Hide My Eyes (17 page)

It became clear that this was about as far as they were going to get. Richard turned away to look down the moonlit track which wandered away through the nightmare landscape.

“Perhaps I’d better go on down to the shed. Where is it? Do you know?”

“Course I do. I seen it scores o’ times.” The nearly sightless eyes stared angrily at a point some three feet beyond the one where Richard was standing. “But I ain’t got time to take yer down there now. You’ll ’ave to go by yerself. People ’ave work to do, don’t forget.”

With a reproachful wriggle he settled himself an inch or so further back in the shelter and switched off the light.

“It ain’t far down there.” His voice, hoarse and satisfied, came out of the darkness. “It’s in a holler, he tells me. There ain’t no other building in the place that I’ve ever ’eard of. When ’e comes in I’ll tell ’im you’re there.”

Richard thanked him without deep enthusiasm and went off grateful for the moonlight. Without it the Dump, which was eerie enough in any case, must have been a place of terror. Although it was by no means a rubbish heap, it was yet not odourless and he was constantly aware of dark sliding shapes, inexpressibly evil, flickering out of his path.

He strode on doggedly, refusing to ask himself what on earth he thought he was doing and what good could possibly come of the excursion. His chin was tucked in angrily. At least he was doing something. At any rate he would find out all he possibly could about Mr. Jeremy Hawker before he next saw Annabelle.

He came on the shed unexpectedly. A gap in the row of hillocks which lined the road revealed an artificial depression which had perhaps once contained the foundations of a considerable house. A steep drive led down into this basin and at the bottom, surrounded by a scattered collection of old motor-bodies, discarded tyres, a broken carboy or two and other similar debris, there was a ruin. It was built mostly of brick and might once have been a kiln or a bakehouse or part of the cellars of the original building. There was no way of telling. Now there was nothing left but a nest of roughly roofed brick boxes, a broken chimney, and a single tall shed with a tin roof on it and wide coachhouse doors.

Richard turned down into the hollow without hesitation. It did not occur to him to query the shed. It suggested Gerry to his mind and he did not doubt for a moment that it belonged to him. There was no one around. The whole place was as silent as a churchyard. The building proved to be bigger than he had thought on first seeing it, however, and the tall doors were padlocked.

He circled it, stamping through the tall twitch grass which grew sparsely on the uneven ground. There was a great deal
of
rubbish about, he noticed, bricks and old cans and pipes lying in the weeds and all picked out bright and misshapen in the icy light.

It was as he approached the smaller door at the back of the shed that he experienced the first twinges of the extraordinary series of sensations which descended on him later. He knew what fear was, naturally, but he was not of a highly nervous or hypersensitive disposition. He had done his share of service overseas and was not inexperienced, yet as he approached that second door he was aware of some intangible menace which made the short hairs at the back of his neck rise and prickle. It was not a sound which had alarmed him, for the silence was oppressive. He sniffed dubiously. The whole dump reeked but here there was something else, something new to him yet so old that his disgust was instinctive. He shrugged his shoulders irritably and pressed on.

The old fashioned thumb-latch on the small door lifted readily enough but the wood was fastened lower down and from the inside. Either a bolt or another padlock secured it. On impulse he put his shoulder to the peeling painted surface and a little to his dismay, for he had hardly meant to break into the place, it gave at once. He felt the iron staples pulling out of the rotten wood.

The building he entered was in complete darkness save for a shaft of moonlight, strong and clear as a searchlight, which poured in through the single skylight high in the roof on his right. A square of light, bright and barred, rested partly on a workbench which lined the left-hand wall and partly on the pile of rubbish which had accumulated beneath it, an area never so visible in the normal way when the doors were open.

It was practically the first thing Richard saw, a collection of dusty rubbish of a kind found in most motor workshops. There were paint and oil tins there and bottles, a pail on its side, part of a pump, a ball of crumpled paper, a set of rods which might have been part of a broken deck chair, and among them, lying open, with its lining pulled out, a white plastic handbag.

