Eye Of The Needle Part 32

Henry gave the boy a look and said nothing.

Lucy said, "Don't be silly. He's at Tom's house."

Jo ignored her and spoke to Henry. "You've got my daddy's clothes, and and you've got mummy. Are you going to be my daddy now?" you've got mummy. Are you going to be my daddy now?"

Lucy muttered, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings..."

"Didn't you see my clothes last night?" Henry said.

Jo nodded.

"Well, then, you know why I had to borrow some of your daddy's clothes. I'll give them back to him when I get some more of my own."

"Will you give my mummy back?"

"Of course."

Lucy said, "Eat your egg, Jo."

The child went at his breakfast, apparently satisfied. Lucy was gazing out of the kitchen window. "The boat won't come today," she said.

"Are you glad?" Henry asked her.

She looked at him. "I don't know."

Lucy didn't feel hungry. She drank a cup of tea while Jo and Henry ate. Afterward Jo went upstairs to play and Henry cleared the table. As he stacked crockery in the sink he said, "Are you afraid David will hurt you? Physically?"

She shook her head no.

"You should forget him," Henry went on. "You were planning to leave him anyway. Why should it concern you whether he knows or not?"

"He's my husband husband. That counts for something. The kind of husband he's been...all that...doesn't give me the right to humiliate him."

"I think it gives you the right not to care whether he's humiliated or not."

"It's not a question that can be settled logically. It's just the way I feel feel."

He made a giving-up gesture with his arms. "I'd better drive over to Tom's and find out whether your husband husband wants to come back. Where are my boots?" wants to come back. Where are my boots?"

"In the living room. I'll get you a jacket." She went upstairs and got David's old hacking jacket out of the wardrobe. It was a fine grey-green tweed, very elegant with a nipped-in waist and slanted pocket flaps. Lucy had put leather patches on the elbows to preserve it; you couldn't buy clothes like this anymore. She took it down to the living room, where Henry was putting his boots on. He had laced the left one and was gingerly inserting his injured right foot into the other. Lucy knelt to help him.

"The swelling has gone down," she said.

"The d.a.m.ned thing still hurts."

They got the boot on but left it untied and took the lace out. Henry stood up experimentally.

"It's okay," he said.

Lucy helped him into the jacket. It was a bit tight across the shoulders. "We haven't got another oilskin," she said.

"Then I'll get wet." He pulled her to him and kissed her roughly. She put her arms around him and held tightly for a moment.

"Drive more carefully today," she said.

He smiled and nodded, kissed her again-briefly this time-and went out. She watched him limp across to the barn, and stood at the window while he started the jeep and drove away up the slight rise and out of sight. When he had gone she felt relieved, but also empty.

She began to put the house straight, making beds and washing dishes, cleaning and tidying; but she could summon up no enthusiasm for it. She was restless. She worried at the problem of what to do with her life, following old arguments around in familiar circles, unable to put her mind to anything else. She again found the cottage claustrophobic. There was a big world out there somewhere, a world of war and heroism, full of color and people, millions of people; she wanted to be out there in the midst of it, to meet new minds and see cities and hear music. She turned on the radio-a futile gesture, 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 Mcpherson began to play a theater organ, and Lucy switched off. None of it touched her, she did not live in that world.

She wanted to scream.

She had to get out of the house, in spite of the weather. It would be only a symbolic escape...the stone walls of the cottage were not, after all, 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 G.o.d only knew what depths 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 afterward how long they had spent watching silently.

Its spell this time was broken by something she saw. At first there was only a flash of color in the trough of a wave, so fleeting that she was not certain what color 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 gathered 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 beachcombing to see what treasures the sea had disgorged and come back with oddly colored rocks, bits of wood of mystifying origin, huge seash.e.l.ls and twisted fragments of rusted metal.

She saw the flash of color again, much nearer, and this time it stayed within sight for a few seconds. It was bright yellow, the color of all their oilskins. She peered at it through the sheets of rain but could not identify its shape before it disappeared again. Now 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 onto a table.

It was 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, because 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 wrecked ship? 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, because 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 wrecked ship?

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.

Halfway down she heard footsteps behind her. Jo was following her. The ramp was narrow and slippery, quite dangerous. She stopped, turned and scooped the child up in her arms. "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. Which meant he was dead. She could 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, paralyzing terror took hold of her, and it seemed that her heart stopped, and she whispered, "No, David, no!"

Oblivious now to the danger she walked forward. Another lesser wave broke around her knees, filling her Wellington boots with foamy salt.w.a.ter but she didn't notice. Jo twisted in her arms to face forward. 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. David. There was no doubt. He was dead, and had been for some time. Moved by some terrible need 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 her infidelity. Grief, horror, 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 casually said, "David decided to stay over at Tom's another day."

She stared at him, her mind a disbelieving blank; and then, still disbelieving, she understood.

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 a.s.sembled.

"Don't look so surprised," Henry said with a smile. "They've got a lot of work to do over there, although I admit 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 dart of sadness, of sorrow for the Henry she had believed in, had almost loved; 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 forced herself not to 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. "Where are you going?"

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 couldn't 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!"

He 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. And then she recalled the vein of ice she had sensed in him right from the start, and knew that that ultimate commitment, that ruthlessness, would allow him to do anything.

With an awful feeling of weariness, 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.

32.

THAT'S THE PLACE, NUMBER ONE," THE CAPTAIN SAID, and lowered his telescope. and lowered his telescope.

The first mate 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 mate's foppish conversational style, for the boy had turned out-against all expectations-to be a perfectly good sailor.

The "boy," who was past thirty and an old salt by this war's standards, had no idea of the magnanimity he benefited from. 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 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 mate 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 pa.s.senger, and submerge again without us even seeing the ripples," the captain finished.

"Yes."

The captain lit his pipe with an expertise that spoke of long experience in 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."

"I never knew that." The captain puffed away. "One advantage of being uneducated, I suppose."