Silently, in the Dead of Night
THE TELEPHONE RANG ON THE BEDSIDE TABLE AND JARRED Birtles awake. He picked it up and listened.
“Norman?”
“What time is it?” The dryness in his mouth was not unpleasant. He had taken just the right amount of whisky but not enough sleep.
“Almost eight. I thought you’d be up.”
“I don’t go in till one. Charlie opens the place today.” He stared at the window and the grey autumn light. “It’s as if I’m still delivering the mail.”
“I’m sorry.” But she didn’t sound sorry. She sounded as bright as her lacquered hair. Birtles could imagine Anitra Colahan dressed and groomed as for a tango competition, earrings sparkling, short skirt flaring over several crinolines. “I missed you last night,” she said. “I thought you were coming over.”
“We had trouble balancing the cash after we closed. And then Charlie offered me a lift home.” Only partly a lie. The cash had been a problem but he ended up taking a cab from the rank outside Wimbledon Station.
“I would have driven you home.”
“I don’t want you on the roads at that time of night.” What Birtles really didn’t want was to be stuck in the death seat speeding along London streets after midnight. Anitra had taken the driving test three times before passing. Her style at the wheel was risky and spectacular, much like her performance on the dance floor.
“Can you come by the studio tonight?” she asked. “I have something to tell you. Something nice.”
“O.K. I finish at six.”
“Lovely. We can go to the Taj. It’s good news, Norman.”
Birtles checked the bathroom window-ledge but found no note. When Barbie wanted to be called in the morning, she would leave a page from her notebook pinned under the talcum-powder tin and the breezy words, the erratic left-handed scrawl always gave Birtles a lift. The absence of a note probably meant his daughter would be sleeping till noon. Which meant he wouldn’t see her before he went to the poolroom. One more day gone from the diminishing week before she took off for Canada.
Birtles went downstairs and along the hall toward the kitchen, passing Barbie’s bedroom on the way. The door was open. What he saw stopped him cold. The room was empty, the backpack gone, her makeup, brush, and comb vanished from the dresser. The bed was in disarray but that was normal—he couldn’t tell if she had slept here last night.
Perhaps she’d left a note somewhere in the room. Birtles looked around but found no message among the clutter of pop-music magazines, soft-drink tins, overloaded ashtrays, and the accumulation of discarded clothing.
There was a coffee mug on the bedside table. Birtles picked it up carefully—sometimes they were half full of murky liquid. This one was dry but there was a crumpled envelope tucked inside it.
He unfolded the envelope, found it unaddressed. Some greenish-brown grains of leaf fell into the palm of his hand. They looked like something from one of his spice jars. Printed in the corner of the envelope was: Hotel Candide, Inverness Avenue, London W2.
Carrying his discovery into the kitchen, Birtles put the kettle on, made toast, made coffee, ate and drank standing while he tried to handle his feelings. The sight of Barbie’s room deserted had shaken him. He was not looking forward to her going away. When his wife died six years ago, he had kept going, for Barbie’s sake. Part of him had wanted to convert what little he had into cash and head off to some hot country where his main duty would have been to keep himself drunk.
Instead, he had become a meal-maker and housekeeper. Well, it was an achievement, something to be proud of, and Barbie’s confident character was the result. His example had taught her how to soldier on. Now, apparently, she had packed up her possessions in her old kit bag and hit the long, long trail. Without even saying goodbye.
No, that wasn’t possible. Barbie with her curly head and the sweet baby face and her silent understanding of what he was going through in losing her would never do a moonlight flit. Fear hit Birtles in the stomach like a draught of acid. Something had happened to her. She was in trouble.
It was early to ring Jeremy but Birtles couldn’t wait. The boy came on the phone coughing like a veteran. “Sorry to disturb you but I was wondering if you saw Barbie last night.”
“We didn’t, Mr. Birtles. The band was playing at the Ploughman. If she’d been in, I’d have known about it.”
“O.K. Sorry to wake you.”
“Barbie hasn’t come around much the last few months. She’s saving her money.”
“I know. I’ve had to put up with her almost every night. Like an old married couple.” Birtles kept two trays handy and produced supper regularly in front of the TV. They watched everything, not reacting much, in comforting balance there side by side in the upholstered chairs drawn round to face the screen.
“If you see her, ask her to call home.”
At the poolroom, only three of the nineteen tables were in use. It was too nice a day for people to be inside shooting snooker. Charlie was behind the counter serving the occasional beer or Coke, answering the phone, reading a tabloid of few words and many pictures. It was pointless for two of them to be on duty on such a quiet afternoon, so Birtles suggested Charlie take off.