Why he should have found the sight of it so sinister Richard
never
knew but as he stared at it his heart moved uncomfortably. It looked so fresh, so very unused, and yet so completely ravaged, lying there in the bright moonlight.

He came forward and stumbled over something lying in the fairway. He had no torch with him, but, with the help of his lighter, he was able to discover that it was a flat slab of polished marble which is still found sometimes on old wash-stands. There were two wooden wine boxes of the type which Gerry had been carrying round with him in the Lagonda, one larger and one smaller lying beside it. They each contained a quantity of ordinary bricks, a meaningless collection from Richard’s point of view.

What he found more interesting was a glimpse of an inspection lamp lying on the bench just out of the moonlight. He picked it up and followed the lead along to a plug with a switch beside it. He pressed it over without much hope but was startled by his success. Not only did the wire-caged lamp light up but a hanging bulb in the roof sprang into life. He was in a curious barn of a place, much older than he had supposed from its appearance outside. There were beams across the tops of the walls and the floor was made of stamped earth with here and there a patch of brickwork or the ringed flag marking a well-head. The walls seemed to be cluttered and were in darkness and the corners were crowded with junk of all kinds. A petrol engine, stripped and glistening with oil, stood blocked up on one side of the centre area, and inside the main doors there was a clear space just about large enough to take the Lagonda.

The handbag was hidden now, lost in the general mess under the bench. Richard squatted down to find it and drew it out at last. It had been white once but was now thick with dust, yet his first glimpse had been truthful. It was not worn and might have been new when its lining had been torn out. He put it back where he had found it and, rising to his feet, stood breathless in the oppressive atmosphere.

He was frightened. The realisation shook him still more. There was something indescribably awful about the smell of the place, something worse than dirt or vermin or the prickling stink of acid. His own weakness made him angry,
but
his anger induced an obstinacy which kept him ferreting round the shed, hunting for something, he did not know what. There was sweat on his forehead and damp in his clothes, but he stayed there, looking about for anything which would give him a clearer picture of its owner and a lead on what he was about.

The fact that the shed was lit up and its skylight visible across the dump did not occur to him. If it had it was improbable that he would have worried. He was not afraid of Gerry. He thought he was a crook and wanted proof of it, but it had not crossed his mind that his crimes might extend beyond theft in some small form.

Gripping the lamp he went all round the place slowly, picking his way. He found a flight of steps suddenly, all but falling down them as he thrust his way round a pile of old coats hanging against the further wall. They were wide steps, very shallow and bricked in the old way, and they led apparently into a further room which, he decided, must be one of the little nest of brick boxes which he had noticed from the roadway. There was a curtain of tarpaulin over the entrance and the draught whistling round it suggested that the building was almost if not quite roofless. The flex attached to the inspection lamp was only just long enough to reach the entrance and, as Richard pulled aside the waterproof curtain and shone the beam in, he caught a glimpse of red walls streaked with green and the glister of white fungus. He turned the lamp towards the far corner and stood transfixed, his skin crawling.

Two old people sitting close together, mouldering fancy dress hanging from them and their faces strangely wooden and brown, were perched on a plank between two barrels. They did not move. Only the old woman’s eyes, which were glassy and bright under a bonnet trimmed with beads, seemed to meet his own.

Richard panicked. The lamp dropped out of his hand and he ran blindly across the shed, stumbled recklessly among the pitfalls, the marble slab and the wooden boxes, and pitched himself out of the door through which he had first entered into the moonlight.

As the cleaner air enveloped him he pulled up, struggling with himself, very much aware that he must force himself to go back. He was so torn by the conflict that he did not see the two shadows bearing down upon him and the grip on his arms took him by surprise.

“Now then, now then,” the time-honoured police warning was warmly human in the nightmare.

“In there …” Richard did not recognise his own voice. “In there. In the cellar by the lamp. Two old people just sitting there.”

“Are they, by God?” The voice of Superintendent Charles Luke spoke out of the blackness of a buttressed corner and his top-heavy form, kite shaped and powerful, went crashing into the shed.

