She wriggled inside the hard wool of her jersey, screwing her muscles closer to her body, fighting to maintain the personal warmth that seemed to be steadily eluding her.
There was a child crying on one of the upper floors; it generally did, most of the night. Its mother had little to give it but a vague animal affection. In the days she had been in the commune Doris Lang had grown to hate that woman for her incompetence and her carelessness in the way she treated a two-year-old. She yearned to intervene, and every time dismissed the possibility as being out of context with her cover. Probably hungry, poor little bastard, trying to grow on toast and warmed tins of beans and spaghetti.
At a few minutes before four, the last of those who had sat up in the room with her stretched, and staggered, as if sleep-walking, towards the stairs. She was used to lack of sleep, and was able within moments to drag together the concentration she had allowed to fade and leave her. It was papers she wanted, indications about identity, about purpose — the reason these two unlikely figures, out of shape with the other jigsaw pieces of the commune, had come to spend their time there. Her watch showed just past four o'clock when she slipped out of the room, and went slowly, with great care, testing each footstep, toward the attic.
She wore rubber-soled tennis shoes. They had a dirty exterior, had long been without any whitener, but were totally efficient for moving without noise. With one hand she hitched up her long skirt to prevent it from brushing against the steps. Outside the door of the attic she paused again, listening to the night, to the sounds of traffic, of the heavy breathing of deep sleep, of the distant chorus of an ambulance on emergency call. From behind the door there was silence. Complete quiet. She eased her hand on to the rounded handle of the door, pushed it open an inch, waited and listened again, then went in.
Famy had not heard her on the stairs nor on the landing.
But the movement of the door handle mechanism alerted him, the most minute of sounds, as the bar was withdrawn inside the old, unoiled lock. From his half-sleep his eyes focused instantaneously on the white handkerchief he had tied to the handle on the inside of the door. He could see that, however blurred and grey it was in the near-dark. He saw it move, fractionally at first, then swing out, opening into the room. Then his sight of it was obscured as a silhouetted figure came past it. He felt sweat rise high up on his legs, and the sticky cloying moisture search over his skin, finding havens in his armpits, in his groin, behind his knees. He fought to control the regularity of his breathing.
They are in no hurry, thought Famy. Waiting their time, waiting for the light to become natural, easier. Then there was movement again, and with it the soft scuffing of material on the floor. That told Famy that his intruder was a girl, and as he strained into the nothingness of the room he pictured the one he had stared at downstairs with the pale white face, and the hair that had not been brushed, and the cumbersome dress that would reach down to the boards. His own part of the room was the darkest, but the street light made vague shapes at the end where McCoy slept. He could see clearly the girl's outline as she approached his sleeping bag, saw her bend down and open his case, heard her hands among his clothes.
That she had found nothing that she sought he could understand by the way, unhurried, unexcited, she put down the top of the case. Then there was indecision, confusion. She looks for me, the little whore, thought Famy. Remembers where I was last night, is searching with her eyes, but she'll need the torch over here. He closed his eyelids tight, unwilling to risk the involuntary blink if the light should suddenly come on. The footsteps came closer to him, warily, seeking out the ground, testing the pliability of the boards. They were very near when they stopped, and on his face he felt the thin beam of the torch.
He had put the bag close to his head, and he could feel her breath on his face as she bent low over him, painstakingly sliding back the fastener. She shifted a foot, leaving it just three or four inches from the sleeping bag, then her hands were inside the bag following the line of the torch.
It was as she straightened to move away that Famy thrust his hands from under the cover of the bag and grabbed at the leg that was closest to him.
For a moment his fingers were lost in the folds of the skirt, until, just short of panicking, he felt the hardness of her ankle. His whole weight followed, dragging her off balance, pulling her down. The torch fell to the floor boards, clattering and then shining its beam away from them. The surprise was complete. By the time she had realized what had happened she was on the boards, face down, her right arm twisted high behind her back, gripped by Famy, whose knee was indented into the pit of her back. The shock had been too great for her to scream.
'McCoy! McCoy! Come here.' He hissed the command out, and the other man stirred on the far side of the room.
'What is it?' the voice came low across the floor.
'I have the little bitch, I have her here.'
There was a flurry of movement and McCoy crawled through the darkness till he bumped into the mass that was the girl and Famy. His hand reached out for the torch, which he shone into the pale, fear-stricken face. She tried to swing her head away from the light, but he grasped at her hair, and as she cried out he pulled her back into the beam.
'Get your fucking hands off me,' she spat the words at him, and with his free hand he hit her hard across the mouth, and the metal of the battery container caught her lip, bulging and reddening it until the skin broke, and the trickle, highlighted by the softness of her skin, made its way down to the side of her throat. She started to struggle then, without feeling the pain in her head as McCoy clung to her hair, and oblivious of the numbing ache in her arm where Famy had twisted it behind her. With her other hand she reached into the void behind the light, and her fingernails found the flesh of McCoy's face. She heard him cry out in a mixture of pain and astonishment as she raked her nails across his cheeks. The hand let go of her hair, and before she could affect the grip across her back McCoy's foot had lashed into her head. She tried to turn away, but again the foot came, guided now by the light.
Accurate and vicious, striking through the long hair that offered no protection to her ear.
Then McCoy was on his knees beside her, hands in her hair again, and this time there was no resistance. She moved her head toward him, following his will, and saw the long weals across his face, saw his eyes, alive with rage.
Famy tightened the grip on her arm, so that she convulsed, then lay inert, the struggle over.
Famy said, 'She searched your things, then mine.'
'Roll the bitch over.' McCoy was panting, and they pushed her so that she lay on her back. The Arab had his weight across her legs, high on her thighs, and he had pinioned her arms to the floor above her head. She closed her eyes and felt McCoy begin to search her. He started at her neck and worked quickly and expertly across her body, running over her breasts, down her waist, rough and uncaring till they fastened on the note-book in the pocket at her hips. Fingers forced their way inside the fold of the material and pulled the pad out. She opened her eyes fractionally and saw him peering at her close, tight hand-writing, flicking the pages over, torch close to the paper.
'What does it say?' said Famy, impatience growing as the other man concentrated.
'She's a bloody tout,' said McCoy.
'What's that?' said Famy, his voice rising.
'An informer. A spy. There are names here, people living in the house, times and dates of arrival. We're here too, when we came in, when we went out yesterday. She's a clever little cow. You've no tags, no maker's marks in your clothes, right?'
'We took them out before we came.'
'Well, it's written down here.'
McCoy waited, the big eyes delving into the young face beneath him. She could sense the chill in his voice, horrible and without pity.
He said, 'Who are you? Tell me why you came.' The glazed, fear-filled face peered vacantly back toward him and beyond.
'Who are you, you cow?' He hit her again, this time with the edge of his hand, finding the tip of her chin bone, jerking her head back, banging it on the boards. Still she said nothing, and he struck her with his fist clenched hard into the softness below her rib cage. She gasped for air, fighting to force it down into her lungs, tried to draw up her knees from under the Arab to protect her defenceless body.
'You'll get it again.'
She started to try to speak, but there were no sounds at first, just the effort. Her chest heaved and writhed before the words came. There was a final act of defiance.
