abrasive surface of the macadam road. He should jump now, and take his chances but grimly he stayed with the crazed machine, for Melissa-Jane was in her and he could not leave.
She survived one more skid, and ahead Peter had the glimpse of a barred wooden gate in the wall. Deliberately he turned the front wheels into the direction of the next skid, no longer trying to counteract it, but aggravating it IL
steering directly for the gate, and the Austin smashed into it.
A wooden beam cartwheeled over Peter’s head, and a scalding cloud of steam from the shattered radiator stung his face and hands, and then the Austin was into the open field, bouncing and thudding over the rocks that studded it, the drag of soft muddy earth slowing her, and the steep slope of the hillside against her within fifty feet the front end dropped heavily into a drainage ditch, and the little car shuddered to a halt, canted at an abandoned angle.
Peter slipped over the side and landed on his feet. He jerked open the rear door and a man half fell from the cab.
He dropped onto his knees in the mud, blubbering incoherently and Peter drove his right knee into his face. Bone and cartilage crunched sharply and there was the crackle of breaking teeth.
His voice was cut off abruptly and, as he dropped, Peter chopped him with the stiffened blade of his right hand, a controlled blow judged finely to immobilize but not to kill, and before the unconscious body dropped, Peter had gone in over it, He lifted his daughter out of the
Austin, and the frail wasted body felt unsubstantial in his arms, and the heat of fever and infection burned against his chest.
He was possessed by an almost uncontrollable desire to crush her body to him with all the strength of his arms, but instead he carried her as though she was made of some precious and fragile substance,
stepping carefully over the uneven rocky surface of the field to where the helicopter was settling cumbersomely out of the darkness.
The Thor doctor was still aboard her; he jumped clear before the helicopter touched and ran towards Peter in the brilliant glare of the landing lights.
Peter found he was crooning so. “It’s all right now, darling.
It’s all over now. It’s all finished, my baby I’m here, little one
Then Peter made another discovery. It was not sweat running down his cheeks and dripping from his chin, and he wondered unashamedly when last it was he had wept.
He could not remember, and it did not seem important, not now, not with his daughter in his arms.
Synthia came down to London, and Peter relived some of those horrors from their marriage.
“Everybody around yOU always has to SUffer, Peter.
Now it’s Melissa-Jane’s turn.” He could not avoid her, nor her martyred expression, for she was always at Melissa-Jane’s bedside.
While he bore her recriminations and barbed accusations, he wondered that she had ever been gay and young and attractive. She was two years younger than he was but she already had the shapeless body and greying mind that made her seem twenty years older.
Melissa-Jane responded almost miraculously to the antibiotics, and although she was still weak and skinny and pale, the doctor discharged her on the third day, and Peter and Cynthia had their final degrading haggling and bargaining session which Melissa-Jane settled for them.
mummy, I’m still so afraid. Can’t I go with Daddy just for a few days?” Finally Cynthia agreed with sighs and pained airs that left them both feeling a little guilty. On the drive down to Abbots Yew,
where Steven had invited them for as long as was necessary for
Melissa-Jane’s convalescence, she sat very quietly beside Peter, her left hand still in the sling and the finger wearing a small neat white turban. She spoke only after they had passed the Heathrow turn off on the M4.
“All the time I knew you were going to come. I can’t remember much else. It was always dark and giddy making things kept changing.
I’d look at a face and it would fade away, and then we’d be somewhere else-“
“It was the drug they were giving you,” Peter explained.
“Yes, I know that. I remember the prick of the needle-“
Reflexively she rubbed her upper arm, and shivered briefly.
“But even with the drug I always knew you were going to come. I remember lying in the darkness listening for your voice. -” There was the temptation to try to pretend it had never happened, and Melissa-Jane had not spoken about it until now but
Peter knew she must be allowed to talk it out.
“Would you like to tell me about it?” he invited gently, knowing that it was essential to the healing process. He listened quietly as she spilled out drug-haunted memories, disjointed scraps of conversation and impressions. The terror was back in her voice when she spoke of the dark one.
“He looked at me sometimes. I remember him looking at me-” And
Peter remembered the cold killer’s eyes.
“He is dead now, darling.”
“Yes, I know. They told me.” She was silent for a moment, and then went on. “He was so different from the one with grey hair. I liked him, the old one. His name was Doctor
Jameson.”
“How did you know that?” Peter asked.
“That’s what the dark one called him.” She smiled.
“Doctor Jameson, I remember he always smelled like cough mixture and I liked him-” The one who had done the amputation, and would have taken her hand as well, Peter thought grimly.
“I never saw the other one. I knew he was there, but I never saw him.”
“The other one?” Peter turned to her sharply. “Which other one,
darling?”
“There was another one and even the dark one was afraid of him. I knew that, they were all afraid of him.”
“You never saw him?”
“No, but they were always talking about him, and arguing about what he would do—”
“Do you remember his name?” Peter asked, and Melissa-Jane frowned in concentration.
“Did he have a name?” Peter prompted.
“Usually they just talked about him, but, yes, I remember now.
The dark one called him “Casper”.”
“Casper?”
“No, not that, not Casper.
Oh, I can’t remember.” Her voice had risen, a shrill note in terror that ripped at Peter’s nerves.
“Don’t worry about it.” He tried to soothe her, but she shook her head with frustration.
“Not Casper, a name like that. I knew he was the one who really wanted to hurt me they were just doing what he told them. He was the one I was truly afraid of.” Her voice ended with a sob, and she was sitting bolt upright in the seat.
“It’s over now, darling.” Peter swung into the verge of the road and braked to a halt. He reached for her but she was rigid in his arms and at his touch she began to shake uncontrollably. Peter’s alarm flared, and he held her to his chest.
“Caliph!” she whispered. “That’s his name. Caliph.” And she relaxed against him softly, and sighed. The shaking stopped slowly.
Peter went on holding her, trying to control the terrible consuming waves of anger that engulfed him, and it was some little time before he realized suddenly that Melissa-Jane had fallen asleep.
It was as though uttering the name had been a catharsis for her terror, and now she was ready to begin the healing inside.
Peter laid her gently back in the seat and covered her with the angora rug before he drove on, but every few seconds he glanced across to make sure she was at peace.
Twice Peter called Magda Altmann from Abbots Yew, both times to her private number, but she was
