A Taste for Death (65 page)

'How did you find me?'

'The telephone directory, how else? Rather a coy and uncommunicative entry, but I guessed it was you. No diffi. culty in getting the old woman to open the door, inci dentally. I just said I was Chief Inspector Massingham.' 'All right, so what's the plan?'

'I'm getting out. Spain. There's a boat at Chichester harbour which I can handle. The Mayflower. I've sailed on her. She belongs to my sister's lover in case you're inter. ested. You're going to drive me there.'

'Not now I'm not. Not till the roads are clear. Look, I'm as anxious to live as you are. I'm not Father Barnes, I'm no martyr. The police pay me well, but not that well. I'll get you to Chichester but we have to wait until the A3 is clear if we're going to get through. For God's sake, it's the rush hour! You know what the traffic's like getting out of London. I don't fancy getting stuck in a traffic jam with a gun at my back and every other motorist peering into the car.'

'Why should they? The police will be looking for a single

man, not a man, wife and his dear old grandma.'

She said:

'They won't be looking for anyone yet, button or no button. Not unless they've found the pricst or know that you've got the gun. As far as the police know, there's no hurry. They don't even know that you've found out about the button. If we're to get well away pounds st and unnoticed we have to have a clear drive to Chichester. And there's no point in carting along my grandmother. She'll only be a hindrance.'

'Possibly, but she's coming. I need her.'

Of course he needed her. His plan was plain enough. She would be expected to drive, he would sit at thc back, the gun against the old lady's head. And when they reached the harbour she would be expected to help with the boat, at least until they got out to sca. And what then?

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Two gun shots, two bodies bundled over the side? He seemed to be considering, then he said:

'All right, we'll wait. Just for an hour. How much food

. is there?'

'Are you hungry?'

'I shhll be, and we'll need provisions. Everything port-able hat you've got.'

This she knew could be important. Hunger, shared need, shared food, a natural human want satisfied. It was one way of establishing that empathy on which their survival might depend. She remembered what she had been taught about sieges. The prisoners identified with their captors. It was those sinister watching eyes outside, those unseen intelligences, their guns, their listening devices leeched to the walls, their false insinuating voices which became the enemy. She wouldn't identify with him or with his kind if they were together until they starved, but there were things she could do. Use 'we' not 'you'. Try not to provoke him. Try to ease the tension and, if necessary, cook for him. She said:

'I could go and see what we've got. I don't keep much fresh food but there'll be eggs, tins, pasta, and I could

cook what I had planned for tonight: spaghetti bolognese.' He said: 'No knives.'

'You can't do much cooking without a knife of some sort. I'll need to chop onions and the liver. My recipe uses chopped liver.'

'Then do without them.'

Spaghetti bolognese. Strong tasting. Was there anything that she could put into the sauce which would incapacitate him? Her thoughts ranged over the contents of her ' medicine chest. But she rejected the idea as nonsensical. There would be no opportunity. He wasn't a fool. He'd see to that. And he wouldn't eat anything which she didn't

share. Her grandmother began muttering. Kate said: 'I've got to speak to her.'

'All right. But keep your hands behind your back and be careful.'

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She had to get hold of the gun, but now wasn't the time. It was pressed hard against her grandmother's skull. One suspicious move on her part and he would press the trigger. She went up again to the chair and bent her head. Her grandmother whispered. Kate said:

tl 'She wants to go to the lavatory.'

, 'That's too bad. She's staying where she is.'

Kate said angrily:

I! 'Look, d'you want a stink in the room for the next hour? md in the car come to that. I'm fastidious if you're not. Let me take her. What possible danger can she be?'

Again there was a moment's silence while he thought:

'All right. Untie her. But leave the door open. And remember I'll be watching you.'

It took her a full minute to undo the clumsy knots, but at last the linen dropped away and her grandmother fell forward into her arms. She drew her up, marvelling at the lightness of her body, brittle as a bird's. Holding her gently and murmuring encouragement as she might to a child, Kate half-carried her into the lavatory, Supporting her with one arm, she pulled down her knickers and lowered her on to the seat, aware of him standing braced against the passage wall less than two yards away, the gun pointed at her head. Her grandmother whispered:

: 'He's going to kill us.' ' �

'Nonsense, Gran. Of course he won't kill us.'

