Eye of the Needle(94)
Oblivious now to the danger she walked forward. Another lesser wave broke around her knees, filling her Wellington boots with foamy saltwater but she didn’t notice. Jo twisted in her arms to face forward. She screamed, “Don’t look!” in his ear and pushed his face into her shoulder. He began to cry.
She knelt beside the body and touched the horrible face with her hand. David. There was no doubt. He was dead, and had been for some time. Moved by some terrible need to make absolutely certain, she lifted the skirt of the oilskin and looked at the stumps of his legs.
It was impossible to take in the fact of the death. She had, in a way, been wishing him dead, but her feelings about him were confused by guilt and the fear of being found out in her infidelity. Grief, horror, relief—they fluttered in her mind like birds, none of them willing to settle.
She would have stayed there, motionless, but the next wave was a big one. Its force knocked her flying, and she took a great gulp of sea water. Somehow she managed to keep Jo in her grasp and stay on the ramp; and when the surf settled she got to her feet and ran up out of the greedy reach of the ocean.
She walked all the way to the cliff top without looking back. When she came within sight of the cottage, she saw the jeep standing outside. Henry was back.
Still carrying Jo, she broke into a stumbling run, desperate to share her hurt with Henry, to feel his arms around her and have him comfort her. Her breath came in ragged sobs and tears mixed invisibly with the rain on her face. She went to the back of the cottage, burst into the kitchen and dumped Jo urgently on the floor.
Henry casually said, “David decided to stay over at Tom’s another day.”
She stared at him, her mind a disbelieving blank; and then, still disbelieving, she understood.
Henry had killed David.
The conclusion came first, like a punch in the stomach, winding her; the reasons followed a split-second later. The shipwreck, the odd-shaped knife he was so attached to, the crashed jeep, the news bulletin about the London stiletto murderer—suddenly everything fitted together, a box of jigsaw pieces thrown in the air and landing, improbably, fully assembled.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Henry said with a smile. “They’ve got a lot of work to do over there, although I admit I didn’t encourage him to come back.”
Tom. She had to go to Tom. He would know what to do; he would protect her and Jo until the police came; he had a dog and a gun.
Her fear was interrupted by a dart of sadness, of sorrow for the Henry she had believed in, had almost loved; clearly he did not exist—she had imagined him. Instead of a warm, strong, affectionate man, she saw in front of her a monster who sat and smiled and calmly gave her invented messages from the husband he had murdered.
She forced herself not to shudder. Taking Jo’s hand, she walked out of the kitchen, along the hall and out of the front door. She got into the jeep, sat Jo beside her, and started the engine.
But Henry was there, resting his foot casually on the running board, and holding David’s shotgun. “Where are you going?”
If she drove away now he might shoot—what instinct had warned him to take the gun into the house this time?—and while she herself might chance it, she couldn’t endanger Jo. She said, “Just putting the jeep away.”
“You need Jo’s help for that?”
“He likes the ride. Don’t cross-examine me!”
He shrugged, and stepped back.
She looked at him for a moment, wearing David’s hacking jacket and holding David’s gun so casually, and wondered whether he really would shoot her if she simply drove away. And then she recalled the vein of ice she had sensed in him right from the start, and knew that that ultimate commitment, that ruthlessness, would allow him to do anything.
With an awful feeling of weariness, she threw the jeep into reverse and backed into the barn. She switched off, got out, and walked with Jo back into the cottage. She had no idea what she would say to Henry, what she would do in his presence, how she would hide her knowledge—if, indeed, she had not already betrayed it.
She had no plans.
But she had left the barn door open.
32
THAT’S THE PLACE, NUMBER ONE,” THE CAPTAIN SAID, and lowered his telescope.
The first mate peered out through the rain and the spray. “Not quite the ideal holiday resort, what, sir? Jolly stark, I should say.”
“Indeed.” The captain was an old-fashioned naval officer with a grizzled beard who had been at sea during the first war with Germany. However, he had learned to overlook his first mate’s foppish conversational style, for the boy had turned out—against all expectations—to be a perfectly good sailor.
The “boy,” who was past thirty and an old salt by this war’s standards, had no idea of the magnanimity he benefited from. He held on to a rail and braced himself as the corvette mounted the steep side of a wave, righted itself at the crest and dived into the trough. “Now that we’re here, sir, what do we do?”
“Circle the island.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And keep our eyes open for a U-boat.”
“We’re not likely to get one anywhere near the surface in this weather—and if we did, we couldn’t see it unless it came within spitting distance.”
“The storm will blow itself out tonight—tomorrow at the latest.” The captain began stuffing tobacco into a pipe.