“I’ll go in a minute.” Charlie went on reading. Birtles strode back and forth, his rangy figure looming large over the counter. When he had been employed by the Post Office, before the economy cuts made him redundant, more than one customer told him they always knew when the mail was on the way, he was so easy to spot coming up the street. Now he mopped clean a spotless surface, snapped his fingers, opened and closed the refrigerator cabinet.
“You’re giving me the creeps, Norman. Settle down.”
Suddenly, at the end of the room where the card table was situated, a chair was kicked back, players were on their feet, arms extended across the table grabbing shirtfronts. Without a word, Birtles reached for the light panel and snapped the switch controlling the lamp over the table. He raised the counter gate and strode to the scene, head on one side, arms loose, the picture of a man with his patience exhausted. He recognized the troublemaker and faced him.
“You! Out!” Said while pointing at the door.
“This geezer’s won all the money and now he wants to quit.”
“I said when I sat down I’d have to leave—”
Birtles cut through the argument. “Walk to the door. If I have to say it again, you won’t touch many steps on the way down.”
Back behind the counter, his hands trembled as he tried to open a box of pool chalk. The cubes went all over the counter, some on the floor. Charlie watched him. “Are you all right?”
“A little nervous.”
“You were awfully rough for a first offense.”
“A little nervous today.”
Charlie folded his paper and took the afternoon off. When he reported back at six, Birtles washed up and then walked on down the Broadway to the dance salon. He climbed more stairs and emerged in the ballroom. Anitra was on the floor with her client, taking him through the basic movements of the cha-cha. As they vamped across acres of polished hardwood, their images were reflected in a series of mirrors.
Birtles took a chair against the wall. The client had the grace of a piano mover but Anitra managed to make him look competent. She glistened in her freshly done peach hair, her swirling skirt, those shiny tapered legs ending in blue sequined high-heeled pumps. “One and two, cha-cha-cha,” she commanded while the recording of a brassy Latin band played “Tea For Two.” She spotted Birtles and blew him a kiss.
The client left at last after an exchange of money and a flurry of cheek-kissing. Anitra came and sat beside Birtles, kicking off her shoes and slipping into a pair that looked less like they had been built by a custom-car maker. “Bless his heart,” she said, “he’ll never be a dancer but it keeps me working.”
“What’s your good news?” Birtles asked, putting on a smile.
“You look tired. Are you all right?”
“You said it was special.”
“They’re making me manager here. That means I’ll get a regular salary in addition to the fees for my lessons.”
“Congratulations.” She was expecting to be kissed. He leaned towards that rouged cheek, inhaled the lilac scent, kissed her. That was the trouble—she was warm and soft and if he wasn’t careful she would become a part of him and then she would leave or die and that part would be torn out without benefit of anaesthetic.
“I think you should let me treat you to dinner,” she said.
“Never refuse a free meal.”
They went next door to the Taj Mahal and ordered onion bahjis, Madras curry and chapatis, and a bottle of white wine. Late in the meal, Birtles found the courage to say: “Barbie wasn’t there this morning. Her room was empty, everything gone as if she’d moved out. But she’d never do that without telling me.”
“I knew something was the matter. When is she supposed to leave for Canada?”
“End of next week.”
“No note in her room? Nothing?”
Birtles took the crumpled envelope out of his pocket and put it on the table. “I found this.”
“Hotel Candide.” Anitra studied the few grains of leaf. “Looks like something the kids smoke.”
“I suppose so. They tell me it’s no worse than this.” He drank some wine. “I’m wondering if it’s a clue to where she might have gone. The envelope, I mean.”
“Are you thinking of calling the police?”
“They wouldn’t want to know. A girl Barbie’s age, they’d assume she’s gone off with friends. Especially since she’s saved up a pile of money and had a trip planned.”
“How much has she saved?”
“Over six hundred pounds. It was all in traveller’s checks. She was ready to go.”
Anitra poured the grains back into the envelope. “Where do you suppose she got this?”
“I’m not sure. There was a girl came to see her the other day but she didn’t stay long. A girl from up the hill in the village. Barbie told me her name—Lucy Feather.”
Birtles remembered the girl’s arrival at the front door one morning a couple of days ago. Barbie was still in bed. “I’m Lucy Feather. Did Barbie tell you I’d be coming by? She has a book I’d like to borrow.”
