VISITORS TO THE CRESENT

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘No one mentioned anything about security,’ she cried. ‘You’re putting words into my mouth.’

  ‘But you were the first person to mention security.’

  ‘I made a mistake.’

  ‘You made the whole thing up? Ames never mentioned being rattled, or nervous, or anything like that?’

  If only she knew whether this was important or not, if only . . .

  ‘Try to answer me, please. Miss Brett. This is rather important. Did you make the whole thing up, or did Ames actually say something about security?’

  He looked down at the report on the table as he spoke; she supposed he must have the information written down there so she answered:

  ‘He said the Air Ministry was lousy with security officers and that one of his colleagues was getting nasty about something.’ The room was stuffy and smelt of sweat; she passed a hand across her forehead. The other man leant forward; but he didn’t say anything, he only looked at her as a man looks at a woman who has been resisting him but who is beginning to weaken. MacLeish was repeating a question for the second time.

  ‘Did Mr. Ames talk to you about his work at the Air Ministry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know what work he does at the Air Ministry?’

  ‘No!’ she shouted. ‘No, I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m not interested in Mr. Ames.’

  Her heart lurched uncomfortably. But he did not grasp the significance of that remark. To cover herself, she said quickly:

  ‘Why don’t you ask Mr. Ames all these questions?’

  ‘We shall do that, of course.’

  And then they would compare what each of them had said. Fear pierced her armour. Would Desmond break down and give George away? She did not trust Desmond; she did not like him, either, and she had no desire to protect him at George’s expense. Her mind began to be dangerously divided. There were so many things to think about, so many points to watch. If only MacLeish would stop talking so that she could think things out!

  ‘Let me go over this again and get it quite straight.’ he was saying, relentlessy setting the merry-go-round in motion again. ‘You met Ames at the Red Lion as the result of a telephone conversation. He told you that . . .’

  This man Smith at the Air Ministry: suppose he had already talked, suppose he had said that he had seen Desmond going into the night club? The alibi was broken as far as Desmond was concerned, and that meant . . .

  ‘Please try to answer me, Miss Brett.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you.’

  He bent towards her; he was very white and the dark, angry eyes bored into her face. He looked at her with a ferocious contempt as though she belonged to a species he did not recognize as human. His lips mouthed something and she didn’t hear again.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ Her voice broke and shame jerked her to herself again.

  ‘Then I’ll say it once more. Desmond Ames made a certain statement and he was overheard by an independent witness . . .’

  ‘He wasn’t an independent witness. He was a policeman.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘They were all policemen. And anyway, he wouldn’t have been interested if he wasn’t a policeman.’

  ‘You do admit then that you were discussing something that would have been of interest to a policeman?’

  ‘We were talking about Desmond’s alibi – I’ve already admitted that.’

  ‘But you don’t admit that he said that he had been to a club . . .’

  Round and round again; and now it seemed as though it would never stop. She felt a deadly temptation to agree with him, to say anything just to gain a moment’s pause while she could sort out George’s position in all this. Her brain reeled. She said in desperation:

  ‘I’d like something to eat and drink.’

  The sergeant spoke for the first time.

  ‘Why didn’t you say that before?’

  He got to his feet, looking down at her; there was an unpleasant flicker of triumph in his eyes. She had thought that it would give her a break, but it only made matters worse; it was like the moment when a man knows a woman will submit and becomes odiously kind. When they brought her the tea she wanted to throw it at them. Her throat was so sore that she could hardly bear to swallow the sandwiches; the cup shook in her hands and tea spilt into the saucer. MacLeish stood by the window, straight and stiff. The sergeant stood by her and offered a cigarette. At least she could refuse that. He bent down and laid his hand on her knee.

  ‘Why don’t you be a sensible little girl?’

  She looked across at MacLeish; he was standing by the window with his back turned to the room. She dropped her cup on the floor and MacLeish swung round.

  ‘I don’t want any more of that!’ she said.

  The sergeant moved away from her quickly and MacLeish returned to the table. The questions began again. She could feel the make-up coated to her face, her body was drenched with sweat. She felt dirty, soiled, her self-respect was crumbling as her bodily discomfort grew. Only two things held her together: hatred of these men, and, festering inside her, resentment against Desmond Ames for bringing this on them all by his weakness. Suppose they were questioning him now? The superintendent wasn’t here – suppose he had already got a confession out of Desmond? What would Desmond have said? Would he have betrayed George?

  MacLeish was saying:

  ‘In your original statement you said that you went to Vickers’s flat at about ten-thirty and that he and Ames were already drinking when you arrived.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you stayed there all night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He leant forward.

  ‘Miss Brett, did you see his car outside the shop?’

  Car? she thought desperately. And then she remembered; all this trouble started because of something to do with a hit-and-run accident.

  ‘No.’ She was sure that was the right answer. ‘No, it wasn’t outside.’

  ‘Do you know whether it was in the garage?’

  ‘No.’ She was sure the answer should be no, but she had forgotten . . .

  ‘Do you mean that you don’t know, or that . . .’

  And then she remembered.

  ‘George had lent it to a friend for the evening,’ she said triumphantly.

