Darling Deceiver

by Daphne Clair

  He looked at her and suggested, `Let's see if we can find him.'

  They moved quietly through the trees, stopping every so often to locate the direction of the clear, whistling call. Cade covered the torch with his hand, allowing a minimum of light for them to see by.

  Then they suddenly came on it, and Cade flashed the torch beam full on as the absurd bird, the egg-shaped body covered in long fur-like feathers, ridiculous little apologies for wings flapping uselessly in fright, its long curved beak poking agitatedly ahead of gleaming little eyes, fled from them precipitately on thick, long legs.

  `You're lucky,' she said as the creature disappeared ,into the blackness among the trees. `You've seen your kiwi.'

  She stepped back, ready to turn and retrace their steps, and something rolled under her foot with a metallic thud and she flung out an arm to keep her balance, grazing her hand on a nearby tree.

  Cade's hand, grasped her other arm, steadying her, and he flashed the torch at their feet, revealing a beer can and several cigarette butts, white against the myriad browns of the forest floor.

  Faint anger stirred at the thoughtlessness of people who littered the most beautiful places on earth with their carelessly thrown rubbish, before Cade shone the

  torch up and asked, Are you all right?'

  'Yes,' she said, then noting a faint throbbing in her hand, she touched it with the fingers of the other and amended, 'At least, I think I've collected a splinter.'

  'Let me see.'

  She held out her hand to the light, and there it was, a nasty little sliver of rough wood, under the skin of her palm, on her right hand.

  'It looks as though my first aid is required again,' said Cade. 'We'll go back and find some tweezers.'

  `I'd pick up the litter first,' she said.

  He took her arm and said, 'Another time. Let's go.'

  Then he didn't move, and she laughed and said, 'We're lost—aren't we?' It was funny, his being so masterful about it, and then finding he didn't know which way to go.

  -- 'Shut up l' he said, quietly but with such sharpness that it stilled her laughter abruptly. With a spurt of anger, she said,

  `Sorry, I'd forgotten what, touchy egos you entertainers have.'

  He said, 'The lake is over there,' and turned her to walk through the soft darkness until she saw the sparkle of the water in the moonlight. Had he seen it before her, or had his exceptionally sensitive hearing picked up the soft lapping of the water-against the gentle shore?

  But she didn't ask him, because he had shattered the more mellow mood they had shared for a while; and she felt faintly resentful. Besides, her hand was stinging and sore.

  Once they found the shore it was easy to make their way back to the lodge.

  Inside, she said, 'I'll manage,' and made for the bathroom, but Cade followed and insisted on drawing out the splinter for her and dousing it with disinfectant. He did it with a detached air that almost piqued her,

  .

  so impersonal was his touch, and after he had pressed a piece of plaster over the small wound he left the room immediately, giving her an almost curt 'Goodnight.'

  He had gone downstairs again, and she didn't hear him come up before she went to sleep.

  His mood Seemed to last over the next few days. He was inexplicably distant, almost absentminded, as though he was continually thinking about something else, and yet at the same time there was an underlying vigilance in him, a concealed alertness that showed when he whipped round his head at some small, unexpected sound, when he scanned the landscape with seeming casualness when they left the house. He spent quite a lot of time sitting on the verandah facing the lake, with a pair of binoculars lifted to his eyes.

  With' Cade's attention seemingly shifted from' her, Carissa should have been relieved, but the atmosphere was still subtly tense, and she sometimes felt as though her nerves had reached screaming point.

  She had been swimming alone in the lake, in the late afternoon, and was pulling a towelling robe about her when she saw a flight of red and green parakeets, about ten of them, alight nearby in the trees. Enchanted, she walked softly closer, trying to get a nearer look it them as they flitted about among the branches, the vivid scarlet feathers flashing.

  She almost fell over the boat, drawn up across the sand and under the trees, before she saw it, because it had been covered with branches torn from the trees, the leaves slightly withered, but still green.

