VISITORS TO THE CRESENT

by MARY HOCKING

  She went to bed and the fear remained with her. It had, she realized, come to stay and only the truth would allay it. But what was the truth? She tried to concentrate on that small area of truth which seemed to concern her most of all.

  ‘We aren’t criminals,’ she had said to Vickers, and she knew, looking back over their conversation that the remark had been flung out as a challenge. A challenge which he had not taken up and which she had not dared to press. Now she thought about it again. It seemed obvious that Vickers was engaged in some kind of lawlessness and that Edward had become involved. The one thing that linked them was the shop; so that it was reasonable to assume that the answer lay in the shop. Perhaps they were smuggling. Was there a market for smuggled antiques? She had no idea, but it seemed feasible. At any rate, it was a solution which, in some obscure way, she found consoling. She twisted and turned in her bed. Memory played odd tricks. This had all happened before, but when? At the dead hour of the night, she remembered. When her father had been taken ill, she had lain here worrying about him; she had gone over his symptoms in her mind and she had persuaded herself that he had a stomach ulcer. The solution had given her consolation for a week: then she had gone to the doctor and he had told her the truth. But this time there was no doctor; so she would have to go somewhere else for the truth.

  Chapter Seven

  I

  Harper had had long years of practice in hiding his feelings and as he sat looking down at the table there was nothing in his expression to indicate that he knew that he had lost control of the interview.

  He had been thinking about this woman before she arrived so unexpectedly. She did not fit into the pattern and this disturbed him. MacLeish was all for applying a little pressure when the pieces of a puzzle did not fit, but this was not Harper’s way. He had always considered that, within the appropriate limits, it was the truth with which he was concerned; but now his own conception of the truth seemed to be changing. The more you thought about the truth, the more confused you became and the more the outlines blurred. He was very tired; the zest which he had originally felt for the case had gone and he was experiencing a reluctance to see it through. He had just been telling himself that this exasperating mistiness was entirely due to the fact that he had missed too many meals, and that beer and sandwiches would soon disperse it, when Sergeant Norris rang through to say that Miss Holt was asking to see him.

  He had decided to see her in one of the interviewing rooms and had regretted the decision when it was too late to do anything about it. It seemed that he had left his security behind him with the familiar objects in his own room. The interviewing room was small and bare, just a table and three chairs. He had not realized what an effect it would have on him to be boxed in with this woman, unable to escape without making a complete fool of himself. An unpromising interview had gradually become disastrous. In the first ten minutes he had I not only defended himself with unnecessary sharpness against the suggestion that he had intimidated Edward Saneck, but he had gone on to justify his position and had come damn near to apologizing for himself. It was a performance which would have astonished anyone who knew him. Fortunately, Miss Holt did not know him, so that although he had no hope of regaining the initiative, there was a chance that he might coast through the rest of their discussion without actually crashing. He pulled himself together and looked across at her, his eyes screwed up as though the last gleam of sunlight in the dingy room hurt them. He had not felt so alarmed for Robert Harper since he had been interviewed by a Japanese prison commandant after a fracas with a sentry. The woman was sitting very straight on the edge of the chair, her hands folded on her lap, and she returned his gaze with the steeled steadiness of a person desperately determined to appear fearless. He tried to play his part.

  ‘Miss Holt, if you have any kind of statement to make another officer must be present. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘But I haven’t a statement to make,’ she protested. ‘I want you to make a statement to me.’

  Harper, who felt that he had made too many statements already, merely raised his eyebrows interrogatively and waited for her to enlarge on this. She obviously felt that he was baiting her, and he was glad of that; after all, it was what he should have been doing.

  ‘I want you to tell me what this is all about,’ she said.

  They stared at one another helplessly across the table. After a moment. Harper said:

  ‘I usually ask the questions.’

  She made a quick, nervous gesture with her hands and said distractedly:

  ‘Well then, ask me something.’

  He gave one sideways glance at police regulations, decided that he did not want anyone to witness this scene, and said:

  ‘Why have you come to me? There must be other people – people nearer to you – to whom you could turn for whatever enlightenment you need.’

  There was a much longer silence, during which they both digested the implications of this question and found them mutually disturbing. Jessica showed her concern, while Harper’s face grew more wooden as he cursed himself for all kinds of a fool. Jessica remembered Edward saying: ‘You understand this man, Harper, don’t you? There is an unspoken complicity.’ In this small, enclosed space she was forced to realize that there was some truth in this remark. She wanted to get up and run away, and yet something held her there.

  It was Harper who found that the silence was more than he could bear.

  ‘What is it that you are afraid of, Miss Holt?’ he asked.

  She answered with desolate frankness: ‘You.’

  This time he bit back the defensive reply and merely said:

  ‘You have nothing to fear from me; provided you are not holding back anything I should know.’

  ‘But how do I know what you should know?’ she cried. ‘You invade my house without warning and ask any number of disturbing questions that follow no coherent pattern; your enquiries seem to have no beginning, no end, no limit as far as I can see. You . . . you have turned my world upside down. You owe me some explanation.’

