Flight of a Witch

‘That’s right. Go on.’

‘So we have to find him. And the devil of it is that I didn’t try to find out anything about him when I had the chance. I never asked any questions. She asked me to help her to get away. She wanted to go to London. I knew she wasn’t happy. I knew they didn’t want her to go, and it was wrong, in a way, to help her to leave them high and dry. But she asked me, and I did it. She said her parents would be out when she was supposed to go for her piano lesson in the village that Friday afternoon, and she’d have her cases packed, and would I fetch her and take her to the station at Comerbourne. And I said yes. I’d only just passed my test about three weeks before, I wasn’t supposed to touch the car yet unless Dad was with me. But I said yes, anyhow. And I asked her, did she want me to get her ticket for her, so that she could slip in without being noticed at the booking office. And she said it was two tickets she wanted, not one. Singles.’

He had paled perceptibly, and for once he lowered his eyes, frowning down at his own hands clenched tightly in his lap. But only for a moment, while he re-mustered his forces. ‘And I booked them for her,’ he said, ‘the day before she planned to leave.’

‘It sounds,’ said George, carefully avoiding all emphasis, ‘as though she made fairly shameless use of you.’

‘No! No, you don’t know! It wasn’t like that at all. She was perfectly honest with me. I could have said no. I did what I wanted to do. I helped her, and I didn’t ask her anything. If she needed to go, as badly as that, I was for her. She didn’t owe me anything. And it was for me to choose what I’d do, and I did choose. I booked the tickets for her, and the next day I skipped my last period, and went down to where Dad leaves the car, just round the corner from his office, in the yard at the back. You can’t see it from his window, I knew that, and I had the spare key. I fetched Annet and her two cases from Fairford. Her parents were due home in half an hour, but they wouldn’t expect her back from her class until six, so she had a couple of hours’ grace. I took her to the station. We were a good twenty minutes early, but the train backs in well ahead of time. She said he would get on the train independently, with only a platform ticket, and then join her on board. So we went in together when there was a slack moment, and I took a platform ticket from the machine to get out again. We wanted both London tickets punched normally, you see, no queries, nothing to wonder about at all.’

‘And you never asked her outright who he was? Or even looked around to see if anyone was casing the pair of you? Anyone who might be the boy she was going to meet?’

‘No,’ said Miles, and flamed and paled again in an instant, remembering stresses within himself that had cost him more than his dignity was prepared to admit.

‘All right! This isn’t a matter of betrayal now,’ said George practically, ‘it’s Annet’s safety. I believe you didn’t ask, I believe you didn’t look for him. Leave it at that for now. Go on.’

‘Well, you know how it ended. Or rather you don’t, quite. I meant to have the car back in the yard before Dad ever missed it, and ninety-nine days out of a hundred I could have done it, but that was the hundredth. He had a call from a client who was breaking a train journey for one night at the Station Hotel, and had some bit of business he wanted to clear up quickly. And of course there was no car. He thought it had been stolen – there were several taken around that time, if you remember, locked and everything – some gang going round with a pocketful of keys. Anyhow, he reported it to the police, so after that there wasn’t going to be any hushing up the affair, naturally. And then he took a taxi across to the station, and the first thing he saw was his own car parked down the station approach. Well, of course he tipped off the constable from the corner to keep an eye on it, and he came down to the booking-office and the ticket gate to ask if anyone had seen it driven up and parked there. They know him – everybody does. And of course—’

Miles hunched his shoulders under the remembered load.

‘That was it! There we were on the platform, with two suitcases, and I had the two tickets in my hand. And he was furious already about the car. I didn’t blame him. Actually he was damn’ decent, considering. But after a bit of publicity like that it was all up with Annet’s plans, anyhow. We just let it ride, let him think what he was thinking. We didn’t have to consult about it, there wasn’t anything else to do. There’d be fuss enough about me, why drag the other fellow into it? All Annet could save out of it was her own secret. Dad said, back to the car, please, and back to the car we went like lambs. He drove out to Fairford, and handed Annet out of the car, and then he looked at the two cases, and neither of them meant a thing to him, but then he never remembers the colour of his own from one year to another. Mummy buys them for him, for presents, when the old ones are getting too battered. He wouldn’t notice. So I handed him one of them, it didn’t matter which, and gave Annet the item with one eye, and she caught on at once. Mummy got the other back to her, afterwards.’

‘You mean your mother knew?’ said Tom, startled, his respect for Eve’s unwomanly discretion soaring.

‘Oh, yes! I don’t think it would have taken her long to get the hang of it, anyhow, because Mummy does notice things. But she opened the case that same night, meaning to put my things away, so the cat was well and truly out of the bag.’

‘And she never said a word! Not even to your father?’ asked George.

‘No, she never did. She could have got me out of some of the muck, of course, but then we’d have had to leave Annet deeper in it, you see, and that was the last thing I wanted. I was all right, in any case, my parents never really panic. And at least nobody was pestering Annet about who, or how, or why, the way things were, because they thought they knew. If somebody’d crossed me out they’d have begun on her in earnest. Mummy let me play it my way, and that way there weren’t any questions. But you see,’ said Miles, contemplating his involuntary guilt with set jaw and dour eyes, ‘that that makes what’s happened since partly my doing. I stood in for him, and he stayed a secret. She still had him, they could try again. This time she didn’t ask anyone for help, they didn’t risk trains or places where there were people who might know them. And this time they pulled it off, if only for a week-end. A trial run for the real flight, maybe. Only this time,’ he said with the flat finality of certainty, ‘he ran out of funds and killed a man.’

‘It doesn’t necessarily follow,’ said George cautiously, ‘though I admit it’s a strong probability.’

‘I think it does follow. I think if there’d been any doubt, Annet would have spoken. As soon as she knew about the murder, she seems to have known whose life was at stake. Why else should she close up like this?’

‘Even Annet could be wrong,’ said George. ‘She never gave you any clue? You never noticed anything? Saw her with anyone special?’

Miles shook his head decidedly. ‘Maybe I was trying not to, I don’t know. I’ve tried all this evening to dredge up something that might be useful. But what I have is only deduction. He was from somewhere round here. That’s certain, because of the tickets. She wasn’t lying to me about that, I’m sure, he was going to board the train in Comerbourne. That time they were bound for London, this time it was Birmingham. That all ties in. She’s never been away from Comerford for long, it’s far more likely she’d get involved with someone here, someone she saw often, someone close at home. And someone hopelessly unsuitable,’ he said, watching George’s face steadily. ‘Even more unsuitable than I am now. I wasn’t warned off until after that fiasco. This one, whoever he is, would never have been allowed near her at all. That’s plain. There was a young fellow who drives long-distance lorries. Good-