  She stood staring down at it, her heart beating fast, it was so secretive, a boat hidden like that. Soft prickles of unease chased up her spine, and when a figure appeared among the trees nearby she jumped.

  'Sorry—did I startle you?' The man looked so harmless, as he had in the shop when he had absentmindedly blocked the door, then apologetically stood aside, and

  at the pool when she had barely acknowledged his greeting, that she stopped her quick movement of flight and said with some breathlessness, 'Yes, you did, a bit. What are you doing here?'

  He gestured to the binoculars hanging about his neck and said, 'Bird watching. You too, huh?' He smiled. 'Those parakeets—they're worth' watching, aren't they?'

  'Yes. Is this your boat?'

  'Yeah, sure. Anything wrong?'

  'I wondered why it was—camouflaged.'

  'Well, to fool the birds, naturally. Makes quite a good temporary hide, you see.'

  She looked again, and did see that the blanches were leaning towards each other, making a sort of tent over the boat, and that it would be easy to crawl in there and use it as a hide to observe the wild life without being seen.

  'I'm afraid you're on private property here,' she told him.

  'I am? Gee, I sure am sorry to hear that,' the man said, looking crestfallen. 'It belongs to-er—you and your husband?'

  'Actually, to a friend,' she said. 'We have no authority to allow birdwatchers to use it,-I'm afraid.'

  'Oh, I understand,' he said. `Guess I'd better move on out.' With obvious reluctance he began to move the greenery away from the boat.

  'When did you move in?' she asked, wondering how the angels had missed seeing him.

  'Oh, in the early hours of the morning,' the man said, throwing aside a branch. 'The best time to see the birds, you know, early morning. I set up when it was still dark, and waited.'

  'You must have a lot of patience,' she said.

  He shot a glance at her, then turned his attention to another branch, saying briefly, 'I have.'

  She bent to help him, and said sharply, `What's

  that?'

  There was a long, canvas-wrapped bundle in the bottom of the boat.

  'My tripod,' the man said, casually. 'For my camera,' he explained.

  oh, yes.' There was a rucksack stowed under the seat, and another square-looking canvas bag such as she had seen photographers using. -

  She helped him to push off into the water, and he waved at her as he rowed into the lake. She walked back along the sand, to find Stan coming towards her.

  `Who's your friend?' he asked.

  'No friend. Someone you missed last night,' she said. 'A birdwatcher—a genuine one.'

  'You sure about that?'

  'Well, I think so. He seemed very open. He came in last night—or rather, in the dark hours of the morning.'

  'We patrol along the shore all night,' Stan told her. 'Maybe he slipped in between patrols.' 'Yeah—maybe. I don't like it, though. I wish your

  Mr Franklin was a bit less—independent.'

  She smiled, guessing he would have liked to use a stronger word. 'He's restless,' she said. 'He doesn't like being—confined.'

  She left him on the shore and turned to go back to the lodge, surprised to find that Cade had left the verandah and was standing on the wide lawn, sweeping the lake with his binoculars.

  He lowered them as she came near, and asked, 'Where have you been?'

  'Swimming,' she said. 'I told you

  'You came out of the water twenty minutes ago,' he said harshly, stirring res
entment in her with his accusing tone.

  'I was watching some parakeets—' she began, stop-

  ping as she caught disbelief in his face. Perversely, she decided not to go on and tell him the rest. 'Do I have to account for my every movement to you?' she asked angrily, and brushing past, hurried into the house.

  She had half expected him to follow, but he didn't. She supposed that Stan would tell him. about the American, she was damned if she would.

  She refused to go with him next day when he wanted to take the boat on the lake. They had been out in it once or twice, while Stan or Pat pretended to be fishing from their own runabout nearby, but she knew they didn't like the idea much. They felt it made Cade too visible and too vulnerable.

  She sat in the shade of the .verandah and watched as the boat nosed out of the inlet and into the lake, and relaxed slightly as she saw, several minutes later, the following wake of the angels' boat as they passed nearby.

