Nothing was said until they were in sight of the rooming-house, then Calvin slowed down and pulled to the grass verge and stopped the car.
‘Listen to me,’ he snarled. ‘You’ve got to pull yourself together, you drunken bitch! Do you hear me! We’re not through yet. When we get in, go straight upstairs and stop at the top. I’ll tell you to go to bed and you’ll say just one word: ‘Yes’. If either Miss Pearson or the major is in the hall, go past them, keeping your head turned away. Understand?’
She sat there, stinking of whisky, crying helplessly, apparently not listening.
Swearing under his breath, Calvin caught hold of one of her wrists in both hands and twisted her flesh in opposite directions. The sudden agony of his grip made her cry out and brought her upright.
‘Do you hear me?’ he snarled, letting go of her wrist, his hands closing over her shoulders. He shook her. ‘Sober up! Do you understand what you’ve got to do?’
She cringed away from him.
‘Yes…’
‘All right, then do it! Make one mistake and you’ll land yourself in the gas chamber.’
He started the car engine again and drove on to the rooming-house. When they arrived, he put the car in the garage.
‘Come on… get out!’
She got out. Now she was sobering up and looking at her, Calvin was shocked at the sight of her. She looked old and ugly. Her eyes had sunk into her head. Her skin was the colour of tallow: even her lips were white.
He caught hold of her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh and hurried her up the steps and into the hall. He rushed her across the hall to the foot of the stairs and gave her a push forward, starting her up the stairs as Major Hardy appeared in the doorway of the lounge.
Calvin began taking off his coat, ignoring the major, watching Kit stumbling up the stairs. Then when she reached the head of the stairs and was out of sight, he called after her, ‘Alice I think you should go to bed. I’ll tell Kit to come up to you.’
He waited for the rehearsed ‘yes’, but it didn’t come. He listened to her stumbling up the other flight of stairs to her room.
‘Something wrong?’ the major asked.
Before turning, Calvin composed his expression The effort he had to make to appear relaxed brought sweat out on his hands.
‘She’s a bit under the weather,’ he said. ‘She has a bad headache and so on… one of these women’s things.’
The major, who was a bachelor, looked wise.
‘It happens to them all, the poor things,’ he said. ‘Best in bed.’
‘Yes.’
Calvin went up to his room. He hurriedly washed his sweating face and hands, then he went into Kit’s room.
She was lying face down on her bed, breathing heavily. He stood over her, aware that in less than half an hour she would have an important role to play and aware that at the moment she was incapable of playing it. She was still drunk. He had to get her sober. He wanted to grab her by her hair and slap her face until she sobered up, but he realised his hand would leave tell-tale marks which the old couple couldn’t fail to see.
He moved closer, then putting his hand on the back of her head, he pressed her face into the pillow. He began to spank her, viciously and violently until his hand felt burning and bruised. He muffled her screams by keeping her face forced into the pillow, and finally, after he had beaten her until his arm began to tire, he released her, dragging her over on her back and standing over her, his eyes glittering, as he stared down at her.
She lay motionless, her face contorted with pain, but her eyes clear and sober.
‘Are you all right now?’ Calvin demanded, breathing heavily. ‘Have you sobered up?’
She drew in a long shuddering breath, then she closed her eyes, nodding.
‘Okay. Now get up and put some make-up on. You look like hell. I’m going down. You know what to do and say. We’ve gone over it enough times.’ He leaned over her, his expression vicious. ‘Do you know what to do?’
Opening her eyes, she suddenly spat in his face. The hatred in her eyes startled him. His hand swung back to slap her, but he controlled himself. Instead, he wiped his face with the back of his hand and grinned at her. His grip was vicious and confident.
‘If you still have the guts to do that after that beating, you can go through with this,’ he said. ‘Three hundred thousand dollars! Remember that! Three hundred thousand dollars!’
