The Chinese Egg

by Catherine Storr

  “How’s it going to work?” Jakey asked.

  “Supposed to be getting the cash tonight,” Fred said.

  “Who’s collecting?”

  “Me. Bank tube in the rush hour.”

  “What’s your getaway if he’s split?”

  “Change of gear in the Ladies.”

  “You in the Ladies? That’s rich!”

  “I went in on the way back just to see. ’ts dead easy.”

  “It’s the jeans and the hair. Suppose you could easily be a bird.”

  “No one looked twice.”

  “What’s the gear you got to put on?”

  “Blonde wig. Long dress. He’d got them all ready. Timed me. Took twenty seconds.”

  “Clever! Then you flush and walk out?”

  “That’s right. There’s two exits, see? I come out of the other.”

  “Smithy’s got brains,” Jakey said, appreciating the joke.

  “I’ll say so if he pulls this one off.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “That’s nothing to do with me.”

  “Is he going to hand it over?”

  “He’s going to make bloody sure we’re clear first. If there’s anything goes wrong, the kid’s had it.”

  “What about if things don’t go wrong? Does Daddy get his precious back?”

  Fred looked at Jakey and Jakey looked at Fred. Then Jakey smiled. Not an agreeable smile.

  “You know Smithy. He does like to keep his hands clean,” Fred said.

  “But he doesn’t like taking chances either.”

  “That’s why I was careful not to ask,” Fred said.

  “What did you see?” Stephen asked.

  “I saw him. In a shop. Buying bottles of fizzy drink.”

  “I saw the van.”

  “Inside? Was the baby there?”

  “No. Outside.”

  “Is it green?”

  “No, it’s blue. And it had a great dent and all the paint taken off the rear wing.”

  “Doesn’t that mean they’ll find them quickly now?”

  “I should think so. I’ll ring up the Superintendent straight away.”

  “I don’t think my flash is going to be any use at all. He won’t want to know about them buying bottles of lemon or whatever it was.”

  “Didn’t you see anything that would say where it was?” “Don’t think so.”

  “No names or anything?”

  “No. Honestly, I can’t think of anything.”

  “Was he taking the bottles off a shelf?”

  “Out of a sort of wire basket. There was a big notice over it said Special Offer This Week. You know how those shops do. Mum always tries to get those special offers if it’s something she buys anyway.”

  “I’ll tell him. I suppose it might help.”

  “Not unless he asks, he’ll think it’s silly. Your seeing the van’s what he’ll want to know.”

  “I don’t want this put out as a general appeal. I want every man in the country looking out for the van; it’s got a badly scraped rear wing by the way—but I don’t want the driver alerted. If he’s desperate he might do anything. We’ve got to reach him before he harms the baby. I’m not too happy about the girl either. I suspect he means to get rid of them both. And I want you to find out if any self-service grocery shop in the area has had bottles of fizzy lemon or orange on special offer this week. If they all have, then forget it, it’s not going to be any help to us. But if there’s just one or two, then step up the search for the van in that locality. That’s where they’re going to be.”

  “Going to be! What’s he got, a ruddy crystal ball?” the Brighton Chief Superintendent said with disgust. He didn’t consider it a part of his duties to search out bargain offers of groceries even for a brother officer.

  Skinner and Maureen and Linda in the van stayed in the caravan site all Monday morning. At midday, Skinner went out cautiously to prospect and to ring Smithy to find out what the plans were for the day. He’d got to keep out of harm’s way till 19.00 hours, he was told. One of Smithy’s peculiarities was this having the time in double figures so there shouldn’t be any mix-ups with whether you meant morning or afternoon. Then he was to ring again to hear whether the bread had been delivered as arranged and if there’d been any trouble. If everything went through easily, then it was up to Skinner to cope with Maureen and the kid.