  She saw MacLeish stiffen and the sergeant raised his eyes from her legs. George didn’t tell them that, she thought in dismay.

  ‘Did he tell you the name of the friend?’

  She hesitated and then said: ‘No.’

  The questions went on and on, and the small flame of hatred which alone kept her going flickered and sank dangerously low. Then, at the moment when she was at her most desperate, the door opened and Harper came in. A little breath of clean, cool air from the corridor drifted into the room; the tight band around her head eased and there was a brief relief for her smarting eyes. MacLeish handed a few notes to Harper who stood reading them through in a rather leisurely way. The atmosphere in the room became less tense. When Harper judged that this slackening of the tension might have had its effect, he turned to Paddy.

  He looked at Paddy as though she were a human being and there was sympathy in his eyes. She was profoundly glad to see him. She looked back at him, hopefully. He had never seemed very formidable to her, and no warning signals flashed in her brain, no small, intuitive voice told her that now, more than at any moment, she needed all her strength and agility. She relaxed, and she had the feeling of peace that people have who lie down in the snow. He gave her a cigarette and let her smoke it before he began to question her. He sat on the edge of the table and he talked to her almost casually, leading her gently from one question to another, treating her with patience and good-humour. As she listened to his calm, matter-of-fact voice the feeling of danger receded. And somehow, although he made no suggestions, his questions were so selected that it became easy for her to divorce the problem of Desmond Ames from the problem of George. In twenty minutes he had al
l the answers that he wanted, she had signed a statement and a police car was taking her home. It was not until she was lying down on her bed that she realized just what had happened.

  In the police station. Harper was saying to MacLeish: ‘Well, she’s sold out Ames. And perhaps he in his turn . . .’

  For once, Paddy would not have contradicted him.

  She had committed the unforgivable sin. She had talked. And no one was to blame but herself. There had been no pressure: indeed, it was the sudden absence of pressure that had been fatal to her. It seemed that in some dark recess of her being she had planned this treachery, but for a time MacLeish and his loathsome companion had kept it at bay. Then, when she was confronted with Harper who did not arouse anger or resistance, this other part of herself had been free to come to the surface. She had never been conscious before of any conflict in her nature, she had been whole and at one with herself. Now, quite suddenly, the harmony had been shattered.

  ‘Harper tricked me,’ she said.

  But she knew that he had merely presented her with an opportunity. She had talked because she did not like Desmond Ames and she was prepared to sacrifice him to George. She had said that he was not with them on the night of April 20th, that she and George had arranged the alibi for Desmond’s benefit, and, finally, she had said that George had lent his car to Desmond that evening. The police, she supposed, would call her evidence perjury. But she was not concerned with the police; she had no qualms about having lied to them.

  ‘I was tired and I didn’t know what I was saying,’ she said.

  But it was no use; the one person to whom she could never lie was herself. She had done all this deliberately, and she had done it for George. That, at least, should have brought some consolation. But the dreadful thing was that as the night dragged out the first small doubt was beginning to trouble her mind.

  Lately he had grown more savage with her, as though the act of love aroused in him only a desperate urge for destruction. Afterwards, he would lie beside her, his body cold and rigid, his face so vacant that his very identity seemed to have drained from him. At such times, she had to lay her hand across his heart to make sure that he still lived. Pity had begun to transform her lust into love. And with love came pain. And anxiety.

  It was her boast that when she cared for a person, she gave everything. But now she saw that this was not quite true. She had said that she would give everything for her father; and yet, when he was cruel to her mother she had resisted him. She had never let herself be bothered by all the tired mumbo-jumbo about right and wrong; but she had her own kind of integrity, a primitive thing, felt rather than understood, a secret possession couched deep in the warm centre of her being. It was the one thing that she had kept to herself. Now, she began to realize that the time might come when George would demand its surrender. She told herself that she would surrender it, that she would give him everything that he demanded. But the old, reckless joy in abandonment had gone.

  Some time during the night a storm broke. She heard the distant rumble of thunder and listened to the rain filling the gutters, lashing the windows. She got out of bed and opened the window. But the promised relief did not come. When she lay down again she found that the room was as stuffy as ever and she could not get out of her nostrils the soiled, sweaty stench of the police station.

  V

  Desmond Ames had done several things for the last time. For one thing, he had stolen for the last time. He had photographed a secret document and stuffed the file in a drawer to be returned early the next morning. He had realized that he was late, panicked as he did so often lately, stuffed the film into his pocket and gone out to his last drinking party. Although he had no idea that it was his last drinking party, he made the most of his opportunities that evening.

  By the time that he left, early in the morning, he was unable to walk and another man bundled him into his car. They had to stop the car several times on the journey and on the last occasion they crawled back to it and went to sleep. The rain, sheeting through a half-open window, failed to revive Ames and they were not disturbed until a milkman banged on the window at seven o’clock.

  ‘Bad night?’ He leered sympathetically and continued on his round.

  They were in one of the squares off Earls Court. The man who owned the car lived in Maida Vale and he was worried about what his wife would have to say.

  ‘You can walk from here, can’t you?’ he said to Ames. ‘Rain will liven you up a bit.’

