her life, following old arguments around in familiar circles, unable to
put her mind to anything else. She found the cottage claustrophobic
instead of snug. There was a big world out there somewhere, a world of
war and heroism, full of colour and passion and people, millions of
people; she wanted to be out there in the midst of it, to meet new
minds and see cities and her music. She turned on the radio: a futile
gesture, for the news broadcast made her feel more isolated, not less.
There was a battle report from Italy, the rationing regulations had
been eased a little, the London stiletto murderer was still at large,
Roosevelt had made a speech. Sandy Macpherson began to play a theatre
organ, and Lucy switched off. None of it touched her, for she did not
live in that world.
She wanted to scream.
She had to get out of the house, despite the weather. It would be only
a symbolic escape, for the stone walls of the cottage were not what
imprisoned her; but the symbol was better than nothing. She collected
Jo from upstairs, separating him with some difficulty from a regiment
of toy soldiers, and wrapped him up in waterproof clothing.
"Why are we going out?" he asked.
"To see if the boat comes."
You said it won't come today."
"Just in case."
They put bright yellow sou'westers on their heads, lacing them under
their chins, and stepped outside the door.
The wind was like a physical blow, unbalancing Lucy so that she
staggered. In seconds her face was as wet as if she had dipped it in a
bowl, and the ends of hair protruding from under her hat lay limp and
clinging on her cheeks and the shoulders of her oilskin. Jo screamed
with delight and jumped in a puddle.
They walked along the cliff-top to the head of the bay, and looked down
at the huge North Sea rollers hurling themselves to destruction against
the cliffs and on the beach. The storm had uprooted underwater
vegetation from God-only-knew what depth and flung it in heaps on the
sand and rocks. Mother and son became absorbed in the ceaselessly
shifting patterns of the waves. They had done this before: the sea had
a hypnotic effect on both of them, and Lucy was never quite sure,
afterwards, how long they had spent silently watching.
The spell was broken this time by something she saw. At first there
was only a flash of colour in the trough of a wave, so fleeting that
she was not certain what colour it had been, so small and far away that
she immediately doubted whether she had seen it at all. She looked for
it, but did not see it again, and her gaze drifted back to the bay and
the little jetty, on which flotsam gatherered in drifts only to be
swept away by the next big wave. After the storm, on the first fine
day, she and Jo would go beach combing to see what treasures the sea
had disgorged, and come back with oddly coloured rocks, bits of wood of
mystifying origin, huge seashells and twisted fragments of rusted
metal.
She saw the flash of colour again, much nearer, and this time it stayed
within sight for a few seconds. It was bright yellow the colour of
all their oilskins. She peered at it through the sheets of rain, but
could not identify its shape before it disappeared again. But the
current was bringing it closer, as it brought everything to the bay,
depositing its rubbish on the sand like a man emptying his trouser
pockets on to a table.
It was an oilskin: she could see that when the sea lifted it on the
crest of a wave and showed it to her for the third and final time.
Henry had come back without his, yesterday, but how had it got into the
sea? The wave broke over the jetty and flung the object on the wet
wooden boards of the ramp, and Lucy realized it was not Henry's
oilskin, for the owner was still inside it. Her gasp of horror was
whipped away by the wind so that not even she could hear it. Who was
he? Where had he come from? Another shipwreck?
It occurred to her that he might still be alive. She must go and see.
She bent and shouted in Jo's ear: "Stay here keep still don't move."
Then she ran down the ramp.
ramp was narrow and slippery, quite dangerous. She stopped, turned,
and scooped the child up in her arms, saying: "You naughty boy, I told
you to wait!" She looked from the body below to the safety of the
cliff top, dithered for a moment in painful indecision, discerned that
the sea would wash the body away at any moment, and proceeded downward,
carrying Jo.
A smaller wave covered the body, and when the water receded Lucy was
close enough to see that it was a man, and that it had been in the sea
long enough for the water to swell and distort the features. That
meant he was dead. She could therefore do nothing for him, and she was
not going to risk her life and her son's to preserve a corpse. She was
about to turn back when something about the bloated face struck her as
familiar. She stared at it, uncomprehending, trying to fit the
features to something in her memory; and then, quite abruptly, she saw
the face for what it was, and sheer, paralysing terror gripped her, and
it seemed that her heart stopped, and she whispered: "No, David, no!"
