watched the traffic coming north. There was a big articulated with other traffic hung behind it. He put on speed. He passed the lay-by almost square with the articulated. He kept accelerating. He didn’t hear anything. He braked by The Raven, cut across to it, parked. He went to the door and wrenched at the handle, drove his foot into it. The door fell open. Wanda came running from the kitchen. She was dressed. She carried a handbag.
‘You!’ Wanda said. Her eyes were fearful. ‘You aren’t hurt — he didn’t hurt you?’
Gently brushed past her. He grabbed the phone, began to spin off a number.
‘You bloody fool,’ Wanda screamed. ‘He’s coming back. He’s going to kill you. Get to hell out of this place, you can’t stop in here.’
‘You can’t stop here either,’ Gently said. ‘Take the car. Drive to Baddesley.’
‘Oh God, oh God,’ she cried. ‘He’s going to kill you, he’s going to kill you.’
‘Take the car,’ Gently said. ‘Police. Superintendent Gently speaking.’
‘Oh God,’ Wanda sobbed. Her stub heels pattered out through the kitchen. The car door slammed, the engine started. The car didn’t pull away.
‘You’ve had a message from Ives,’ Gently said. ‘If you haven’t, this is the message.’
He held the receiver away from his ear, listening, watching, his back to the wall. He spoke softly.
‘Right. You’re getting it. I’m at The Raven. He’s somewhere close. Come straight to The Raven. Put a cordon round it. Take special care to cover the fields. Set up roadblocks at Everham and Huxford to stop all traffic. Send them armed.’
He stopped speaking. The black-and-white kitten had run in from outside. It ran up to Gently, rubbed against his ankle, purred, whisked its tail, stalked away. He hung up the receiver very quietly, began to move along the corridor. He could hear nothing except the 105’s engine filling in the gaps in the traffic.
He came to the toilets, listened, slid into them, came to the back door. It was unbolted. The kitten was following him. It went to the door and looked up at it. He moved across to the door, listened again, eased the bolts home. The kitten still looked at the door. There was no sound from outside it. He moved back into the corridor, looked along the doors of the bedrooms. They were closed. He returned to the kitchen. The cafe was empty. The parlour was empty. The kitten ran ahead into the narrow room, stopped, looked back at Gently. It didn’t look about the narrow room. Gently went in. The kitten proceeded. It entered the bedroom, stood switching its tail. Gently approached the door of the bedroom. He looked into the bedroom.
The bedroom was not as he had last seen it. The bed had been moved to one side. The lino from under the bed was rolled up and a section of the floorboards had been lifted. There was a cavity below the floorboards which was about four feet deep. Its walls were supported by rough timber baulks and the floor was covered with dirty floorcloth. On the floorcloth stood a camp bed and on the bed lay an electric lantern, and beside the bed was a jug of lemonade and a glass and a stuffed ashtray. A section of six-inch drainpipe projected from one of the walls and a faint light showed in it. The removed floorboards lay on Wanda’s bed. They were a section which matched the existing cross-fit of the floor.
He didn’t go into the room but stood looking. The kitten moved around, sniffed at the cavity. The yellow curtains of the square window were drawn back. The window was part open. There was a faint draught from it. Then the window darkened a little and Gently looked at the window. The face of a man was squinting through it. Their eyes met. The man was a stranger. He began to fire through the wall as Gently leaped backwards. The gun kept firing, raking splinters off the doorframe. Gently wasn’t hit. He ran back into the parlour. Wanda was screaming ‘This way, this way.’ He ran out into the park. The gun had stopped firing. Wanda had the 105’s door open. She was screaming. He jumped into the car. She crashed home the clutch, bucked the car away.
‘Not too far!’ Gently shouted at her. ‘The gun doesn’t have any range.’
‘He’ll kill the pair of us. He’ll kill us.’
‘Don’t go further than the bend!’
