John Creasey - Inspector West Alone

He drew at the cigarette.

“All right?”

“Yes, thanks. Who are you?”

“You may call me Marion.”

He leaned back, nursed his knees with his hands, and looked at her without frowning.

“That’s thoughtful of you. What are you going to call me?”

“Mr. King.”

“Oh, I’m a king again, am I?”

She backed away until she reached one of the arm-chairs, and sat on an arm. She crossed her legs. She wore a long dress, but it didn’t hide the shapeliness of her ankles or the lower part of her legs. She was slim, but not too thin, tall for a woman.

“Did you patch up my face last night?” Roger asked.

“Yes, how does it feel?”

“As if it needs patching up again.”

“Now?”

“Yes, please.”

She went to the wash-basin and opened the cupboard above it, took out a small pot of white salve, and came towards him. “Sit up straight,” she said, and when he obeyed, she took some of the salve on her fingers and began gently to rub it along the scratches. When she had finished, she stood back and said:

“What about your hand?”

He held it out obediently.

“Thanks very much,” he said when she had finished. “You’re as good as a trained nurse.”

“You have to learn a little of everything.” She seemed anxious to make sure that he didn’t think she was a trained nurse. She was somehow wary, watching him as if he might attack her. She glanced out of the window, and for the first time he caught a glimpse of her profile. She had a short nose, slightly tip-tilted, and tiny pale-pink ears. In every way, she was a wholesome creature, and the word “goodness” came to his mind. Then he imagined her as she would be with her face smashed in.

The door opened.

This time, he’d heard no footsteps.

A man came in, a little fellow wearing a white jacket, with a grey, bullet-shaped head and mournful brown eyes. His brown shoes were polished brightly enough to attract attention. He carried a large tray with the experienced poise of an accomplished waiter, and placed it on the bedside table. Roger ran his gaze over the tray. The oddest thing was the ivory knife; more like a very blunt paper-knife than a table-knife. There was tea, toast, marmalade, butter—plenty of them all—and two plates under silver covers.

“I should sit in bed and have it,” said Marion.

“I  never like breakfast in bed.”

“You don’t want to overdo anything,” she said, but humoured him by placing an upright chair in front of the table. He poured himself out a cup of tea; ah! He finished it before he lifted the covers. By then, the waiter had gone.

Porridge; and eggs and bacon.

The bacon was cut into small pieces; he could manage the egg with the ivory knife. All these things added up to one unavoidable conclusion. He didn’t speak of it. The girl sat on the arm of the chair, her legs still crossed, watching him or looking out of the window. He finished every scrap.

“Wonderful!” the girl said.

“What’s wonderful?”

“Your appetite.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” said Roger. “Now, I’d like to shave.”

“I’ll arrange it.” She leaned forward and pressed a bell by the side of the bed, and the little waiter came in. Without a word, he took the tray out. The girl followed him, saying at the door: “I won’t be long.”

When she had gone, he went to the little cupboard above the hand-basin. There were no scissors; no razor; nothing made of steel. He waited for ten minutes, as far as he could judge—he had neither watch nor clock. Then the door opened again, and the girl and the waiter came in; the waiter carried a little black bag.

The waiter spoke for the first time in a voice that was unmistakably Cockney, from the very heart of the East End.

“Goin’ to git in bed, or sit in front’ve the mirror?”

“I’ll sit in front of the mirror,” Roger said.

“S’right.” The man went over to an upright chair, then opened his little black bag. Out of it he took a large pink sheet. Roger sat down, the sheet was tucked round his neck in a professional manner. Then he was lathered and shaved with a safety razor. They weren’t even going to take a chance that he could snatch a cut-throat from the “barber’s” hand!

He was regarded as dangerous; the girl, presumably, considered him a dangerous lunatic.

*     *     *     *

No knife, no razor, no weapon of any kind, no clothes, no watch or clock, no newspapers, neither pen nor pencil; at least, there were some books. These were on a little shelf in the bedside table. He glanced at the titles. They were mostly classics—the popular classics, Scott, Dickens, Macaulay, Trollope—with a book of verse and two modern novels. He didn’t open any of them, but went to the window again and looked out on to the trim lawn and the nodding daffodils and the trees which crowded upon the garden—an impenetrable mass of them, many more than there had been at Copse Cottage. How far was he from Copse Cottage? How many miles had they travelled after he had lost consciousness? Why was he here? When would he see his silvery-eyed companion of the night before ?

