When the van stopped moving Linda woke up. She seemed to have liked the movement, she’d been ever so quiet all the way, but now she started to cry.
“What’ll I do about Linda’s bottle?” Maureen asked Skinner.
“Give it to her if you have to. We can stay here for a bit.”
“But I’ll have to have water to make it up. And warm it up.”
He showed her the inside of the van which she hadn’t seen properly. Slightly comforted by the meal she’d just had, Maureen was quite interested. There was a paraffin stove, and a cupboard with crockery in it, even a tiny wash-basin. Two bunks and a flap table you could pull out from the wall. It was like a little house. If she hadn’t been so scared, and if she hadn’t had to be there with Skinner, she could even have enjoyed it. There was water in two big bottles. She was able to feed Linda and change her, and after she’d been put back in the cot, the baby didn’t go to sleep again, but lay and talked to herself. Maureen had heard her do this before, after she’d got better at knowing what to do for her, getting her wind up and that. She’d woken one morning in the beetly basement and heard at first what she’d thought was pigeons, and then she’d realized it wasn’t birds, it was the baby making that cooing murmur. It sounded as if she was happy. How could she be happy in this van, with Skinner so nasty and not knowing what was going to happen to them? But, of course, being a baby, she wouldn’t know about that. All she knew was that she’d had her feed and she hadn’t got a pain because Maureen had brought her wind up for her, and she was clean and warm. It didn’t take much to make a baby happy, then. Only things that she, Maureen, could do. It was wonderful, Maureen thought, to be able to make someone, even only a baby, happy so that she sang that funny, tuneless, wordless song to herself. Fancy being able to do that for anyone!
“Stop snivelling. You don’t know when you’re well off,” Skinner said.
She hadn’t realized she was crying. But she couldn’t explain to Skinner that it wasn’t because she was miserable she was crying, it was thinking about the baby and being able to make her happy. Even though she herself wasn’t happy at all.
They stayed quite a bit in this place. Maureen rather liked it, there were big green hills all round, very smooth. If only the rain hadn’t started again she wouldn’t have minded staying there, but presently Skinner said they’d got to move on, they’d got to find somewhere to park for the night before it got dark.
“Where’ll we park for the night, Skinner?” Maureen asked.
“In a street where there’s other cars,” Skinner said.
“Why not stay here? It’s quiet,” Maureen said.
“And have some nosey cop come up to ask us why?”
He made her get in the back of the van after this. She lay down on a bunk and dozed, while the van drove on, she hadn’t a clue where. Once or twice she woke up properly and felt the van sway and shake, as if some giant hand had nudged it. She tried to look out of the little windows at the back, but it was raining again and she couldn’t see anything. They stopped once or twice, and she heard the wind roar round the van and push it sideways, so then she knew what had nudged it before. They seemed to go up and down hill a lot, and then they went slowly and she could just make out through the windows that they were in a town. Presently the van stopped and didn’t start up again. Skinner opened the door between the driver’s seat and the back and said, “We’re stopping here. I’m off for some food. You keep quiet.”
“Where are we, Skinner?” Maureen asked.
“Brighton.”
Brighton! Maureen was amazed. She’d heard of Brighton. Kitty had been there with Maureen’s Dad. She’d said it was all lights and lots to do. She’d liked Brighton, wanted to go back. But all Maureen could see out of the front window was a long street of small houses, with lace curtains in the windows and cards stuck up on the frames. She read the nearest one with difficulty. It said VACANCIES. She didn’t know what that meant.
“Isn’t there sea at Brighton?” she asked.
“Enough to push you into so you wouldn’t come back,” Skinner said.
There were lots of other cars parked in front of them, and some people walking along the street. Maureen felt glad there were people. It occurred to her now that perhaps she wouldn’t have liked to be out in the country alone with Skinner with no one else who’d hear if she called out.
“Linda’s asleep. Can’t I come out too?” she asked.
“Didn’t you understand? I said, No. You stay here. All the time. And if you’ve got to do another lot for the kid, you’d better do it now while you can see, ’cos you aren’t going to get any lights when it’s dark. The van’s got to look empty, see?”
“But Skinner. . . .”
“What now?”
“I’ll have to go to the toilet some time. How’ll I manage that?” “You’ll have to manage with the street when it’s dark,” he said and left, locking her in. He didn’t come back till a lot later, when she’d been asleep for a long time. She’d fed Linda, but there wasn’t anything for her to eat. He’d brought her a cold meat pie when he came back, and she was grateful even for that. She was grateful too that he got into the other bunk and went to sleep at once. He’d had something to drink, she could smell it on his breath. She lay awake for a little, still hungry and very frightened. But she still hadn’t made up for the broken night she’d had before and presently she went to sleep too.
