The Ministry of Fear (14 page)

‘I like justice,' she said, as if she were confessing an eccentricity.

‘Yes,' he said, ‘it's a good thing if you can get it.'

‘But They don't.'

‘Do you mean Mrs Bellairs,' he asked, ‘and Canon Topling?' It was too complicated: he hadn't any fight left. He sat down in the arm-chair – they allowed in the ersatz home one arm-chair and a couch.

‘Canon Topling is quite a good man,' she said and suddenly smiled. ‘It's too silly,' she said, ‘the things we are saying.'

‘You must tell your brother,' Rowe said, ‘that he's not to bother about me any more. I'm giving up. Let them murder whom they like – I'm out of it. I'm going away.'

‘Where?'

‘It's all right,' he said. ‘They'll never find me. I know a place . . . But they won't want to. I think all they were really afraid of was that I should find
them
. I'll never know now, I suppose, what it was all about. The cake . . . and Mrs Bellairs. Wonderful Mrs Bellairs.'

‘They are bad,' she said, as if that simple phrase disposed of them altogether. ‘I'm glad you are going away. It's not your business.' To his amazement she added, ‘I don't want you to be hurt any more.'

‘Why,' he said, ‘you know everything about me. You've checked up.' He used her own childish word. ‘I'm bad too.'

‘Mr Rowe,' she said, ‘I have seen so many bad people where I come from, and you don't fit: you haven't the right marks. You worry too much about what's over and done. People say English justice is good. Well, they didn't hang you. It was a mercy killing, that was what the papers called it.'

‘You've read all the papers?'

‘All of them. I've even seen the pictures they took. You put your newspaper up to hide your face . . .'

He listened to her with dumb astonishment. No one had ever talked to him openly about it. It was painful, but it was the sort of pain you feel when iodine is splashed on a wound – the sort of pain you can bear. She said, ‘Where I come from I have seen a lot of killings, but they were none of them mercy killings. Don't think so much. Give yourself a chance.'

‘I think,' he said, ‘we'd better decide what to do about Mr Travers.'

‘Just go. That's all.'

‘And what will you do?'

‘Go too. I don't want any trouble either.'

Rowe said, ‘If they are your enemies, if they've made you suffer, I'll stay and talk to Mr Travers.'

‘Oh, no,' she said. ‘They are not mine. This isn't my country.'

He said, ‘Who are they? I'm in a fog. Are they your people or my people?'

‘They are the same everywhere,' she said. She put out a hand and touched his arm tentatively, as if she wanted to know what he felt like. ‘You think you are so bad,' she said, ‘but it was only because you couldn't bear the pain. But
they
can bear pain – other people's pain – endlessly. They are the people who don't care.'

He could have gone on listening to her for hours; it seemed a pity that he had to kill himself, but he had no choice in the matter. Unless he left it to the hangman. He said, ‘I suppose if I stay till Mr Travers comes, he'll hand me over to the police.'

‘I don't know what they'll do.'

‘And that little smooth man with the books was in it too. What a lot of them there are.'

‘An awful lot. More every day.'

‘But why should they think I'd stay – when once I'd left the books?' He took her wrist – a small bony wrist – and said sadly, ‘You aren't in it too, are you?'

‘No,' she said, not pulling away from him, just stating a fact. He had the impression that she didn't tell lies. She might have a hundred vices, but not the commonest one of all.

‘I didn't think you were,' he said, ‘but that means – it means they meant us both to be here.'

She said, ‘Oh,' as if he'd hit her.

‘They knew we'd waste time talking, explaining. They want us both, but the
police
don't want you.' He exclaimed, ‘You're coming away with me now.'

‘Yes.'

‘If we are not too late. They seem to time things well.' He went into the hall and very carefully and softly slid the bolt, opened the door a crack and then very gently shut it again. He said, ‘Just now I was thinking how easy it would be to get lost in this hotel, in all these long passages.'

‘Yes?'

