by Brian Lumley
“’Course I do, love, but he thinks it is! Angela, this bloke is as barmy as they come. So you get out of there. There’ll be motors on the roads by now, but even so he’ll still be able to bus it up there in about twenty-five minutes. And if he has a car, it’ll be even quicker. Just tell Siobhan not to answer the door to anyone, and then make yourself scarce. Do you need money?”
“No, that’s one thing I’m not short of.”
“Off you go, then. Me, I’m calling the police.”
“What? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m not a hospital case, if that’s what you mean. But he scared the shit out of me, yes. And I’ll likely have bruises on my windpipe for a week! You should know what he’s like if anyone does.”
Angela had fingered her own slender throat. “But the police, George!” she’d protested. “It’s all over for him if you call them.”
“Better if it’s all over for him than for you or some other poor sod! Now you do what you want to, Angela, and I’ll do my own thing. But right now, love, get the hell out of there. You’re wasting time!” And with that he’d put the phone down.
Then, no longer concerned whether Siobhan had hysterics or not, she’d rushed about the house bundling her few things into a travel bag, and as her friend had stumblingly followed her about trying to get orientated, told her what was happening.
“Rod, coming here?” Siobhan had finally got the message.
“Lock the door after I’ve gone,” Angela had breathlessly told her. And she’d left her with a kiss on the cheek. She hadn’t even had time to say thanks.
At midday, from Waverly Station in Edinburgh, she’d phoned Siobhan and got the story. Rod had arrived a little after the police, and George had been a few minutes behind him. Except there’d no longer seemed to be any anger left in Rod, just tears, exhaustion, shame. Siobhan even sounded a little sorry for him. George hadn’t brought charges; the police had shrugged and called it “a domestic,” and they’d asked Rod if he wanted to report Angela as a missing person; George had finally gone off late to work and Rod … had fallen asleep in the spare room! In fact he was still sleeping there now.
Well, he had been, but he’d heard Siobhan on the telephone. And suddenly, instead of talking to Siobhan, Angela had found herself talking to Rod. He must have had a good dose of whatever he’d been on, because she could still hear it in his voice. She recognized and knew that tone only too well, and also that any remorse he’d shown had been make-believe, conjured to pacify the police and perhaps to give himself a break from the pursuit.
“Hello—Angela? Sweetheart, you can’t go on running forever,” he’d said. Not: “I love you, forgive me.” Not: “Angela, I’m going mad and I need you so badly. I can’t live without you.” Not: “I’m sorry. It doesn’t have to be like this. Let’s try it this way: do your own thing for three months and then see me. And if you see no change in me, then we’ll go our own ways. And if we do, then no hard feelings, only soft ones.” If he’d said any of those things … she couldn’t think how she might have reacted. For she had loved him desperately—once. But he didn’t, just:
“Angela, sweetheart, you can’t go on running forever.” And there’d been that in his use of the word “sweetheart” which had told her a lot, and a threat in his words that said, albeit obliquely, “And when you finally stop running, I’ll be right there behind you.”
“Rod …” she’d at last answered. “Rod, I—”
“Where are you, sweetheart?” he’d cut in. And God, she’d almost told him! But saving her: “Who is he?” Rod had continued, his voice cold, lacking the emotion she might expect in any normal man. “Who has taken my place, Angela? Does he love you any better than I did? Does he make love to you any better?”
And that was when she’d slammed the phone down, for she’d heard that loathsome leer creeping into his voice, and she’d recognized that, too.
“Love?” Rod didn’t know the meaning of the word. “Sex,” he knew, and “lust.” But looking back, Angela could only remember a handful of times when Rod had actually made “love” to her. In the early, tender times, when he’d courted her, and in those few short weeks after they were married. But then there had been difficulties with his new boss, and Rod couldn’t hack any sort of competition or threat. He’d had trouble with the bottle before (Angela hadn’t known about that) and now leaped right back on the hook. Toss tenderness out of the window! With a drink inside him, Rod was an animal. Since when, with only the occasional, merciful break, Angela’s life had become a long unending nightmare.
