Storm Island

by Ken Follett

  "That's enough," Lucy told David. She knelt in front of the man.

  "Can you make it upstairs ?"

  He nodded and got slowly to his feet.

  Lucy looped his arm over her shoulders and began to walk him out.

  "I'll put him in Jo's bed," she said.

  They took the stairs one at a time, pausing on each. When they reached

  the top, the little colour that the fire had restored to the man's face

  had drained away again. Lucy led him into the smaller bedroom. He

  collapsed on to the bed.

  Lucy arranged the blankets over him, tucked him in, and left the room,

  closing the door quietly.

  Relief washed over Faber in a tidal wave. For the last few minutes,

  the effort of self-control had been superhuman. He felt limp, defeated

  and ill.

  After the front door had opened, he had allowed himself to collapse for

  a while. The danger had come when the beautiful girl had started to

  undress him, and he had remembered the can of film taped to his chest.

  Dealing with that had restored his alertness for a while. He had also

  been afraid they might call for an. ambulance, but that had not been

  mentioned: perhaps the island was too small to have a hospital. At

  least he was not on the mainland there, it would have been impossible

  to prevent the reporting of the shipwreck. However, the trend of the

  husband's questions had indicated that no report would be made

  immediately.

  Faber had no energy to speculate about perils farther in the future. He

  seemed to be safe for the time being, and that was as far as he could

  go. In the meantime he was warm and dry and alive, and the bed was

  soft.

  He turned over, reconnoitring the room: door, window, chimney. The

  habit of caution survived everything but death itself. The walls were

  pink, as if the couple had hoped for a baby girl. There was a train

  set and a great many picture books on the floor. It was a safe,

  domestic place; a home. He was a wolf in a sheep fold, but a lame

  wolf.

  He closed his eyes. Despite his exhaustion, he had to force himself to

  relax, muscle by muscle. Gradually his head emptied of thought, and he

  slept.

  Lucy tasted the porridge, and added another pinch of salt. They had

  got to like it the way Tom made it, the Scots way, without sugar. She

  would never go back to making sweet porridge, even when sugar became

  plentiful and un rationed again. It was funny how you got used to

  things when you had to: brown bread and margarine and salt porridge.

  She ladled it out and the family sat down to breakfast. Jo had lots of

  milk to cool his. David ate vast quantities these days without

  getting fat: it was the outdoor life. She looked at his hands, on the

  table. They were rough, and permanently brown, the hands of a manual

  worker. She had noticed the stranger's hands. His fingers were long,

  the skin white under the blood and the bruising. He was unused to the

  abrasive work of crewing a boat.

  Lucy said: "You won't get much done today. The storm looks like

  staying."

  "Makes no difference," David grunted.

  "Sheep still have to be cared for, whatever the weather."

  "Where will you be?"

  "Tom's end. I'll go up there in the jeep."

  Jo said: "Can I come?"

  "Not today," Lucy told him. It's too wet and cold."

  "But I don't like the man."

  Lucy smiled.

  "Don't be silly. He won't do us any harm. He's almost too ill to

  move."

  "Who is he?"

  "We don't know his name. He's been shipwrecked, and we have to look

  after him until he's well enough to go back to the mainland. He's a

  very nice man."

  "Is he my uncle?"

  "Just a stranger, Jo. Eat up."

  Jo looked disappointed. He had met an uncle once. In his mind uncles

  were people who gave out candy, which he liked, and money, which he had

  no use for.

  David finished his breakfast and put on his mackintosh. It was a

  tent-shaped garment, with sleeves and a hole for his head, and it

  covered most of his wheelchair as well as him. He put a sou'wester on

  his head and tied it under his chin. He kissed Jo and said goodbye to

  Lucy.

  A minute or two later she heard the jeep start up. She went to the

  window to watch David drive off into the rain. The rear wheels of the

  vehicle slithered about in the mud. He would have to take care.

  She turned to Jo. He said: "This is a dog." He was making a picture

  on the tablecloth with porridge and milk.

  Lucy slapped his hand, saying: "What a horrid mess!" The boy's face

  took on a grim, sulky look, and Lucy thought how much he resembled his

  father. They had the same dark skin and nearly black hair, and they

  both had a way of withdrawing when they were cross. But Jo laughed a

  lot he had inherited something from Lucy's side of the family, thank

  God.

  Jo mistook her contemplative stare for anger, and said: "I'm sorry."

  She washed him at the kitchen sink, then cleared away the breakfast

  things, thinking about the stranger upstairs. Now that the immediate

  crisis was past, and she knew the man was not going to die, she was

  consumed with curiosity about him. Who was he? Where was he from?