‘We shan't get lost. There's someone at the end of the passage waiting for us. His back's turned. I can't see his face.'

‘They do think of everything,' she said.

He found his exhilaration returning. He had thought he was going to die today – but he wasn't; he was going to live, because he could be of use to someone again. He no longer felt that he was dragging round a valueless and ageing body. He said, ‘I don't see how they can starve us out. And they can't get in. Except through the window.'

‘No,' Miss Hilfe said. ‘I've looked. They can't get in there. There's twelve feet of smooth wall.'

‘Then all we have to do is sit and wait. We might ring up the restaurant and order dinner. Lots of courses, and a good wine. Travers can pay. We'll begin with a very dry sherry.'

‘Yes,' Miss Hilfe said, ‘if we were sure the right waiter would bring it.'

He smiled. ‘You think of everything. It's the continental training. What's your advice?'

‘Ring up the clerk – we know him by sight. Make trouble about something. Insist that he must come along, and then we'll walk out with him.'

‘You're right,' he said. ‘Of course that's the way.'

He lifted the curtain and she followed him. ‘What are you going to say?'

‘I don't know. Leave it to the moment. I'll think of something.' He took up the receiver and listened . . . and listened. He said, ‘I think the line's dead.' He waited for nearly two minutes, but there was only silence.

‘We
are
besieged,' she said. ‘I wonder what they mean to do.' They neither of them noticed that they were holding hands: it was as though they had been overtaken by the dark and had to feel their way . . .

He said, ‘We haven't got much in the way of weapons. You don't wear hatpins nowadays, and I suppose the police have got the only knife I've ever had.' They came back hand in hand into the small living-room. ‘Let's be warm, any way,' he said, ‘and turn on the fire. It's cold enough for a blizzard, and we've got the wolves outside.'

She had let go his hand and was kneeling by the fire. She said, ‘It doesn't go on.'

‘You haven't put in the sixpence.'

‘I've put in a shilling.'

It was cold and the room was darkening. The same thought struck both of them. ‘Try the light,' she said, but his hand had already felt the switch. The light didn't go on.

‘It's going to be very dark and very cold,' he said. ‘Mr Travers is not making us comfortable.'

‘Oh,' Miss Hilfe said, putting her hand to her mouth like a child. ‘I'm scared. I'm sorry, but I
am
scared. I don't like the dark.'

‘They can't do anything,' Rowe said. ‘The door's bolted. They can't batter it down, you know. This is a civilized hotel.'

‘Are you sure,' Miss Hilfe said, ‘that there's no connecting door? In the kitchen . . .'

A memory struck him. He opened the kitchen door. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘You're right again. The tradesmen's entrance. These are good flats.'

‘But you can bolt that too. Please,' Miss Hilfe said.

Rowe came back. He said gently, ‘There's only one flaw in this well-furnished flat. The kitchen bolt is broken.' He took her hand again quickly. ‘Never mind,' he said. ‘We're imagining things. This isn't Vienna, you know. This is London. We are in the majority. This hotel is full of people – on
our
side.' He repeated, ‘On our side. They are all round us. We've only to shout.' The world was sliding rapidly towards night; like a torpedoed liner heeling too far over, she would soon take her last dive into darkness. Already they were talking louder because they couldn't clearly see each other's faces.

‘In half an hour,' Miss Hilfe said, ‘the sirens will go. And then they'll all go down into the basement, and the only ones left will be us – and them.' Her hand felt very cold.

‘Then that's our chance,' he said. ‘When the sirens go, we go too with the crowd.'

‘We are at the end of the passage. Perhaps there won't be a crowd. How do you know there
is
anyone left in this passage? They've thought of so much. Don't you think they'll have thought of that? They've probably booked every room.'

