Ransom (22 page)

His voice suddenly broke and he stopped. His wife put her hand on his, then looked at Malone and Jefferson. “She met this boy, this Roy Bates. He was very political - “

“Was he an anarchist?” Jefferson said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised - “

Birmingham shook his head. “Be fair, Liz. We don’t know. We only met him twice - “

“Three times - counting the wedding. They were married down at City Hall. Julie and I used to talk about what her wedding would be like - I wouldn’t have minded how she was married if I’d thought she’d be happy - “

“We had no confidence in the boy right from the start,” said Birmingham. “We couldn’t see what she saw in him. He let us know right from the start that he had no time for what we stood for.”

“Where is he now?”

Birmingham glanced at his wife. Their clasped hands tightened,” then Birmingham said, “He’s dead. He was killed in a demonstration upstate, at one of the small colleges. He was hit by a policeman and he was dead before they got him to the hospital. There was an inquest and the policeman was exonerated. But Julie - “

“I remember the case,” said Jefferson, face expressionless. “Your daughter thought the cop was to blame?”

Birmingham hesitated, then nodded. “She said the policeman went berserk and clubbed her husband to death. We tried to tell her that perhaps the policeman had been provoked - you’re just ordinary human beings like the rest of us-”

“Thank you,” said Jefferson, but Birmingham was deaf to irony. “Inspector Malone was saying that only tonight. Where did your daughter go after her husband’s death?”

“She came home here for a week, then one day she just disappeared. There’d been no argument with us - she just walked out one night when we were out. No goodbye,

nothing. Mark had a card from her about six months later, saying she was well and not to worry about her. She had always had a great deal of affection for him, always took his part if we chastised him - “

“What was the postmark on the card - do you remember?”

“New Orleans. But that was three, three and a half years ago.”

“Did you ever try to trace her?”

“Of course,” said Mrs Birmingham sharply. “We disagreed with her, but we loved her. We wanted her back - “

“You disagreed with your son too. But you’ve made no attempt to get in touch with him.”

“What are you trying to say, Captain?” Birmingham leaned forward, put the leather frame on the coffee table in front of him. He remained leaning forward, staring across at Birmingham. “That we want to disown our children?”

“Do you?” said Jefferson quietly. “Because if you do, that’s not gonna help Inspector Malone. And he needs your help - any help we can get - ” He looked at his watch. “We don’t have much time, Mr Birmingham. Do you want to have nothing more to do with your children?”

Both the Birminghams were silent for just that moment too long: they have considered the idea, Malone thought. Then Birmingham vigorously shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. If Mark wants us to, we’ll help him every way we can. And if it helps Inspector Malone - “

“And your daughter? What about her?”

Birmingham looked puzzled. “We don’t know that she needs help. If anything serious had happened to her, an accident or something, surely we’d have heard? People just don’t disappear without trace - “

“You’d be surprised,” said Jefferson, still amazed after thirty years on the force at the small worlds most people lived in. “Mr Birmingham, two of the phone calls we have had from the kidnappers have come from a woman. It’s a long shot - ” He glanced at Malone.

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, it is a long shot,” said Malone. “But what other odds have we got? Mr Birmingham, there’s a chance that that woman could be your daughter.”

“How? How the hell do you arrive at an idea like that?”

“Don’t ask for logic,” Malone said. “This whole bloody business never had any logic to begin with, not for me. The men in The Tombs claim they have no idea who’s trying to engineer their release - and we believe them. But someone must have some connection with them - this isn’t the work of a crank. Your daughter could be getting her revenge on cops, all cops, through her brother - without his knowing it-”

“Julie a kidnapper?” Mrs Birmingham gasped with shock and indignation; we’re demolishing her tonight, Malone thought. “What are you trying to do to us? My God, our children aren’t monsters - “

“I didn’t say they were,” said Jefferson. “But if your son was involved in the bombing and your daughter had anything to do with this kidnapping, then they have committed a couple of monstrous crimes. And we want to stop them before they go farther - if your daughter is one of the kidnappers. They have already told us that if we do not agree to the ransom demands, Inspector Malone and the Mayor will not see their wives alive again.” Jefferson was leaning forward now, speaking brutally. “We know at least one of the phone calls tonight came from Long Island, out at Patchogue. Do you know anyone out that way who might be sheltering your daughter?”

“Patchogue?” Birmingham shook his head.

Then Malone said, “Where was that photo over there taken? The one of you on that boat?”

Birmingham looked across at the photo. A slight frown crossed his face, almost a darkening of the skin as if a shadow had passed across it. He looked back at the two policemen. “Sunday Harbor. We have a summer cottage out there, and a boat.”

“That’s farther out on the Island,” Jefferson told Malone. “Does your daughter know of it, Mr Birmingham?”