  What had he been doing in the storm? Did he have a family? Why did he

  have workman's clothes, a clerk's hands, and a Home Counties accent? It

  was rather exciting.

  It occurred to her that, if she had lived anywhere else, she would not

  have accepted his sudden appearance so readily. He might, she

  supposed, be a deserter, or a criminal, or even an escaped

  prisoner-of-war. But one forgot, living on the island, that other

  human beings could be threatening instead of companionable. It was so

  nice to see a new face that to harbour suspicions seemed ungrateful.

  Maybe unpleasant thought she more than most people was ready to welcome

  an attractive man ... She pushed the thought out of her mind.

  Silly, silly. He was so tired and ill that he could not possibly

  threaten anyone. Even on the mainland, who could have refused to take

  him in, bedraggled and unconscious? When he felt better they could

  question him, and if his account of how he got here was less than

  plausible, they could radio the mainland from Tom's cottage.

  When she had washed up she crept upstairs to peep at him. He slept

  facing the door, and when she looked in his eyes opened instantly.

  Again there was that initial, split-second flash of fear.

  "It's all right," Lucy whispered.

  "Just making sure you're okay."

  He closed his eyes without speaking.

  She went downstairs again. She dressed herself and Jo in oilskins and

  Wellington boots, and they went out. The rain was still coming down in

  torrents and the wind was terrific. She glanced up at the roof: they

  had lost some slates. Leaning into the wind, she headed for the cliff

  top.

  She held Jo's hand tightly he might quite easily be blown away. Two

  minutes later she was wishing she had stayed indoors. Rain came in

  under her raincoat collar and over the tops of her boots
, and she was

  soaked. Jo must be too, but now that they were wet they might as well

  stay wet for a few minutes more. Lucy wanted to go to the beach.

  However, when they reached the top of the ramp she realized it was

  impossible. The narrow wooden walkway was slippery with rain, and in

  this wind she might lose her balance and fall off, to plunge sixty feet

  to the beach below. She had to content herself with looking.

  It was quite a sight.

  Vast waves, each the size of a small house, were rolling in rapidly,

  close on each other's heels. Crossing the beach the wave would rise

  even higher, its crest curling in a question-mark, then throw itself

  against the foot of the cliff in a rage. Spray rose over the cliff top

  in sheets, causing Lucy to step back hurriedly and Jo to squeal with

  delight. Lucy could hear her son's laughter only because he had jumped

  into her arms, and his mouth was now close to her ear: the noise of the

  wind and the sea drowned more distant sounds.

  There was something terribly thrilling in watching the elements spit

  and sway and roar in fury, in standing fractionally too close to the

  cliff edge, feeling threatened and safe at the same time, shivering

  with cold and yet perspiring in fear. It was thrilling, and there were

  few thrills in Lucy's life.

  She was about to go back, mindful of Jo's health, when she saw the

  boat.

  It was not a boat any more, of course; that was what was so shocking

  about it. All that was left were the huge timbers of the deck and the

  keel. They were scattered on the rocks below the cliffs like a dropped

  handful of matches. It had been a big boat, Lucy realized. One man

  might have piloted it alone, but not easily. And the damage the sea

  had wrought on man's craftsmanship was awesome. It was hard to spot

  two bits of wood still joined together.

  How, in Heaven's name, had the stranger come out of it alive?

  She shuddered when she thought of what those waves and those rocks

  might have done to a human body. Jo caught her sudden change of mood,

  and said into her ear: "Go home, now." She turned quickly away from

  the sea and hurried back along the muddy path to the cottage.

  Back inside, they took off their wet coats, hats and boots, and hung

  them in the kitchen to dry. Lucy went upstairs and looked in on the

  stranger again. This time he did not open his eyes. He seemed to be

  sleeping very peacefully, yet she had a feeling that he had awakened

  and recognized her tread on the stairs, and closed his eyes again

  before she opened the door.

  She ran a hot bath. She and the boy were soaked to the skin. She

  undressed Jo and put him in the tub, then on impulse took off her own

  clothes and got in with him. The heat was blissful. She closed her

  eyes and relaxed. This was good, too: to be in a house, feeling warm,

  while the storm beat impotently at the strong stone walls.

  Life had turned interesting, all of a sudden. In one night there had

  come a storm, a shipwreck and a mystery man; this after three years of

  tedium. She hoped the stranger would wake up soon, so that she could

  find out all about him.

