‘I might be, Felse, I might be, if there’s nothing else left. There’s no hanging now. And there’s a lot better remission than you lot like, and even parole— What should I be, by comparison with some of the real killers? Just one kid, and almost cleanly!’
It was curious that the more ghastly his arguments became, the more secure seemed Bossie’s future. He was very seriously beginning to consider his captive as a barterable commodity, not to be squandered. George had visions of having to rouse the Chief Constable in the middle of the night.
‘Go on, I’m interested. What do you want, a jet plane to fly you to Libya?’
‘I’ll get myself out of the country, there are ways. Nothing as ambitious as that. I want all your men called off for twelve hours, and a car brought here for me – and my little nephew, of course!’
‘A dark green SAAB?’ asked George. ‘The one you used to try and run him down? You’ll have to prove he’s still as good as new, first, you realise that? Nobody buys a pig in a poke.’
‘A nice, well-maintained police car, with everything legitimate, and twelve hours guarantee of a clean bill, in case of any hitch. And he’s OK as of now, and I’ll prove it if I have to, but he won’t be, if you bitch me up short of noon tomorrow.’
‘On the other hand,’ pointed out George, tirelessly mild, ‘you are still stuck in there, the one who needs clemency. Unless you convince us we have to, we are not disposed to let you out, except into our custody. You’d better be a lot more convincing.’
A sudden, prolonged, tired but vicious outburst of profanity. No detectable movement, no struggle at all, things getting bedded down into a status quo. No, he wouldn’t slaughter his bargaining counter. Given time, he might even fall asleep from exhaustion. But he was a tough proposition, far tougher than John Stubbs, with any amount of stamina.
It was no comfort at all when the constable from the switchboard made his way in just after eleven, to announce in a triumphant whisper: ‘We’ve found him! Stubbs! He’s in Birmingham, at this Lavery woman’s flat, seems they had a dinner date on the town, and he jumped at it when this chap Barron offered to do his evening rounds for him. Some of the students wanted to stay on late and finish charting the bit of infirmary they were working on, and Barron said he’d see them off the premises and lock up. We called the flat several times before, but they were still out. They’re only just back. He’s on his way back here now.’
Poor harmless, glum, undecided John Stubbs, good enough to run a job like this caretaking one at Mottisham, but not good enough to get much higher on his own achievements, jealous and resentful of smarter acquaintances such as Colin Barron, but willing to lean on them, too. And torn between two grotesquely different women, and the mixed fortunes they offered, salvation to the undistinguished. So all the time he was taking the more profitable legatee out to dinner! In crass innocence!
‘You still there, Felse?’ demanded the hoarse, vindictive voice from within.
‘I’m still here. I’m listening.’
‘Better make up your mind quickly, if you want this kid, I’m getting tired of waiting. Give me the break I want, and he’s yours.’
‘If you turn him loose to us here on the spot, that might be worth considering. But it doesn’t rest with me, and there are no short cuts to an answer.’
‘Not a chance! I don’t take my halter off him until I’m clear. Then I’ll dump him safely, somewhere he can look after himself.’
‘And we should trust you? But you’d never make it, you know, I guarantee that. You’d much better come out, and get it over.’
‘If I don’t make it, he doesn’t make it, either. I’ll see to that! So get to your damned Chief Constable, and get things moving. And I want more time, since you’re wasting so much. I want a full day!’
If he was tiring, it didn’t show in his voice. All those listening tried to find some sign of weakening, of wandering resolution, and couldn’t. And nothing had changed; there was just this one way out and in, and parley with him was in fact only an exercise in wearing him down, and none too effective so far. It was going to be a long night.
Toby couldn’t stand still and listen to it any longer. He turned his back and groped away along the wall, out of the stable-yard, and round to the left, to circle the whole block and look once more for some other means of approach, anything that would turn the scale. Though he knew that Moon and the constables had already done the same thing, and found nothing of any use. It was better than standing outside the door thinking helplessly of Bossie inside there, roped into helplessness and with a noose round his neck, and of Jenny, with superhuman forbearance, keeping her distance as requested, and dying every minute.
A few broken, embedded stones of a wall jutted for some yards from the corner of the stable-block. He stumbled over them, and came round to the rear of the north walk of the old cloister, into the nave of the church. All along there on his left ran the thick, decrepit stone wall that once had severed the church from the cloister. And to his right the gardens fell away, and gave place to a large, cleared space, receding into darkness between distant walls, where some trick of latent and reflected light, owing to its white encrustations, showed him dimly the shape of a concrete mixer. The sky was a little paler than it had been, against it he could see the tracery of scaffolding encasing one wall, though it vanished again into a single darkness below the skyline. The workmen had much of their plant and stores here, it seemed. Toby moved along the wall, his left hand extended to touch the rough and crumbling surface, and groped his way round a short, buttress-like projection, surely added long after the church itself was gone and the cloister had become stables. Sign enough that this wall, though immense, had been showing traces of disintegration even in the eighteenth century, and needed propping at this point. As he rounded it and felt for the wall again, a small figure erupted under his feet with a muted squeak of alarm, and instantly shushed imperiously at him, as if he had been the offender. Startled, Toby looked down into a round face just visible as a pallor in the night, and clutched at a coat-collar, and was himself as promptly and eagerly clutched by the arm, and towed away into the scaffolded and plant-stacked shelter of the distant buildings, away from the critical zone.
He went willingly, as soon as he had divined the reason; and the moment they were well away from the wall an intent voice round the region of his upper arm hissed at him: ‘Mister, I couldn’t talk there, you can hear right through. That’s Bossie he’s got in there! We’ve got to get him out!’
‘I know!’ agreed Toby in the same urgent undertone. ‘We’re trying to. It’s full of police round there, but we can’t get in. He’s threatening to hurt Bossie if we do. Hey, you’re Bossie’s stand-in, aren’t you? Spuggy?’
‘Yes, we’re all here, four of us. We had to come back. He told us not to, but we had to, we couldn’t leave him on his own.’