“Yes, she mentioned you. Come in, you may have to wake her up. It’s the door at the end of the hall.” Birtles watched the movement of her skintight jeans. She was a solid girl with hair three shades of blonde. Her tweed jacket was expensive; she was not one of the dole-queue layabouts who comprised most of Barbie’s list of friends.
Birtles went into the kitchen. Through the wall he heard their voices but not their words. The conversation was not exactly amicable. Barbie’s final statement sounded like an invitation for Lucy Feather to get the hell out of there.
The bedroom door slammed. Birtles hurried into the hall and accompanied the visitor to the front door. “Got it, thanks.” She waved a paperback at him—he recognized it as an in-depth report on a psychopath named Eric Merlot who had drugged and murdered a dozen young travelers in the Far East over a period of years.
When she was gone, Birtles had rapped on Barbie’s door and put his head inside the stuffy room.
“Everything O.K.?”
The curly head turned on the pillow and Barbie gave Birtles that reassuring, almost patronizing smile that reminded him of his mother. Who was forty-eight and who was nineteen here? “She wants me to go to India with her instead of Canada. I told her no thanks.”
“I heard you.”
“All right, I told her to get stuffed. I don’t get my kicks from catching dysentery.”
“I though she was a friend.”
“She’s crazy. Her parents threw her out of the house and she came back when they were out and set fire to her room. I can do without friends like her.”
Anitra spooned up syrup from her dish of lychees as she listened to Birtles’ account of the Lucy Feather visit. At the end, she said: “Is it possible she persuaded Barbie to go with her after all?”
“I doubt it.”
“Kids are impulsive. They might have got high last night and decided to head east. Maybe there was a coach leaving late, or somebody with a car. Barbie didn’t want to wake you, so she got her stuff and took off. As soon as they come to a phone, she’ll get through to you.”
“It’s a theory. But it doesn’t sound like my daughter.” Birtles smoothed the envelope and studied the hotel address by the light of the small candle in its red globe.
“All right,” Anitra said, “I know what’s on your mind. Come on, I’ll drive you to Inverness Avenue...”
Thanks to some fine defensive driving by other motorists, Anitra Colahan made the trip safely. She controlled her second-hand Mini like a rally driver, shoulders up, hands locked on the wheel at the “ten minutes to two” position, and the choreography of her feet on and off the pedals was constant. Birtles braced himself, one hand on the door handle, the other flat against the dash.
“Relax,” Anitra said. “Everything’s under control.”
“Let me out at the traffic lights. I’ll get a taxi.”
“All right, I’ll slow down.” She sulked for a few blocks but couldn’t contain her aggression any longer than that. Soon she was cutting in and out again, carving up the passive drivers.
Inverness Avenue turned out to be a short street of Edwardian houses not far from Kensington Gardens. Almost without exception, the buildings had been converted into hotels. Anitra found the Candide and parked across the road.
“What do we do now?”
“I’m going to go in and ask a few questions.”
“O.K., I’ll wait.”
“Thanks, but there’s no point. If I get no joy from the desk clerk, I’m going to hang around and watch the place.”
“More fun for two to watch than one.”
“No, really, I’d rather wait alone.” He had an idea how to persuade her. He took his key from his pocket and handed it to her. “Go home to my place and wait for me. If Barbie phones like you said, you’ll be there to take the message.”
He watched the Mini gun down the street and swing abruptly onto Bayswater Road, then he crossed over to the hotel, pushed open the glass door, and went inside. The lobby was simply the former living room with a narrow reception desk added. The rest of the furniture looked like the original pieces. Through a doorway he could see a bar in the adjoining room.
The desk clerk was a young Asian in a pale-blue suit, white shirt, and maroon bow tie. “Sir?”
“I’m looking for a Miss Barbara Birtles. Could you tell me if she’s registered?” He spelled the name while the clerk ran down the guest list. When they drew a blank, he asked for Lucy Feather but she wasn’t staying at the hotel, either.
“Is it all right if I buy a drink in your bar?”
“We welcome the public, sir.”
Birtles went next door, ordered a large whisky, and took it to a seat where he could watch the foot of the staircase in the lobby. His mind began to wander—so far that he almost missed the girl when she appeared. It was the splendid thighs in tight, expensive denim that caught his attention. Lucy Feather was in the lobby, holding out her hand, waiting for someone to come down the stairs and join her.
The companion turned out to be a Eurasian, one of the most handsome men Birtles had ever seen. He was in his early thirties, lean and muscular in white slacks and an open-necked shirt. His black hair swept in a wave across his broad forehead above widely spaced almond eyes.