  There were several boats on the water, and at one end of the lake a water-skier was flying behind a roaring speedboat. Carissa was convinced that Cade would have liked to have that sort of speed just now, the thrill of power and the wind whipping through his hair as he skimmed over the water with the spray in his face. a'he outboard motor on Morris's small boat was capable of respectable but not thrilling speed.

  She watched as he cut the engine almost dead in the middle of the lake, idling for a while before he turned the nose towards the shore again and began coming in slowly.

  When the spurt of water suddenly leaped just in front of the boat, she thought it was a jumping trout. Then the sound of, the rifle shot registered on her shocked ears, and she found herself up and running down the steps and across the lawn as another shot came and she saw Cade suddenly sprawl forward.

  Still running, she screamed, 'No!' and Cade's name as the boat seemed to suddenly leap forward, then turn as though out of control, taking an erratic course away from her. The other boat, with Stan and Pat in it, had passed Cade's, and she heard confused shouting above the snarl of the motors.

  Her feet splashed into the water, and she stopped, sobbing with fear and frustration, trying to see what was going on out on the water.

  The angels' boat had taken off across the water, pursuing a green speedboat that suddenly shot out from the cover of the trees. Then she saw with a tremendous surge of relief Cade's dark head come up as he steered the boat after them.

  She was standing on the sand when they cane back, with Pat in Cade's boat and Stan driving the other. They appeared subdued as they brought the boats into the sand.

  She had dried her tears and tried to appear composed as Pat said, 'We lost him. The boat was hired, and no one knows where he came from. Well, the police will have to come into it now. There were witnesses to that little lot. The armed offenders' squad is on its way, but I don't think there's much chance they 'll catch him—not in this country.'

  'He knows where Cade is,' she said, keeping her eyes on Pat, on Stan, not looking at Cade at all.

  'We're spending the night in the lodge, with you,' said Stan. 'And as soon as we have a police escort, we'll get you and Mr Franklin out of here.'

  'We'll get our stuff and move in now,' Pat said. 'You two had better go to the house—and stay there.'

  'We'll be ten minutes Stan added reassuringly. 'He can't get back here in that time.'

  They moved off swiftly together, and for the first time Carissa looked at Cade's face. His eyes were glittering, and there was a narrow smile on his dark face.

  He looked grimly exhilarated.

  She thought of the tearing emotion that had brought her screaming to the water's edge when she had been so terrified that he might have been hit, and the long wait until he returned with the other two men. And in some perverse way he was obviously enjoying himself

  She took a long, shuddering breath, exclaimed, `Damn you!' And turned away from him, running for the house.

  There was an air of siege about the lodge by the time the angels deposited sleeping bags and rucksacks and their incongruous fishing gear in the big lounge, and -had gone round checking locks and windows.

  'I never liked the idea of us being next door instead of right on the spot,' Pat grumbled. 'You're a stubborn man, Mr Franklin. I'm glad you've changed your mind at last.'

  `There isn't much point in keeping up the pretence of a honeymoon any longer,' Cade admitted. 'Or pretending that you're anything other than—what you are.'

  Carissa's accusing eyes met his enigmatic glance cross the room. She had thought the idea of the two of them being here alone was Morris's or possibly mooted by the angels themselves. But apparently it was at Cade's suggestion--even at his insistence over the angels' better judgment.

  The first contingent of police arrived more quickly than expected, by helicopter. The Inspector who questioned them all seemed to have a good deal of background knowledge already, and while two armed constables prowled around the house outside, he cast a disapproving eye at Pat's rifle and asked to see his licence, then took them all through their individual versions of the traumatic events of the afternoon.

  'Any previous suspicious happenings, odd characters hanging about?' he asked.

  'Someone has been lurking about in the bush near the house,' Cade said. 'He left cigarette ends and a beer can behind.'

  Of course, Carissa thought. How stupid of her not to have realised. The butts must have been quite fresh, when she and Cade stumbled across them. They had been starkly white against the brown of the dead leaves.

  'And then there was your birdwatcher,' said Pat, turning to Carissa.