Thirty Three
Sunday
There was an appeal on the nine o’clock news on Sunday for information from anyone who had noticed an unfamiliar van, or car, possibly with a London registration number, parked anywhere in the South of England. The description of the driver was detailed, but less was said about his companion. “Crazy. A couple with a baby and a London registration number! At this time of year! We can’t possibly follow up every car near the coast. Fine weekend like this one, half the population of London’s on its way to the sea,” one of Price’s colleagues grumbled. And it seemed that he might be right. Information poured in and the force was overwhelmed and angered by the number of useless leads they’d been given. If they’d also been told the source of Price’s knowledge of the van they might have been angrier still. “Crazy. I can’t understand how an intelligent officer like you can be taken in by that couple of schoolchildren,” Andrew Wilmington said.
“We’d never have known about the ransom demand your wife tried to meet if it hadn’t been for them,” Price said, sitting stiffly in the handsome library in Kensington Walk.
“And that wasn’t much help, was it?”
“She might have handed over the money and not got the baby back.”
“There’s no proof that they didn’t mean to give her the baby back. And since your men frightened them off, that’s something we shall never know.”
“There’s also the possibility, which seems not to have occurred to you, that she was in a very vulnerable position herself. If she’d really been there entirely alone, in that fairly lonely spot, what was to prevent them taking her off with them and asking you for double the amount?” He saw from Andrew Wilmington’s face that this was a new idea to him. He added, “And in the children’s account of this scene in the car by the sea yesterday, they told me there was a violent rainsquall. It was windy, too. Now when they told me that yesterday afternoon, the day in London had been bright and sunny. A bit, of wind, not much. But along the Sussex coast yesterday afternoon there were gusty winds and some quite heavy rainfall. It’s details like that I find convincing. Against my better judgement, mind you.”
“I must remind you that there are such things as advance weather forecasts. They only had to listen to one of them to have a pretty good idea of what might happen.”
“You put more faith in these weather forecasts than I do. They’re as often wrong as they are right. I checked on the forecasts yesterday up to midday, after which they certainly didn’t hear one, because they were with me. The rain was quite unforeseen. The forecast for the whol
e of Southern England was dry and bright with moderate winds. The experts were taken by surprise, as they so often are.”
Andrew Wilmington said, “So. What next?”
“I would like to say emphatically that if there should be another ransom demand, I must be told. At once.”
“Certainly.”
“Since this lot obviously know that the phone in this house is monitored, they wouldn’t come through to you here. Probably ask you to ring a call box number again, as they did your wife. In that case you will let us know all the details so that we can take the necessary steps.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Meanwhile all we can do is to go on looking. I shall let you know any news we have as soon as possible.”
“Do you mean the news your psychic pair give you? Or what is so realistically called ‘hard news’?”
“I’ll let you know anything I can,” Price said discreetly and left. Andrew Wilmington felt vaguely dissatisfied. He went into the little sitting-room and found Sally sitting, as she usually did now, with a book in her hand. Not reading. Not doing anything. Just sitting. If she wasn’t doing nothing, like this, she’d be engaged on some activity which she worked at feverishly. Turning out cupboards, going through old letters, rearranging books. Always looking lost and drawn and haggard. He’d hardly have recognized the girl he’d married.
“No news, darling,” he said quickly, before she could look at him with that awful questioning hope which made him feel so sick.
“Couldn’t we go there, Andrew?”
“Where, darling?”
“Down to the coast. If that’s where they think she is?”
“Darling! What use would it be us going? We haven’t any idea where to look. Even if this ridiculous story of Price’s were true, he hasn’t a clue which bit of the coast it might be. What could we do there?”
A day or two ago she’d have argued this. Now she said, “No. I expect you’re right,” and sank back into silence and immobility.
“I promise you if there’s any reason to think one place is more likely than another, I’ll go there straight away. I promise,” he said again, trying to engage her attention by any statement, however rash.
“Where would you go?”
“I said. Anywhere it seemed possible we might find. . . Caroline Ann.”
“If those children told you, would you? You mean you’d believe what they said?”
He hesitated.
“You see? You wouldn’t do anything. I would. I’d do anything. I wouldn’t care if it seemed stupid, I’d try it. It wouldn’t matter if I felt silly doing it. That’s why I went with the money. It seemed just a chance.”
“It didn’t help,” Andrew said.
“But it might have.”
Andrew remembered what Price had said. He might have lost Sally as well as Caroline Ann. He said, “I’d do anything too.”
“Anything those two said?”
He said, “Yes. Now. I’d do anything, even if there wasn’t anything more than their story to go on.”
Sally said, “Thank you, Andrew.” Her frozen face quivered and she tried to smile at him. He sat down beside her and put an arm round her. She leant her head on his shoulder and they sat there, side by side, not speaking, for a long time.