Make love to her? He had once upon a time, yes, but not anymore. Now, when the bottle hadn’t killed it in him entirely, it was no longer love but rape in the ugliest, fullest meaning of the word! Instead of lashing out at his boss, he lashed out at her. Instead of tearing up his files and his contract, she’d thought he was trying to tear her. And it had become a matter of survival—and of pride, for her parents had tried to warn her off him—to recognize his every mood, sense the slightest imbalance in his emotions before it could go right out of kilter.
But his drinking, his rages, and worst of all his insane accusations hadn’t improved; finally Angela had woken up and asked herself, “Do I need this?” She hadn’t, and so she’d run.
Yes, and now she was running again. But she promised herself, this was the last time.
Her parents had their place in Perth, where they’d retired early. From Edinburgh she’d gone there—or rather, she’d come here—and her folks had done the sensible thing and “gone off to visit friends down south.”
“We’ve had it planned a long time, my dear,” her father had told her—lying in his teeth, the darling. “And now that you’re here to caretake for us …” They’d known what was best for her: to be on her own with plenty of time to think things out. Then she could be herself, without worrying what they were thinking, or about them worrying about her. But before they’d left Rod had called them on the phone, and Angela’s mother had taken the call. So that Angela had discovered how both of them could lie if it was important enough.
With the voice of an angel her mother had told Rod that Angela was in the southwest of England, Torbay, with friends of hers. That was all she could say; Angela hadn’t told her any more than that; why didn’t Rod just give it a rest now and let things work themselves out in their own good time?
It had been a clever move, for it had given Angela another ten days of peace and quiet. Oh, the phone would ring every now and then but she’d trained herself not to answer it. She could make calls if she wanted to, keeping them short, but she must never answer one. She’d come to an agreement with her parents that they wouldn’t call her; any legitimate calls she might ignore probably wouldn’t be important anyway.
After ten days, and no telephone calls at all for the last three, Angela had really started to relax, even to blossom a little. It had been the quietest and the best holiday of her life—until this morning, half an hour ago, when she’d been dragged out of bed by the telephone’s insistent ringing, ringing, ringing. She’d had a letter yesterday from her folks; they would be back Monday; she was left with a last weekend to herself. This would be them on the phone, she’d thought, making sure all was well. But it hadn’t been them, and all was far from well.
Rod’s hiss of discovery, of—anticipation?—when she answered the phone had almost made her drop the thing. And when he’d spoken, she’d recoiled from his voice like it was a snake.
“Angela, you’ve cost me a lot,” he said, slurring his words. “My job, my friends, my pride—everything. My job through my absenteeism while I’ve been chasing around after you, my pride because you’ve driven me lower than any man should go, and my friends because they were screwing you. But now—”
“Rod,” she’d cut him off, her voice a gasp, “there’s no way I’m coming back to you. It’s over.”
“—now we’re going to have it out,” he’d continued as if she hadn’t even spoken. “The Great Lay of
Edinburgh and London, eh? Well, sweetheart, before we’re through you’re going to know what screwing is all about!” And that was all, for then he had put the phone down. Angela had known that Rod’s cracks had opened into chasms. There was no more pretending now, for his threat had sounded very real. Possibly he was only trying to frighten her; well, if so he’d succeeded.
But she had one more place to run to: her uncle’s house in Killin. If Rod followed or threatened her there … then it would be time to call in the police, and to hell with him!
So now she scribbled a note to her parents saying she’d gone down south (they’d guess she hadn’t, and would understand), went out and locked the door, hugged her parka to herself, and climbed into the driving seat of the Volvo. Her parents had left the car for her use.
Crusty snow crunched under her tyres as she turned right out of the drive into the road and headed west for Comrie and Killin. She didn’t notice the battered VW Beetle that stayed back a hundred and fifty yards to her rear, sticking there like glue as she picked her way through the light, early-morning traffic and out of town … .
