by Eric Ambler
“That’s what I thought,” she agreed. “If you hadn’t put this shadowing business into my head, I wouldn’t have taken any notice. I didn’t at first, but I happened to look back, and he’d come over the edge of the hollow and seemed to be watching me. That was the first thing that started me off. When I looked back a little later, he had disappeared. I told myself that it was all right, but it wasn’t. I believed he might be following me to snatch my bag. Then I thought he might have something to do with the Kusitch business, and that was when I really panicked.”
She paused a moment, not happy in the recollection of it. When she went on, she made him feel the strain of it.
It was pretty bad, she said. When she decided that she could not go on any farther, she found that she was too scared to go back. Dusk was coming quickly across the marsh, or it may have been the lowering clouds. Already there were lights in some of the bungalows, and they seemed far away, unreachable. She took a step towards them, and halted. Thirty yards or so from her, she saw a dark movement behind the fringing reeds and rushes of a pool at the track’s edge; a shadow diving for cover, but diving too late.
“I was paralysed. I just stood there, staring at the reeds, waiting.”
All over the desolation were pools with screens of reeds and rushes, tall enough to hide a man bent double, and the track between the windmill and the station found a winding way among them.
For minutes she could not take her eyes off the spot where the shadow had vanished. Then her mind began to work again. She must go forward to the windmill, or back to the station. But there was no real alternative. The farther she went towards the windmill, the worse her position became. She must go back, must risk the danger that waited behind the screen of reeds. Perhaps there would be no challenge; perhaps the game of shadowing would go on. If the main purpose was to observe her movements, there could be no purpose in any interference. She had led the watcher nowhere. She had merely walked out into the middle of a wilderness; now she proposed to walk back again.
It took all her will power to make her legs move. Keeping her eyes focused on the reed screen, she went forward slowly. Every moment she expected the man to rise up and block her path, but nothing happened. The wind from the sea was behind her now, and gulls rode in on it, screaming and squawking. There was no other sound except the dry rustle of the reeds. She went on tiptoe, as if that might help her to pass the screen, and as she approached it she edged towards the far side of the track. She had a plan now. If the man waited a fraction too long, she might evade him. She could run. She selected the spot from which she would start. It was a little forward of the screen, and the turf on the side of the track was obviously firm enough for her to take an oblique course. That oblique course was essential for the first twenty yards or so. The track curved slightly, so she could gain an advantage.
She walked boldly now, with a pretence of ease. She reached the chosen spot and dashed off, leaving the track in her desperate race. Five yards, and her left foot caught in a trailing bramble. She crashed down, barking her knee on a stone and tearing her cheek on another bramble. As she fell, a wild bird rose from the screen of reeds and went off with a whir of dark wings.
“A bird!” she said. “A damn silly bird!”
Andrew made a sympathetic sound.
“I started to cry,” she admitted. “I think it was rage more than anything else, but I was still frightened. I believe I was more frightened. I lay there on my face, crying, till I found I was partly in a pool of water. Then I got up and went on. I ran. I imagined a man was coming after me. I imagined a shadow behind every clump of reeds. It was all imagination. I should have gone on. I had time to get to the windmill and back. I might have found out about the boat.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Andrew told her. “We’ll go together in the morning. I’ll hire a car and drive you.”
“We’ll have to leave it till the afternoon. I must go to the gallery in the morning. Hinckleigh is furious over the way I behaved today.”
Something in her intonation took away all his animus against Hinckleigh. Besides, there was the way she had behaved today.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll leave it till the afternoon. Now we’ll go and get something to eat.”
“Like this?”
“You can tidy up here. Anyway, we’ll go somewhere quiet.”
“Well, if you don’t mind…”
He decided on the restaurant where he had dined with Charley Botten two nights ago. It was an admirable place for the occasion. It was unpretentious, the food was excellent and the wine reasonable. The only drawback was that Charley Botten used it regularly, and might well be there tonight. He liked Charley, he was even fond of his company at times, but on this occasion, no.