“Yes. We bought it years ago, when she was a child. Before Sunday Harbor became as popular as it is now. We always spent our summer vacations out there.”

“When were you last there?”

“We closed it up just after Labor Day. We rarely go out there during fall and winter.”

Jefferson stood up and Malone followed him, seeing the quickening interest in the other man’s face. “We’d like you to take us out there, Mr Birmingham. Would you and your wife get dressed as quickly as possible, please?”

The Birminghams stood up, hands still clasped. They both looked afraid, suddenly aged. This could be the end of their life, Malone thought; and suddenly hoped Julie Birmingham would not be the girl he and Jefferson were looking for. It had happened so often in the past: he had too much pity for the victims, because there was never just one victim of a crime but many. Then he remembered who the principal victims of this crime were and the memory of Lisa suddenly blotted out the Birminghams.

They continued to stand without making any effort to go and get dressed and he said harshly, “Would you mind getting a move on? We don’t have any time to spare!”

He looked at his watch again, then at Jefferson, who said, “It’s half-past three. Get moving, Mr Birmingham, please!”

“You don’t have any right - “

“If your daughter is not out at the cottage, if she is not involved in this kidnapping, you can file a complaint with the Commissioner and I’m sure you’ll get satisfaction. If she is out there, if she is one of the kidnappers, I think she, as well as us, will need your help.” Jefferson looked at the two frightened people in front of him; he pitied them, but his face showed nothing of what he felt. “Take your pick.”

The Birminghams looked at each other. For Christ’s sake, Malone yelled at them silently, get moving! But even as they angered him, he understood their reluctance to move: this

house was their cocoon, they could not take the step that might shatter it. Then Willard Birmingham, still holding his wife’s hand, led her out of the room and upstairs.

“Do you think Sunday Harbor might be the place?” Malone asked.

“It could be. These summer resorts are pretty deserted this time of year. But we can’t go it alone from here on. When I’ve got the exact address, I’ll call Headquarters. We’ll take the Birminghams with us, meet the local cops out there - “

Then out in the hall there was the click of a phone being lifted. Jefferson whirled, moving surprisingly quickly for a man of his bulk, and was out in the hall in half a dozen strides. Malone followed him, grabbed the phone on the small table against one wall as Jefferson ran up the stairs.

Chapter Nine

Carole sat in one of the bedroom chairs and watched the two women as they ate the chili con carne. She had freed both of them, had allowed them to strip and now they were wrapped in blankets as, without any attempt at good manners, they wolfed down the food she had brought in. She had made no comment when Sylvia Forte had accused her of being afraid of Abel; but the longer she sat here the more she realized the Mayor’s wife was right. She was afraid of Abel and she did not know how she was going to handle him. Especially if the storm kept up and things continued to go wrong.

“Will this storm make any difference?” Lisa asked. “I mean to your plans?”

Carole looked at her suspiciously, then decided it was not a trick question. This was supper-time conversation; she was amused that the two women now looked on her as a friend and ally. “Possibly. All the airports have been closed. But don’t be hopeful - we’re not going to release you till our friends are safe in Cuba.”

“And the deadline is still the same?” Lisa dipped some bread in the chili con carne. It was a dish she would normally have turned away from, but tonight she was so hungry she would have eaten anything, even an Australian sausage roll. “Nine o’clock today?”

“Today is right,” said Carole, looking at her watch. She found it hard to believe that so much time had passed since she had first met these two women. True, she had found the waiting burdensome, but all the events of yesterday morning were still so sharp in her mind that they seemed to have happened only an hour or two ago. “Mrs Forte’s husband doesn’t have much time left to agree to our plans.”

“How long does it take a plane to fly from New York to Cuba?”

“Four, maybe five hours. Depends how fast they want to fly. I hope for your sakes they fly fast.”

“Did you speak to our husbands again?”

“Not to Mrs Forte’s. But I spoke to your husband.”

“How did he sound?”

Carole smiled, not unkindly. “Worried.”

“Poor darling.” Lisa looked at the food left on her plate, then put the plate down on the dressing-table. Abel had screwed the legs back on the dressing-table, securing them more firmly with long nails. “Did he have any message for me?”

“No. What message could he have?”

“I don’t know.” Lisa shrugged helplessly. She looked up at the boarded-up window, then back at Carole. “Are you angry with us for trying to escape?”

“What do you think? You were lucky-” She looked towards the closed bedroom door, then said no more. Abel had turned up the sound on the television set again. She could hear the murmur of voices, the compulsive talkers and exhibitionists who could not resist the invitation to go on a talk show even in the middle of the night.