CHAPTER SEVEN
Turnbull’s Minister, David Anderson, had arrived to pick up Turnbull and Gill at 7 A.M. sharp. He’d had coffee with them before they’d trooped out to his car. Over their coffees, Turnbull had shown him the finger. The big minder had tried often enough in the past to shock his boss (it was a thing they had between them) but he’d never quite succeeded. While Anderson had nothing of Turnbull’s military background, still he didn’t shock very easily. All a matter of being in control, Turnbull supposed. Anderson had picked up and studied the digit in its jar, shook it pale and stiff this way and that, and gone on drinking his coffee.
Anderson was jowly and overweight, wore fancy, almost feminine spectacles with ornate wings, and a white silk handkerchief flopping from his pinstripe pocket.
“Probably the index finger,” he’d finally commented, taking out his handkerchief and dabbing at his thick lips, his voice dry, well-bred, but not especially superior. “See how the tip is tilted to the right, inclining inwards towards the nail? Compare it with your own. Yes, right-hand index, I’d say. His trigger finger. So he’ll not be shooting at anyone for a while—unless he can grow a new one!”
“He didn’t shoot,” Turnbull had reminded him. Anderson had been told the details, but the finger looked so human it was easier to connect it to an orthodox weapon.
“This is what he used,” said Gill, producing the dented silver cylinder.
“Alien?”
“Yes,” said Gill. “I … caused it to work. For a few seconds, anyway.” He indicated the cleanly sliced tabletop.
The Minister had looked—looked under the table, too—and frowned. “Have you tidied up since last night?”
“No.”
“No sawdust,” Anderson had pointed out. “No … debris? And yet there’s a slice an eighth of an inch thick missing from the table. This—well, whatever it is—disintegrates, totally. Can you dismantle it?”
“I haven’t tried.” Gill had shrugged. “If it will X-ray, that might give us a clue. I didn’t want to do it any more damage.”
“Good!” Anderson had nodded. And he’d pocketed the thing. “I’ll get it right back to you.”
“You should have some top people look at the finger, too,” said Gill. He placed the jar and contents in a plastic bag, handed it over.
Anderson placed the bag between his feet, nodded his agreement. Then, hurrying now, he’d said to Gill, “Listen, Spencer, things are happening. Our monitors have been picking up an all-round increase in activity. And you?”
“For seven or eight days now,” Gill had answered. “I told you about it.”
“Hmm. Well, give yourself a pat on the back. You twigged it before the instruments. Right now it’s hitting a new peak of activity. Any ideas?”
Gill shook his head. “I can’t say,” he said. “Not for certain. But—”
“But?”
“I’ve had this feeling it was gearing itself up.”
For a little while there had been silence; then Anderson had grunted, nodded, and that had seemed to be that.
Through all of this Turnbull had been all ears but hadn’t made a lot of what was said. But as Anderson had stood up, ready to leave, he’d blurted, “Can you break that down into tiny little words for me?”
Anderson had looked at Gill. “He’s your man. It’s up to you.”
Getting their coats on and as they went out in the frosty morning to Anderson’s car, Gill had explained, “We have monitors, up there on Ben Lawers behind the perimeter fence. Dug in. Unobtrusive. If you look hard, you can make out their aerials.”
“Monitors?”
“Ultrasonic, infrared, radio, other radiations—anything we know how to measure. The harder a machine works, the more energy it consumes—and the more it radiates. Heat or whatever. As you rev a car, so its engine runs faster, gets hotter.”
Turnbull had nodded. “Or as a mass of fissionable material moves towards critical, so the radiation levels go up.”
“Right,” said Gill. “Exactly right.”
“And we’re going up there—now?”
“The Castle isn’t a bomb,” said Gill.
The Minister got into the driving seat, said, “I want to have another look at it. It fascinates me. But it’s not just idle curiosity. I want you to have a look at it, Gill. See if there’s anything at all—anything new—you can tell us. Then I’m off back down to London. They’re very concerned about things down there. Evacuation models I have to check over, you know?”
“He said it wasn’t a bomb,” Turnbull pointed out.
In his ear, Gill quietly said, “In case we need to use ours.”
