Scream for Sarah

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Better not,’ I croaked. ‘If you don’t give me something to eat and drink, and let me take some exercise so that I get my circulation back, then I’ll not be able to stand by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘So …?’ he said, impatiently.

  ‘Mr. Brent is sending some of his men down here tomorrow morning, to collect the hens. Remember? If I’m not around and about, and looking lively, they’ll come enquiring for me, won’t they?’

  ‘You did this on purpose!’

  Rose laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Toby, dear! How was she to know? She’s a sensible girl. She drove you today, didn’t she? She’s going to get her cut, isn’t she? So we can trust her to fool the farmer tomorrow morning. I really don’t see why you thought it was necessary to tie her up like this in the first place.’

  Toby untied the knots around my wrists and ankles without a word. He could have cut through the cord in a second, but no doubt he was preserving it intact for use at a later date. I tried to sit upright, and failed to make it.

  ‘And Hob,’ I bargained. ‘I’ll not play my part unless you release him, too.’

  Toby gave me a measuring look, but nodded. Rose helped me off the bed. To do her credit, she liked this latest development as little as I did. She rubbed my arms and legs to get the circulation going again but was efficiency itself when it came to confiscating my clothes. Toby helped her empty my chest-of-drawers and remove my things into the double bedroom. Tears came into my eyes as I donned the hated overalls once more. I felt defeated.

  ‘You poor thing,’ she said, mistaking tears of rage for tears of pain. She offered me one of my own handkerchiefs, and helped me to the bathroom. When I came out, Toby had gone, and she was changing her scanty top for a long-sleeved blouse.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ I grinned at her. ‘I couldn’t run away if I tried.’

  ‘I know that, dear. I only wish Toby hadn’t thought it necessary to tie you up. I told him I thought he was being silly, but he’s got the idea into his head that you’re not to be trusted. You’ll just have to bear with him until tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ I asked, not sure how much she knew of Toby’s plans for Hob and myself.

  ‘Only another twelve hours,’ she nodded, retouching her makeup. ‘We were supposed to be here right up to the time we left to catch our plane, but Toby thinks it best if we leave tomorrow instead.’

  ‘You know he’s going to kill us?’ It sounded ridiculous, stated baldly like that, and I could see Rose didn’t believe me.

  ‘Oh no, dear! Toby wouldn’t do a thing like that. We’ll have to tie you both up when we go, naturally … but that’s just to make sure we get a good start. We’ll phone that farmer friend of yours from the airport, and ask him to call round on some excuse or other. He’ll release you, but not before we’re in the air. It won’t matter what tale you tell then.’

  So she didn’t know about the murders in the wood. I thought about telling her, and then decided not to do so. If Toby had not told her, it was a fair guess he had not done so because he feared she might recoil from him if she knew. If I told her, she might or might not decide to help me, but the chances are that she would hardly be an effective ally against Toby and Sid. On the other hand, I might be able to blackmail Toby into agreeing to let us go when he left, with the threat that I would otherwise have to tell Rose that he was a murderer.

  She helped me down the stairs. Hob was still bound to his chair, facing the stump of candle and the length of fuse. The table had been laid for three.

  ‘I said Hob had to be free, too!’ Toby gave me a black look, but directed Sid to let the little man go.

  Hob couldn’t move when Sid had finished clearing away his bonds. I tried to help him stand, and failed. I started to cry again. Hob couldn’t do much, but he managed to put one arm round my shoulders. By hauling on the table, I managed to pull him upright. He stumbled forward and collapsed, dragging me down with him. His face contorted with the agony of returning circulation.

  Rose brought us a cracked cup with some of Granny’s wheat wine in it. There was a lot of good in Rose. I took a couple of sips and gave the rest to Hob. Between us we massaged his arms and legs back to life. Toby didn’t like Rose having anything to do with Hob, and he hauled her away to dish up supper. Hob was gasping with the pain. I got him to his feet, and with our arms round each other’s shoulders, we stumbled up and down the room. He was about an inch taller than me, but his chest was deep and every inch of him felt hard. He stank of paraffin.

