He had seen so many people behaving like wolves during his stay in Belsen that the novelty of torturing her fell a little flat. He walked once more to the window, looked out. He stood there until he remembered he still had the paper bag containing the jam tart in his hand. With a sudden vicious spurt of rage to think that he should have taken the trouble to have bought food for this snivelling creature he deliberately crushed the bag flat. He felt the jam ooze inside the bag and the flimsy pastry crumple. Disgusted, he threw the bag at the girl, hitting her in the face.
He turned back to the window, satisfied that he had shown her he was hard and ruthless. The sooner she realised that the better. At the end of the street he saw a yellow newspaper van arrive and he watched a bundle of evening papers being snatched from the van by the news-seller who had been waiting for the Final Night Edition.
He wanted to rush out and buy a paper, but he was afraid to show himself a second time in the street. He watched the news- seller hurrying along, tossing papers into doorways as he came. He crossed the street, and the girl who had served Ellis in the café came to the door and took a paper from him. She said something that made him laugh, and he was still grinning as he tossed a newspaper on to the steps of the little grey house.
Ellis turned quickly to the door, then paused. The girl was trying to eat the mess of jam and crumbs that stuck to the inside of the bag. She looked up, her face half-hidden by the sticky bag and her eyes cringed when they met his.
He walked past her to the door, opened it and went into the passage. As he was about to descend the stairs he saw Mrs Wheeler standing in the hall, the newspaper in her hand. Cursing her under his breath, he stepped back so she couldn’t see him and watched her.
Mrs Wheeler was a tall, gaunt woman with tired eyes and thin, greying hair. She held one spectacle lens between finger and thumb and peered through it at the print.
Ellis gave up. He returned to his room, kicked open the door, entered.
The girl had got to her feet and was now sitting on the edge of the bed. They looked at each other.
“Who are you?” he demanded roughly. “What’s your name?”
“Grace Clark,” she said, frightened. “Thank you for . . .”
“Oh shut up,” he said viciously. “I wouldn’t give you anything. Nothing! Only you were making a damned nuisance of yourself. What do you think you’re going to do now?”
Her face creased tearfully. “I don’t know.”
“Where do you live?”
“Camden Town.”
“You’ve just come out of prison, haven’t you?”
She nodded miserably.
“Well, you better go back there.” He walked over to the window, raging, then turned, met her eyes. “I was a fool to have helped you. Why did they send you to prison?”
“I had nothing. My father was killed . . .”
“Don’t tell me a lot of slop. They put you away because you’re a thief, didn’t they?”
“I couldn’t help it,” she said, showing spirit. “I tried to get a job, but no one wants anyone deaf.” She clenched her hands into fists. “I tried and tried, but it wasn’t any use. I had to live.”
“You’re lying,” he said. “You’d have got something . . . a pension or something. You can’t fool me.”
“I had run away from the W.A.A.F. They were after me. It was my father. He was ill. There was no one to look after him . . . so I deserted. Then the bomb fell . . .”
“All right, all right,” Ellis broke in impatiently. “I told you I didn’t want to listen to any hard-luck story. I have enough hard luck myself. So you’re a thief, that’s it, isn’t it? A thief.”
She got slowly and shakily to her feet.
“I’m going,” she said, her lips trembling. “You can call me what you like . . .”
A tap sounded on the door.
Ellis sprang across the room, pushed the girl away from the door, motioning her to keep quiet. He opened the door a few inches.
Mrs Wheeler was standing in the passage:
“Good evening,” she said.
“What is it?” Ellis asked in the disgusted voice he assumed when they talked together.
She smiled. Her eyes were bright and hard. “Seen the evening paper?”
He shook his head.
“Then you’d better,” she said and pushed the newspaper at him. “It’s in the stop press.”
Ellis read the small paragraph, his heart thudding against his side. “This is it,” he thought, “now what am I going to do?”
There were only a few lines of print, but they were enough. The descriptions of the girl and himself were complete to the last detail. They had even got her name. The police were asking for information which would lead to their arrest for robbery.
Silently he handed the paper back.
