The Silver Falcon (31 page)

MacNeil was asleep when the telephone rang. He always slept well, and his subconscious was seldom troublesome. He was one of those people who will insist that in defiance of medical evidence, they never dream. His meal lay heavy in his stomach; a yearning for home had sent him to the German Centre, where he could at least escape the tepid roast meat, sliced paper thin, and neutral vegetables of the hotel cuisine. He liked German food; it had a bite to it and it was very satisfying to a hungry man. He didn't enjoy being in England. Richard Schriber was staying in a pub that called itself a hotel in Lambourn, and Isabel was safe with her trainer and his wife. Andrew Graham had promised to keep him posted about her plans to move out. He was in constant touch with the racing manager. MacNeil had spent the afternoon in the movies watching a grotesquely violent film about the Mafia, come back to his hotel, bathed and gone round to the Centre for dinner. Then he had decided on an early night. When the phone rang beside his bed, his watch showed it was ten minutes to midnight. He switched on the light and grabbed the phone. Only New York would be calling at that time. Unless it was Andrew and something had gone wrong.…

It was New York. The voice of his operative Bert Todd came through clearly. Bert was one of his best men; he had worked for the agency for five years, and MacNeil had put him in charge of investigating the background to the Schriber case. He had been gathering information round Freemont, since his return from Barbados. He sent MacNeil regular photocopies of his reports. The originals were on file in the New York office.

‘Hi,' MacNeil said. ‘I was asleep. How's it going?'

‘Hold on to your hat,' Todd answered. ‘I've just got back from Freemont. I got an item of news I thought needed looking at, so I went ahead and looked.'

MacNeil sat higher up in the bed, dragged a cigarette out of the packet by his bedside and lit it, cradling the telephone under his jaw. ‘Yeah? So let's hear it.' He sat still, drawing on the cigarette. ‘You went along to the hospital?'

‘Just on a hunch,' Todd was saying. ‘You know the kind of thing – something feels wrong. And here's what I turned up.' MacNeil listened for some minutes.

‘Jesus!' He exhaled cigarette smoke and the word at the same time. ‘This is really beginning to figure – You keep playing those hunches, Bert –'

‘What're you going to do?'

MacNeil stubbed out the cigarette. ‘I'm going to watch the bastard till he makes another move. And he will. He killed that old woman by mistake. So he'll try again. And I'll be right there with him. Jesus,' he said again. ‘Was Mrs Schriber lucky! … Okay, Bert – hey, do me a favour, will you – call Alice for me – tell her a big kiss and I'll be in touch but I'm pretty hot on something right now. Okay, thanks.' He put the phone back. He got up and took a notebook out of his briefcase and, with the pillows piled behind him, he began to write.

There was nothing Tim Ryan could do to stop Isabel leaving on Sunday with Richard. He had telephoned Andrew in desperation, and received the same advice. Do nothing; the police were in possession of the medical reports. There was no more anyone could do for the moment; it was vital that Richard shouldn't be alerted. From his reading of the reaction of a psychopath in this situation, he was unlikely to try and harm Isabel until just before the Derby. That was the time to get her away from him. Tim hadn't been satisfied and he said so. And on Sunday morning, as she was packing to leave, he came up to the room to see her.

‘Don't go with him,' he said. Isabel was facing him; she had turned pale and he could see that she was making herself angry. As angry as she had been when she walked away from Andrew Graham. And he knew that the motive was the same. She was afraid, and she wouldn't admit to her fear. He had never loved her more than at that moment when she showed how deep, albeit foolish, was her capacity for loyalty to the man she loved. ‘Stay here with Sally and Nigel. There's only ten days to go before the race. Why does he want to take you away from here?'

‘Wouldn't you, if you were in his place?' she countered. ‘He loves me, Tim. He says he wants to take care of me himself. And I believe him. I'm going with him because I want to.'

He came so very close to telling her the truth, to making her admit there was a hideous question mark over that night at Coolbridge, and until it was answered she should stay where she was safe.

It was a gamble he dared not take; if she rejected his warning, as she had done when Andrew came to see her, and told Richard.… He came up and took her hand.