  ‘Come and get it!’ said Rose, plonking three plates of food on the table.

  ‘What about us?’ I demanded. ‘We must eat, too.’

  Toby sat down and started to eat, eyeing us. I thought he was spiteful enough to refuse my request, but in the end he jerked his head at Sid, and told him to get Hob into the overalls Sid had worn that day, and put Hob’s paraffin-soaked clothes on the fire. Hob didn’t like the idea; perhaps he guessed that we were to be set up as fall-guys. He shook his head violently, but it did no good. Sid laughed as he grasped Hob by one arm and peeled off his sweater. Hob shivered, and indicated he would prefer to retire to the kitchen to wash and dress himself in private.

  ‘If you like,’ said Toby indifferently. ‘He can’t get out of the back door; I’ve got the key.’

  Sid threw the sweater Hob had been wearing onto the fire.

  ‘Pouff!’ said Rose, waving her hand in front of her nose. ‘Take him out of here—he stinks!’ She sat down and started to eat.

  ‘What about food for us?’ I asked.

  Toby shrugged and said we might forage for ourselves if we liked. I followed Hob out into the kitchen, in time to see him prudishly close the toilet door on me. I grinned to myself. Hob seemed to be well-endowed, and it was a great pity we hadn’t met under other circumstances.

  It occurred to me that I might have enjoyed learning about sex from Hob. I threw a meal together and we ate at the kitchen table, sitting side by side. Hob looked comically shrunken in Sid’s overalls, but his table manners were good, and he didn’t slop his food about as Sid did. When I felt a little better, I told him why he had been put into Sid’s overalls, about the double murder in the wood, and the plans Toby had to dispose of us. He nodded, his eyes robin-bright.

  ‘No talking!’ commanded Toby, from the doorway behind us. ‘Finished eating? You look like twins, sitting side by side and dressed alike.’ He laughed, unkindly.

  ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or Siamese twins, joined together in life and in death.’ He dangled a pair of handcuffs. He made us stand, and clipped my right ankle to Hob’s left. Then he pushed us into the living-room. I staggered and would have fallen if Hob had not caught at my arm. Toby told us to sit on the bench under one of the windows, where he could see us. And not to talk.

  I didn’t feel like talking when he could listen, anyway. I was trembling with rage and humiliation. I had never been any good at the Three-Legged Race at school. Hob put an arm round my waist and got me to the bench, somehow. When we sat, he left his arm round my waist, and I leaned against him, thankful that he no longer stank of paraffin.

  The string that had bound Hob was now burning on the fire, as were my old jeans. The candle was back on the mantelpiece, and the meths bottle on the sideboard. On the table lay the remains of the meal the three conspirators had eaten, and several daily papers, which Rose must have brought with her. All there were busy scanning the newspapers; at first I thought they must be looking for reports of the robbery at the Festival, and then I realised that wasn’t possible, for the daily papers would not contain news of that until tomorrow, the day on which Hob and I were due to die. But there must be something in the newspapers to arouse their interest, for Sid and Rose kept looking down at one particular spot on the page, and then looking over at us. Toby was staring at another paper, and pulling a face.

  ‘I was right, you see!’ said Rose to Toby.

  He made an irritated gesture, sweeping the papers to the floor. He demanded wha
t the hell she thought he ought to have done about it, then! She didn’t answer, but picked up the newspapers, smoothed them out, folded them neatly and stacked them on the end of the table.

  ‘Fool!’ cried Toby. He snatched them from her, and, tearing them apart, he bunched each sheet separately and began to poke them onto the fire. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rose tear a small piece from one sheet of newspaper and slip it into her pocket. Sid saw her, too, and was just working himself up to say something about it when she frowned at him, and asked if he wanted a cup of tea.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said, diverted.

  ‘Neither do I,’ she said brightly, and began to chatter about who was going to do the washing-up and how she was looking forward to a good long holiday during which she wouldn’t have to cook or clean or even think about preparing food.

  Toby poked the last sheet of newspaper on the fire and coldly told her to shut up and get on with it. She made a face at his back, but obeyed.

  When she was out in the kitchen, Sid turned the television on.