“What of it?” he asked, scowling. “Why should it interest me?”
“That could be you,” Mrs Wheeler said, stabbing the descriptions with a long dirty finger. “Couldn’t it?”
“You’d better be careful what you’re saying,” he returned. “People can get into trouble making a mistake like that.”
“She’s here, isn’t she? I heard you two talking,” Mrs Wheeler said, smirking. “Well, it’ll cost you seven pounds. That’s what she stole, wasn’t it? Come on, give me the money and get out. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Ellis snarled at her. “All right,” he said, throwing the door open. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? Well, there she is. Look at her. There she is — the thief!”
Mrs Wheeler eyed the girl with a hard smile. “Not much to look at, is she? But she suits you. You’re no beauty either. Well, fork up the money and get off. I don’t like having your type in the house.”
The girl looked at Ellis, begging him to do something.
“Give her the money,” Ellis said to her. “All of it and get out. She’s got you where she wants you.”
Mrs Wheeler unwisely added: “And where I want you too, young man.”
A cold, sick rage seized Ellis. He turned away. He heard Grace Clark open her handbag and then a murderous impulse to smash this old woman gripped him. He snatched up a gold-and-blue vase standing on the mantelpiece and turned. Mrs Wheeler was reaching for the money. She looked up, her mouth opening to scream, but Ellis smashed the vase down on her head before she could make a sound. The vase shattered in his hand. The woman fell heavily, her face a mask of blood.
For one long second Ellis stood over her, staring down at her, then he ran to the door. Grace grabbed his arm.
“Don’t leave her like that . . . you’ve hurt her,” she said in her toneless voice, her eyes terrified.
Ellis rounded on her, paused. Movement in the street below attracted his attention. He looked out of the window. Coming from the café, a newspaper in her hand, was the girl who had served him. With her was a policeman. The girl was pointing to the little grey house, her face alight with excitement. Even the policeman looked interested and was hurrying himself.
Ellis grabbed hold of the girl.
“Now we’re both in the soup,” he said, shaking her. “We’re in this together. Understand? You and me . . . together. Come on. We’re getting out of here.”
He dragged her down the stairs, along the dark passage to the back door.
CHAPTER FOUR
The scar of the self-inflicted wound that had saved Ellis at Belsen was now an accusing finger pointing him out to anyone who had read his description in the newspapers.
First it had been his voice, now it was the scar. He could see no way round the scar; it was even more dangerous than the betraying sound of his voice.
His one thought was to get away; to hide somewhere until his shaken nerves had time to recover and he could think of a way out.
The girl, Grace, and he had got away without difficulty from the little grey house. While the policeman was ringing at the front door they had slipped out the back way and had taken a taxi to King’s Cross station; from there, the underground to Baker Street.
The taxi-driver had eyed Ellis’s scar with morbid interest. Ellis knew he wasn’t likely to forget the scar, and if he read the evening paper, he was certain to inform the police that he had driven a man and a girl answering to the descriptions of the wanted couple to King’s Cross. Well, that didn’t worry him. It was why he had taken the taxi to the terminus. He wanted the police to think he was travelling north.
He made Grace buy the tickets to Baker Street station, while he kept out of sight; and in the Inner Circle train he was careful to hold a handkerchief to his face like a man with toothache.
While the train rattled through the tunnels he tried to think of a plan. He knew he was leaving a trail behind him and the police couldn’t be far off. He had to go somewhere where he could think. He must get out of London. There were too many policemen in London. You never knew from one minute to the next when they would pounce on you. His mind went back into the past, and he remembered the time when his mother was dying. He had been in the way, and his father had sent him to stay with an old woman who lived in Eastwood. For two months he had spent his days wandering in the fields, exploring the footpaths and playing solitary games in the woods. He had come to know the district well, and now as he sat huddled up in the train, his handkerchief to his face, he decided that Eastwood would be an ideal place in which to hide until he had formulated a plan.
When they reached Baker Street station, he sent Grace once more to buy two single tickets to Eastwood.