Walking on Hampstead Heath that Sunday afternoon, Vicky and Stephen were playing Twenty Questions. Stephen thought of the sea. It was mineral, he thought. Or was it abstract? Not manufactured, something that no one owned. Vicky floundered, she couldn’t get it at all, she gave up. Stephen told her.
Her turn. She thought of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Stephen got it in sixteen.
Stephen thought of something that was animal. Vicky got it in five. A wren. Too obvious.
Vicky thought of a prince. In her mind’s eye she saw him, a fat elderly prince, she didn’t know why. She’d said “Animal” and Stephen had started as usual asking, “Can you eat it?” when the flash came. The flash stopped their walking, and when Stephen could see Vicky again she was shaking.
“What is it? It must’ve been different from what I saw. . . .”
“Something’s gone wrong. They couldn’t have. . . .”
“What? I saw the girl and the baby. . . .”
“I saw a place. It wasn’t England.”
“You mean. . .? When we saw them yesterday they were leaving? Of course! The sea! They were going to get the cross-Channel ferry.”
“We must tell the Super. Now. At once.”
“But Vicky! How do you know it wasn’t England? Did you see a signpost or something? Or hear. . .?”
“Come on! I’ll tell you while we go. There’s a call box in South End Green.”
Price picked up the telephone before the second ring.
“Stephen? News? I can’t tell you how much we need it.”
“We had another just now. About a quarter of an hour ago.”
“Tell me quickly, and then if need be perhaps you could come over.”
“We didn’t see the same thing. We don’t always.”
“Go on.”
“I saw the girl. The Maureen girl. You were right, her hair’s been cut. She looks awful. Someone’s been punching her on the face.”
“Where are they?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. Inside a sort of room. Very dark. I could only just see her.”
“Night was it?”
“I don’t know. It’s all so quick. I just saw her in this tiny room.”
“Anything else? What about Vicky?”
“That’s what’s so extraordinary. Vicky saw a place.”
“Go on,” Price said impatiently.
“She says it wasn’t England.”
“How does she know? Language?”
“By the buildings. She says.”
“You mean she recognized some place abroad?”
There was a slight pause.
“Go on. Did she recognize it?”
Stephen said miserably, “She said it looked like pictures of Moscow.”
Price’s voice changed. “Is this supposed to be a joke?”
“I knew you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Is Vicky there? I’d like to speak to her.”
Vicky said, “It’s me,” in a small voice.
“What’s all this about Moscow? Do you realize you’re playing with a child’s life?”
“I’m not playing. I did see it.”
Price sat at his desk and faced the horrible possibility that Andrew Wilmington and the others might be right and that the whole thing was a put up job. That he’d trusted in these two and now they’d let him down. That he’d wasted precious time and taken a risk which was turning out unforgivably high. Vicky had never heard his voice as grim as when he said, “What exactly did you see?”
“It was a sort of palace. Green and blue and goldy. With a round thing and spires. No, not spires exactly. It was like that building you see in pictures of Moscow. Not a bit like England. Truly.”
She sounded distressed. Price saw suddenly in his mind’s eye her bony, pointed, intelligent face. He’d liked the child. So had Sally Wilmington. He groaned.
“You’d better come over at once. And Stephen. Take a taxi. We’ll pay here.” He rang down and gave the order. Another hope fading. And no time at all. If it had all been play-acting he’d flay them so they’d never do it again.
When they arrived he was prepared to grill them. But again they didn’t feel like impostors. Perhaps his intuition was all wrong. Perhaps they had just that quality which he’d met once or twice in a long career of dealing with criminals, of persuading themselves of their integrity. There was nothing so misleading as that; the story then came out with the clarity of truth because for the moment it was the truth to the teller. He was tired, too, and he couldn’t be sure whether through dulling the edge of his intellectual processes the fatigue heightened his perception, or if all his faculties were less acute. Whatever the reason he found himself again believing Stephen, from whom h
e’d demanded the first story. He took him through it, asking about every detail. The ragged hair. The swollen face. The size of the tiny room. Where the light was coming from. What was she wearing? What colour was the jumper? What colour were the trousers?
“I couldn’t see very well because she had the baby on her lap.”
“The baby! The baby was there? You saw the baby?”
“It was on her lap. I told you, she was sitting on a sort of. . . .”
“Why didn’t you say at once you’d seen the baby?”
“I don’t know. I just thought if she was there of course the baby would be too.”
“You mean you think it was there? You didn’t actually see it?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Are you absolutely certain? What was it doing? Was it. . . alive?” He heard Vicky gasp.
“She was giving it a bottle.”
“You’re sure? You couldn’t have mistaken a bundle of clothes or anything else for the baby? Did you see its face?”
“No, but I saw its hand.”
“Moving?”
Stephen thought, then said, “Sort of waving about.”
It had to be true, Price thought. He turned to Vicky.
“Now then, let’s hear exactly what you saw.”
The Chinese Egg Page 22