Andrew’s anxiety was relieved in part as soon as he entered the place. Mr. Botten was there, but he had a companion, a grey-haired man, and they were already halfway through their dinner. When the headwaiter suggested a table on the other side of the room, Andrew raised no objection. Mr. Botten saw the newcomers and made a crouching rise, clutching his napkin, in acknowledgement of Andrew’s nod.
“Somebody you know?” Miss Meriden inquired.
“A stockbroker,” Andrew said.
She smiled across the table when they were seated, and Andrew was glad that the stockbroker had a companion. Possibly a client. Andrew glanced at the man but got nothing much more than the back view of a rather worn jacket that looked like a Harris tweed, badly cut and very creased. To judge from what could be seen, the man was of medium height and on the portly side. His grey hair, fluffed out round a bald spot, gave the effect of a monk’s tonsure.
But Andrew gave him no more than a glance. Ruth Meriden had smiled and the promise of her smile was fulfilled. The meal was a success. Andrew never could recall afterwards exactly what they had talked about; all he ever knew was that they had both talked a great deal and that what they said had been trivial and light-hearted and yet, in some magical way, profoundly important. Then, as he turned to order coffee, he became aware of a movement on the other side of the room. He was conscious of Charley Botten again, and glanced round.
Charley and his guest had risen from their chairs. They came across the carpet to reach the central passage between the tables, Charley leading the way, his bulk obscuring the smaller man. He gestured vaguely in the direction of Andrew, something between a wave of farewell and a hiker’s hitch-signal. An instant later Andrew saw the face of the fluffy-haired guest. He stared. There was no mistaking that affable, beaming countenance above the rough tweed fabric of the ill-cut jacket. Clap a hat over the high bald forehead, and all you needed was the jigging phrase from Till Eulenspiegel to make the picture complete. Charley Botten’s guest was the supposed shadow, the siffleur of Holland Park, Mr. Jolly-Face himself. Andrew blinked, then laughed, turning to hide his laughter, but Jolly-Face had passed on towards the exit in the wake of his host.
Ruth said: “What’s the matter?”
He had begun to tell her when Mr. Botten re-entered the room and came towards their table. He was by himself now.
“Hello, Andrew,” he said. “Everything satisfactory? Are they treating you well?” He might have been the proprietor of the place, solicitous about the comfort of his clients. He canted the wine bottle and glanced at the label. “Not bad,” he conceded. “The Volnay here is better though.”
Andrew spoke without cordiality. “Miss Meriden, may I introduce Mr. Botten?”
“How do you do? I thought it must be Miss Meriden. I wanted to come across all the evening to meet you. Unfortunately I had to defer the pleasure on account of my guest.”
“Isn’t he waiting for you?” Andrew asked.
“No. I pushed him into a taxi.”
“Who is he, by the way? I seem to know him.”
“That’s improbable. He’s just a wartime colleague of mine. Hadn’t seen him for years.”
“I think he’s living in my neighbourhood.”
“Really?” Mr. Botten shrugged and felt vaguely in the pockets of his waistcoat. “He did give me his address. I put it in some pocket or other. Doesn’t matter.” He pulled up a chair. “May I join you for a moment?”
Andrew nodded coldly. Ruth was looking a little puzzled. Andrew explained Mr. Botten. He was not merely a stockbroker; he was the friend who had collected the facts about the boat.
“I want to ask about the mysterious yawl,” Charley said. “Have you had any luck?”
“We think we’ve found it,” Andrew informed him.
“That’s nice. So Miss Meriden is co-operating. Where do you think you’ve found it?”
Andrew explained. He described, with the girl’s assistance, the supposed location. Mr. Botten asked questions, and heard the de-tails of Ruth’s misadventure. Then he wondered whether they were on the right track. Mr. Meriden had talked of a mill, not a windmill. The landing stage seemed to be the important clue, and, in Mr. Botten’s view, landing stages didn’t seem to chime with windmills. “Have you checked the spot on a large-scale map?” he inquired.
Andrew had no suspicion that Mr. Botten was moved by anything but innocent curiosity. He thought the large-scale map was rather a good idea. That was where M.I. experience came in.
“Miss Meriden didn’t wait for maps. She dashed off to Britsea at once.”
“Anyway, we’ll know all about it tomorrow afternoon,” Miss Meriden asserted cheerfully. “Andrew and I are going down by car.
Andrew’s heart jumped. “Andrew and I”-it had a delightful sound.
“I’d have liked to go down with you,” Mr. Botten said.
“Can’t you?” Ruth asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Mr. Botten lamented. “We’ve a lot on just now, and my partner’s away. But you ought to check up on the map. If you know what you’re going to find, it will be easier to find it. There’s the matter of roads, too. Let’s all go to my place for coffee, and we’ll investigate.”
Andrew managed to sound dispassionate. “I think after the day she’s had, she ought to be in bed.”
“Dr. Maclaren,” the girl explained, “is treating me for a bruise.”
“Then come along,” Mr. Botten said playfully. “I’ll open a bottle of vintage arnica.”
Objection was useless. In half an hour they were in the Botten flat with coffee and liqueurs. The owner had a collection of maps most efficiently indexed. Groper’s Wade was contained within a small section, but the scale was enormous.
“Here you are!” Mr. Botten pointed with a pencil. “Groper’s Mill. The circle represents the mill structure, and here’s the landing stage all right.” The windmill was about a half mile inland, provided you gave the term “land” to the swampy reed beds that surrounded it. A creek wound in from the estuary-one of many creeks on the map-and close to the mill a small rectangle was drawn, jutting out from the bank into the narrow stream. The mill cottage was defined by a larger rectangle on the land side of the small circle.
“Nice map,” Charley commented. “Shows everything except the yawl. Here’s your road, Andrew. It must run parallel to the track you took, Ruth. There’s only the one way across the swamp. Here’s the station. Where would you place the garbage tip?”
Ruth took the map and indicated the place. Andrew frowned. He resented Mr. Botten’s easy friendliness. He also resented the way she accepted it. He got up from his chair. It was time to go, but Mr. Botten had not finished. He was almost as bad as Inspector Jordaens in his passion for interrogation, and now his line was to suggest that Ruth might not have been entirely mistaken in thinking she had been watched. She insisted that she had been the victim of an overheated and infantile imagination.
“In the matter of the bird among the reeds, yes,” Mr. Botten admitted, “but can you be quite sure about the man in the garbage tip?”
“I can be quite sure that he didn’t follow me,” Ruth answered.
“Yet you admit there was ample cover if he had wanted to use it?”
“I suppose so.”
Mr. Botten was like a prosecuting counsel with a shifty witness.
“You say that this man could not have followed you from town because he was unlike any of the passengers who left the train with you at Britsea?”
“Yes.”
“You base this assumption or conviction merely on the difference in dress?”
“Isn’t that enough? The man was tall; there was only one tall man at the station, and he was wearing a hat and some kind of overcoat. He was in the middle of a group round the exit gate. I remember him because of his height. My recollection is that all the men from the train wore hats and coats. It was fairly chilly with the wind coming across the river flats.”
“And the man in the garbage tip was in sweater and slacks?”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t it occur to you that he might have taken off his hat and coat to deceive you?”
Andrew laughed. “Still on the old cloak-and-dagger stuff, Charley! Aren’t you forgetting the false beard and the dark glasses? Are you sure, Ruth, the fellow didn’t have a black patch over one eye?”
“I’m fairly sure he didn’t leave the garbage tip,” she said.
Mr. Botten was still suspicious. “He could have watched you from the hollow. He wouldn’t have had to leave the tip.” He turned to Andrew. “I wouldn’t go down there tomorrow if I were you. I think you ought to leave it all to me.”
“Leave it all…!” Andrew began indignantly and then swallowed his indignation. “We’re ahead of the enemy, we’re ahead of the police, and I’m not going to wait till they catch up with us. All this stuff about being followed is just nonsense. Why, the other night I believed I was being shadowed by the man you’ve just had as a dinner guest! Every time I notice a fellow in the street I think he’s on my trail. Ruth’s right. It’s all imagination. I’m even beginning to have doubts about that Brussels business.”
“And possibly there was no Kusitch,” Charley suggested. “All right. I wash my hands of you.” He grinned. “When you get the yawl in order, you may take me for a sail. My own opinion is that it was never brought back to England, but that’s just, as I say, an opinion. It might be as well, though, if it were at the bottom of the sea.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know.” Charley shrugged. “Put it down to a hunch. I don’t like trouble. I never did. If the yawl’s gone, there’s no more harm in it. If it’s tied up by that old windmill, heaven knows what sort of mess is going to come out of it.”
“What could come out of it?” Mr. Botten considered the question for a moment. About to reply, he hesitated and spread his hands helplessly. He said: “I learned to suppress ideas about second sight during the war. If you want to call in a crystal-gazer, don’t mind me. But there’s one bit of advice I can give you without a crystal ball. Keep a sharp lookout when you’re on the road tomorrow. If you’re followed by a car, don’t go anywhere near Groper’s Wade. Just take a joy ride into the country and come back to town.”
Andrew left Ruth at the door of the house in Palgrave Street. She said her knee felt better and she didn’t need any help up the stairs. She had been silent and thoughtful in the taxi from Charley Botten’s. On the doorstep she was practical.
“I shouldn’t keep the cab waiting,” she said. “I’ll be ready at one o’clock. Good night.”
On the way home and afterwards Charley’s final piece of advice recurred to him. He believed it was pointless, yet it continued to worry him. How could the enemy, not knowing his plans, have a car ready to follow him? Charley, of course, had intended no more than a cautionary hint, and, as a precaution, he would take the hint. He would keep a sharp lookout.
Eleven
No car followed them. He glanced frequently at the driving mirror of the small car he had hired, and Ruth kept a sharp lookout through the rear window. Passing through the outer suburbs, they had had some suspicion of a Citroen saloon, but this was resolved at a main road junction,
and, when they ran out into the country and sped along a flat stretch, they became certain that, for the moment at any rate, their movements were not supervised.
The sky was overcast and there were omens of heavy weather far out in the estuary. The prophets had modified the threat of showers with a promise of bright intervals, but so far there had been neither showers nor bright intervals. Not a day for a joy ride. The sea, when they saw it across a tumble of dunes, was wan and melancholy under the dour spread of cloud, yet Andrew had not felt so happy in a long time, and Ruth seemed astonishingly carefree. Could he ever have thought her smug? Of course not. She was direct, friendly, gay. Andrew was happy to be beside her. He was happy to be driving a car in England again, and it mattered not at all that this particular England was a dreary area of sand and coarse grass and mud flats, of bleak bungalows and bleaker colonies of cylindrical oil tanks. It might have been the loveliest stretch of lakeland in sunshine or some glowing corner of the summery Chilterns. He had not been so happy since his return from Greece.
Not even the slough of Groper’s Wade under a drizzle of rain could dampen his spirits. He saw its dreariness, the wide misty sweep of marsh that ran into the green-grey distance so that you could not tell where the sedge left off and the sea began. From the slight rise above Britsea Halt, the pools that dotted the waterlogged smudge were like filmed eyes turned blindly to the sky. But these things could not affect him. He was detached from all dreariness by a singular enchantment. He had only to turn his head to see the warm loveliness of the girl beside him.
He turned and saw her frowning.
“It’s a horrible place,” she said, and grimaced, shuddering.
“Your wounds must be troubling you.” He laughed. “It’s just a place. Nothing to worry us, anyway. We can be back at that nice cottage for afternoon tea.”
The nice cottage was miles behind them, in another world. The road across Groper’s Wade was defined by water-filled ruts that reflected the dull light in the overcast. There was no trace of the windmill ahead; only a featureless haze. Slush spouted from the wheels of a truck filled with junk for the rubbish tip. Andrew drew level and shouted to the driver, who brought his vehicle to a stop at the turn into the dump.