  He avoided the wider aspect of her complaint and said monotonously:

  ‘I should know anything which is of a criminal nature; anything which might, however indirectly, affect the safety of the community . . .’

  ‘There are times when the community has to look after itself,’ she interrupted with the vehemence of a person who feels the ground to be unsure.

  ‘Oh come. Miss Holt!’ Harper collected his scattered armoury for the attack. ‘That may do very well for Miss Brett; but as a writer you surely don’t let yourself get away with that kind of slap-dash talk? The community isn’t a mysterious symbol, a remote “they”; it’s you and I, and if we don’t look after ourselves, no one else will. Have you no sense of self-preservation?’

  ‘I write children’s books,’ she protested irrelevantly.

  ‘Then you have to be even more careful of the way you look at things, surely? Very certain of what I suppose you would term your values.’

  She stared at him reproachfully as though he had taken a particularly unfair advantage of her. Then she rallied and began to speak carefully, rather pedantically:

  ‘You are right, of course, to remind me that as a citizen I have a duty.’

  What nonsense all this is, he thought wearily; and he had to force his mind to concentrate on all the irrelevant arguments she was putting forward so that at the right moment he would be ready with an equally irrelevant answer.

  ‘I’m not insensible to that,’ she was saying. ‘But I have thought things over and I’ve reached the rather shocking conclusion – and I admit it does shock me because I’ve always had a respect for law and order – that I don’t feel strongly about such things as the rights and wrongs of . . .’ She paused, and then said with determination: ‘. . . for example, smuggling antiques.’

  She brought out the words ‘smuggling antiques’ with a flourish and looked at him with sharp intelligence, hoping to catch him unawares. Sh
e succeeded. For a moment, there was pity in his eyes; just as there had been pity in the doctor’s eyes when he told her that her father had cancer. Her small triumph faded and she became so pale that Harper was afraid she was going to faint. He tried to brace her, and himself, by saying sharply:

  ‘Miss Holt, police investigations are a matter which you would be advised to take seriously. Do you realize that if I chose I could treat this as an attempt to get information out of me?’

  She brushed the remark aside wearily: ‘But that’s just what I am trying to do.’

  He regarded her with a dismay which at any other moment would have been comic. Suddenly she saw him as a man who had walked into a trap from which he was frantically trying to find a means of escape; escape for her as well as for himself, she realized. Resentment surged up within her as it had on that evening when his telephone call had so opportunely rescued her from Desmond Ames. But then he had been a distant and rather symbolic figure; now he had revealed himself as another human being caught up in a complex tangle of events that he was no more able to control than she was herself. It was unforgivable of him. Yet in spite of her anger, she returned his pity; it was a bond between them and each chafed against it. They sat facing one another not knowing who, in this small, bare room, was the hunter, who the hunted; they were walled up together, victims of a common disaster.

  I am a policeman, he told himself; I have no other duty but my duty as a policeman. That duty demanded that he should let her go now; he could not be sure that anything else he might say would be in the best interests of his case. She might indeed be here to gather information and to pass it on to Saneck, or even to Vickers. But she seemed so helpless; and if, in fact, she knew so very little her position might be dangerous. It seemed worth taking a small risk.

  I think perhaps you are worried about Edward Saneck?’ He was careful to speak very formally. ‘There is only one thing that I have to say to you in that connection: Edward Saneck would be much wiser to trust himself to me than to the people with whom he is at present involved. If you can bring that home to him, you will have satisfied both your loyalty to him and your equally commendable sense of citizenship.’

  ‘And if I am not in a position to bring it home to him?’

  ‘Then a time may come when you will have to make a choice.’

  He looked at her with an assurance that she herself was very far from feeling; almost, she thought, as though she had already made that choice. But that was wrong; most certainly she had made no choice. She hit out at him defensively:

  ‘Really Mr. Harper, are we talking about some kind of conflict between personal loyalties and duty to the state? As a writer I would call that a rather outworn theme – almost a cliché of situation.’

  He was disturbed to find that he agreed with her; but he said with mock humility:

  ‘You must excuse me. I’m only a simple policeman.’

  ‘ “Duty to the state” reeks of totalitarianism!’ She spoke angrily, but her words carried no more conviction than had his. ‘And, in any case, personal loyalties are always more important to a woman than anything else.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  But that was a question which neither of them was prepared to face yet. He was relieved when she said:

  ‘Because I must have gone temporarily out of my mind.’ She got to her feet quickly, thrusting him away from her with conventional phrases. ‘Thank you for being so patient with me; and now, I mustn’t take up any more of your time.’

  She was still very pale.

  ‘Let me call you a taxi,’ he said.

  ‘No. I think I would like to walk for a while.’

  She was trying to draw on her gloves, but her hands were trembling so much that she had to abandon the effort. His uneasiness returned. As he saw her to the door, he said:

  ‘As a policeman, I want any information you feel that you should give me. But if you know nothing, my personal advice to you is – don’t meddle, don’t involve yourself in anything. Go away. Take a holiday. It is something you can do now; soon it may be too late.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ she said obstinately. ‘I . . . I have too much to do about the house.’

