‘Let’s go there,’ shouted Nigel, ‘let’s get the police and go there!’
‘Hush,’ said Jenny. She caught her full pink lower lip under her little white teeth and her eyes rolled upwards to the inky ceiling. She was thinking. There were several courses of action possible. Several directions in which to turn, several people who could instantly be telephoned. Unfortunately these courses were all useless. Without more knowledge everything was useless. The vital thing now was to see what this was all about.
‘Why aren’t we going there?’ shouted Nigel again.
‘Presently, pet. No hurry.’
‘But she may be—’
‘Think,’ said Jenny, who was thinking aloud to herself. ‘If they let Tamara go they must have been off themselves. Wherever she is, it’s not where she was. They’ve popped her into a nice, safe hidey-hole. Must have. What we need now is a bit of history. Tell, Tamara.’
Tamara’s clothes had the untidy look of someone who had dressed in the dark or too quickly. There was a smear of dirt across her cheek. She had lost one glove but she still held her bag.
The last customer had left the restaurant. No one took any notice of Tamara. The manager was in a far corner counting money. All the unfulfilled waitresses had gone except one, who was morosely putting chairs on to tables.
Jenny, Tamara and Nigel sat in a single pool of light in a large, empty area of darkness. Tamara accepted a cigarette from Jenny and a light from Nigel and tried to tell them what happened.
The taxi had started. They thought the driver was going forward to pick up Nigel and Dave Maddox, and were surprised when it suddenly turned into a side-street.
‘We shouted at him,’ said Tamara. ‘He just went faster.’
‘Stop,’ said Jenny. ‘Wait. This taxi. Where and how did you get it?’
‘Actually there was something odd about that,’ said Nigel.
‘Tell.’
‘We came out of a pub. A taxi appeared. Providentially, out of the blue. Swam up out of the fog.’
‘Waiting for you.’
‘A chap hailed it. A chap who’d been in the pub and left ten minutes before.’
‘Waiting for you. Waiting to identify you to the taxi-driver.’
‘The chap talked to the driver, then just walked off. The driver told us the chap wanted to be taken to Highgate and the driver wouldn’t do it in the fog.’
‘Describe chap.’
‘Seedy little man, woolly muffler, flapping umbrella. Respectable as hell.’
‘Describe driver.’
‘Muffled up to the eyebrows.’
‘First chap, seedy one. He saw you in the pub?’
‘Yes, stared at the girls. Well, damn it, every man in the bar stared at the girls.’
Jenny nodded. Tamara was a Nordic beauty, an obvious model, an eyeful. Nicola, in her dark and strange and very special style, was perhaps even more spectacular, more obviously sexy, more excitingly neurotic.
‘He had a good look at the girls, he heard you talking, he heard where you were going to have dinner. Did he go off and telephone?’
‘No. I don’t know. How do I know? Of course, he could have.’
‘He absolutely must have, pet. So – bogus taxi summoned. Lurks near pub, flag down, not for hire. You come out, you’re identified, taxi picks you up, knows where you’re going before you tell him. So – you pass fake breakdown. Out you get and push, birds stay in taxi. Taxi off. Then what, Tamara?’
They had not dared jump out of the taxi which was driven fast and jumped two red lights.
It finally turned into a small dark street, turned again into a mews, and then gone right into a big garage. Another car was already in the garage, the little grey two-seater.
The garage door had shut with a clang and it had been very dark. Nicola had begun to scream and Tamara thought she had screamed too.
‘Then they opened the door and pulled me out.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘I don’t know. It was dark. I don’t know. I tried to fight but they were too strong.’
She had been hustled through a door and up some stone stairs and into a big bright room. Nicola came up after her, between two men, struggling.
‘What did the men look like?’
‘Just like . . . men. I don’t know.’
‘Big? Small? Rough? Smooth?’
‘Yes. I don’t know. One of them was the man in the car. With the red moustache.’
Two other men, frightening men, were waiting for them in the bright room. These men told them to undress.
‘Why were they frightening?’
‘One was big,’ said Tamara after a pause. She began to shudder uncontrollably. Jenny again offered her brandy but she said she wanted coffee.
‘This big man,’ said Jenny, bringing the coffee, ‘was he dark or fair?’
‘Dark. Rather dark.’
‘Anything else?’
‘He was . . . ’ She frowned. ‘You know. Just a biggish man, rather dark.’
She remembered the cold in the room. There was ice inside the windows. The breath of all of them steamed in the room under the single, bright naked bulb. Tamara had not wanted to undress, but she and Nicola had been made to strip.
‘And the other man?’ said Jenny, forcing herself to be gentle and patient with this intolerably unhelpful girl. ‘The other frightening man?’
‘He . . . had a small head. A very small head. He was American.’
‘Tall? Thin? Fat?’
‘Quite thin. Just . . . ordinary. Except for his head.’
‘Was the room furnished?’
‘Furnished?’ Tamara looked vague.