  He decided to get out of the caravan site outside Eastbourne and go inland for a bit. Lucky the police seemed to have got it into their thick heads that he was still going west. Skinner took a couple of sausage rolls to keep Fatty quiet, and backed out of the corner where they’d spent the night. He found backing difficult, and scraped his off-side wing badly on another parked car before he got out. Then he drove off inland, making for small, unfrequented roads in farmland, where they could rest up in lanes or fields off the road. Lucky that Smithy had thought of getting the plates changed to a Midlands number. Lucky no one knew about that scrape. In the early afternoon he stopped at a little grocer’s shop way out nowhere, in the back of beyond, and bought some packets of sandwiches and some bottles of fizzy drinks. Then he found another caravan site not too far from the coast, behind a lot of pebbles but not too near anywhere else, and he pulled into a corner where you couldn’t see the van from the road. There were other vans of the same sort anyway. They’d stop there till it was time to call Smithy and find out what happened next. Skinner knew what he hoped the news would be. He couldn’t wait to be rid of the snivelling kid and Fatty, with her endless questions and her useless mind. The sooner the better, was what he thought. He didn’t sleep that afternoon. He lay and planned how he’d do it.

  Stephen found lunch, after he’d got back from what now seemed a habit of coffee with the two girls in the coffee bar, uncomfortable. He’d been aware that his father was looking for the opportunity of another frank talk, ever since that last embarrassing conversation four days ago, and he’d been carefully avoiding it. Today Dr. Rawlinson ostentatiously did not ask him where he’d spent the morning, but carried on an almost one-sided conversation about the liberty allowed the young people of today. How wonderful it was, how much he wished he’d had the same freedom for self-expression, how heartily he approved. How much healthier this new, liberated climate must be for the psyche. The wash of rounded phrases and technical words flowed on; in the significant pauses Mrs. Rawlinson said, “Yes, dear,” and, “Do you really think so?” while quite obviously thinking about something else. When his father had gone, Stephen drew a breath of relief. He looked at his mother.

  “Dad does go on and on, doesn’t he?”

  “I think he wanted to say something,” his mother obliquely replied.

  “He said a lot. But not really what he wanted to, isn’t that it?” “I liked those two girls,” Mrs. Rawlinson said, as if this were an entirely new subject.

  “They’re all right,” Stephen said casually.

  “The pretty one’s nice. Friendly.”

  “Yes.”

  “But I really liked the other one best, I think.”

  “Did you?”

  “She’s more interesting. But I did like them both.”

  Alone in his room later, he thought about Vicky and Chris and remembered, with a twist of self-reproach, that he’d hardly given a thought to the problem with Paul. He’d been so much engrossed in his own feelings that he’d forgotten Chris. She had been silent this morning; perhaps she too was heart-sore. Stephen wished he could do something to help her, then realized suddenly that he could. She’d said something, days ago, about Paul working for the school holidays in the local newsagents-cum-bookshop, and since no one’s term had yet begun, he’d presumably still be there. After his first impulse to go straight away, Stephen’s resolution wavered. What was he going to say to Paul when he found him? How could he plunge into a conversation about anything as private as Paul’s feelings for Chris without any apparent excuse? Then he remembered the conversation he’d had with Vicky abou
t Hamlet and about not acting on ideas because of thinking too carefully about them first. He went out of his front door and made for the High Street, without giving himself further time for daunting thought. He was supposed to be meeting Vicky again at the coffee bar anyhow, at three o’clock.

  The same fear that his resolution might leave him, made him go directly to Paul, whom he saw at the back of the shop, in the book section, and say, “Hullo!”

  Paul looked at him without smiling. “Do you want something?” “Not really. I wanted to see how you were getting on. I was just walking past.”

  “I’m all right,” Paul said.

  “Is it interesting?” Stephen made himself ask.

  “Not very. I didn’t expect it would be.”

  “Aren’t there any. . . I mean, there’s plenty to read.”

  “Assistants in the shop aren’t supposed to read while they’re on duty.”

  “Can’t you ever? When there aren’t any customers?”

  “It isn’t the customers who are the trouble. It’s the assistant manager,” Paul said with a faint smile.

  Stephen said, “Oh!” The conversation wasn’t going well. If a genuine customer appeared Paul would have to serve him and he’d have lost his chance. He said, quickly, “How much longer are you staying in the job?”