She was driving madly, her foot down, swerving the 105 dangerously. He reached for the key, turned it, withdrew it. The car slowed, came to a rest, finished partly on the verge. She was sobbing and screaming. ‘No — no!’ He slapped her face. It had no effect. ‘He’ll kill us — he will — he’ll kill us, he’ll kill us!’
‘Shut up,’ Gently said. ‘He’s still back there behind the building.’ She tried to open the door. He knocked her hands away from it. She screamed piercingly in her fear.
‘Who is it?’ Gently said. His eyes were hard on the building, isolating it. Nobody had come round either end of it, or through the door, still sagging open.
‘He won’t stop at you. He’ll kill both of us.’
‘What’s his name — who is he?’
‘Oh God let’s go, let’s go.’
‘Tell me who he is,’ Gently said.
She struggled again. He pinned her down. She tried to strike him. She was too weak. She sobbed and cried in frantic panic, making efforts to get the door handle. The moments passed, became minutes. Still nobody came round the building. The kitten appeared for a moment at the door, turned round deliberately, marched in again. Wanda’s struggles became less continuous. Her sobs declined into a moaning.
‘He’s a Pole, isn’t he?’ Gently said.
She whined. She went for the handle again.
‘Is he someone who was here during the war — one of the Poles who were at Huxford?’
‘Find out, you bugger,’ she whined.
‘How long has he been hiding at The Raven?’
‘Find out,’ she said. ‘Find out. I tried to stop him going after you.’
‘How were you going to get away?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Because you weren’t going to leave with him,’ Gently said. ‘He’s a psychopath. He’d kill anyone.’
She moaned, struck at him. Her eyes hated him.
‘You too,’ Gently said. ‘You’d like me to think that you’re man-proof. But he got round you. And he’s a killer.’
‘He’ll kill you,’ Wanda said.
‘Is he your husband?’ Gently asked.
She tugged savagely. ‘Talk bloody sense.’
‘We’ll find out,’ Gently said. ‘He’s shot his bolt.’
Two minutes. Three minutes. Wanda was quiet but breathing heavily. There was a big gap in the traffic coming along, the northbound traffic: the block was operating. The southbound traffic continued to flow. Nothing moved up at The Raven. The door was hanging on one of its hinges, caved inwards, hanging still. Gently looked steadily at Wanda. He put the key back in the switch.
‘I’m going back there,’ he said. ‘If he comes this way, don’t wait for him.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘You can’t do that. He won’t give in, he’d sooner shoot you.’
‘I’m not relying on it,’ Gently said. ‘Don’t take the car except to avoid him. The road is blocked in both directions. Wait here. Unless he comes.’
‘No.’ She clung to him. ‘Don’t go after him. You can’t do anything. He’s got the gun.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘He’s got the gun.’ He pulled loose from her, got out of the car.
There was a gate in the hedge, into the field. He went to the gate and looked through it. The field was a small crop of turnips and had a cross hedge near to the gate. He climbed the gate, approached the cross hedge, found a gap through which to spy. Through the gap he could see The Raven at about a hundred yards distance. The garden was fenced with wire netting. He could see most of it. At the end of the garden were the fruit trees and from it a hedge extended to the hedge he stood by. He worked up the field to the line of this hedge. It bounded also the field of turnips. He passed through it near a small field oak, proceeded along it till he came to the garden. He looked along it and saw the yard. He saw where the man had stood when he was shooting. A scatter of shells lay about the spot, a few splinters of pinkish wood. Nothing moved. Between the yard and the fruit trees stood a poultry house with a sagged roof. He crept through the hedge, through the trees, came to the poultry house, stopped to observe. Nothing again. He moved rapidly into the yard, tried the door. It was still bolted.
He spent ten seconds listening, then came out of the yard and went to the bedroom window. Beneath it was chewed a savage rent through the wall timber and the hardboard lining. The rent was about the size of a dinner plate. He looked through it. He saw the kitten. The kitten was by the door and stretching its neck to sniff at a scar