‘Chairs?’ said Jenny soothingly. ‘Tables? Carpets?’
‘Oh, I see. No. Just some boxes. They sat on boxes.’
They had looked at the girls, standing naked in the bitterly cold room. One of the men had whistled. This had annoyed the man with the very small head.
Then they had started inspecting Tamara.
‘Inspecting?’
‘Sort of like the doctor.’
One of them had listened to her chest with a stethoscope. They had looked at her teeth. The end of the stethoscope had been very cold.
They had made her speak – read some lines from a book.
‘What book?’
‘I don’t know. A story.’
‘Go on.’
They had carefully inspected her forearms and upper arms.
Finally she had been measured.
The man with the small head said: ‘No.’
‘He said,’ Tamara explained, ‘that I was too long to ship home. And he only needed one now. Another soon, but only one now.’
The dark man protested, but the man with the small head was in charge and the others did what he said. The big dark man was more frightening, but the man with the small head was the one who was in charge.
Tamara was allowed to dress. She was shivering and frightened, and her fingers were numb with cold. She dressed as quickly as she could.
She was taken into another room, tiny, almost a cupboard. It was cold and pitch-dark except for a crack of light under the door. The door was locked. She waited there a long time. She could hear voices and bumps but nothing she could understand.
Then the door opened. Nicola was dressing. She looked terrified. The man with the small head said: ‘This one’s our pension, boys. She’ll make enough for us all to retire.’
One of the men came for Tamara and took her out by another door and down different stairs and out into a different street. She did not know the name of this street. There was no one about – no cars, no policemen, nothing. There seemed to be only warehouses, and terraces of empty and crumbling villas. There were no doorbells to ring. She ran. She found herself presently in the Fulham Road, and had known her way to The Joint, and had run there, thinking they would protect and comfort her.
‘Nicola,’ said Nigel harshly.
‘Yes,’ said Jenny. ‘We ought to peer. Useless I’m sure, but silly not to.’ She turned to Tamara and said gently: ‘If we come with you, and we go in my car, can you find this place again?’
‘Yes,’ said Tamara.
‘Come on, then.’
‘No,’ cried Tamara, ‘I can’t, it’s cold, I’m frightened.’
‘Police,’ said Nigel.
‘Later,’ said Jenny.
Jenny pulled on trousers and suede boots and two more sweaters over her sweater. They went to her Mini.
‘Damn, frosted up.’
Jenny squeezed de-icer from an aerosol and told Nigel to rub. She started the car.
‘Get in the back, Nigel. Tamara, will you sit in the front, love? Then you can show me where to go.’
Tamara was trembling and reluctant. But she obeyed. She folded her tall and elegant body into the front seat. Jenny was relieved. She was asking a lot of the girl.
‘Why are we going?’ wailed Tamara.
‘Oh, it seems wise. We might learn something. And then, I mean, it’s cold, suppose their car didn’t start or the garage door stuck?’
‘Jenny,’ said Nigel sharply, ‘what if they are there? What can we do?’
‘We might think of something. Is this it, Tamara?’
‘N—no, I don’t think so. Further on.’
It was still foggy and still bitterly cold. At each corner Jenny stopped and Tamara pondered.
Jenny’s hands were cold on the wheel. She could hear Nigel breathing hard in the back, and she felt sorry for him, because she knew Nicola. For this reason she was more gentle and patient with Tamara than many of her friends would have believed possible.
After ten minutes and many corners it became obvious that they had overshot.
‘It’s this fog,’ said Tamara fretfully. ‘How can I see?’
‘Try,’ said Jenny.
They turned and crawled east again.
‘That’s it!’
Jenny stopped the car. ‘Sure?’
‘Yes, yes! I remember the poster. It’s a picture of me.’
It was: Tamara in a yellow shirt, popping a sweet into a wide, wide mouth.
Jenny turned sharp right and drove slowly down a dark narrow street.
The fog seemed denser. The little engine burbled loudly between dark icy walls.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Nigel.
‘Not where I’d choose to live myself,’ murmured Jenny.
‘I mean I’m scared.’
‘Yes, love, very prudent of you, who isn’t?’
A darker black yawned to the left between the black of the buildings.
‘Here,’ said Tamara.
‘Is it a cul-de-sac?’
‘A what?’
‘Can we drive out of the other end?’ asked Jenny patiently.
‘No. The garage is the other end.’
‘Then I think,’ said Jenny, ‘it might be foolish to drive in.’
She turned the Mini, stopped the engine and switched out the lights.
‘You stay here, Tamara. Keep warm. Come on, Nigel.’
‘I’m not staying here alone!’ wailed Tamara.
She insisted on coming with them, saying that it was frightening but less frightening than sitting alone in the dark so near the big dark man’s big bright room.
They walked softly into the pitch-black yard. There was no light from the building at the end, or from the faceless bulk of the buildings on either side.
No torch, thought Jenny. Stupid.
They nearly cannoned into the big metal door of the garage. It felt cold and rough and gritty, as though patches of rust had been painted over.
