VII
I nearly passed out. My heart was racing and my legs felt weak. It seemed amazing that I should remain conscious.
“Carter!” Kim did not seem particularly surprised to see me. He did not seem particularly upset either. The exclamation was wary but not hostile. “Well, I did wonder if you might be here early,” he said with the kind of charm one uses to gloss over an awkward social situation, “but I thought last night you were too exhausted to be here quite as early as this! May I introduce Tom Callan, who’s Mrs. Mayfield’s local locksmith?”
“You can go now, Tommy,” said Mrs. Mayfield placidly as she glanced into the bedroom and observed the disorder. “I’ll talk to you later . . . Dear oh dearie me!
What
a nasty feel this flat’s got! Quite uninhabitable I’d say, and fit only for laying out corpses—and talking of corpses, Kate dear, you’re looking peakier than ever, poor little thing, it really is sad to see someone deteriorate so fast, but they can do wonders for people now in mental hospitals, so I hear, for those who survive long enough to get there . . . Ah, here’s the lift, back again! Bye-bye, Tommy! No, don’t close the front door, Jake, just get what you came for and we’ll be off. I don’t believe in hanging around a place like this unless I’m really hard up for entertainment.”
Amidst my horror I was trying to dream up a delaying tactic, but I found all I could do was exclaim feebly to Kim: “How dare you bring that woman here!”
Kim sidestepped my anger by making an irrelevant reply. “She knew a locksmith who wouldn’t keep me waiting for hours.”
“Well, if you were really so keen to get into the flat, why didn’t you just use her copy of your key? I figured you wouldn’t be here early because you wouldn’t want to give away the fact that she had the means to trash the flat last night, but if you’re now too desperate to care—”
“Don’t be silly, dear,” said Mrs. Mayfield, still very placid, “or I’ll think you’ve teetered over the brink into persecution mania. Of course I didn’t wreck your flat and of course I don’t have a copy of his key! Go on, Jake, don’t let her delay you, get what you want and then we’ll—oh, my goodness me, what a lovely young man! Hullo, dear, who are you? No, wait a moment, I know who you are! You’re the temporary personal assistant who’s all too personal and not quite so temporary!”
Kim junked the charm and spun to face me. “What the hell’s he doing here?”
“Helping me uncover your lies!” I shot back but my voice shook.
“Christ, if you two have spent the night here together, I’ll—”
“Calm down, Jake,” said Mrs. Mayfield, taking charge of the situation. “Be sensible, there’s a pet. The way this place is now no one would want to have sex in it unless they were necrophiliacs—or perhaps coprophiliacs . . . What’s that nasty smell?”
I said to Kim: “Get that woman out of here.” I was trying to work out if Tucker had had time to find the files and hide them somewhere else. I had hardly been expecting him to reappear so quickly.
“Pull yourself together!” Kim was still livid with me. “At least Mrs. Mayfield was generous enough to offer me hospitality for the night after you’d kept me out of here!”
I forgot Tucker. I was too busy welcoming the strength generated by a rush of rage. “My God, are you trying to tell me you spent the night under the same roof as this woman? And now you’re accusing
me
of unacceptable behaviour?”
“Shut up! You damn well gutted me by the way you carried on at that Rectory! Thank God Elizabeth was finally home by the time I got to Fulham—I had to talk to her, I was so bloody upset, but if you think for one moment that she and I—”
“Sour milk,” said Mrs. Mayfield who by this time was well on her way down the corridor to the living-room. “A real smell of decay if ever there was one, almost as bad as dead flowers. Who was it that wrote that beautiful line: ‘Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds’?”
Turning my back on Kim I raced after her into the living-room. “Get out of my flat, you bitch! I won’t have you invading it like this!”
“Oh, don’t be so silly, pet, you’re behaving like a two-year-old. Yes, there it is—sour milk on the kitchen floor! Well, there’s only one thing to do, isn’t there?” She emerged from the kitchen and started heading for the balcony door. “This flat needs airing.”
I opened my mouth to yell: “NO!” but nothing happened. I could only back away until I was pressed against the wall. By this time Kim and Tucker were facing each other across one of the upturned armchairs and Mrs. Mayfield was within six feet of the windows.