  And so, at half-past seven Ames was negotiating the corner of the road in South Kensington where his flat was situated. He held on to the railings outside a school and peered down the road, blinking the rain from his eyes. He was wondering how he was going to manage the next hundred yards without the aid of the railings. When his vision cleared a little, he saw that there was a car outside the flats and a uniformed constable standing on the steps. There could be innocent explanations – a burglary, for example – but this did not occur to Ames. He went back the way he had come, rather faster, and tumbled into the first cover that presented itself, which happened to be the entrance to South Kensington underground station. He bought a ticket and got on the first train that came along. It was an Inner Circle. He went round twice and then got out at Notting Hill.

  He staggered down the main road towards Holland Park. People stared at him and, since he could not see his dishevelled hair and his sickly, unshaven face, he imagined that the entire population of London must now be on the look-out for him. He wanted to run, but as he could only breathe in gasps this was impossible. At one stage he was afraid that he would have to sit down in the overflowing gutter and be sick. A bus went by and muddy water splashed his clothes, spattered his face.

  ‘Swine, they are!’ a woman said to him sympathetically, staring after the bus. She turned towards him and he saw a muddled concern in her face. ‘Feeling bad?’ Her hand groped towards him. He pushed past her and ran across the street. When he went along Cedar Crescent towards the antique shop he saw that the door of Number 10 was open; he staggered in and was sick at the side of the stairs. There was a noise above him and he saw Vickers and Paddy Brett staring down at him.

  He lurched up the stairs and was just groping towards Vickers when a car drew up. He saw Harper and MacLeish coming up the drive with what seemed, to his bemused eyes, to be a retinue of uniformed constables. It was at that moment that he remembered what it was that he was carrying in his pocket.

  Chapter Nine

  I

  ‘Superintendent harper is out,’ said the voice at the other end of the telephone, Jessica stared incredulously at the receiver. She had felt as she, made her way to the call-box that the whole scene was like something in a romantic film; the mournful, rain-washed street, the dark, anonymous extras walking by with heads bent submissively before the lash of the rain, the informer sidling up to the telephone box. She had tried not to sidle, but she had felt like an informer. Now, suddenly the atmosphere of the film set was shattered. ‘Out!’ she repeated.

  She had imagined that during the time that she was making her decision he would be immobilized; he would be sitting in his office, waiting for the telephone call that she must eventually make.

  ‘This is Sergeant Norris,’ the voice at the other end of the line said seductively; obviously it was anxious not to let her go. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘No. I’ll call again.’

  A hint of impatience crept into the sergeant’s voice.

  ‘I’m not expecting him back.’

  ‘Not ever?’

  Sergeant Norris drew in his breath and while he was thus occupied Jessica put down the receiver.

  She stared at the dismal, drenched pavements. She must try to get out of this habit of seeing herself as a character in a book. It was ridiculous, the way she had suddenly allowed this thing to develop into a personal affair between herself and Harper. His absence was a reminder that he had other, more insistent duties than his interest – whatever that might be
– in Jessica Holt. Superintendent Harper was definitely not a character in a book, he was a real and rather formidable policeman.

  She pulled up the hood of her raincoat and went out into the street. She crossed Park Road East and made her way slowly towards Cedar Crescent. There were one or two children standing at the corner of the street staring; soon they were joined by a man who also stood and stared. Jessica began to hurry. As she reached the corner she saw a car parked outside her house and a uniformed constable standing on the pavement. The constable was harrying a group of people who had thought it worth their while to risk a drenching standing about outside the house. As she walked along the street, Jessica was conscious of faces at windows, some peering from behind curtains, other unashamedly gaping. She was surprised to find that the nightmare feeling of isolation had gone; she was intensely responsive to these staring faces. She responded even more strongly to the massive assurance of the constable who informed her that she could not enter.

  ‘Nonsense!’ she retorted, equally assertive. ‘This is my house.’

  While he was trying to reconcile this statement with the orders that he had been given she stalked past him. There was another constable standing at the foot of the stairs; he knew her by sight and did not attempt to stop her, but she was uncomfortably aware of his awkward, half-apologetic gaze. There seemed to be a lot of people on the landing, she could not see them but she could hear the muffled voices. She hesitated, half-way up the stairs, and drew back the hood of her raincoat; immediately the voices became loud and distinctive. She heard Desmond Ames, shrill with hysteria, and Vickers, his voice animated by a violence of a different order. The words ‘Member of Parliament’ and ‘Gestapo’ stood out from a babble of incoherence. Vickers’s voice stabbed at the air as though he wanted to do it an injury; she had the impression that he was trying to goad someone into a personal duel with him, and, for the brief instant that she hesitated there unseen, she prayed that this challenge might not be taken up. MacLeish had moved to the head of the stairs; as she caught a glimpse of him, she was reminded vividly of the first time that he had visited the house; the feeling of resentment against the curbs of discipline was even stronger and in that moment she was frightened for him. Then she heard Harper’s voice, cold, quite impersonal, giving instructions to a man she could not see as though he had heard none of the abuse directed at him. Jessica came round the corner of the stairs in time to see the fury in Vickers’s face.