Nothing could be seen. Nothing could be heard. No chink of light showed from anywhere. The ice-cold mist seemed to invade their mouths and noses and grope downwards and chill the deep warm vulnerable places inside them.
Tamara moaned.
‘Shh,’ said Jenny.
They watched and listened. No sound, no light.
‘They’ve gone,’ said Nigel harshly. He was very close to Jenny but invisible in the blackness. ‘Where have they taken her? Why?’
‘Hard to say, love. What about this door, now that we’re here?’
They groped for a handle, finding each others’ numbed hands, and, at last, near the ground, a wide metal handle.
‘Roll-over type. Bound to be locked.’
It was not locked.
‘Lift quietly.’
It was impossible to lift quietly. Possibly the fog blanketed the noise, but it seemed shocking – a great, grinding, unlubricated scream of metal, although the door lifted quite easily and smoothly.
They groped forward, and Jenny barked her shin on shin-high metal. It was the rear bumper of a car.
‘The one you pushed, I bet.’
Nigel lit his lighter and they immediately recognised the little grey two-seater.
‘How vexing,’ said Jenny. ‘They wouldn’t have left it here unless they’d stolen it. So it can’t be traced to them.’
‘But it can! They left it here!’
‘No, love, if you think for a second. This sweet place can’t be traced to them either. They just borrowed it.’
‘They’ll never come back, then.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be sensible, would it? Let’s try the door to the inside.’
They found the door Tamara had been hustled through. It was locked. There was no other door. There was no noise or light anywhere.
‘So much for that,’ said Jenny. ‘Let’s go and talk to some bluebottles.’
‘I suppose,’ said Nigel, ‘they wouldn’t have left something in the back of the car?’
‘We might as well look.’
Nigel groped round to the driver’s door and found the handle. It seemed to be locked. He swore softly. But it was not locked, only old and stiff. The door opened with a squeak. The interior of the car smelt of petrol and rubber and scent.
‘Joy,’ said Jenny, sniffing.
‘I gave it to her,’ said Nigel thickly.
‘Poor sweet.’
The scent evoked her for them both. Jenny could sense that Nigel was almost screaming with longing and worry and fear.
He lit his lighter again.
It was an untidy little car, with split upholstery, and sweet-papers spilling out of the ashtray, and cracks in the glass of the instrument dials. It smelt of petrol and rubber and the Joy which evoked Nicola and of cigarettes and dust.
There was nothing on the seat or the floor or in the pigeon-hole or the pockets in the doors.
‘What’s that at the back?’ said Tamara.
She pointed at something on the narrow shelf behind the seat.
‘A glove.’
‘Or a bedroom slipper?’
Nigel reached for it. He had an impression, through numbed fingertips, of something torpedo-shaped and made of stiff fur.
‘Yes, a slipper.’
‘A slipper. In the back of a car. You know, I have a feeling that someone’s got over-excited and made a very silly mistake. I do believe,’ murmured Jenny, ‘that one really only ever wins anything because someone else makes a bloomer.’
‘How the hell,’ said Nigel shrilly, ‘could a slipper be important?’
Jenny knew why he sounded shrill, and she thought he had a right to. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Let’s take it along, anyway.’
Nigel’s lighter blew out as he shut the car door (an appalling clang). In a darkness blacker than before because of the light they groped back into the yard.
‘Shut the garage door?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Jenny. ‘Let’s be tidy.’
At this moment a car could be heard turning off the main road and coming down the side road towards the yard. The glow of its headlights was now dimly visible through the fog in the mouth of the yard. The engine grew louder and the light brighter.
‘I don’t hugely care for this,’ murmured Jenny. ‘Let’s trot away.’
She led the way, running quietly, towards the black flank of the building to the left and then along the wall towards the opening into the street. Tamara’s smart boots were leather-soled and her running was loudly percussive.
Then the car turned into the yard and stopped. A spotlight came on between the fog-lamps. It cut through the thick air and lit the little grey car in the open garage.
Jenny stopped and gestured. The three froze, flat against the empty wall of the building.
The new car was invisible in the fog behind the glare of its lights. It seemed to be a big car; the idling motor sounded big and powerful.
A door opened. A man with gingery whiskers ran to the garage and opened the door of the two-seater. After a moment he ran out again and stood in the glare of the spotlight. He gestured, palms down: ‘No.’
As he ran back towards the big car its engine revved.
Jenny realised, with a sick sense of folly, that the car was going to turn. This was not a night for backing out of narrow gateways. Its rear would swing towards them, so that its lights raked the wall opposite: or else its rear would swing away, so that they would be caught, like butterflies on pins, in the powerful headlamps.
Their friends would not like finding visitors.
‘Which way?’ Jenny muttered.
The back of the car swung away. The spotlight swept along the black shiny wall towards them.
‘Oh, God,’ said Nigel, ‘I’m frightened.’
‘So am I,’ said Jenny. ‘Run like hell.’