Eye of the Needle(104)

“Yes.”

“Is that Mr. Godliman?”

“Yes.” Dear God, these military types took their time.

“We’ve raised Storm Island at last, sir…it’s not our regular observer. In fact it’s a woman—”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing, yet, sir.”

“What do you mean?” Godliman fought down the angry impatience.

“She’s just…well, crying, sir.”

Godliman hesitated. “Can you connect me to her?”

“Yes. Hold on.” There was a pause punctuated by several clicks and a hum. Then Godliman heard the sound of a woman weeping.

He said, “Hello, can you hear me?”

The weeping went on.

The young man came back on the line to say, “She won’t be able to hear you until she switches to ‘Receive,’ sir—ah, she’s done it. Go ahead.”

Godliman said, “Hello, young lady. When I’ve finished speaking I’ll say ‘Over.’ Then you switch to ‘Transmit’ to speak to me and you say ‘Over’ when you have finished. Do you understand? Over.”

The woman’s voice came on. “Oh, thank God for somebody sane, yes, I understand. Over.”

“Now, then,” Godliman said gently, “tell me what’s been happening there. Over.”

“A man was shipwrecked here two—no, three days ago. I think he’s that stiletto murderer from London, he killed my husband and our shepherd and now he’s outside the house, and I’ve got my little boy here…I’ve nailed the windows shut and fired at him with a shotgun, and barred the door and set the dog on him but he killed the dog and I hit him with an axe when he tried to get in through the window and I can’t do it anymore so please come for God’s sake. Over.”

Godliman put his hand over the phone. His face was white. “Jesus Christ…” But when he spoke to her, he was brisk. “You must try to hold on a little longer,” he began. “There are sailors and coastguards and policemen and all sorts of people on their way to you but they can’t land until the storm lets up…. Now, there’s something I want you to do, and I can’t tell you why you must do it because of the people who may be listening to us, but I can tell you that it is absolutely essential…Are you hearing me clearly? Over.”

“Yes, go on. Over.”

“You must destroy your radio. Over.”

“Oh, no, please…”

“Yes,” Godliman said, then he realized she was still transmitting.

“I don’t…I can’t…” Then there was a scream.

Godliman said, “Hello, Aberdeen, what’s happening?”

The young man came on. “The set’s still transmitting, sir, but she’s not speaking. We can’t hear anything.”

“She screamed.”

“Yes, we got that.”

Godliman hesitated a moment. “What’s the weather like up there?”

“It’s raining, sir.” The young man sounded puzzled.

“I’m not making conversation,” Godliman snapped. “Is there any sign of the storm letting up?”

“It’s eased a little in the last few minutes, sir.”

“Good. Get back to me the instant that woman comes back on the air.”

“Very good, sir.”

Godliman said to Terry. “God only knows what that girl’s going through up there—” He jiggled the cradle of the phone.

The colonel crossed his legs. “If she would only smash up the radio, then—”

“Then we don’t care if he kills her?”

“You said it.”

Godliman spoke into the phone. “Get me Bloggs at Rosyth.”





BLOGGS WOKE UP with a start, and listened. Outside it was dawn. Everyone in the scramble hut was listening too. They could hear nothing. That was what they were listening to: the silence.

The rain had stopped drumming on the tin roof.

Bloggs went to the window. The sky was grey, with a band of white on the eastern horizon. The wind had dropped suddenly and the rain had become a light drizzle.

The pilots started putting on jackets and helmets, lacing boots, lighting up last cigarettes.

A klaxon sounded, and a voice boomed out over the airfield: “Scramble! Scramble!”

The phone rang. The pilots ignored it and piled out through the door. Bloggs picked it up. “Yes?”

“Percy here, Fred. We just contacted the island. He’s killed the two men. The woman’s managing to hold him off at the moment but she clearly won’t last much longer—”

“The rain has stopped. We’re taking off now,” Bloggs said.

“Make it fast, Fred. Good-bye.”

Bloggs hung up and looked around for his pilot. Charles Calder had fallen asleep over War and Peace. Bloggs shook him roughly. “Wake up, you dozy bastard, wake up!”

Calder opened his eyes.

Bloggs could have hit him. “Wake up, come on, we’re going, the storm’s ended!”

The pilot jumped to his feet. “Jolly good show,” he said.

He ran out of the door and Bloggs followed, shaking his head.