  ‘What do you want that on for?’ demanded Toby.

  ‘The news!’ said Sid.

  ‘Idiot!’ hissed Toby, and yanked the plug out of the wall, so that the television fizzled into silence.

  ‘What do you want to do that for?’ asked Sid.

  ‘Do you want her …’ he pointed to the kitchen, ‘To hear about what went on in the wood?’

  ‘But I’d like to know . . .’

  ‘I’ve got a radio in my car. I’ll slip out and listen to the news now, and you can slip out and listen to it later. I’ll tell Rose just as much as I think she should know, and you’ll tell her nothing more than I see fit to tell her. Right?’ Sid muttered that he supposed so.

  I thought that maybe my idea about blackmailing Toby into letting us stay alive might work. I was also maliciously pleased that Toby had brought us into the living-room before I’d had time to wash up the plates Hob and I had used for supper. If we were prisoners, we might as well give the maximum amount of trouble.

  Sid watched us sullenly while Toby went out to listen to the news. He didn’t take his eyes off us once, except when Rose handed him a cup of tea. She didn’t offer us any. Hob and I kept quiet as mice, except when one or other of us felt a limb beginning to stiffen and gave it a rub to keep the circulation going. Each time he had to remove his arm, Hob checked my face for permission to move, and each time he replaced it. I leaned against him and allowed myself to relax. The exertions of the day, the fear, the tension, and then the food all combined to make me sleepy. His curly head tickled the skin of my forehead. I jerked myself awake. Toby was sitting beside Rose, near the fire. Sid was nowhere to be seen; perhaps it was his turn to listen to the news? Both Toby and Rose were smoking, and the air in the room was becoming foul. I looked round to see if I could open the window behind us, and Hob beat me to it. The night air was chilly, but it revived me. I knew I ought to be worrying about important things like death, and how I could get some message to Mr. Brent, but the room was warm, and …

  Rose yelped. Toby was teasing her, and although she was enjoying his teasing, she didn’t like him playing with her in front of an audience.

  ‘No … not now, you oaf!’ she was saying.

  ‘Come on … Come on!’ he said, mumbling against her shoulder. He had her blouse undone, and his hands were …

  I looked away, remembering what he’d done to me that afternoon. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hob’s hand, which had been lightly resting on his knee, ball into a fist. He would be remembering, too! I wondered what it was about Toby that made him need an audience when he pawed a woman. Hob’s face had turned an unpleasant shade of purple. With rage. I risked a full glance at him. He was staring straight ahead, and holding himself rigid. His arm was equally firm around me. I wondered if he were the sort to have a coronary … and then the red began to retreat from his face, he took a deep, quivering breath, and forced himself to relax. I looked away from him, wondering at the depth of his reaction, because it looked to me as if he had been almost as strongly affected by Toby’s sick caresses as I had been.

  Thinking about Hob, I concentrated on the fire, and almost missed Sid’s return, and low-voiced report. The flames were sinking, since no one had put anything on the fire for some time. The fire flickered and dissolved into a red haze.

  Toby was pulling on my arm. ‘Up, my beauty! Up!’

  I shook my head, and blinked. The table was laid for breakfast, and Sid was laying blankets and sheets out on the settee … I recognised the bedclothes as the ones that had been on my bed. The clock said half-past ten.

  Hob helped me to stand upright, with his arm still round my waist.

  ‘Up the stairs!’

  ‘We can’t, like this,’ I said. ‘Take the handcuffs off. We can’t climb the stairs two abreast, and we have to go to the bathroom.’

  For a wonder, he agreed. He followed us up the stairs, waited till we’d finished in the bathroom, and then indicated that we both lie down on my single bed in the smaller bedroom. I was right in thinking that Sid had stripped my bed; he’d left us one skimpy blanket, and one thin pillow.

  ‘There’s some more blankets in one of the tea-chests,’ I said. ‘And pillows, as well.’

  ‘Make do with what you’ve got. You can keep each other warm.’

  The bed creaked as we lay down on it. Toby used both his pairs of handcuffs this time, one for each of us; with our left ankles secured to the rail at the bottom of the bed, we wouldn’t be taking any midnight strolls.