Chapter 14

HIDE MY EYES

“I LIKE THIS
cinema.” Annabelle surveyed the dark red and gilt oppressiveness of the Como with frank satisfaction as she waited for the lights to fade for the big picture. “It’s like settling down to dream in a great State bed. Flicks are rather like dreams, aren’t they?”

Polly did not answer at once. She was getting herself thoroughly comfortable in the seat she liked best, with the plush-covered ledge for her bag and nothing save a misty expanse of air between her and the giant shadows. She was hatless because it was evening and had achieved a considerable presence without looking particularly smart. Her clothes were of good material, very plainly made, and her kindly face wore the solemn preoccupation of a child’s.

“Dreams,” she echoed suddenly. “I suppose they are. That’s why I like them best without colour. Now listen, my dear, you say you really have heard of that man Mr. Campion before, and that the tale about him is that he is not just a silly ass?” She made no pause between the two subjects and Annabelle was amused.

“That is what they say. Do you know how many times you’ve asked me that since I first told you—before we started out? Four.”

“No. Have I?” Polly dropped her carefully gloved hand over the younger one. “How dreadful! I’m sorry. He worried me, poor chap. He seemed so very unsure of himself.”

Annabelle turned to her accusingly. “Darling, you’re not as silly as that. You’re pretending. You knew that was his act. It’s an affectation of his time. Young men invented it in the ’twenties. But
obviously
he went out of his way to say all that stuff when he was leaving.”

Polly’s frown deepened. “What did he mean? Do you know?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve been wondering.” Annabelle had the grace to colour. “It wasn’t directed at me, quite, was it? It was about a sale of gloves at a man’s shop called Cuppage’s, and had you bought a pair for anybody as a present? Had you?”

The old woman stiffened. Her nose lengthened and her eyes were frosty.

“I may have done,” she said coldly. “I’m often in and out of Cuppage’s and I enjoy sales. But I don’t see what that has to do with anybody else. That’s my business, surely.”

She was rather alarming in this mood. It was the abrupt cessation of the goodwill flowing boundlessly from her rather than any manifestation of anger, Annabelle decided.

“He thought you’d say that,” she explained defensively. “That was why he wrapped it up like that. I thought he was trying to tell you something without committing himself.”

Polly did not speak. Her mouth formed words but she rejected them and the last glimpse the girl had as the lights of the theatre went down was of her strong calm face grown introspective and her blue eyes wide and dark.

Annabelle lost herself in the film. It was a frolic of the new romantic school about unsuspected passion and was delightfully decorated with fancy-dress and smooth acting. It held her complete attention and she was several worlds away by the time she returned to the silent figure by her side and saw to her astonishment that Polly’s expression had hardly changed. She was still staring straight at the screen as if she was looking through it and her face seemed to have grown older.

The lights distracted her at last and she turned with a start and smiled.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes, I did. It was so pretty, wasn’t it? Awfully silly, though. I mean, fancy not facing it.”

“Facing it?” The woman seemed appalled. “What made you say that?”

“Because it was all about it.” Annabelle began to laugh. “You wicked old thing, you’ve been to sleep.”

“Not really. I was thinking.” Polly picked up her bag
briskly
. “But I think we’d better go now, if you don’t mind. We’ll go along and see Mrs. Dominique for dinner. While I’m there I want to make a telephone call. You’re not tired yet, are you?”

“Gosh no. This is terrific fun, Aunt Polly. You don’t know how I love it. I’ve never done much of it, you see. Who is Mrs. Dominique?”

“Sybylle? Oh, a very old friend of mine. I knew her when we were girls.” Polly’s voice had warmed again. “She and her husband started this restaurant of theirs, The Grotto, in Adelaide Street, just after the first world war. It’s been one of the very best of the Soho places ever since. Freddy and I always went in when we came to London, and long ago she used to come up north and stay with me and bring the children. You’ll like her. She’s hard because she’s had to be, but she’s a very clever woman.”