Sylvia had stopped eating, to pull up the blanket that had slipped from her shoulders. Both women had tried to dry their hair, but it was still damp and hung down lankly: the famous golden-red of her own hair was now almost as dark as (she looked in the dressing-table mirror, then hastily looked away) dried blood. She suddenly put down her plate and put her hand over her mouth.

“Are you going to be sick?” Carole sat up.

Sylvia blinked, opened her eyes wide, then shook her head. She felt the pain in her wrist and for the first time became aware of the stiffness and swelling in it; she must have sprained it when Carole had knocked her over with the car door. She lay back on the bed, drawing the blanket closely around her. Her gaze was unfocused; then she found she

was looking at the blank spaces on the walls where the pictures had hung. She tried to remember the pictures that had hung on the walls of her own rooms in the cottage on Fishers Island, but that was too long ago. Even yesterday was difficult to recall now.

“What pictures did you have there?”

Carole looked around the room. She remembered how often she had lain on the bed where Sylvia lay: as a child, as a young girl, even as a widow when she had come here with her parents for two days after Roy’s death. The pictures had been ones she had brought home from her one trip abroad. It had been just after she had met Roy and he had persuaded her to accompany him on a charter flight to Russia. They had gone there, ninety young middle-class Americans seeking the truth, as Roy had told her. She had been interested only in him then; and she could remember the young Russians who had tried to make a pass at her and the other girls in the best American style. Roy had taken the pictures, of himself and herself saluting all the Communist ikons, wrapping their arms round a Russian soldier, even toasting a picture of Lenin; and she had brought them back and hung them here in this room, as much to annoy her parents for their opposition to Roy as for any other reason.

When she had come here to the cottage last week she had been surprised to find the pictures still hanging on the walls. Maybe she didn’t know her parents quite as well as she thought she had; maybe they had kept this room exactly as it had been, hoping some day she would come back. Suddenly she loved them again and wanted to see them.

“I’d never seen this place till a week ago.” She stood up quickly, picked up the pieces of cord hanging on the foot of Lisa’s bed. “Give me your hands.”

“Do you have to tie us up again? If we promise - ?”

Carole roughly grasped Lisa’s hands, began to bind them together. Lisa, noticing the sudden change in the girl’s mood, said nothing and did not struggle. Her hands and her

ankles were bound; then Carole turned to Sylvia. The latter held up her swollen wrist, but Carole hesitated only a moment.

“I’m sorry. You’ll just have to put up with it.”

She bound Sylvia as she had done Lisa. Both women lay back on their beds and Carole, relenting for a moment, pulled their blankets up to cover them completely. She grabbed up their clothes, bundling them under her arm, picked up the tray with the plates and went out of the room, closing the door behind her.

The light had been left on and Lisa turned her head and looked at Sylvia. “This is her room, you know.”

“What does it matter now?” Sylvia was cold and aching and utterly dispirited. She had been thinking of her children before Abel had come into the room and she had been on the verge of weeping for them, almost resigned never to seeing them again. She had seen the look on Abel’s face, first when he had dragged her back into the house and again when he had come into the room some fifteen minutes ago. She knew that her and Lisa’s only insurance lay with Carole and she knew that the odds there were terribly against them.

Lisa caught the other woman’s despair. “I suppose you’re right. All we can do is pray for a miracle.”

“Are you religious?”

“Not particularly. Are you?”

“No. But I believe in God.”

“I suppose everyone does when something like this happens to them. Or if they don’t believe, they hope there might be a God.” She tried to remember the prayers of her childhood, but they were as dim as the rhymes she had known then. She remembered going to church in Marken with an aunt when she had been there on holiday; she had spent all her time staring at the barque and the herring boat hung from the ceiling and her aunt, a strict Calvinist, had chided her for her lack of attention to God. “I wonder if Scobie is saying his Hail Marys?”

“What?” Sylvia had been lost in her own thoughts,

regretting how little time she had spent with her children over the past four years.

“Nothing. I was thinking of a part-time believer.” Lisa turned her head on the pillow and began to weep silently, grieving for the happiness that she was going to miss before it had really begun.

“Oh, I agree he may be good Presidential timber, but the termites have got into him.”

“I can’t relate to him, you know? He has so many chips on his shoulders they look like - what d’you call them?-epaulettes.”

“Personally, I’d rather eat my own words than someone else’s.”

All the carefully rehearsed ad-libs came across with their usual hollowness; Carole glanced at the smug faces on the television screen and went on out to the kitchen with the tray and the women’s wet clothes. She loathed all the instant pundits one had to listen to these days; wit and wisdom had been diluted to the level of the commercials. She did not know who was the subject of the discussion, but none of those on the screen looked as if he really cared about the truth of his opinions. Talk was the panacea for everything: so long as a subject was discussed, nothing more need be done.

She stopped at the kitchen door, turned back to Abel. “Have they discussed what we’ve done?”