  “Till Wednesday. Term starts then.”

  Stephen said, without thinking, “Oh yes, Chris told me,” and saw Paul’s expression change from neutral to wary. He said, “Why don’t you come and meet us at the coffee bar after you’ve finished here? Vicky and Chris and me.”

  Paul said, “I might,” without enthusiasm.

  “Chris’d be pleased.”

  “She say so?” Paul asked.

  “Not Chris. It was something Vicky said.”

  At this Paul looked directly at Stephen. A long, questioning look. He said, “You’re trying to say something, only I don’t know what it is.”

  Hideously embarrassed, Stephen said, “I’m sorry. It isn’t any of my business, I know. It’s only that when we’re together, I think Chris feels a bit left out sometimes. It’d be nice if there were four of us. Instead of three. That’s all.” To his immense relief he saw a couple of women enter the shop and make for the bookrack where he and Paul were standing. He said, “Be seeing you,” and went out. It might not make any difference, Paul might well just write him off as an interfering idiot, but he was glad he’d at any rate tried. He remembered that if Paul came round to the coffee bar tonight, he probably wouldn’t find any of them. He’d got to go home after meeting Vicky this afternoon in case Price telephoned, and Mrs. Stanford had been threatening to keep Vicky in bed for the rest of the day. Well, he couldn’t help that. He couldn’t engineer a meeting between Chris and Paul. He’d done all he could. And at least he hadn’t allowed a stupid fear of making himself look a fool to strangle him into inactivity.

  Thirty Five

  Monday afternoon and evening

  Andrew Wilmington had had exact instructions. He collected the cash in the early afternoon and went, as he occasionally did in the ordinary way, to his club. Anyone might have seen him strolling in and ordering himself tea in the library. Various other members, mostly elderly, retired gentlemen, sat about in the vast padded chairs, and slept or studied the papers or wrote letters on the club notepaper. Presently Andrew went downstairs to the newly established sauna baths. No one could have found this extraordinary, there is always a first time. Anyone, half an hour later, could have seen Andrew, in his light grey suit, dark shirt and pale, elegant tie, emerge from the club and make his way back to his office in Lombard Street. And an hour and a half later, just after five o’clock, anyone could have seen this eminently recognizable Andrew Wilmington emerge from his office and make his way along Lombard Street towards the Bank station. Walking slowly, showing signs of anxiety in his hesitation at the traffic light crossings, in his intense preoccupation which made him walk face turned down towards the pavement, hands in pockets, as if fingering something there. Anyone sufficiently interested in his movements to pursue him further could have seen Andrew take up his position at the top of the escalator in the Bank tube station. Looking round constantly, obviously on edge, expecting something. A clear case of nervous tension.

  While his double blazed the necessary trail across the heart of London, the real Andrew sat in one of the cubicles of the sauna bath and found he could not concentrate on the books and papers so considerately provided for his entertainment. Horrible to have to leave all the action to everyone else. Horrible to have to stay in this hot, sweaty, claustrophobic little hole, while other people played with Caroline Ann’s life. Horrible to know that it was all going on out there, but not to know just what had happened. Not so much horrible as galling to have to submit to orders, to be told what one could or couldn’t do and to feel obliged, by Sally’s misery and by the hope for Caroline Ann’s safety, to agree. God, how his skin itched in this hot, humid atmosphere! Andrew scratched and endured. As soon as he received the signal he’d be off. Meanwhile he couldn’t concentrate on anything at all.

  By half-past seven he was home. He’d taken the precaution of warning Sally that he might have to go out again later. She said, “Did that detective tell you anything?” and Andrew said, “No.”

  “It’s eleven days,” Sally said.

  “I know, darling.”

  “Does he think they’ll ask for money again?”

  “He thinks they quite probably will,” Andrew said, loathing the necessity to lie.

  “Andrew. If we don’t get her back. . . .”

  “Don’t upset yourself, dearest.”

  “. . . I just don’t want to go on living.”

  Yes. Living can be hell.