Th, e old lady directed a look-of venomous hatred across

I

Kate s shoulder. She hissed:

'He's been at your whisky. Bloody cheek.'

'I know, Gram It doesn't matter. Better not talk, not

t

I IOW.'

'He's going to shoot us. I know.' Then she said. 'Your dad was a copper.'

A policeman! Kate could have lau�hed aloud. It was extraordinary to learn that now, in this place, at this moment, astonishing to learn it at all. Still shielding her

grandmother's body with her own she said:

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'You never asked. No point in telling anyway. He was

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killed before you were born, in a car smash, chasing a villain. And he had a wife and two kids. Little enough for

them on a police pension without letting on about you.' 'So he never knew?'

'That's fight. And no point in telling his wife. Nothing she could do about it. More grief, more trouble.'

'So you were landed with me. Poor Gram I haven't been much use.'

'You've been all fight. No worse than any other kid. I

never felt fight about you. I always felt guilty.'

'Guilty! You! Why on earth?'

'When she died, your ma, I wished it had been you.' So that had been at the root of all the estrangement. She felt a spring of joy. Here crouching by a lavatory seat, a gun at her head with death perhaps seconds away she could have laughed. She put her arm round the old lady, helping her to her feet, then let her rest against her while she drew up her knickers. She said:

'But of course you did. It was natural. It was fight. She was your daughter. YSu loved her. Of course you wish it had been me who died if one of us had to go.' But she couldn't make herself say: it would have been better if it

had been me. Her grandmother muttered:

'I've felt bad about it all these years.'

'Well stop feeling bad about it. We've got a lot of years ahead.'

And then she heard his step as he moved into the

doorway, felt his breath on the back of her neck. He said: 'Get her out of here and start cooking that meal.'

But there was something she needed to ask. For over twenty years she hadn't asked, hadn't even cared. But amazingly, it had become important. Ignoring him said to her grandmother:

'Was she glad about me? My mother?'

'Seemingly. Before she died she said "my sweet Ka So that's what I called you.'

So it had been as simple as that, as wonderful as th His voice rasped with impatience:

'I said, get her out of here. Take her into the kitck

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Tie her to one of the chairs, against the wall, by the door. I want my gun against her head while you're cooking.'

She did as she was told, fetching the strips of sheeting from the sitting room, drawing her grandmother's wrists gently behind her back, tying them as loosely as she dared, careful not to hurt her. Keeping her eyes on the knots, she said:

'Look, there's something I must do. I've got to ring my boyfriend. He's coming to supper, at eight.'

'It doesn't matter. Let him come. We'll be gone by then.'

'It does matter. If he finds the flat empty he'll know something is wrong. He'll check the car. Then he'll ring

the Yard. We've got to put him off.'

'How do I know he's expected?'

'You'll find his initials on that wall diary behind you on the clipboard.' She was grateful now that, absorbed with the business of settling in her grandmother, she had telephoned Alan to cancel their date but hadn't rubbed out those faint pencilled initials and the time. She said:

'Look, we've got to get to Chichester before anyone knows we've gone. He won't be altogether surprised to be chucked. We had one hell of a row last time he was here.'

He was silent considering. Then he said:

'Ail right. What's his name and the number?'

'Alan Scully and he works at the Hoskyns Theological Library. He von't have left yet. He stays late on Thurs-day.'

He said:

'I'll ring from the sitting room. You stand back against the wall. Don't come to the telephone till I tell you. What's the number?'

She followed him into the sitting room. He motioned her back against the wall to the left of the door then moved over to where the telephone stood on a shelf of the wall unit, the answering machine beside it, the directories neatly stacked beneath. She wondered if he would re-member the risk of leaving his palm print. As if the thought

had communicated itself to him, he took a handkerchief

from his pocket and draped it over the receiver. He said: 'Who will answer, this man $cully or a secretary?' 'At this hour, he will. He'll be alone in his office.' 'Let's hope he is. And don't try anything. If you do I'll shoot you first and then the old witch. And maybe she won't die quickly. You will, but not her. I might have a little fun with her first, switch on the electric stove, clamp down her hand on the hot plate. Think about that if you're tempted to be clever.'