He stared at her for a moment, then recognized that she was offering him a truce. But he was still cautious; he had lost contact with her and he didn’t know if they would ever be as close again. And that frightened him: he had realized he had no future but her. “No, they said nothing. Maybe they been told not to.”

“Directives like that have never stopped them before.

Maybe they think everything has been said.” She hung out the clothing, some in the kitchen, some in the living-room. He watched her but said nothing and she gave him no encouragement to make a comment. At last she moved across and stood beside him, put her hand on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Abel. We shouldn’t fight.”

He reached up, took her hand and kissed it. “It’s okay, baby. We’re just getting uptight, that’s all. You think everything has been said? Or are they holding back, trying some trick on us?”

She reached across, turned down the sound on the television set: the silent faces went on mouthing their skin-deep profundities. She sat down on the floor at his feet, leaned on his knee and looked up at him. They had taken off their wigs and dark glasses: they had nothing to hide from each other. Or so she hoped he would believe.

“We have the final trick in there.” She nodded at the bedroom door. “Whatever they try, they’re not going to sacrifice them.”

“If this storm keeps up, what’re we gonna do?” His hand caressed the top of her head; he got immense pleasure just from touching her. “They said on TV it’s letting up down south, but they’re not sure when it’s gonna move away from up here. It could go on for another day. That’s gonna be a long time, baby.”

“Those men in The Tombs, they’re going to be there an even longer time if we don’t get them out.”

“You think they appreciate what we’re doing? I never really been sure how much they mean to you - personally, I mean. You sure you never met any of ‘em? One of ‘em isn’t - wasn’t someone you - ?”

“Loved?” She smiled, shook her head. She recognized the jealousy in him and worked quickly to douse it. She lifted herself to her knees, pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. “Honey, I told you - it’s nothing but political. It’s our duty - we believe in the same things those men do.”

He kissed her back, convinced again, because he wanted

to be convinced, that she loved him. He was too inexperienced to know that love could be a treacherous echo, that too often it told a man only what he wanted to hear.

“I been listening to the news. We’re world-wide - it’s all over, everywhere, Europe, Africa, everywhere. We’ll get ‘em out, baby.”

“We’ve got to.” She thought of Mark being imprisoned for ever. Had her parents been to see him, to offer him what help they could? Or was he as alone as she had been these past four years ? She had never told Abel of her personal interest in The Tombs; that would have meant telling him too much about herself. But Mark had to be rescued … “Once this storm lets up everything will be all right.”

“Except maybe for this guy - what’s his name - ?”

“Frank Padua. I don’t know - maybe he’s nothing - “

But she looked worried and it was his turn to comfort her. He stroked her neck, felt the satiny skin under his fingers, felt the blood moving into his loins. “Let’s go and lay down, baby.”

“I won’t be able to sleep - “

“Just lay down, that’s all.” He kept his voice gentle but it was getting huskier; he was still uncertain of her, he did not want to press himself on her. “It may be a long day tomorrow - “

I don’t want him making love to me again, she thought. He had all at once become physically repulsive to her; despite her attempts to educate him in bed, he was still as crude as a young animal. She remembered once as a teenager she had gone cycling over towards Bridgehampton. She had been riding down one of the lanes between the potato fields when suddenly a youth had appeared in front of her. She had recognized him for what he was, one of the field workers brought up from the South. He had pulled her from her bicycle and dragged her into some nearby bushes. She had struggled violently and had only been saved when a truck, loaded with other field workers, had come rattling down the lane. Sometimes she thought those two minutes

were being repeated when Abel was in bed with her: he raped her but with her consent. All of his brutality came out of him when he thought he was most loving, and it sickened her.

But she needed him, had to bind him to her till at least noon today. She stood up, took his face in her hands again and kissed him. “Gently, honey. No rough stuff.”

He stood up, holding her to him. “Have I ever hurt you ?”

“No,” she lied, “you never have.”

They moved towards the main bedroom at the front of the house, forgetting the television set still beaming its silent pictures in the corner of the room. They did not see that the talk show had finished and an announcer, face as serious as that of a priest beside a grave, had come on the screen. He mouthed a silent message at them, but they did not look back. As they went through the doorway the announcer disappeared and Michael Forte, looking equally serious, the principal mourner, came on the screen.

In the bedroom Carole undressed and climbed into bed beside Abel. Then she sat up. “I’ve left the car out in the driveway.”

“Forget it, baby. Nobody’s gonna see it tonight. I’ll put it in the garage before daylight. G’mon, baby, I’ll be gentle like you say.”

She had decided she would do the love-making; that way she could control it. He lay back, flattered by her actions. She did love him, he was finally convinced: a girl had to love a man to be the one to start everything. His life once again had a future.