearance.

It seemed the kidnapper had not expected to take Jamie, too. But if that had made any difference to his plans he would have let her know. That was what she had kept telling Flynn, who had been infuriatingly skeptical.

Flynn was more deeply worried than he let her see. He was angry about her stubborn refusal to get the police until after tonight, and the disability of his blindness in an emergency like this was intolerable for him. Strangely enough, the whole thing had made her forget the way she had imagined Joe’s shadow came between her and Flynn. Now they were just a man and a woman, both in trouble.

It was ten minutes to eight. She had passed the last big department store and reached the row of small shops and restaurants that dwindled away to the edge of the park grounds.

A snowflake struck her eyelid, and melting, ran down her cheek in a cold tear. The leafless trees, swaying and cracking in the wind, were tall before her. Beyond them stretched the long broad pathway and the grassy acres that led to the Round Pond. Lights swayed, casting moving reflections over the wet pavements. Cars swished past and the few hurrying pedestrians went on their way. She was the only person to enter the dark and deserted gardens.

She walked quickly, looking straight ahead. If someone lurked behind a tree to watch her she did not care to see him. Or her. Millie was so certain the culprit was a woman, but, apart from playing a nasty joke such as Zoe might have done, what woman would perpetrate such a dastardly scheme?

The Round Pond was a gleaming circle, empty of swans and ducks and of the lighthearted boats of juvenile sailors. Here, there was no one about except herself.

The kidnapper had chosen his time well, a dark snowy night and a deserted park.

Was that a movement behind that broad tree trunk? Harriet suddenly wanted to break into a run. She stumbled on a protruding root and almost fell. The seat was twenty yards away. It was even sheltered from the sparsely drifting snowflakes. When she carefully put the package on it, pressing it slightly between the slats, she could count on it remaining comparatively dry for at least half an hour.

But it would not be left there half an hour. As soon as she was out of sight someone, like a timid and suspicious wild animal, would pounce on it.

Now all she had to do was hurry home. Hurry, hurry, stamping to warm her feet, thrusting her hands deep into her empty pockets.

The lights along Kensington Gore seemed almost dazzling. She blinked and would not have seen the Bentley drawn up there if Flynn had not put his head out.

“Harriet! Quickly, get in!”

He waited, listening to her footsteps which Jones must have told him were approaching long before they were audible. Jones himself sat silently at the wheel.

Harriet was overcome with fury.

“Why did you come?” she demanded. “Why did you interfere?”

Flynn’s long arm groped for her, and finding her dragged her into the car.

“You clot! Did you think we would let you do this on your own? You wouldn’t have police protection, so you have ours instead. Isn’t that so, Jones?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“But you might have spoiled it!” Harriet cried. “How do you know he doesn’t think you’re police in plain clothes?”

“That was a risk we had to take, rather than have you knocked unconscious under a dark bush. Jones watched you as far as he could see. If you hadn’t come back immediately he was going to investigate.”

“But you might have spoiled it!” Harriet reiterated angrily.

“I don’t think so. We’re not near the gates, and there are cars parked all the way. Jones was discreet about that.”

Harriet pressed her hands to her eyes. The swaying lights down the broad road seemed to be exploding in her brain.

“For God’s sake, let’s go! Don’t linger here. Whoever is waiting to get that money will be ringing up shortly, if everything hasn’t been spoiled.”

“Everything hasn’t been spoiled,” Flynn said quietly. His hand had found hers and was curved around it protectingly. But she could feel a not quite controlled twitch in his fingers. She did not know whether that was caused by his anxiety for her, or by the desperate frustration of his blindness that excluded him from a more active part in this nightmare.

Fred was not in sight when Jones swung the Bentley in at the gates of Manchester Court. Harriet shook the flakes of snow out of her hair as she got out of the car. She heard Jones saying in his correct voice, “Will you be wanting anything more tonight, sir?” But she could scarcely wait to hear Flynn’s answer, so impatient was she to get upstairs and wait for the telephone to ring.

“No, you may go now. But take the car, and let’s have your telephone number in case I want you back quickly.”

“You have the number, sir. It’s written in the desk pad.”

“All right. Harriet will look it up if we need you.”

“You mean if you want me to help pick up the children, sir? I’ll be more than happy to do that.”

Harriet turned and smiled wanly.

“It was good of you to stay late, Jones. Now get home to your wife.”

“Yes, madam. And I think you’ve done the right thing tonight, if I may say so.”

Flynn felt for the steps with his stick, and put out his hand to take Harriet’s arm.

“We wait till midnight. That’s the deadline. If nothing has happened by then we call the police.”

Jones sprang ahead to hold the door open. “You’re sure you wouldn’t like me to stay, sir?”

Harriet could see the agonized indecision in his face. A fleeting thought passed through her mind as to what Jones was like when he discarded his skin of the perfect valet and became a human being.

But then he was the long-suffering, patient husband, hurrying home to regale his wife with tidbits of gossip. The human that was left beneath these two skins must be sadly undernourished and either undeveloped or well-disciplined.

Before Flynn could answer his question, she asked quickly,

“Jones, are you going to tell your wife why you were so late tonight?”

