The Old Vengeful

Elizabeth rose to her feet and tried to take the coat from him, but her knees were so weak that she found herself holding to his hand through the coat to keep her balance.

'Are you all right?' He took the cigarette from her.

'I'm all right.' Belatedly she realised that one edge of the torn dress had escaped her, and one breast with it; and the sight of it somehow put strength back into her knees and allowed her to get the coat round her, for modesty's sake.

He was trying to propel her out of the study, but she saw the legs protruding from behind the desk and the sight of them immobilised her again.

'He can't hurt you.' Dr Mitchell's voice suddenly became harsher. 'Come on!'

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She had known that already in her heart, or at least half-known it, from the stillness of those suede shoes; but although she believed him she could not take in her own belief with understanding, so that she turned to him in horror at his confirmation of what she had known.

And then she stared at the open doorway.

'And the other one won't bother you either.' Dr Mitchell read her mind, but this time he had control of his voice. 'He's got two bullets in his chest, so he's not going anywhere.

Come on!'

Elizabeth allowed herself to be half-led, half-pushed, and half-supported out of the study, and across the hall, and into the sitting room.

Bullets—

There had been those noises—they still rang in her head, she could still hear them—before her head had hit the desk—

noises— two bullets in the chest—and the suede shoes protruding from behind the desk—

He pushed her against an armchair—it pressed against the back of her legs, and she collapsed into it, letting it engulf her.

She hugged the old raincoat against her. 'I'm cold.'

He knelt down obediently in the fireplace, to switch on the electric fire which stood in it during the summer. She heard the switches click—one, two, three.

'Where do you keep your drinks?'

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'In the cabinet—in the corner,' she answered automatically.

There was a thing in the back of her mind, just beyond her reach—like the cigarette on the carpet.

He tried to put a glass in her hand, and she could smell brandy.

'I don't drink—not this.'

'You're drinking it now. And so am I.' He paused to drink.

'Go on.'

She drank, and the fiery stuff burnt her throat, squeezing tears from her eyes.

'Here you are.'

He was offering her something else. Incredulously, she saw the same blue-grey smoke curl from a cigarette.

'Take it—go on.'

'I don't smoke.' The cigarette brought back an obscene memory, making her shiver involuntarily.

'But you were—' he bit off the end of the sentence. 'Christ!

Was that. . . Christ!'

She drank again. This time it didn't burn so much— burn!

She shivered again, her teeth rattling against the cut-glass, and focussed on him.

He was staring at the little golden packet in his hand, as though he was seeing it for the first time, and she was seeing him for the first time too—not as he had stared at her from the dust-jacket of The Breaking of the Hindenburg Line—not dummy3

the Paul Mitchell born in Gloucestershire and educated at Lord Mansfield's Grammar School and Cambridge University

—

'Who are you?' Suddenly she knew what it was that she had been reaching out for, beyond the smouldering cigarette.

'Have you phoned the police?

He took another drink. 'You know who I am.'

'Have you phoned—?' The question died inside her as she repeated it, and a terrible fear invaded her across the gap it left in its fall—a fear which took her back to the question he had left unanswered. 'Who are you?'

Who are you? What are you? She shrank away from him into the softness of the armchair, graduating from fear again into greater and uncomprehending panic.