The waiter brought his lunch, and stood by while he used the ivory knife again. Five minutes after he had finished, Marion came in with coffee on a tray, and two cups and saucers. He was sitting in an easy-chair by the window.

“Do you mind if I have coffee with you?”

“I was hoping you would.”

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Mystified, but quite content.”

“I’m “so glad.” She passed over the “mystified” and poured out the coffee.

“Thanks. When are you going to tell me all about it?” Roger asked.

“There’s nothing I can say.” She was earnest.

“Do you think I’m mad?”

“No, of course not!” Coffee spilled out of the jug into the saucer. “That’s ridiculous. You haven’t been well, but you’re getting better, and soon you’ll be perfectly fit again. I want to help you. I wish you’d talk freely to me.”

“What about?”

“Anything that comes into your mind.”

“Applied psychology? Or psychiatry? Or what?”

“Just talk. It always does one good to talk.”

“Supposing I talk about my wife? And the boys.” She had the wary look again, and he decided that Mr. Arthur King had neither wife nor children. She poured the spilt coffee from his saucer into her cup. “Janet isn’t like you, except her hands. Hands reveal a lot—did you know?”

“Yes,” she said.

He made himself sound dreamy. “The only known infallible ways of telling one person from another are by comparing the tips of the fingers and the lines on the soles of their feet; it’s easier to take finger-prints than footprints. But I was going to talk about my family. Janet we’ll take for granted. The boys—there are two of them. The elder is Martin, but we call him Scoopy. Odd name, isn’t it?”

“I rather like it.” She was pretending to believe him.

“It’s grown up with him. Scoopy’s a big chap. Rising six. Tough as they come and a plodder—he takes life pretty seriously. Richard is a year younger and a very different kettle of fish—he takes life as it comes, a gay young man who will go places if he can only develop half of his brothers power of concentration. You don’t believe a word of it, do you?”

“Please go on.”

“Why don’t you believe it?”

“Please go on.”

“Why do you work for a killer?”

“I just have my job to do.”

“Being handmaiden to a murderer shouldn’t appeal to you.”

She smiled.

“Do I strike you as being insane?” he demanded.

“I can’t talk to you about that,” she said. “I  know you have dreams—nightmares. The dreams are good, the nightmares—I’ll help you to forget them, help you to sleep without them. It’s only temporary, as a result of the strain. Don’t worry about them. Just tell me about them. That’s all I want you to do. You won’t shock me. I’ve heard so many strange stories and helped so many people. Just tell me about the worst of them. Please.”

What did they want to do? Make him think that he was crazy?

CHAPTER VI

NIGHTMARE

HE could hear the moaning. . . .

And he could see the girl with the battered face and the white blouse and her hand lying over the side of the bed.

The nightmare gripped him with a feverish intensity, and went on and on, but was always exactly the same— the girl, the moaning, clearer, louder, clearer, louder. He wanted to shout, and opened his lips and screamed; but no sound came.

Then, he was awake.

The nightmare was no longer real, just vivid memory. He lay in the darkness. He felt the hot sweat bathing him, and his arms, legs and face twitching. He peered up at the darkness of the ceiling, and felt afraid. He didn’t try to move. He had only to stretch out his hand and switch on the light, but he didn’t want to. He had to overcome this new terror—a terror of the dark.

This was the third night of these nightmares.

It was always dark when he woke; and he knew that if he submitted to the terror and gave himself light, then he would have lost a battle.

He heard no movement, but suddenly it was no longer pitch dark. He opened his eyes. A small light burned by the door, which Marion was closing gently behind her. She wore a dressing-gown, her hair was in a net, and she was smiling reassurance. She came straight to him, and her hand was cool and gentle when she pressed it against his forehead. She went to the basin and damped a sponge, came back and sponged his face and hands; he wanted her to go on doing it.

“You’ll be all right, when you’ve told me about them,” she said. “If you’ll only tell me, there’s nothing more to worry about.”