Oblivious now to the danger she walked forward. Anotherlesser wave
broke around her knees, filling her Wellington boots with foamy salt
water, but she did not notice. Jo twisted in her arms to face forward,
but she screamed "Don't look!" in his ear and pushed his face into her
shoulder. He began to cry.
She knelt beside the body and touched the horrible face with her hand.
It was David. There was no doubt. He was dead, and had been for some
time. Moved by some deep instinct to make absolutely certain, she
lifted the skirt of the oilskin and looked at the stumps of his legs.
It was impossible to take in the fact of the death. She had, in a way,
been wishing him dead; but her feelings about him were confused by
guilt and the fear of being found out in infidelity. Grief, horror,
liberation, relief: they fluttered in her mind like birds, none of them
willing to settle.
She would have stayed there, motionless, but the next wave was a big
one. Its force knocked her flying, and she took a great gulp of sea
water. Somehow she managed to keep Jo in her grasp and stay on the
ramp; and when the surf settled she got to her feet and ran up out of
the greedy reach of the ocean.
She walked all the way to the cliff-top without looking back. When she
came within sight of the cottage, she saw the jeep standing outside.
Henry was back.
Still carrying Jo, she broke into a stumbling run, desperate to share
her hurt with Henry, to feel his arms around her and have him comfort
her. Her breath came in ragged sobs, and tears mixed invisibly with
the rain on her face. She went to the back of the cottage, burst into
the kitchen, and dumped Jo urgently on the floor.
Henry said: "David decided to stay over at Tom's another day."
She stared at him, her mind an incredulous blank; and then, in a flash
of intuition, she understood everything.
Henry had killed David.
The conclusion came first, like a punch in the stomach, winding her;
the reasons followed a split-second later. The shipwreck, the
odd-shaped knife he was so attached to, the crashed jeep, the news
bulletin about the London stiletto murderer suddenly everything fitted
together, a box of jigsaw pieces thrown in the air and landing,
improbably, fully assembled.
"Don't look so surprised," Henry said with a smile.
"They've got a lot of work to do over there, and I didn't encourage him
to come back."
Tom. She had to go to Tom. He would know what to do; he would protect
her and Jo until the police came; he had a dog and a gun.
Her fear was interrupted by a shaft of sadness, of sorrow for the Henry
she had believed in, had almost loved; for clearly he did not exist she
had imagined him. Instead of a warm, strong, affectionate man, she saw
in front of her a monster who sat and smiled and calmly gave her
invented messages from the husband he had murdered.
She suppressed a shudder. Taking Jo's hand, she walked out of the
kitchen, along the hall, and out of the front door. She got into the
jeep, sat Jo beside her, and started the engine.
But Henry was there, resting his foot casually on the running-board,
and holding David's shotgun, saying: "Where are you going?"
Her heart sank. If she drove away now he might shoot -what instinct
had warned him to take the gun into the house this time? and while she
herself might chance it, she could not endanger Jo. She said: "Just
putting the jeep away."
"You need Jo's help for that?"
"He likes the ride. Don't cross-examine me!"
Henry shrugged, and stepped back.
She looked at him for a moment, wearing David's hacking jacket and
holding David's gun so casually, and wondered whether he really would
shoot her if she simply drove away. Then she recalled the vein of ice
she had sensed within him right from the start, and knew that that
ultimate commitment, that ruthlessness, would permit him to do
anything.
With an awful feeling of weariness, she surrendered. She threw the
jeep into reverse and backed into the barn. She switched off, got out,
and walked with Jo back into the cottage. She had no idea what she
would say to Henry, what she would do in his presence, how she would
hide her knowledge if, indeed she had not already betrayed it.
She had no plans.
But she had left the barn door open.
THIRTY-TWO
That's the place. Number One," the captain said, and lowered his
telescope.
The first lieutenant peered out through the rain and the spray.
"Not quite the ideal holiday resort, what, sir? Jolly stark, I should
say."
"Indeed." The captain was an old-fashioned naval officer with a
grizzled beard who had been at sea during the first war with Germany.