She couldn't believe that, even now, he'd bring himself to do it. He was a killer but not a torturer. But the words, the horror of the picture they evoked, made her shudder. And the threat of death was real enough. He had already killed three men. What had he got to lose? He would prefer a live hostage, prefer to let her do the driving, to have an extra pair of hands on the boat. But if he needed to kill he would, trusting that he could get well on his way' before

their bodies were found.

He said:

'Right, what's the number?'

She gave it and watched, heart pounding, while he dialled. The call must have been quickly answered. He didn't speak but after less than four seconds he held out the receiver and she moved across and took it from his hand. She began speaking loudly and very fast, desperate to drown any questions, any response.

'Alan? It's Kate. Tonight's off. Look I'm tired, I've had one hell of a day and I'm fed up with cooking for you every bloody time we meet. And don't ring back. Just come tomorrow if you feel like it. Maybe you'll take me out for a change. And Alan, remember to bring me that book you promised. The Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost for Christ's sake. See you tomorrow. And remember the Shakespeare.' She banged down the receiver. She found that she was holding her breath, and let it out gently and silently, afraid that he would notice the release of tension. Had her words sounded even remotely credible? The message seemed to her so obviously false. Could he possibly

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have been deceived? But after all, he didn't kac ..

� f t' 'ow Alan, he

didn't know her. That might be typical o ne way they

spoke to each other. She said:

'. 'That's OK. He'll keep away.'

'He'd better.'

He motioned her back to the kitchen and ....

took up his

stance beside her grandmother, the gun agai to her head.

He said:

'You've got wine, I suppose?'

'You should know. You've been at the Xdrinks cup board.'

'So I have We'll have the Beaujolais 3n, '11 'ak

� ' , KI we [ e

the whisky and a half-dozen bottles of the

xret With us.

I've a feeling I'm going to need alcohol before I get across the Channel.'

How experienced a sailor was he? she w0q what kind of boat was the Mayflower. Stepnn

had described it but she couldn't now remerUx

., er. nu now

could he be sure that the craft would be pounds elle ....

�1 ann reaay

for sea, that the tides would be right? Or Iad he passed

beyond the borders of reason, of precarious s ....

tnlty, Into a

fantasy in which even the tides would run to is bidding? He asked:

'Well, aren't you going to get on with it? We haven't much time.'

She knew that every action must be sl0W. deliberate, unfrightening, that any sudden movement tght be fatal. She said:

'I'm going to reach up and take a frying P ....

� . , xn lrom mat

top cupboard. Then I'll need the minced qeef and the

liver from the refrigerator and a tube of tor0a

^ to paste and

the herbs from this cupboard on my right. ?,

'I don't need a cookery lesson. And rethember' no

knives.'

As she started her preparations she thoUl, f--,

, . xnt o

/hat was he doing? What was he thinkla, Woul': ' stand still for a moment, consider, come to th� '."

e conclusion

that she was drunk, hysterical or mad, theh

his books? But he couldn't! He must knot that she was

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none of these things, that if she did go mad, it wouldn't be in that way. But it was impossible to picture him actually taking action, ringing the Yard, asking for Commander Dalgliesh. It seemed to her that she was expecting him to act a part as out of character as it would be for her to take over his job, catalogue his library. But surely that reference to Love's Labour's Lost had been unmistakable. He must know that she was trying to convey an urgent message, that she was under duress. He couldn't have forgotten their talk about Berowne, the attendant lord. She thought: He reads the newspapers, he must know that these things happen. He can't not know what sort of world we live in. And she would never normally speak to him in those terms, in that tone of voice. He knew her well enough to be sure of that. Or did he? They had been happily making love for over two years. There wasn't anything about her body that wasn't familiar to him as his was to her. Since when did that mean that two people knew each other?