She’d said that a dozen times in the past three days, but always in daylight. She hadn’t come in just after he had recovered from a dream before. He lay looking at her fresh, wholesome attractiveness, and felt that he hated her. She was the only human being he had spoken to, except the waiter, since he had first come round. She was always the same, and nothing he could say would make her change her attitude—he was ill, she was there to help him. He’d tormented himself, trying to fight against it; just as submission to the fear of darkness would mean a lost battle, so would the narration of his dream to her.

They could make him dream; they had.

“You’ll feel better soon,” she said softly.

He sat up.

“Water, please.”

She went and got him a glass of water. He sipped it, looking at her all the time.

She was like Janet.

It wasn’t just her hands; she was like Janet. If Janet were here, he would feel better. Being away from her was agony in itself. Knowing that she was worried, frightened because he was missing, was perhaps the worst thing of all, except that insistent question—why?

He hadn’t seen a newspaper or heard the radio, he had no idea what was happening outside in the world. Whenever Marion came in, there was always a male guard at the door, and he had no doubt that the man was armed.

“Tell me what it was about?” she whispered, and leaned over him.

He mustn’t lose the battle.

“I’m too hot.”

“I’ll take off the eiderdown.” She stood up, and folded the eiderdown back, took off one blanket, folded it and laid it across an easy-chair. “Lie down,” she said, and when he obeyed, she lay on the bed beside him. She was cool and impersonal; it wasn’t as if a girl were lying there, but someone unreal and unhuman; unhuman, not inhuman. “Just tell me about it.”

That quiet, insistent demand was always the same.

“You’ll feel much better.”

So was the promise.

They wanted to make him lose the fight, wanted him to talk to her, and he’d be damned if he would let them win. They could try as much as they liked, but-

He started.

“It’s all right, I’m with you,” she said.

He wasn’t thinking about her, now, but the idea which had come suddenly. It made him want to laugh, and he hadn’t felt like laughing since the first morning he had seen her. The next stage wouldn’t be reached until he had talked, until “they” thought he had succumbed.

“Just tell me——”

He shook off her hand, sat up sharply and pushed her away.

“Mr. King——”

“Get out! Get away. I hate the sight of you!”

“If you’ll only——”

“Get out!” He pushed her again, and then suddenly raised his hands and clutched her neck. He didn’t hold tightly, but enough to scare her. She called sharply “Come in!” He was still clutching her neck when the door opened and two men sped into the room. One held his wrists and forced his hands from her neck, the other helped the girl from the bed. Then they went out and left him alone.

He felt cool, now—cool and more in command of himself because the cloying helplessness had eased a little. He had a plan of campaign. Three days had sapped his energy and dulled his mind, making it soggy, filling it with one obsession—and he hadn’t seen the obvious, that nothing further would happen until he had done what she wanted him to do—talked freely.

He got up and went to the window.

There were stars, but it was very dark. He went back to bed and closed his eyes, and felt rested. He waited, and waiting was an agony in itself. Judging time was almost impossible, but before he tried again he must wait. It wouldn’t work unless he waited.

He wanted a cigarette, but the only time he was allowed to smoke was when the girl or the barber-waiter were with him—which meant that, ostensibly, they were afraid he would set fire to the room. Everything they did was done to convince him that he was a dangerous lunatic.

At last he decided that he had waited long enough. He went back to bed—and began to shout.

“No, no no!”

Nothing happened.

He screamed again. “No, no, no!”

Was he losing his reason? Could a sane man lie here and shout like that, in an otherwise empty room, with no one to hear him ?

The light came on.

Marion stood in the doorway, smiling, calm. The light was just above her head, and her face was framed in that wispy auburn. She closed the door gently.

“Did it come again?”

“I—I  can’t stand it.” He licked his lips, and wondered whether he appeared frantic enough to be convincing. Apparently he did, because she went to damp the sponge again, came back and bathed his forehead, face, and hands.

She lay down beside him.

“Tell me,” she said.

“It’s—so foul. Foul.” He made his voice break. — “Yes, it must be, but don’t worry—I’m used to hearing all kinds of strange stories. The nightmares will stop when you’ve talked about it.”

He told her the simple truth of what he had seen in Copse Cottage. His voice kept breaking, twice he stopped and turned his head away from her, his body becoming rigid; and each time she rested a hand on his arm and waited, until he went on again hoarsely.