‘Nigel wants you to come back and stay here before the race; he wants you to see the Falcon given his final piece of work. You've got to promise that. They're fixing a pre-race party and you've got to be there.'

‘I will,' she said. Her hand was tense, and her smile strained. ‘We'll both be here. I promise.'

She turned and went out. Nigel and Sally were in the yard, seeing them off. There was a lot of waving and kissing goodbye, in which he took no part. He felt sick and helpless; the sense of premonition came over him so strongly that he couldn't move when Isabel waved to him from the front seat.

Richard sat beside her, smooth and smiling, setting the car in motion. He heard Sally Foster say behind him, ‘Isn't it nice to, see two people so happy?' Then the car had gone through their white gates and was out of sight. Tim didn't say anything. He turned and walked away from Nigel and his wife and down to the yard. He couldn't rationalize his feelings, but he felt that Andrew Graham was wrong. And he had made a terrible mistake in taking his advice.

MacNeil parked his car on the stretch of road that lies at the junction between Wantage and Hungerford. It was a deserted area, without a house in sight. Ahead stretched the rolling Berkshire downs; the sun had barely risen and there was a dull grey in the sky, shot through with pink and yellow. It was too early for the first strings of horses to be out on the gallops for their morning's work; he had sat in his car smoking, waiting until it was light, and nothing had passed him on the road. It was a very isolated spot, and the place he was walking towards was sheltered by thick-growing hedgerows and a clump of elder trees. MacNeil stepped over the grass; it was wet with the early dew and his shoes glistened. He wore a waterproof coat, buttoned to the neck against the chill of the early morning. Inside the circle of the trees he stopped, and bent down, looking carefully at the ground. It was soft earth, grassy and weed-covered, its surface friable with old leaf mould. At the foot of one of the smaller trees he stopped. He took a trowel out of his pocket and, crouching on his haunches, he began to dig. It didn't take long; the trowel lifted a clod of damp earth and what MacNeil was looking for lay underneath it.

He picked out the little sodden, ball shape, black with soil, and slowly pulled it apart. Two misshapen cotton gloves lay on the ground. He took a small plastic bag out of his other pocket, held it open and dropped the gloves in, holding each one by the fingertips. The plastic bag went into his pocket; he kicked the trowel aside. Then he made his way back to the car, walking slowly, his head bent against an early drizzle of rain which had sprung up. This was the bonus that suddenly made his profession exciting. The hunter's instinct was in full play; he had the quarry cornered and there was nowhere for him to run. He got into the driver's seat and felt in his glove compartment for a cigarette. The bastard; the cunning, crazy bastard. He felt a sense of personal hatred directed at him and all his kind. He wouldn't get the gas chamber in England; more was the pity. They had abolished the death penalty, at the behest of the usual crowd of left-wing commie liberals. He felt, rather than heard, the man rising up from the back seat; he had begun to turn his head when the blow caught him. It was delivered with tremendous force and it broke his neck. The weapon was a heavy stone, wrapped in the newspaper MacNeil had been reading during his early vigil waiting for the dawn. He was a heavy man, but his attacker was very strong; he shifted the dead man into the passenger seat, took his place and started the engine. He drove steadily, making for the top of the downs where the ground fell away in one of the loveliest panoramic views in that part of England. He pulled up on the edge of the road. The sun was fully up and the little rain storm had stopped. He leaned across MacNeil and searched his pockets; he took the plastic bag out of his raincoat. He held it for a moment and then put it in his own coat. Then he dragged the dead man back into position behind the wheel. He paused to look up and down the road; he could see for miles in both directions and there wasn't a car in sight. He switched on the engine, engaged the automatic gear and took off the handbrake. Then he slammed the door shut and stepped back as the car began to move, nose forward across the grass verge and onto the lip of the slope.

Seconds later it was hurtling down into the valley. He watched it bounce and somersault its way, shedding parts of itself, the stillness punctuated by the crash and shatter of metal and glass. And then, as he had been hoping, there was an ugly boom as the petrol tank ignited and the car rolled on down to rest among the distant trees, a mass of flames and acrid smoke. He turned and began the long walk back to where his own car was hidden, parked in a private drive some half a mile from where MacNeil had stopped. He got in, reversed quickly onto the main road and drove off towards London.

‘I'm going out for a few minutes,' Richard said. ‘You unpack, darling and make yourself at home. I won't be long. I'm going to surprise you!'

He caught hold of Isabel and kissed her. ‘Sunday is a hell of a day to shop –' He had brought her case into his bedroom; she heard him close the flat door, and she turned to look around her. There was plenty of space for her clothes; the room was geared for two people, by the size of the bed and the amount of cupboards. And yet it was a very masculine room, without a sign of female occupation. However many women had stayed there, not one had left a trace. She saw a big bowl of hot-house roses on the chest, and guessed they had been ordered for her. He had sent her roses that day at the Savoy. It was a smart room, decorated in shades of yellow, with a striking abstract on the wall facing the bed. Yet it was wholly impersonal. There were no photographs, no trivia scattered about. Everything was neat and functional as if a decorator had arranged the room before she came. Her case lay open on the bed; it was full of clothes he had collected from Coolbridge. She didn't want to unpack them. The flat was totally noiseless; its windows double-glazed against the traffic outside. It was like being encapsulated. She went to the door quickly and opened it wide. He had pointed out the drawing room as they came in. She opened that door too and went inside. She hardly noticed the expensive, elegant decor. The first thing she saw was the portrait over the fireplace. Isabel went across the room and stood, looking up at it. The only time she had seen it was in the attic at Beaumont. The oval face, framed in red hair, seemed sadder, more vulnerable; there was a droop about the shoulders, artificially swathed in chiffon. How old was the girl when that was painted – in her early twenties –

Andrew Graham's words came back to her. ‘Completely mother-fixated. He worshipped her.' The painted face was innocent, idealized, a boy could look at it and dream, playing out adolescent fantasies in which the lovely image was the heroine. As a middle-aged woman Frances Schriber would have retained that romantic quality; a frightened woman, bullied by her husband, bound to her only child by the guilt of his birth. Frequent suicide attempts, so Andrew said. A hopeless neurotic, feeding on the adoration of her son. And the son growing up to hate his father, so possessive of his mother and so jealous of their relationship that his whole view of life was mentally distorted.

‘She doesn't go in this room,' Richard said behind her. ‘But I like to have her there.'

Isabel turned slowly round to meet him. He was smiling at her. He came and slipped his arm around her, and they stood and looked at his mother's portrait together.

‘She would have loved you,' he said. ‘You're just her kind of person.' His face was in profile to Isabel, she glanced up at him. There was a slight smile on his lips; his expression was tender. Their hair was exactly the same shade of red.

He turned away suddenly; his mood had changed completely. It was excited and passionate. He kissed her hard, holding her painfully tight.

‘At last I've got you to myself,' he said. ‘I'm going to cook lunch for us, and then maybe we'll go to bed –'

She had a sense of unreality; part of her was trying to respond to him. But another part was chilled and apprehensive, taut with nervousness, the part that kept beating at the door of her mind, trying to ask questions.…

He stepped back and let her go abruptly.

‘Isabel –' he said slowly. ‘There's something wrong. What is it?'

‘Nothing,' she denied it quickly. ‘Nothing's wrong, don't be silly. Let's have a drink, shall we –'

‘You never needed drink with me before,' he said. He shrugged. ‘If that's what you want, darling – sit down and I'll open the bottle I bought to celebrate.'

It was Saran Nature, which she didn't want, because it was chilled, and she was cold already. They had drunk it on the boat in Barbados. Just before she nearly drowned. He sat on the big sofa beside her, and after a few moments he gently took her hand.

‘What is it? What's the matter, darling. You're not yourself.'

‘I'm still shaken by what happened,' she said. ‘I can't get it out of mind.'

His arm came round her, cradling her against him. Her body was stiff, resisting him. He felt it, and took his arm away.

‘I thought you'd want to be here,' he said. ‘I shouldn't have forced you to come. You obviously felt happier with the Fosters.'