“By the way,” said Anderson too loudly as Gill and Turnbull got into the back of his Mercedes, “this gentlemen is Jean-Pierre Varre.” His voice returned to its normal tone, became dry as tinder as he added, “Er, from France. He’s here to see you, Spencer. But I don’t have to remind you—or you, Jack—that the Castle is a sensitive subject.”
Waiting for them in the front passenger seat, Varre nodded curtly. He was small, slim, looked a little peeved. “Talk all you wish,” he said. “About whatever subject. I am not interested in your Castle—not especially. But as the Minister said, I am here to speak with you, Mr. Gill.”
Since talking about the Castle was now out, Gill said, “Fire away. How can I help you, Mr. Varre? Except, well, don’t take that as a promise.”
“Mr. Gill is a very busy man,” Anderson added. “And his time is limited.”
Gill stared at the back of Anderson’s neck but said nothing. He knew—hoped—Anderson hadn’t meant it that way. On the other hand, he knew he wasn’t much for mincing his words, either.
They drove northeast out of the village to the first barrier on the loch road. As they went, Varre started to explain what he wanted. “Mr. Gill, I’m told you have a rare talent.”
“Unique, we think,” the Minister corrected him.
“Very well, unique.” Varre nodded. “Some few years ago your government opted out of the European Space Programme. It had to do with finance—a certain tightness of the purse strings? They couldn’t see their way clear to put up the necessary funds. Also, since the USA and USSR were already in the driving seat, as it were … well, there’s no use shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. This was their reasoning. Some decisions of this sort might be seen as reasonable, others as sheerest folly—like abandoning HOTOL.”
“Go on,” said Gill.
“During the course of the last twelve months, however,” Varre continued, “your government has been trying desperately to get back in. The so-called Castle may have much to do with that; it is generally accepted as an alien artifact, some sort of spaceship; it begins to seem likely that in the not too distant future intercourse with alien worlds is to become a reality—and of course Great Britain would not wish to be emasculated in that area.”
> “Not in any area!” Turnbull muttered, but to himself.
Gill had already decided he didn’t much care for Monsieur Varre. There was something overly unctuous about the little Frenchman; he spoke openly enough, and his accent was only faintly French, but still it was as if his words sidled, instead of coming head-on. Politicians can be like that and get away with it, but Varre wasn’t a politician. His eyes, like Turnbull’s, were heavy-lidded—but that was where any similarity ended. For the eyes themselves were too bright, shifty, possibly devious. A snake’s eyes, or those of a clever cardsharp. In any event, a sharp operator.
“Get to the point,” said Gill.
“So far,” said Varre, “the efforts of your government to get back into space have proved futile: ESP’s contributors have put in a lot of trust, goodwill, money, and success can’t be too far away. In less than three years our shuttle will be a reality—and far and away superior to the current American vehicle. But … of course there are problems. Not insurmountable. Time, alas, is the great enemy. Technical problems, yes: small faults in ballistics, in computer linkage, perhaps even in basic engine design. In many instances our only recourse is to a system of trial and error. And time slips by, and costs rise. If we could enlist your aid, however, and if your, er, rapport with machines is all they say it is …” He let it tail off.
Gill stared again at the back of Anderson’s neck, and this time the Minister must have felt it. “Not my line, I’m afraid,” he said, without looking back. “Hardly SDI, is it? Not yet for a while, anyway.” And to Varre: “You realize of course that Mr. Gill’s fees would be quite astronomical?”
Varre smiled, and Gill felt sure that if he’d had moustaches he would have rolled their ends in his fingers. “His fees and the difference between what ESP members have put in and what Great Britain has not put in might easily balance themselves out—er, if his work in this respect is fruitful, of course.”
Gill thought: The Frog is assuming that it’s all over bar the shouting, that he’s made me an offer I can’t refuse. If I’m lucky, I have maybe two years left, and even now I don’t have enough time to do my own things. If it wasn’t that the Castle fascinates me, I’d be out of here. Why should I waste what time’s left skipping to and fro between here and Paris? What was more, he knew he couldn’t help. And so out loud he said:
