In the Mouth of the Tiger (127 page)

Denis and I kept up our silly row all night, sleeping as far apart as we could manage in the double bed. The next morning I took my cup of tea downstairs and shared it with Mrs Frampton as she made an early breakfast for the policemen. It was the first time since we'd been at the Manor that Denis and I had not shared waking up and seeing the new day through our window, and chatting inconsequentially about inconsequential things. The thought saddened me, and I sat at Mrs Frampton's table with my chin on my hands, frowning down into my cooling teacup. Denis had been abrupt and unreasonable, I realised, because he had felt guilty. Because it had been he who had driven Malcolm to the edge of madness – or beyond – by escaping time and time again from the consequences of what Malcolm must have been convinced was the worst kind of treachery.

And guilt can make the most reasonable of us unreasonable, the most perceptive of us blind.

I went back to our bedroom determined to make up. ‘I understand how you feel about Malcolm,' I said as soon as I came into the room. ‘You feel responsible. You think he's out there on the run because of you. Well, that's not correct, is it? I'm the one who got Stewart Menzies to cancel Malcolm's charges against us. If anyone is responsible for Malcolm's state of mind it's me.'

Denis was up and dressed and pulling on his shoes, and he looked at me with a closed, set face. ‘Don't flatter yourself, Norma. Malcolm's out there going through hell because MI6 have put a blowtorch to him. Don't forget, I know the drill in these cases all too well. They would want to discredit him, to cheapen anything he may say, and they know exactly how to do it.'

‘Malcolm
is
unstable,' I said. ‘I've seen him at his worst. Reality means nothing to him once he gets an idea into his head.'

‘There is an old saying: “All the world is queer, old friend, accepting thee and me. And even
thee's
a little queer.” If Malcolm does go overboard occasionally, so do we all at times. But what they're doing to him is evil. Exploiting a weakness for their own ends. They'll make the poor blighter doubt his own sanity in time.'

I dropped on my knees in front of Denis. ‘He
is
unbalanced,' I said earnestly. ‘Not just a little bit off key, but seriously unbalanced. It's hatred, or jealousy, or a combination of the two that's made him dangerous. He hates you, my dear. So much that one day I'm sure he'll try and kill you. That's why I hope they catch him quickly. While he's alive and free, you are in mortal danger.'

Denis gave me credit for sincerity and pulled me up and sat me on to his lap. ‘You may be right and I might be wrong,' he said reasonably. ‘But I do sincerely believe what I say, and I'm no longer prepared to compromise.'

I took his hands in mine and played with his fingers as I thought the matter through. ‘Why don't we agree on a pact?' I said finally. ‘You agree to let the police look after us while Malcolm is out there with his gun, and I agree that we will both help him like the blazes if or when he is arrested. Give him the best lawyers money can buy, and make sure that if he's put on trial, the
whole
truth comes out. Including the cables business and Operation Maugham if that is necessary.'

Denis nodded thoughtfully. ‘I think that's pretty reasonable.'

We sat there a while, getting used to being friends again, and then Denis rose and hauled me to my feet. ‘Now I think it's time we got on with Christmas, don't you?'

That day Win, the children and I set about decorating the house. We spent all morning making coloured paper chains, and all afternoon hanging them in the downstairs rooms. Mr Frampton had bought a Christmas tree and we spent the evening covering it with stars, and coloured globes, and streamers
of tinsel, and then we crowned it with a glorious Victorian plaster angel that Win had inherited from her mother. It was late before we finished, and as a special treat for the children we all sat by the glowing fire and sipped hot chocolate while we listened to
A Christmas Story
on BBC Radio.

Close to midnight we invited the policemen in for a Christmas toast. The young constables had been replaced by plainclothes officers, older men with hard faces, but they softened after a drink or two and soon someone had started us off singing Christmas carols. Halfway through ‘Silent Night' Win Heppenstall, who had perhaps sipped half a glass of brandy too much, burst into tears. But her tears didn't spoil the magic of the moment because all the children hugged her and she hugged them back, laughing through her tears at her own frailty. ‘It's happiness,' she assured us all. ‘Tears of pure happiness.'