‘We'll try,' he said. ‘If we had any weapon at all – a stick, a stone.' He stopped and let her hand go. ‘If those aren't books,' he said, ‘perhaps they are bricks. Bricks.' He felt one of the catches. ‘It isn't locked,' he said. ‘Now we'll see . . .' But they both looked at the suitcase doubtfully. Efficiency is paralysing.
They
had thought of everything, so wouldn't they have thought of this too?'

‘I wouldn't touch it,' she said.

They felt the inertia a bird is supposed to feel before a snake: a snake too knows all the answers.

‘They must make a mistake some time,' he said.

The dark was dividing them. Very far away the guns grumbled.

‘They'll wait till the sirens,' she said, ‘till everybody's down there, out of hearing.'

‘What's that?' he said. He was getting jumpy himself.

‘What?'

‘I think someone tried the handle.'

‘How near they are getting,' she said.

‘By God,' he said, ‘we aren't powerless. Give me a hand with the couch.' They stuck the end of it against the kitchen door. They could hardly see a thing now; they were really in the dark. ‘It's lucky,' Miss Hilfe said, ‘that the stove's electric.'

‘But I don't think it is. Why?'

‘We've shut them out of here. But they can turn on the gas.'

He said, ‘You ought to be in the game yourself. The things you think of. Here. Give me a hand again. We'll push this couch through into the kitchen.' But they stopped almost before they started. He said, ‘It's too late. Somebody's in there.' The tiniest click of a closing door was all they had heard.

‘What happens next?' he asked. Memories of
The Little Duke
came incongruously back. He said, ‘In the old days they always called on the castle to surrender.'

‘Don't,' she whispered. ‘Please. They are listening.'

‘I'm getting tired of this cat and mouse act,' he said. ‘We don't even know he's in there. They are frightening us with squeaking doors and the dark.' He was moved by a slight hysteria. He called out, ‘Come in, come in. Don't bother to knock,' but no one replied.

He said angrily, ‘They've chosen the wrong man. They think they can get everything by fear. But you've checked up on me. I'm a murderer, aren't I? You know that. I'm not afraid to kill. Give me any weapon. Just give me a brick.' He looked at the suitcase.

Miss Hilfe said, ‘You're right. We've got to do something. even if it's the wrong thing. Not just let them do everything. Open it.'

He gave her hand a quick nervous pressure and released it. Then, as the sirens took up their nightly wail, he opened the lid of the suitcase . . .

The Happy Man

Chapter 1

CONVERSATIONS IN ARCADY

1

T
HE
sun came into the room like pale green underwater light. That was because the tree outside was just budding. The light washed over the white clean walls of the room, over the bed with its primrose yellow cover, over the big arm-chair and the couch, and the bookcase which was full of advanced reading. There were some early daffodils in a vase which had been bought in Sweden, and the only sounds were a fountain dripping somewhere in the cool out-of-doors and the gentle voice of the earnest young man with rimless glasses.

‘The great thing, you see, is not to worry. You've had your share of the war for the time being, Mr Digby, and you can lie back with an easy conscience.'

The young man was always strong on the subject of conscience. His own, he had explained weeks ago, was quite clear. Even if his views had not inclined to pacifism, his bad eyes would have prevented him from being of any active value – the poor things peered weakly and trustfully through the huge convex lenses like bottle-glass; they pleaded all the time for serious conversation.

‘Don't think I'm not enjoying myself here. I am. You know it's a great rest. Only sometimes I try to think – who am I?'

‘Well, we know that, Mr Digby. Your identity card . . .'

‘Yes, I know my name's Richard Digby, but who is Richard Digby? What sort of life do you think I led? Do you think I shall ever have the means to repay you all . . . for this?'

‘Now that needn't worry you, Mr Digby. The doctor is repaid all he wants simply by the interest of your case. You're a very valuable specimen under his microscope.'

‘But he makes life on the slide so very luxurious, doesn't he?'

‘He's wonderful,' the young man said. ‘This place – he planned it all, you know. He's a very great man. There's not a finer shell-shock clinic in the country. Whatever people may say,' he added darkly.