Venom

by Alan Scholefield

  “Stay still,” Jacmel said. “Or you will die here.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “Pick up the syringe,” he said.

  She moved her hand and picked it up.

  “Now get up on to your knees.”

  She got up on her knees and he did the same, facing her, his body so close that they were touching. Then she realized her back was to the street. He was using her as a shield. His right arm came round her and he pulled her against him. She could feel the hardness of the pistol against her abdomen.

  “Rise to your feet.”

  She rose and he came with her as though they were stuck together. They stood on the top step, a single mass.

  “Walk towards the door.”

  She walked forwards, he backwards, like some music-hall turn.

  “Open,” he called.

  The door opened and they were swallowed up by the house. In the street Bulloch had watched what was happening first with astonishment then with a mixture of rage and impotence, for there was nothing anyone could do unless they wished to kill Dr Stowe.

  * * *

  As the door closed Jacmel pushed Marion away from him. She stumbled backward in the half dark and would have fallen had two hands not come out and grasped her by the waist and elbow. She turned, terrified again, twisting to try and break the grip, then his voice came. “Steady,” he said, “it’s all right.”

  A feeling of relief swept over her, driving a sob up into her throat. It was Tim’s voice. For a second, for one isolated magical moment, Tim spoke to her, not from the grave but here in this house; a Tim with hands and a body, who held her, helping her, steadying her, as he had helped her across the stones of the river bank long ago.

  The light came on and she saw he was not Tim at all. This was an older man with a drawn face. He looked frightened, too. Then she saw the body on the floor and she shuddered with this second blow.

  Jacmel had stripped off the maid’s uniform and had come into the centre of the hall after switching on the light. He pointed at Louise with his gun. “I was telling the truth,” he said. “Look.”

  Still feeling the protective hand on her elbow, Marion moved towards the body. It was naked except for a pair of pants. She could see the huge black patches where the poison had attacked the blood vessels. The damage was prodigious.

  “When was she bitten?” she asked shakily.

  “Four hours ago,” Jacmel said.

  She turned away from the body, unable to continue looking at it. “She’s dead,” she said, more to herself than to the two men.

  “Yes,” Jacmel said, “she is dead.”

  “Why did you want me then?”

  “Because you are an expert, Madame doctor. The police have experts, we too must have experts. You are a snake expert. We need such an expert. It is logical.”

  She heard a movement at the top of the stairs and a third man came to the landing overlooking the lower hall. She could not see him clearly but his voice was high and brittle.

  “What are you playing at?” he shouted. “What the hell do we want with her?”

  Jacmel turned sharply. “I told you to watch the child,” he said.

  “You told me!” Dave mimicked. “You’re always fucking telling me! Except when you go and do something bloody stupid like bringing this woman–”

  “Get back!” Jacmel said. “Get back into the room!” He ran up the stairs towards Dave. At that moment the two men were totally engaged with each other. Jacmel’s back was towards Marion. Dave was looking directly down the stairs and not over to the left where Marion, Howard and Louise’s body made a small group. For a moment she was sure that she could reach the door. Her muscles flexed. She began to turn, to explode away from the spot on which she was standing, when she felt the hand on her arm again and heard Tim’s voice saying, “He’ll kill you.”

  In that second Jacmel stopped dead, turned and looked at her. Slowly he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out something and held it out so that she could see it. It was the key to the front door. In a soft voice he said, “If you try to get out we will hurt the child. You understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Then you and M ‘Oward bring Louise.” He went on up to the landing.

  The man with Tim’s voice said, “My name’s Dick Howard. I live here.”

  “You’re not one–”

  “No. The Frenchman’s Jacmel. The other’s Dave. The chauffeur.”

  The voices on the upper landing had risen. The two men were arguing fiercely. She turned to Howard and said, “Thank you for stopping me.”

  His reply made little sense to her then, but later she understood. “It’s easy to stop,” he said. “It’s starting that’s so difficult. Let’s do as he says.”

  “The child,” she said. “Is he . . .?”

  “Philip’s all right, so far.” He bent down and placed his hands under Louise’s arms and as he began to lift, Marion saw a flash of pain cross his face.

  The voices on the landing had grown louder and she heard the man called Dave say, “No! Not me! Things like that turn my stomach!” The argument came to a sudden halt and Jacmel leaned over the bannisters. “Leave her,” he said. “Come up.”

  Howard lowered the dead woman’s torso. “Who shot the policeman?” Marion asked softly.

  “The other one. The chauffeur, Dave. But this one’s just as dangerous. More probably. Just do as they say.”

  She nodded. And then she asked a question on a subject everyone seemed temporarily to have forgotten. “Where’s the snake?” she said.

  “God knows. Could be anywhere.”

  The two men at the head of the staircase watched as they came up the stairs; she was aware of their stares, especially the hostility in Dave; she was also aware of how slowly Howard walked. He seemed to be labouring and she began to prepare herself mentally for the fact that he was not going to be of much help. When she had first heard his voice her heart had given a sudden lift; but later he had not sounded so much like Tim, perhaps it was simply the flattened vowels which are common on the eastern flank of Africa among whites that had made the voices similar. This man was no Tim; this was someone who appeared to be more frightened than she was, who walked like an old man, struggling to keep up with her on the stairs. Yet with an odd gallantry his hand remained under her elbow, helping her, trying to reassure her.

  They went into the sitting-room and immediately she froze. It could be anywhere, she thought: behind a chair, in the fire-place, behind the curtains, and in the dim light it would be invisible. She felt a gentle pressure from his fingers and he said, “It’s all right, it’s not in here.”

  Reassured, she moved forward into the dimness and he guided her to the sofa, his new querencia, in the middle of the room, and she saw the child.

  Philip woke when they entered the room. He had been dreaming of the Zambesi. In. his dream it had been a wide river, not unlike the Thames at Richmond, but where there were buildings at Richmond, his river had only trees. The water was all dappled in the African sunshine. In his dream he and Dick were floating on the bosom of the river in the sort of boat he had once seen on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, a kind of rowing boat, but shiny with varnish. They floated down the river in the sunlight, safe, secure and warm. So when he awoke he retained for some moments the relaxed happiness of the dream. Then came reality: Dave and the Frenchman with guns, Dick walking slowly, like an old man, still bent slightly in the middle from the pain where Dave had hit him. And a woman. And Dick’s hand on her arm. Who was she? What was she doing here? How did Dick know her?

  The relaxation was swept away on a tide of tension; the dream was shattered. And then something happened to Philip that had never happened before: his mind received and translated a flash of insight. It was as though for a brief second he was no longer a little boy, but a grown man. He saw, for the first time in his life, harsh reality shorn of all fantasy. He saw Dick Howard not as a hunter in a dream of Africa, not as some
thing exotic in his drab winter world, but frail and frightened. And seeing him thus made Jacmel and Dave even more menacing. For that brief moment he was gripped by the terror of life–and then it was gone and he was a little boy again with the question still in his mind: Who was the woman?

  The legacy of his moment of genuine perceptive fear came swiftly. He turned to Dick, to ask him who she was, when he felt a sudden tightness in his chest and the attack was upon him. In minutes he could hardly breathe. He was aware of the four adults milling about him, aware of their faces looming over him, then Dick was holding the aerosol inhaler in front of his mouth. He fought for breath, wheezing and gasping, trying literally to suck the air down into his lungs. Something else appeared. A spoon. He took it in his mouth, recognizing the taste of the syrupy liquid it carried: Phenergan. They gave it to him when the attacks were bad. Again the spoon was held out. It was a dessert spoon. Before he had only ever had a teaspoon and only one at that. This time the spoon was held by the Frenchman. He felt the cold metal on his teeth. The spoon was forced into his mouth. He swallowed. The minutes passed. How long he did not know. He began to feel muzzy. His breathing became more regular. He heard Dick’s voice saying, “In, out. In, out. One, two. One, two.” The voice became fainter and fainter until he could hear it no longer.

  Marion held him in her arms. He lay against her, sleeping heavily, and she moved so his head rested on her lap. “He needs a doctor,” she said to Howard, who had never seen a real attack before and whose opinion of Philip’s “imaginary” illness was undergoing rapid change.

  Jacmel said, “But you are a doctor.”

  “Not of medicine,” she said.

  He went to the window to join Dave. “We must be ready when the policeman returns,” he said.

  “Why not let him do it?” Dave said, indicating Howard. Jacmel turned and looked at the sofa and then turned away. “No,” he said softly, “it must be done properly. We cannot take a chance. We trust each other, no?”

  “Yes.” It was hesitant.

  “Well, then?”

  “What with?” Dave said.

  “This.”

  Marion, who had been half following the conversation, heard a snick of metal and saw Jacmel give Dave something but could not be sure what it was.

  “What about the . . .?” Dave said.

  “But we have just come from there. Nothing.”

  “Well. . .”

  “You want to get out of here? You want the money?”

  “ ‘Course.”

  “To do that we have to make your policeman believe, no?”

  “ ‘suppose so.”

  “There is no suppose.”

  “All right, all right!”

  “Good. Do it now.”

  Dave walked to the door, hesitated on the threshold and then passed into the lighted landing and they heard him go softly down the stairs.

  “How do you know?” Marion whispered to Howard.

  “Know what?”

  “That it’s not in here. It could be anywhere. In among the books, anywhere.”

  “I looked.”

  She glanced around. “You looked? In here?”

  He nodded.

  “Without protection?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they let you have the shotgun?”

  “No.”

  She paused, then said, “Alone?”

  “Not by choice.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Just about. Wherever it could be.”

  “Behind the curtains?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the fireplace?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s just that I can’t imagine anyone searching for a mamba without some protection.”

  He looked away as though not wishing to recall the incident, then said, “What else besides Dr Stowe?”

  “Marion.”

  “Didn’t know that,” he said. “Knew it was Dr Stowe because I heard what you said from the street.” He stopped for a moment and then said, “It took courage to do what you did.”

  “It took stupidity.”

  “You weren’t to know what was in his mind.”

  “I looked at you from across the street. I thought you were . . .” She inclined her head in the direction of Jacmel.

  “It was what you were supposed to think.”

  “Yes. Was the light on?”

  “When?”

  “When you looked in here.”

  “Yes. They put the light on.”

  She nodded. Then she said, “When I heard your voice I was reminded of someone.”

  “Who?”

  “My husband.”

  “Does he know where you are?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s just the way you spoke. You’re from Africa, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So was he.”

  “Your voice reminded me of someone too. When you were shouting from the street.”

  “Who?”

  “I couldn’t think at the time. The Queen’s. It must have been nerves. You don’t sound like that now.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He thought of telling her how tough Bulloch was and then realized that wasn’t what she wanted to hear; just the contrary, if anything.

  “You’d tell me?”

  “I simply don’t know. I live in the flat downstairs. I was out, you see. They tricked me, too. When I came back, they were here. Or at least he was. The other two worked here. They were in on it from the beginning. Planned the whole thing.”

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  “Who? The policeman?”

  She nodded. “He thinks it’s only the two men. He doesn’t know about the maid, and he doesn’t know she’s dead.” She looked at Jacmel but his attention was on the street. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “They’ve found a door at the back.”

  “What?”

  “A door. Papered over. It leads into the mews, into some sort of shop, I think.”

  “God,” he said, agitated. “If they burst in he’ll shoot us.”

  “They won’t,” she said. “Not with the snake loose.”

  “Bulloch broke the Sutherland Street siege and the one in the Turkish Airlines office.”

  She tried to recall what had happened. “Wasn’t there an old woman?”

  “She died afterwards. There was a lot of criticism. Newspapers said he was unbending. The chauffeur’s scared of him.” He bent his head again in the direction of Jacmel who was standing in the shadows of the window, his only movement rolling the television aerial cable backwards and forwards under his right foot. “Even he’s not so sure of himself any more.”

  “Why did he want me?”

  She must know, Howard thought. The more hostages the more pressure on Bulloch. At first they only had the boy– Howard was realistic enough to accept their valuation of himself at zero–and once the boy was gone, once they’d had to fulfil a threat they would have nothing left. Now they could sacrifice a pawn to save their king; Marion was the pawn and Philip was the king, and he, Howard, had no place on the board.

  “In case either of them get bitten,” he said. It was a half truth and would serve.

  “They’ve asked for a hundred thousand pounds.”

  “And a car and an hour’s delay.”

  “D’you think they’ll get it?”

  “Yes,” he said, lying, “I think they will.”

  “And then?”

  “And then they’ll release us.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Of course. We’d only get in the way.”

  “It’s not as if we know anything.”

  “That’s right.” His mind saw the huge complex of flats known as Shakespeare Close and he switched off the thought like a light, too frightened to let it stay in his skull.

  She sensed the change in him,
as though he had thought of something that made him more afraid and she wondered if he had been simply trying to reassure her. She didn’t want him to be afraid, she wanted him to be strong and capable, to be able to make decisions, she did not want things to be left to her; she felt empty and afraid and she wanted help. She put her hand on his arm and said, “I feel safer with you here.”

  It did not work. He turned away from her without reacting. But she left her hand on his arm for in some childlike way she gained a certain feeling of security just from the contact with another person.

  Dave came back into the room, his face whiter than ever, his dank hair lifeless and drooping, and Marion was able to smell the sweat on him from three yards as he crossed the carpet. He said, “Here,” and passed Jacmel something in a piece of dirty white rag that could once have been a handkerchief. Marion could not see what it was but both she and Howard watched as Jacmel moved closer to the light that glowed near the fireplace.

  “What about the ring?” Dave said.

  “What about it?”

  “Looks good to me–and she can’t use it now.”

  “Leave it! Is the money not enough that you must steal from the dead?” Jacmel said contemptuously. Dave did not reply and Jacmel pressed home his advantage. “Find a box.” There was finality in his tone and Dave turned away and saw on a small table immediately behind him a silver cigarette box. He picked it up and handed it to Jacmel who placed the white handkerchief inside it and closed it. For a second they looked at each other then Jacmel shrugged and said, “Open the window.”

  The street was empty. A few moments after Marion Stowe had disappeared into the house Bulloch had gone back to the police Rover hollow with rage. He was still there sitting in the back, smoking and brooding, when the call came from the house. “Can you hear me?” It was Jacmel’s voice.

  “Sir,” Rich said after a few moments when Bulloch did not move. “It’s the Frenchman.”

  Bulloch had heard. “Yes?” he growled.

  “The Frenchman’s calling.”

  “So bloody what?”

  “Thought you’d like to know.”