“Then what makes you think I’ll stick off at you?”
She hardly saw the movement of his hand, because she was so intent on his face, which had dropped all its pretence of shock and innocence and vulnerability, and was gazing at her with steady, calculating concentration. This was more like Hugh, the Hugh she had known, who kept no rules but his own, and changed even those to suit his present convenience; Hugh bright, hard, self-centred and resolute. How often in the past she had called him awful, a devil, told him he didn’t give a damn for anyone, telling herself, at the same time, the exact truth of what she knew; but what she had always failed to do was to take these truths seriously. Now she knew better. And now he had taken one deliberate step towards the circle of light from the lamp, to let her see the gun in his hand.
“That’s one thing you were wrong about, Dinah girl. This wasn’t hidden in Mother’s room, it was among my shirts, over there at the flat. I picked it up this evening. It’s loaded. And Dad and I always kept his little war souvenir in good working fettle. We used to practise at a target in the garden. It doesn’t make a very alarming sound, through these walls it wouldn’t carry far. But it kills, Dinah.”
“Yes,” she said, “we know it kills.”
Such a tiny thing, blue-black; the barrel jutting out of his fist couldn’t have been more than three inches long, and the whole small weapon scarcely six. It was hard to believe in it, harder still to be afraid of it. She might as well have been looking at a toy, and yet she had good reason to know that it could kill. And curiously, it mattered a great deal that she had never had any practice in being afraid. It cannot be learned all in a minute. In particular she had never before had any reason to be afraid of Hugh, and now that she had good reason, she found it difficult to take even this seriously. In theory she believed; in practice, however incredibly, she suddenly laughed aloud. It disconcerted and yet for a moment encouraged him. She had known him,perhaps, better than he had known her.
“Look, Dinah, all I’ve done is what I had to do, and I’m going through with it, and my God, surely you’re not the one to stop me? Hell, you think I don’t know you’ve been fond of me? And I wanted you, and I still want you. Dinah, I’m getting out of here…”
“You won’t get out,” she said. “They’ll be watching the gates. They’re not as green as you think.”
“I’ll get out. There are other ways than through the gates. The Porsche’s there in the yard at home, they’re not watching that. Dinah—
For one moment she actually thought he meant it. It made no difference, she had already recoiled with so much detestation that no possible tenderness or hope in him could have survived the implications; but for one single instant she almost believed he wanted her to go with him alive. Then she knew better than that. She was the one dangerous witness now. If he forced her out of here with him, she would not last long. Now she knew exactly where she stood. If only she knew the time! How long to nine o’clock and Dave calling for her? How long to the return of Chief Inspector Felse who had left, mysteriously, before noon? He would not leave his case unvetted overnight.
“You’re coming,” said Hugh very softly, “whether you choose to or not.”
“How far?” said Dinah. “Where will you ditch me, Hugh? And how far do you think you’ll get, afterwards? How’s your passport, Hugh? Where will you get passage out? You don’t know the professional routes, do you?”
“Dinah,” he said, moving gently in upon the table that stood between me, “you used to love me—I know you loved me…”
“God!” she said, sick and furious with revulsion, “if you could only know how I despise you now! It isn’t even the killing—it’s the treachery—the
“Shut up!” he said in a muted scream that rasped his throat raw. “Shut up, or I’ll kill you here and now…”
“Kill me, then! Fetch them in running! What will that do for you?”
He came on quietly, in cold control of himself again after that brief outburst. His thigh touched the rim of the table. Without taking his eyes from her or relaxing for an instant the steadiness of his aim at her body, he lowered his free hand, took the rim of his palm and hoisted the table on one leg, wheeling it aside from between them. She moved promptly to circle with it as it swung, but he had manoeuvred her into a corner, and now she had nowhere to retreat from him.
She waited for him to move slowly round the rim towards her, and then suddenly she gripped the edge of the table with both hands and heaved it upright, aiming the coffee-pot at him. China and sugar and sandwiches went flying, the brass table-top struck him on the hip, but he stepped sharply back, hardly spattered, and the gun steadied again upon her. Hugh planted a foot deliberately in the wreckage and walked through it, crushing and breaking, his eyes never deflected from their aim.
“You’re coming with me, Dinah, love, whether you want to or not. You’re coming with me a little way…”
Her shoulders were flattened against the wall; she could not move any farther. His free hand came out, carefully, smoothly, and gripped her by the wrist.
The door opened, a small, prosaic, normal sound. Robert came quietly into the room and closed the door after him.
He looked as he always looked, pallid, colourless, calm, the very fibre of his clan, worn down to the essential substance but made to last for ever. He paused in the doorway to set his course, and after a moment of taking stock he began to move forward into the room. And everything went into slow motion and synchronised with his advancing steps.
Hugh dropped Dinah as if she counted for nothing; perhaps now she did. She squared her shoulders against the wall, and watched, helpless to do more. Everything had been taken out of her hands. Even the gun ignored her now, its minute, steely eye trained upon Robert.
But she was not quite forgotten, after all. Suddenly Hugh had remembered her mettle and taken her back into account. She saw that he was moving gradually aside, the gun never wavering, to work himself into a position where he could cover both of them, and no one could get behind him. Dinah moved, too, abruptly aware of the possibilities, stooping in one flashing movement to scoop up a knife from the wreckage of the table, and slide along the wall. But she had moved too late; she could not get out of his vision again, and he knew too much to shift his aim even for an instant, but still he was aware of what she did.
“Drop it, Dinah! On the tray, where I can hear!”
She could not risk the shot that would not even be fired at her. The knife tinkled back harmlessly among the fragments of china.