  At the end of the long, long afternoon, which had been all the worse because Skinner hadn’t slept, but had lain on his bunk staring sometimes at nothing, and sometimes, in a way she didn’t like, at her, Maureen was pleased when he looked at his watch for the last time and said, “Now for it, Fatty,” and made for the door.

  “What’re we going to do now, Skinner?” Maureen asked.

  “Find out whether Smithy’s got the cash,” Skinner said, and Maureen couldn’t ask him anything else, because he was gone and she heard him swearing as he tried to get the engine going again. Maureen looked out of the windows and saw the piles of pebbles disappearing. They were driving along a road which must be somewhere near the sea still, as she could see little houses on one side and bathing huts all stacked together on the other, but she couldn’t actually see the sea. Then there were houses on both sides and the van kept on turning this way and that, and then it stopped in a small street, and she heard Skinner get out. It was a street with little shops in it and there were people walking about with shopping bags, although it was quite late. Maureen knew that, because one shop had a big old-fashioned clockface in the window and it said after seven o’clock. Maureen was hungry again as usual. She wondered whether Skinner might have good news about the money when he rang up Smithy. If he did perhaps he’d be nice to her again and take her out to a posh place for a meal like he’d done when they first got to know each other.

  He was in a good temper when he came back, she could hear that, because he was whistling. When he was pleased he used to whistle Shenandoah under his breath. He didn’t say anything to her, just got back into the driver’s seat and started up with the usual crashing of gears and difficulties with the brakes. Maureen looked out and saw more streets and more streets, and then gradually they came out into country, lanes with high hedges and green fields and trees. Maureen didn’t like this, she’d felt safer in the streets with people around, and besides, where were they going to get their supper out here?

  She had, however, a more pressing need than hunger. After a time she couldn’t hold out any longer. She rapped on the front partition and she went on rapping until Skinner pulled up and called out, “What’s the matter?”

  “Please, Skinner, I’ve got to get out. Qu
ick.”

  He drove on for a minute, then stopped and let her out. They were in a narrow lane on the side of a hill, right out in the country, not a sign of any houses or anything. Skinner pointed to a gate, and Maureen climbed over and went behind one of the tall hedges which were just beginning to get leafy and thick. From here she could see the slopes of green hills all round and right in the distance the spire of a little church. It should have been pretty, but somehow it wasn’t, partly because it was a grey day, the sky, hanging very low, and no wind at all. It made you feel shut in between that dark sky, all of a piece, no clouds to be seen, and the empty countryside. It was funny, Maureen felt she’d almost rather be back in the van, though she’d wanted to get out badly enough before.

  She climbed back over the gate into the lane and saw that Skinner was sitting waiting for her in the driver’s seat, and he’d already started revving up the motor. She had a horrid feeling then that he meant to drive off and leave her there all by herself, not knowing where she was and with no money. She began to run towards the van, calling out, “Skinner! Skinner! Don’t go off and leave me!”

  But what happened was worse. He didn’t drive past her, he drove at her. He came right up to where she was standing by the hedge. He came five yards, accelerated and there was the grinding of gears. Maureen screamed and tried to flatten herself against the prickling twigs of the hedgerow, but she’d have got hit if the engine hadn’t stalled just as it so often had before on their journeys. Maureen got herself back to the gate and over it, before Skinner had the chance to get the motor started up again, and she stood there, shaking. Skinner leaned out of the cab and called to her. “Come back! What’d you think you’re doing?”

  “You tried to run me down!” Maureen said, hardly able to speak for shaking.

  “Don’t be crazy! Bloody thing got a bit out of control, that’s all.”

  “You came straight at me!”

  “‘Course I didn’t! What would I want to do a thing like that for?”

  Maureen didn’t know. Could he be right? Or if she came back over the gate would he try to do it again? While she stood there undecided, she heard the sound of some other car coming up along the road. She could see that Skinner had heard it too. It came into sight slowly, a red farm tractor. As it got near she could see it was driven by quite a young boy. It came right up to them and stopped and the boy leaned out and called, “You having trouble then?”