But Tucker shot in front of her to guard the balcony door. “Hey, wait a minute!” he said to us all in the friendliest of voices. “I think Mrs. Mayfield’s got this right by staying calm, so why don’t we all follow her example, lighten up a bit, maybe even have some coffee? Would you like some coffee, Kim?”
“I’m Mr. Betz to you, sonny!”
Tucker’s mouth hardened but he persisted in pushing the line which would propel me into a windowless room. “Carter, you wouldn’t mind fixing some coffee, would you? But keep the kitchen door shut so we’re not all overpowered by that sour milk!” As he spoke I knew he had realised I could escape from the kitchen into the utility room and from the utility room into the flat’s corridor, a move which would give me a clear run to the front door, but before I could even begin to overcome my panic, Mrs. Mayfield was saying reprovingly to him: “Well, that’s not a very gentlemanly suggestion, dear! Telling a lady to shut herself up in a smelly room? Your mother couldn’t have brought you up properly! No, Kate needs some fresh air—look at her, she’s almost green. Come along, Kate my pet—you just step out onto the balcony with me and I guarantee you’ll be transformed in no time!”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mayfield,” said Tucker courteously as I started to shudder, “but I’ve got no head for heights and right now I can’t take the idea of any outside door in this flat being opened.”
Mrs. Mayfield paused to gaze at him. “What did you say your name was, dear?”
“I didn’t, but it’s Eric Tucker.”
“Eric! What a lovely name! You should have been a blond, dear, like all those gorgeous Vikings, but never mind, I’ve always had a weakness for redheads, and I’m not the only one who’s partial to them, am I? What was the name of that woman who kept you for a while, the brunette who was all face-lifts and couldn’t live without a toy-boy in her life?”
Tucker went ash-white.
Mrs. Mayfield turned sharply to Kim. “Get what you came for. No more delays. I feel time running out.”
Kim went into the kitchen. I heard a cupboard door open and then slam shut. “Bloody hell!” He hurtled back into the dining-area, where I was pressed as if glued to the wall, and shouted at me: “Where did you put them?”
Instantly Tucker abandoned the balcony door. “Are you really so inadequate,” he said furiously, planting himself right in front of Kim, “that you can’t treat your wife with the respect she deserves?”
Kim was so stunned, so overpowered by amazement that a junior male should address him in such a fashion, that for once he was unable to slam back a violent reply. He could only say in stupefaction to Mrs. Mayfield: “They’ve found those papers. They’ve put them somewhere else.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Mayfield, who now had an unimpeded path to the window. “I was wondering why Young Lochinvar had taken his time in coming out to meet us—not exactly a shrinking violet, are you, Eric pet?” As she spoke she was crossing the floor.
“But Elizabeth—”
“Don’t worry, dear, I’m sure he’ll soon tell us where they are.” Pulling the lever which set the sliding mechanism in action, she heaved open the balcony door. “Come along, Kate,” she said as a chill wind immediately blew through the room. “Don’t take any notice of those two boys striking macho poses. Out you come, dear, to take your breath of air.”
“Freeze, Carter!” Tucker shouted, and pushing Mrs. Mayfield aside he rammed the door shut again.
“Jake,” said Mrs. Mayfield to Kim, and her voice was quite changed. “Get a knife.”
I suddenly realised I had left the wall and—in defiance of my will— moved closer to the windows; I was now standing by the end of the dining-table, and behind me Kim was returning to the kitchen. I heard the sound of the cutlery drawer opening but I was unable to react because I was in such a state of terror that part of my brain had closed down. I was like those victims of ineffective anaesthesia who remain awake during their operations but are powerless to communicate with the staff in the operating theatre.
“Put the knife to her throat and bring her over here to the window.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Do as I say,” she insisted, and added a sentence in German. It was something about “the boy.” Make the boy think—make the boy believe . . . My memory of German cut out.
“Mr. Betz,” said Tucker, who had left the door again in an automatic attempt to reason with Kim, “please put down that knife, sir. Believe me—it’s not a good idea.” I realised then that he understood no German and did not grasp how he was being manipulated. I knew Kim would never harm me. But Tucker didn’t know and I was unable to tell him. My vocal cords were no longer operating.
“Do as I say, Jake,” said Mrs. Mayfield, slipping back into position by the door and playing the dominatrix for all she was worth to make Tucker think she had the power to reduce Kim to a robot. “Always do as I say. If you do as I say, you’ll be all right, you know that, don’t you? So just do as I say and bring her over here.”