However, he had learned to overlook his first lieutenant's foppish
conversational style, for the boy had turned out against all
expectations to be a perfectly good sailor.
The 'boy3, who was past thirty and an old salt by this war's standards,
had no idea of the magnanimity from which he benefited. He held on to
a rail and braced himself as the corvette mounted the steep side of a
wave, righted itself at the crest, and dived into the trough.
"Now that we're here, sir, what do we do?"
"Circle the island."
"Very good, sir."
"And keep our eyes open for a U-boat."
"We're not likely to get one anywhere near the surface in this weather
and if we did, we couldn't see it unless it came within spitting
distance."
"The storm will blow itself out tonight tomorrow at the latest." The
captain began stuffing tobacco into a pipe.
"Do you think so?"
"I'm sure."
Nautical instinct, I suppose?"
The captain grunted.
"That, and the weather forecast."
The corvette rounded a headland, and they saw a small bay with a
jetty. Above it, on the cliff top, was a little cottage standing small
and square, hunched against the wind.
The captain pointed.
"We'll land a party there as soon as we can."
The first lieutenant nodded.
"All the same..."
"Well?"
"Each circuit of the island will take us about an hour, I should
say."
"So?"
"So, unless we're jolly lucky and happen to be in exactly the right
place at exactly the right time..."
"The U-boat will surface, take on its passenger, and submerge again
without us even seeing the ripples," the captain finished.
"Yes."
The captain lit his pipe with an expertise which spoke of long
experience of lighting pipes in heavy seas. He puffed a few times,
then inhaled a lungful of smoke.
"Ours not to reason why," he said, and blew smoke through his
nostrils.
"A rather unfortunate quotation, sir."
"Why?"
"It refers to the notorious charge of the Light Brigade."
"Good God! I never knew that." The captain puffed contentedly.
"What it must be to be educated."
There was another little cottage at the eastern end of the island. The
captain scrutinized it through his telescope, and observed that it had
a large, professional-looking radio aerial.
"Sparks!" he called.
"See if you can raise that cottage. Try the Royal Observer Corps'
frequency."
"Aye, aye, sir."
When the cottage had passed out of sight, the radio operator called:
"No response, sir."
"All right, Sparks," the captain said.
"It wasn't important."
The crew of the coast guard cutter sat below decks in Aberdeen Harbour,
playing pontoon for halfpennies and musing on the feeble-mindedness
which seemed invariably to accompany high rank.
"Twist," said Jack Smith, who was more Scots than his name.
Albert "Slim' Parish, a fat Londoner far from home, dealt him a jack.
"Bust," Smith said.
Slim raked in his stake.
"A penny-ha' penny he said hi mock wonder.
"I only hope I live to spend it."
Smith rubbed condensation off the inside of a porthole and peered out
at the boats bobbing up and down in the harbour.
"The way the skipper's panicking," he observed, 'you'd think we were
going to bloody Berlin, not Storm Island."
"Didn't you know? We're the spearhead of the Allied invasion." Slim
turned over a ten, dealt himself a king, and said: "Paytwenty-ones."
Smith said: What is this guy, anyway a deserter? If you ask me, it's a
job for the military police, not us."
Slim shuffled the pack.
"I'll tell you what he is: an escaped prisoner-of-war."
There was a chorus of disbelieving jeers.
"All right, don't listen to me. But when we pick him up, just take
note of his accent." He put the cards down.
"Listen: what, boats go to Sto
rm Island?"
"Only the grocer," someone said.
"So, if he's a deserter, the only way he can get back to the mainland
is on the grocer's boat. So, the Military Police just have to wait for
Charlie's regular trip to the island, and pick the deserter up when he
steps off the boat at this end. There's no reason for us to be sitting
here, waiting to weigh anchor and shoot over there at the speed of
light the minute the weather clears, unless ..." He paused
melodramatically.
"Unless he's got some other means of getting off the island."
"Like what?"
"A U-boat."
"Bollocks," Smith said contemptuously. The others merely laughed.
Slim dealt another hand. Smith won this time, but everyone else
lost.
"I'm a shilling up," Slim said.
"I think I'll retire to that nice little cottage in Devon. We won't
catch him, of course."
"The deserter?"