  It was time she started cooking lunch for the men. She had some breast

  of lamb to make a stew. She got out of the bath and towelled herself

  gently. Jo was playing with his bath toy, a much-chewed rubber cat.

  Lucy looked at herself in the mirror, examining the stretch-marks on

  her belly left by pregnancy. They were fading, slowly, but they would

  never completely disappear. An all-over suntan would help, though. She

  smiled to herself, thinking: Fat chance of that! Besides, who was

  interested in her tummy? Nobody but herself.

  Jo said: "Can I stay in a minute more?" It Was a phrase he used, 'a

  minute more', and it could mean anything up to half a day.

  Lucy said: "Just while I get dressed." She hung the towel on a rail

  and moved toward the door.

  The stranger stood in the doorway, looking at her.

  They stared at each other. It was odd Lucy thought later that she felt

  not a bit afraid. It was the way he looked at her: there was no threat

  in his expression, no lewdness, no smirk, no lust. He was not looking

  at her pubis, or even her breasts, but at her face into her eyes. She

  gazed back, a little shocked but not embarrassed, with just a tiny part

  of her mind wondering why she did not squeal, cover herself with her

  hands, and slam the door on him.

  Something did come into his eyes, at last perhaps she was imagining it,

  but she saw admiration, and a faint twinkle of honest humour, and a

  trace of sadness and then the spell was broken, and he turned away and

  went back into his bedroom, closing the door. A moment later Lucy

  heard the springs creak as his weight settled on the bed.

  And for no good reason at all she felt dreadfully guilty.

  TWENTY

  By this time Percival Godliman had pulled out all the stops.

  Every policeman in the UK had a copy of the photograph of Faber, and

  about half of them were engaged full-time in the search. In the cities

  they were checking hotels and guest houses railway stations and bus

  terminals, cafes and shop-ing centres; and the bridges, arches, and

  bombed lots where the derelict hang out. In the country they were

  looking in barns and silos, empty cottages and ruined castles, thickets

  and clearings and cornfields. They were showing the photograph to

  ticket clerks, petrol station staff, ferry hands and toll collectors.

  All the passenger ports and airfields were covered, with the picture

  pinned behind a board at every Passport Control desk.

  The police thought they were looking for a straightforward murderer.

  The cop on the street knew that the man in the picture had killed two

  people with a knife in London. Senior officers knew a bit more: that

  one of the murders had been a sexual assault, another apparently

  motiveless, and a third which their men were not to know of was an

  unexplained but bloody attack on a soldier on the Euston-to-Liverpool

  train. Only chief constables" and a few officers at Scotland Yard,

  realized that the soldier had been on temporary attachment to MI5 and

  that all the murders were connected with Security.

  The newspapers, too, thought it was just an ordinary murder hunt. The

  day after Godliman had released details, most of the papers had carried

  the story in their later editions the first editions, bound for

  Scotland, Ulster and North Wales, had missed it, so they had carried a

  shortened version a day later. The Stockwell victim had been

  identified as a labourer, and given a false name and a vague London

  background. Godliman's press release had connected that murder with

  the death of Mrs. Una Garden in 1940, but had been vague about the

  nature of the link. The murder weapon was said to be a stiletto.

  The two Liverpool newspapers heard very quickly of the body on the

  train, and both wondered whether the London knife murderer was

  responsible. Both made enquiries with the Liverpool police. The

  editors of both papers received phone calls from the Chief Constable. />
  Neither paper carried the story.

  A total of one hundred and fifty-seven tall dark men were arrested on

  suspicion of being Faber. All but twenty-nine of them were able to

  prove that they could not possibly have committed the murders.

  Interviewers from MI5 talked to the twenty-nine. Twenty-seven called

  in parents, relatives and neighbours who affirmed that they had been

  born in Britain and had been living there during the twenties, when

  Faber had been in Germany.

  The last two were brought to London and interviewed again, this time by

  Godliman. Both were bachelors, living alone, with no surviving

  relatives, leading a transient existence.

  The first was a well-dressed, confident man who claimed implausibly

  that his way of life was to travel the country taking odd jobs as a

  manual labourer. Godliman explained that he was looking for a German

  spy, and that he unlike the police had the power to incarcerate anyone

  for the duration of the war, and no questions asked. Furthermore, he

  went on, he was not in the least interested in capturing ordinary

  criminals, and any information given him here at the War Office was

  strictly confidential, and would go no further.

  The prisoner promptly confessed to being a confidence trickster and

  gave the addresses of nineteen elderly ladies whom he had cheated out

  of their old jewellery during the past three weeks. Godliman turned