  ‘Then will you promise me that if anything should happen which gives you cause, for alarm, you will come to me?’

  It was a personal appeal and they both knew it.

  Jessica said evasively: ‘I think I have already made you exceed your duty.’

  ‘It is a part of my duty to protect the innocent.’

  She raised her head and looked at him steadily.

  ‘And the persecuted too, no doubt?’

  He was suddenly on his guard. She pressed her advantage home.

  ‘Will you remember that when you come to deal with Edward Saneck?’

  The words struck deep. She knew that when she saw the sudden blankness in his eyes. She did not understand but pity stirred again, and this time she did run away.

  II

  Big Ben was chiming the quarter-hour when Jessica came out of Scotland Yard and turned towards Parliament Street. A quarter-past six. She hesitated for a moment, wondering which way to walk. It was then that she saw Desmond Ames. He was on the other side of the narrow street that led down to Scotland Yard: he was poised on the steps of the Red Lion and even from this distance she could see the dropped jaw, the heavy jowls loose with dismay. He left the pub – and it took a lot to make Desmond Ames do that – and came across to her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  It was by no stretch of the imagination a polite enquiry. His eyes were sharp with fear.

  ‘Well, what are you doing?’ Jessica replied.

  ‘I work at the Air Ministry,’ he answered. ‘This is my nearest pub on the way home.’

  He obviously felt that she had invaded his territory and for no good purpose.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you.’ She made to move past him, but he grabbed her arm.

  ‘That’s Scotland Yard in there. What were you doing?’

  She stepped back, a little alarmed by his belligerence. Four constables came out of Cannon Row police station and walked towards them, laughing and talking. Jessica waited until they came abreast of her and then detached herself from Ames and walked along behind them. She felt rather absurd, but safe; looking back, she saw Ames watching her with the same avid stare with which he had regarded the wood carving belonging to her father.

  She had meant to walk, but quite suddenly she was in a hurry to get home. She caught an 88 bus on the far side of Parliament Street; as it moved off, she saw Ames hurrying into the Red Lion, presumably seeking the one solace left to him. The Air Ministry looked massively secure: but on the other side of the road was the Admiralty, even more like a fortress, but already proved to be not impregnable. She thought about Desmond Ames: he worked at the Air Ministry, he had a salary which was not commensurate with his expenditure, lately he had been drinking so much that it made George Vickers angry. Presumably he would not let much time go by before he informed Vickers that he had seen Jessica Holt coming out of Scotland Yard. She imagined that that, too, would make Vickers angry. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit into place; yet, instead of a pattern emerging it seemed rather that a pattern was disintegrating.

  People scrambled frantically for the bus in Trafalgar Square. She watched them pressing forward as though this were the last bus that would ever run. The amount of energy which was expended on trivial things astonished her. She had felt the same astonishment as she watched people during the blitz; only then their determined concern with the small change of life had seemed rather gallant, perhaps because she herself had been one of them. But now that she felt alienated from them, she found their bustling activity stupid and pointless. She studied their faces, guessing at their anxieties: would the journey be so slow that they would miss a favourite television programme? would the fish be tasty, the steak tender? would there be a letter from Bill, a telephone call from Jane? It seemed to her a
kind of insanity. The bus jolted and jarred, stopped and started, the conductor called out familiar names – Piccadilly, Oxford Street, Marble Arch, She saw, not the familiar places, but a façade as bizarre as the painted stalls in a fairground, and behind the gaudy advertisements and the tinsel glitter was a dark void. And suddenly, it was as though she had slipped through a rent in the façade into the reality of the nightmare.

  Only half an hour ago when Harper had referred to a choice, she had tried to dismiss it as an outworn theme, something which an intelligent woman could not be expected to take seriously. But now, as the sun fell behind the tall buildings and the long city twilight set in, the choice ceased to present itself as a conflict between personal loyalties and duty to the state; the issues involved seemed deeper, denser, more fundamentally disturbing, and intellectual assertions failed to combat an old, primitive fear. While the lamps continue to burn, order and chaos are words without meaning, but when the lamps go out, chaos becomes a reality. And in the confusion which claimed her, Jessica could see only one thing clearly: Vickers was king in the land of nightmare.

  Park Road East had emerged tattered and exhausted from its battle with the day, the street cluttered with parked cars and late delivery vans, peanut shells and pulped tomatoes on the pavement, flowers and a dead pigeon in the gutter. A pallid blue light flickered from a television screen in a shop window and music blared from the open door of a public house. But in Cedar Crescent, there was the quiet of defeat; and as Jessica hurried along the road she had the feeling of being already too late. She opened the front door: there was something irrevocable about the silence in the house.

  ‘Edward!’ she called.

  There was no reply. Of course, there would be no reply because the cry of warning is never heeded: that is part of the law of nightmare. She fumbled in her bag, found her keys and opened the door of the sitting-room. He was not there and he was not in any of the other rooms. Perhaps he was working late in the shop? She looked at her watch; the journey back had taken longer than she had realized and it was just after seven o’clock.