There was the sharp crack of a pistol shot, followed instantly by the tinkle of falling glass. For half a second we sat there in frozen silence, and then Denis was shouting at us to lie on the floor and our police guardians were stumbling through the room dragging guns from under their jackets.

I had the stupidest thought:
Please God, don't let any of us get hurt. It's much too close to Christmas
.

Nobody was hurt. One of the police officers stood between us and the windows while the other burst through the French doors and crouched down outside, his pistol raised in both hands. But the assailant had clearly gone, and the emergency was over almost before it had begun, with Denis wrapping me tightly in his arms and the children clamouring to go outside to see if they could see the gunman.

‘No you can't!' I shouted, suddenly badly rattled. ‘Go up to bed immediately, or we'll cancel Christmas!'

‘You wouldn't be shouting at me if I'd got shot, would you?' Bobby asked, and I smiled and grabbed him and brought him into our embrace.

‘He got clean away, I'm afraid,' one of the officers said. ‘I could see him sprinting across the field, but he was well out of effective range. I think he must have been running to a car parked up on the Wareham road.'

‘You did well,' Denis said, but the man shook his head.

‘We let you down, sir. We should have been outside. It's a mystery how the man managed to miss hitting anyone.'

Denis pointed to a strip of plaster hanging from the ceiling. ‘I don't think he meant to hit anyone. He fired over our heads.'

Makin and Sergeant Little arrived half an hour later. The Inspector was
furious, and inclined to snap at the poor officers who had defied his orders to stay outdoors. Denis cut him off in mid-tantrum: ‘There's no harm done, Makin,' he said crisply. ‘Bryant – if it was Bryant – meant no harm. He had a perfect target through the lighted widows but he fired at the ceiling instead. He's a silly ass but he's not a murderer.'

Makin shook his head. ‘Think what you like, sir. In my book he's a homicidal maniac who needs to be put down before he kills somebody.'

More police cars arrived and parked higgledy-piggledy on our gravel driveway, and there were soon so many blue uniformed men in our lounge that I felt I was hosting an inpromptu police Christmas party. Everyone had a point of view, or an observation to make, and soon my head was spinning. Eventually, order came out of the chaos. Most of the cars left but four remained, parked on the moonlit lawns around the Manor like soldiers around a catafalque.

It was after two in the morning before we were finally alone in our bedroom, and I confronted Denis immediately. ‘You must take the man seriously after this,' I said. ‘He really is a danger. One of us could easily have been killed tonight, even if Malcolm had only meant to frighten us.'

Denis took me by the shoulders and guided me to our window. Beyond the walled garden, the fields and woods were silver in the frosty moonlight. ‘He's out there now, all alone. Hiding like a hunted animal and wondering how the devil it all came to this. Don't you feel the least bit concerned for him?'

I pretended that I did, but the truth was that I shared Makin's hope. That he'd be put down before he killed anybody.

The next day was Christmas Eve. In the morning Mr Frampton took me shopping in Blandford in a shooting brake we'd bought for the stud, while Denis went out to Monk's Farm with a builder to get a price on our proposed stable block. The plan was to meet up at the farm for lunch, and I was as pleased as Punch at the prospect because our purchase had just gone through and it would be our first visit to the place as its owners. A police car followed each of us: it was a bit like Cameron Highlands and the Gurkhas all over again, except that English restraint meant that there was no pomp and circumstance, just quiet bobbies discreetly in the background.

The house at Monk's Farm was genuinely Elizabethan, a lovely, half-timbered place with a thatched roof, mullion windows, and heavy oak rafters throughout. I got there about midday and pottered happily in the modernised kitchen, firing up the Aga, sorting out the cooking utensils, and preparing a
meal of chops, mashed potato and grilled tomatoes. I laid a table for Denis and myself in the low-ceilinged dining room, and put out a further five places on the scrubbed pine table in the kitchen for Mr Frampton and the police. I felt domesticated and happy, and caught myself humming Percy Grainger's ‘English Country Garden', which was all the rage in 1949. The sun had broken through an overcast sky, lighting up the chalk downs beyond the small, neat garden, and the world looked and felt a lovely place.

I had completely forgotten Malcolm Bryant.