  ‘Sleep well, twins!’ he said, in parting. ‘You’ve fancied each other since you first met, so make your last night on earth a good one!’

  He drew the curtains, switched off the light, and shut the door between the two bedrooms.

  *

  We lay there for a long time, just thinking and holding hands. How that had come about, I don’t know. It had just happened. I could hear Toby and Rose arguing about something next door … something about it being wrong for him to tease her in front of other people … and then muffled squeaks and laughter as they had a session on the bed. It made me burn to think how my grandparents’ bed was being misused. I tried to think what comments they might have made on the situation if they’d been alive, and failed to come up with anything that sounded even remotely possible. Then I burned at remembering how Toby had told us to spend the night. Luckily Hob wasn’t the lecherous type.

  He didn’t move, but lay staring up at the ceiling, as I had done for many a long evening in my childhood and adolescence. I wondered if he saw the same faces in the cracked plaster that I used to see. For a while our room was dimly lit by the streaks of light which leaked round the door of the main bedroom. Then they disappeared, and the room became darker than before. I couldn’t sleep, but I tried to keep still. For one thing, I didn’t want to fall off the bed, and for another, I didn’t want to put ideas into Hob’s head.

  Unfortunately, I was having difficulty dismissing those very same ideas from my head. My mind kept returning to the times when I had nearly lost my virginity with this and that boyfriend. I had hung on to it with some absurd idea of waiting for Mr. Right and marriage and all that. How stupid of me! I ought to have taken every one of those opportunities, and then I would at least have known what being a real woman was all about before I died.

  A voice at the back of my mind insisted that it wasn’t too late, and that I did have a chance to make up for lost time if I wanted to take it. The idea was worth consideration.

  I had taken a fancy to Hob, as Toby had said. I did like him and I didn’t dislike his appearance, although I thought his hair had been allowed to grow too long. In fact, I was quite fond of him, and I wouldn’t have minded getting properly acquainted with him one day—if I’d had the chance.

  The only thing was, that if you discounted that helpful retaining arm of his, Hob had never looked on me in the light of an easy lay. And indeed, why should he have done so? Tramps don�
�t usually find that the ladies of the houses on which they call, are ready to offer their charms. But he wasn’t an ordinary tramp, I told myself, and the circumstances were unusual.

  ‘Hob!’ I whispered. I felt rather than saw that I had his attention. ‘I want to talk to you … Bother, I forgot!’ I lapsed into silence, wondering how I could possibly explain my need to him. On his part he seemed to be attentive. He pressed my hand, which gave me an idea.

  ‘Will you press my hand once for “Yes” and twice for “No”: all right?’

  One press. Yes.

  ‘Are you a virgin?’ What a stark way to blurt it out, I thought. How tactless could I get?

  Two squeezes, and an interested turning of his body towards mine. He was quick on the uptake, wasn’t he?

  ‘Well then … shall we …?’

  I pulled my hand away from him, and sat up. I began to unzip my overalls. He got the idea all right, and did the same to his. We groped for each other. He was furry-chested and his arms were strong. His mouth found mine, and he started to kiss me. I turned my face away, wanting sex, not love.

  He froze. I could feel his heart beating against my ribs. He was excited. His body was ready, but he held back.

  ‘Get it over with, you fool!’ I hissed.

  No. A definite withdrawal. He put his hand on my breast, and pushed me gently away.

  ‘I’m a virgin,’ I said, forgetting the need for caution. ‘I want to know what it’s like before I die. That’s all! Surely you can manage that for me!’

  Cold air separated us. He zipped up his overalls and lay down again. I could hear him breathing quietly, in controlled fashion.

  I wept angrily, but he took no notice of me.

  I humped a shoulder at him, zipped up my overalls and monopolised our blanket. I was furious with him for refusing me and then, I grew furious with myself for having been so naive … and then mad at myself for having handled the incident so tactlessly. Hob had every right to feel insulted, and the odd thing was that his refusal had increased my respect for him, and not diminished it. If I’d only told him that I liked him instead of demanding satisfaction in that crude way …!