  She heard Cade's voice say softly, 'What birdwatcher?' and looked up to find his dark eyes intent on her face, his body tensely still.

  Pat said, 'Didn't she mention it?'

  Cade, was still looking at her as he repeated, 'What birdwatcher?'

  She wrenched her gaze away from his because it frightened her, and as calmly as she could told the Inspector about her encounter with the strange American who had said he was bird watching.

  Cade's hard stare unnerved her, and she stumbled once or twice over the words.

  After the Inspector had, gone she made a meal, glad, of the presence of Stan and Pat, because she was still nervous-or Cade, disliking the way he watched her.

  She sat up late in the lounge, trying to concentrate on her crochet, while Cade strummed softly on his guitar and the other two, periodically left the room to check that the house was still secure and to contact the two policemen still on duty outside.

  Is was almost midnight when she finally put down the hook and yarn and announced her intention of trying to get Some sleep.

  Cade rose too, and followed her up the stairs, making her heart thump as she tried to ignore his presence just behind her.

  She was walking to her room when he caught her arm in a firm grip and said, 'Your room or mine?' `What?'

  `You heard.

  `What are you talking about?' she said sharply. 'We've never shared a room, and we're not starting now.'

  'Yes, we are. I want, you to hold my hand.'

  `Very funny! This doesn't scare you in the least—you're enjoying it!'

  'Aren't you?'

  'No!'

  'Well, maybe not. Things haven't quite gone as planned, have they?'

  'No.'

  'Never mind. Better luck next time. But don't think I'm going to hand you my head on a plate, dear little schemer. You're not going out of my sight until Gomez is safely locked up:

  For a moment she was stunned. Then as the implications sank in she said in a shaken voice, 'What on earth do you mean, Cade?'

  I like that innocent look,' he said critically. It's good. But too late. You shouldn't have let me see this afternoon how—chagrined you were that your friend had missed me.'

  'What?' The shock was so great that she felt the hall in 'which they stood was moving, and she closed her eyes and swayed.

  She heard Cade say roughly, 'Come in here,' and
he shoved her into his own room and closed the door ' -decisively behind them, releasing her arm.

  'Cade, please,' she said breathlessly. 'This is crazy! You're quite wrong.'

  'Am I? You have the whole night to convince me. Meantime, I'm taking no chances'?

  `But, Cade, it's fantastic! How could I possibly have

  any connection with Gomez?'

  'I don't know how—but I know that he spoke to you when we went to the hot springs the other day. And I know you hoped I wouldn't find out about you meeting him yesterday. Did you arrange that at the pool?'

  'I didn't arrange anything. Was he Gomez? Didn't you recognise him at the springs, then? You never said anything.'

  'I didn't know then who he was. I wasn't sure until I saw him in the boat today. But I knew when I saw him pull out the other day after meeting you that it was the same 'man who spoke to you at the pool. And today I recognised him again. No wonder you wouldn't come in the boat today!'

  'What exactly are you getting at?' she asked care' fully.

  'Somehow, you made contact with Gomez,' he said. 'Or he with you—perhaps that's more likely. He tracked me to here, saw you about the place and waylaid you on one of your shopping expeditions, perhaps.'

  Carissa remembered then the incident in the shop when the man had stared at her so hard he forgot he was blocking the door, and to her horror she felt her cheeks grow hot.

  Cade gave a softly unpleasant laugh and said, 'You're not a very clever actress, really, darling. You forget, the first time you fooled me so successfully I was blind.'

  'It isn't true,' she said desperately. 'Anyway, why should I want to help him? I don't want you killed '

  `Then why did you conveniently forget to mention your little chat in the bush the other day with the birdwatcher? Why did you say damn you, when I arrived back safe and sound this afternoon? Why didn't you tell the Inspector you've met the man who shot at me more than once?'

  'I didn't think it was important,' she said hopelessly. 'Cade, you can't believe any of this! What possible

  reason could I have for wanting to hurt you?'