My right hand was grasped and twisted up behind my back. It was hardly a delicate manoeuvre but he could have been much rougher. “Tucker!” I managed to whisper, desperate to reveal the charade, but then I felt the knife graze my cheek and the power of speech deserted me again. It took me several seconds to realise that Kim was holding the blunt edge of the knife against my skin, but by the time this truth dawned I was so frightened by the balcony door that I could only gasp for air.
“Now, Eric my love,” said Mrs. Mayfield, “you’re going to produce those papers.” She pulled the lever again and the balcony door groaned as it shifted down the groove. Once more the wind blew across the room and this time it felt icy. As Kim propelled me closer I gave my first scream.
Tucker darted forward but stopped; he was now believing he dared not try to rescue me in case Kim took leave of the last of his senses.
“Okay, cool it,” he said in a rush. “The files are still in the kitchen.”
“Get them. Or the girl goes out on the balcony.”
Tucker hesitated but when I screamed again he returned to the kitchen at once. Kim swivelled to watch him, and this meant I swivelled too. Almost sobbing with relief that I was no longer facing the void beyond the balcony rail I saw Tucker open the door of the oven and pull out both the yellow file and the large brown envelope.
“That’s more like it,” said Mrs. Mayfield satisfied. “Put them down on the table. Jake, you can let Kate go now. Sorry about the little act with the knife, dear,” she said to me as she slipped back effortlessly into her cosy suburban persona, “but your young man’s ever so lively, isn’t he, and I didn’t want him starting a fight. There! No harm intended and no harm done! Now, pet, why don’t you go and shut that door just to show us what a brave girl you really are? Or are you still afraid that once you get to the threshold of the balcony you’ll see that rail and—” She stopped.
I stared at her. Once Kim had released me I had been unable to stop trembling and now she too, I saw, was visibly unnerved. She was losing colour. Her rouge stood out starkly on her plump cheeks and her moist lips seemed bloodless.
I suddenly realised that Tucker also was transfixed and that Kim had halted, the knife still in his hand.
They were all looking past me, and when at last I too turned to face the living-room doorway I saw Nicholas Darrow standing stock still on the threshold.
VIII
He was formally attired in a black suit with a black stock and an old-fashioned clerical collar; I supposed he was dressed up for the religious ritual he had planned to conduct at nine. On his chest he was wearing a substantial gold crucifix suspended from a thick gold chain. The sheer size of the crucifix was unnerving. I found my gaze was irresistibly drawn to it, but a second later I realised that its impact was jacked up by the fact that it was Nicholas who was doing the wearing. The full power of his personality had been unleashed. He was no longer just a pale, bony item with mouse-brown hair and dishwater-grey eyes who favoured casual clothes. He was as riveting as a great actor who makes a long-delayed entrance and captivates the audience instantly just by raising an eyebrow. The very air around him seemed charged with a hyped-up magnetic tension. Long-limbed, lissom and languid, he radiated a mesmerising selfconfidence and authority.
He made no effort to speak but merely stood there, framed in the doorway, as he surveyed the scene and made his deductions. He was quite calm. Then as if satisfied that his entrance had had the maximum impact on everyone present, he strolled gracefully into the room. Not for the first time I was aware of the fluent, almost liquid quality of his movements, and I was aware too that on this occasion there was a heavy sexual edge to each one of them. It was still not a sexuality which appealed to me; I found it much too hypnotic and dangerous, but I could see all too clearly now why Alice was enslaved. It then occurred to me how amazing it was that such a man had chosen to operate within the staid Church of England, an organisation which even today would demand strict standards in his private life, and the next moment I understood why he had been so keen at the start of our talk at the Rectory to emphasise the checks and balances which kept his ministry on the rails. He was an honest man who had faced up to his capacity to leave a trail of devastation in his wake, and he knew a keg of dynamite could only be safely stored in well-guarded premises.
Casually he glided around the upturned furniture. Sinuously he eased shut the balcony door and flicked back the lever to fasten it. Then coolly he said to the woman he had never met: “The party’s over, Mrs. Mayfield. It’s time to go.”
I wanted to punch the air and cheer myself hoarse.
But unfortunately my euphoria was premature.