“Oh, no, madam!” he exclaimed in a shocked voice. “I rang earlier and explained I was being kept to supervise a special dinner for Mr. Palmer. Purely fictitious, madam, as you realize. But I couldn’t divulge this sort of thing, both because of its secret nature, and because my wife, in her delicate state, would never sleep until she knew the children were safe.” He moved back a step, nodding worriedly. “As I won’t myself, madam.”

“Oh, get on with you, Jones!” Flynn exclaimed impatiently. “Don’t be so astonishingly cheerful, or we’ll all die laughing!”

Flynn did not wait to be asked to go up to Harriet’s flat. He simply said he was bringing some work with which they could occupy themselves to pass the waiting time, and assumed that she would be able to concentrate on it.

She was grateful for his company. Millie, sodden with tears, would be a dreary companion, and the other companion, the telephone, was too nerve-racking. Although completely silent now, at what minute would it become vociferously alive, screaming to have its message delivered ?

The time was eight-thirty. Surely by now the money would have been collected and the possessor of it making his way stealthily to a telephone box. At any moment the shrill bell in the hall would begin to ring.

Harriet took off her damp coat and told Millie to build up the fire.

“Then go to bed,” she said. “There’s no need for us all to sit up.”

“I couldn’t sleep a wink, Mrs. Lacey!” Millie protested.

“Nonsense, Millie, of course you will. You’re young, and you must be exhausted. But close your door, so the telephone won’t wake you.”

Millie cast a quick, furtive look into the hall at the telephone, silent and innocent, in its cradle.

“I’d hear that thing from behind six doors,” she muttered.

But she seemed glad to go to her room. So there was just Flynn, standing easily in front of the fire with her. It seemed to be becoming a habit, spending the evening with him. She must apologize to Zoe about all sorts of things when she saw her. Zoe, who was suddenly not aggressive any more, but, with her secret dreams, rather pathetic. Perhaps, after all, she was the right wife for Flynn…

“Harriet, sit down and let’s begin work.”

He seemed, as always, uncannily to be watching her. She surmised that he knew she had put her hand to her brow and grasped at the thought of fixing her mind on the happiness and unhappinesses of someone long dead…

And in another hundred years these agonizing hours, also, would be a matter of no concern to anybody.

“I won’t be able to concentrate.”

“Not completely, perhaps. But we may have several hours to fill in.”

“I never knew hours could be so long.”

“They won’t be if whiled away by great-grandfather Adam. You haven’t even begun to look at these letters yet. Which period shall we do, the romantic, the Grand Tour or the political?”

“Did he take the Grand Tour to recover from a broken heart?” Harriet forced herself to be interested.

“One assumes so.”

“And did he recover?”

“Again one assumes so, because he married five years later. But tell me what you think. He doesn’t mention Mary Weston again until he is quite old. Then he says, “If I had married Mary—”

But if he had, Harriet thought, her blood would have been in this young man’s veins, she would no longer have been that anonymous strangely haunting figure, a gentle ghost… Why was it right this way?

“Look at these letters,” said Flynn. “You’ll find the one I mean. I had them sorted into periods when my last secretary was with me. These are the last ones.”

“The handwriting changes.”

“Of course. He was growing old. Read them aloud.”

Incredibly, the time went by. Although she was still alert for the first ping of the telephone bell, the minutes were not quite so leaden. It was ten o’clock, then ten-thirty…

Harriet suddenly flung down the letters she had been mechanically reading.

“Why doesn’t he ring? It couldn’t take this long!”

“We agreed to wait till midnight,” said Flynn calmly. “Or do you change your mind about calling the police immediately?”

Harriet’s mouth was dry.

“No! Not just yet! There may be a hitch. He may be taking the children somewhere. But it’s so late for them. How can he manage them at this hour?”

“If your children are safe, Harriet, you can depend there’s a woman in this.”

“The blonde woman—”

“Blonde or not, let’s imagine she knows how to take care of babies.”

“Yes,” Harriet agreed feverishly. “Yes.”

“Now I should think that when this call comes, if it does—”

“It must!”

“Very well, it must. But when it does, it will be to say the rendezvous is for the morning. What’s the time now?”

“Half past ten.”

“And it’s snowing. So naturally babies couldn’t be left on doorsteps or anywhere else.”

“I suppose not,” Harriet whispered. “It’s so long till morning.”

She went to the window and drew back the curtains. The snowflakes were still scattered, making no more than a shivering of white on the roofs and pavements. The tall trees in the square garden bowed and cracked in the wind. Down the dark avenue of the roadway no one moved.

“Tomorrow I must apologize to Zoe,” she said, half to herself.

“Zoe’s a good kid.”

“Yes.”

“Was that room very awful?”

“Oh, not as bad as all that.”

“I must do something for her. The little fool, why didn’t she tell me she was in trouble?”

“She’s in love with you, Flynn.”

“You told me that once before.”

Harriet remembered the wedding dress, incongruously pure and shining in that dreary room. Even though now he knew her background, Harriet guessed that Zoe would still refuse to take money from Flynn. She was playing for the higher stakes of matrimony. Supposing she succeeded, would her happiness last? Once Harriet would have thought her own completely secure. But Joe had gone, now the children had gone…