The girl seemed in a kind of trance. He had only to tell her to do anything and she immediately obeyed. The dead expression in her eyes both irritated and puzzled him. He did not understand that the shock of seeing him hit Mrs Wheeler had robbed her of will-power and strength. She was convinced that Mrs Wheeler was dead and that if they were caught, she would be found guilty, and both of them would be hanged. The thought paralysed her mind, made her an automaton. But although Ellis terrified her, she had blind faith in him. She felt that if anyone could get her out of this ghastly mess he could do it, and so, until she had time to recover, she decided to stick to him.
As the train carried them through the outer suburbs of London, it dawned on Ellis too that he would have to stick to the girl. She was essential to him if he was to escape. No one would pick her out from the description in the newspaper. She was too ordinary, had no distinctive features. He put his hand to the scar. It was as if he had his name painted across his face. She would have to be his voice; she would have to conceal the betraying scar. He had been right to have helped her in the first place; had been right to have got her away from the woman with the handbag, given her food. Now she was in his debt; it was her turn to help him.
He told her so.
She stared at him, helpless and frightened, reading the words as they formed on his lips.
“You shouldn’t have hit her like that,” was all she could say. The picture of Mrs Wheeler lying on the floor, blood running down the side of her face, dominated her thoughts. “Why did you do it?” she went on, wringing her hands. “You could have given her the money . . .”
Ellis shrugged impatiently, looked out of the window. He knew she was right, and knowing that he had been unable to control his vicious temper made him uneasy.
They were now rushing past green fields and he remembered the Taleham golf course, a station or so farther up the line, where he used to watch the players and hunt for balls in the small wood near the seventh fairway. He suddenly decided to go there for the night. They could sleep in the clubhouse, and with luck the girl could get herself a rig-out from the women’s lockers.
This idea excited him; he leaned forward and tapped Grace on her knee. She started back, flushing.
He told her what he thought of doing.
“I’ll get you clothes. Anyone will recognise you now, but in a new rig-out you wouldn’t be noticed.”
She wrung her hands in silence, her eyes imploring him to leave her alone.
“Pull yourself together,” he said, scowling at her. “You’re in this up to the neck. We’ve got to stick together now. Do you understand? We’ve got to stick together or we’re sunk.”
A few minutes later the train stopped at Taleham Halt, which led directly to the golf course.
“Come on,” Ellis said, opening the carriage door, “and hurry.”
He was aware of the danger of leaving the train at such a lonely station. They might easily be seen; their description recognised, but he had to risk that. He felt that if they were lucky and no one spotted them getting off the train, then they’d be safe for at least a day or so hidden somewhere on the golf course.
They walked quickly across the platform to the station exit. There was no ticket collector at the gate. A notice asking passengers to hand their tickets to the booking clerk caught Ellis’s eye. A golfer, a heavy brown golf bag crammed with clubs slung over his shoulder, was rapping impatiently at the little glass window of the booking office. He eyed the waiting train anxiously.
The booking clerk was fumbling for a ticket. Ellis grabbed Grace by her arm and bundled her past the ticket window into the tiny station yard. He expected someone to shout after them, but nothing happened. The clerk had been too preoccupied supplying the golfer with a ticket to notice them.
Well, that was a bit of luck, Ellis thought. They hadn’t been seen and they hadn’t given up their tickets. The trail seemed well covered now.
They walked up the steep gravel incline leading to the clubhouse. Ellis wondered if the place was shut for the night or whether any of the members were still there. As they reached the top of the hill, he saw the white squat building facing the eighteenth green. A light came through one of the uncurtained windows, but even as he saw it the light suddenly went out.
He pushed Grace off the gravel path into the thicket. Startled, she gave a little cry and struggled feebly, looking at him in terrified anticipation.
Ellis sneered at her. “I’m not going to hurt you, you fool; someone’s coming.”
They crouched down in the thicket and waited. After some minutes a tall, beefy-looking man passed their hiding place. His cap was at the back of his head and his broad fat face was red and shiny. He whistled under his breath, and Ellis noticed that he carried an evening paper under his arm.