‘There is a letter here for you already,' Mr Frampton said, coming down the hallway. ‘Postman must have pushed it under the front door.' It wasn't for me but for Denis, and I put it unthinkingly beside his plate on the dining table.

Denis joined us just as we were putting out the lunch, and he rubbed his hands cheerfully together. ‘Rough country fare, I see, Mother Elliott,' he said with a dreadful parody of a South Country accent. ‘Simple but nourishing.' He winked at the police officers gathering in the kitchen and they laughed politely. And then we closed the door and were alone in our snug little dining room, lifting mugs of tea to the success of Richelieu Park.

‘I gave Bill Hammer the plans for the stable block,' Denis said. ‘He needs to do some more working out, but the price range he mentioned seemed damned reasonable. Between three and four thousand. That's for everything including plumbing and electrical work. He thinks the job will take about three months from go to whoa.'

‘We'll have fun here, won't we?' I asked in the inane way one does, and Denis touched my hand.

‘We'll have more than fun,' he said. ‘We are about to establish England's most successful thoroughbred stud farm. Horses will be foaled here who will rewrite the record books.' I can see him in the chambers of my memory so very clearly, his blue eyes alight, happy laughter on his lips. And then he looked down at the envelope beside his plate, and picked it up, and slit it open with his thumbnail.

I could see immediately that it was serious by the little creases that appeared beside his eyes, and a tiny throb of concern started up in my breast.

‘What is it, darling?' I asked. Denis folded the letter up and put it into his jacket pocket, and I thought for a moment he wasn't going to tell me what it was all about. But then he sighed, and drew it out again, and passed it over.

Denis. I am absolutely desperate. I don't know if you are a traitor or not, and have no way of finding out unless we talk. For God's sake meet me. I have tried to phone you but they have stationed people at the Sturminster Marshall telephone exchange, and they refuse to put me through. Demand that they let me speak to you, Denis. For old time's sake. I will phone you at six precisely every night. Malcolm.

‘It's a trap,' I said desperately. ‘Malcolm wants to get you alone so that he can kill you. Can't you see that? We know he has a gun and that he's prepared to use it.'

Denis took the letter back. ‘They should have told me, Norma.'

I came around the table and dropped on one knee beside his chair. ‘If you love me, please don't take this any further. I can see so clearly that it's an awful trap. He's appealing to your sense of fair play. He knows you are vulnerable to that sort of appeal. Please just forget he wrote to you.'

Denis lifted me gently from the floor and kissed me on the lips, but I could see from the ice blue of his eyes that nothing I could say would sway him. I was suddenly furiously angry that the letter had got through. The police had tried to stop Malcolm contacting Denis to protect him from himself but Malcolm had broken through their guard. I wrung my napkin in futile rage. Stupid, stupid postman. Stupid, stupid me for not ripping the damned letter to shreds as soon as it had arrived.

‘I want to talk to Inspector Makin,' Denis said curtly as soon as we arrived home. The policeman sitting in our butler's pantry spread his hands helplessly.

‘Inspector Makin is not contactable, sir,' he said. ‘But he left orders for me to pass on any message . . .'

The police had rigged a phone into the room and Denis snatched the handset off the desk and cranked the handle. ‘Then I will have to ring the Chief Constable direct. You have no objection, Sergeant?'

The sergeant obviously did because he took the phone back. ‘I can try and raise Inspector Makin, sir,' he said quickly.

Makin must have been close by because he arrived less than twenty minutes later, Sergeant Little still in tow. We gathered in Denis's study, sitting in a small tense circle by the window while the early shadows of a winter afternoon gathered in the gardens outside. Denis took out Malcolm's note and passed it to Makin without a word.

Makin took his time reading the scribbled words, and then handed the note to Little. ‘We will need to keep this, sir,' he said in his pedantic, official voice. ‘Possible evidence. Sergeant Little will give you a receipt.'

‘Evidence my foot,' Denis said coldly. ‘But do what you like with the damned piece of paper. I've read it and I want to know why I wasn't told Bryant has been trying to get in touch with me.' I had rarely seen him in such a rage. He was so angry that I could see his hands trembling and ached to take them and crush them in mine. But I was on Makin's side in this and I sat unmoving.