It was the color of the eyes that shook Birtles. In that creamy coffee face, they were a pale, transparent blue. Birtles could have believed they were contact lenses worn for some spectacular stage effect. The man clasped hands with Lucy and they went out into the gathering darkness.
His heart pounding, Birtles tossed back his drink and hurried after them. They were walking not far ahead, the Feather girl in flat shoes, her hips rolling provocatively, her loose-limbed companion padding beside her like some jungle animal. He stopped an approaching stranger, an American-looking youth, and said something. The young man produced a lighter and put a flame to the Eurasian’s cigarette. Birtles noticed the American’s face as he continued on and thought he looked dazed, as if he had been spoken to by a movie star. It must have been those eyes.
The couple went into a pub on the corner. Birtles gave them a minute to settle themselves, then followed them in. They were still at the bar. He worked his way through at the far end and ordered a pint. By the time it had been pulled and paid for, they were sitting on an upholstered bench, part of an island arrangement in the middle of the room.
Birtles was able to find a place to sit where his back was to them. He could make out only part of what was being said. The Eurasian had a quiet voice; his remarks to Lucy Feather came across as those of a patient father handling a difficult child. “It can be done,” he said at one point. “Anything can be done.” And later: “Isn’t it enough just to go and let them wonder?”
Lucy’s voice rose after a few minutes. “No, I can’t. I was riding her a couple of days ago. You’ll have to.”
He felt his stomach tighten. A few days ago she was in his daughter’s room, he had heard the hectoring voices through the wall. Was that what Lucy was referring to—had she been riding Barbie, nagging her about going to India? If so, what was it her companion would have to do?
Birtles stood and carried his glass on a wide circle so that he approached them from the bar. He managed to look surprised when his eyes met Lucy’s, and before anything was said he slipped onto the bench beside her.
“Hello, Lucy. You don’t recognize me. I’m Norman Birtle’s, Barbie’s father.”
“Yes, of course.” She was nervous. Her big, moist lips grimaced over perfect teeth. She tossed her head and her bound-up hair shook like a horse’s mane. “This is my friend, Ezra Monty.”
Monty gave Birtles a warm handshake. The blue crystal eyes met his and Birtles felt penetrated. He felt studied and stripped down and emptied out, but the surprising part of it was he didn’t mind. A lot of casual conversation was going on and he couldn’t have remembered a word of it.
“Well,” Lucy was saying as he began to emerge from his stupor, “funny to run into you here. Quite a coincidence.”
“I used to live around here,” Birtles improvised. “I come back sometimes to see the old neighbourhood.” They knew he was lying. There was an attentiveness around the table and Birtles imagined heads lifting in the jungle, nostrils sniffing the air.
“I’m worried about Barbie,” he said to Lucy. “She left home the other night. I woke up in the morning and she was gone. With all her stuff.”
“I understood she was leaving for Canada.”
“Not till next week. And she’d never go without saying goodbye.”
“Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she just decided to go.”
“Silently?” Birtles demanded. “In the dead of night?” He implied it was the sort of thing Lucy Feather might do to her parents, but not his daughter.
Monty leaned across Lucy and touched Birtles on the arm. “I understand your concern,” he said. “I have many contacts in all sorts of places, I travel a good deal. Barbara Birtles—Lucy will give me a description. I’ll put out the word. Don’t worry, sir. We’ll find your daughter.”
It was an incredible sensation—Birtles felt as if a heavy load had been lifted from him. Ezra Monty was in charge and everything was going to be all right.
“And now”—Monty glanced at a sliver of gold in his wrist—“we have something we must attend to. Lucy?”
They were on their way out the door when the spell wore off and Birtles realized he mustn’t lose them. More than ever, he sensed there was a link here with Barbara. He tried to drink some beer, almost choked on it, got up, and hurried out onto the dark street.
The couple were climbing into a car a short distance up Inverness Avenue. Birtles lurked in the pub entrance and watched them drive away with Lucy at the wheel. When they turned onto Bayswater Road and headed west, he began looking for a taxi. A car horn tooted, attracted his attention. It was Anitra in the Mini, cruising slowly toward him.
He climbed in beside her and slammed the door. “Bless your heart, I told you to go home.”
“I thought you might need help.”
“Turn right.” She turned, causing a double-decker bus to brake and sound its horn. “There’s a black Volvo ahead, can you see it?”
“In this traffic?”
“It’s Lucy Feather and her boy friend. I talked to them in the pub. I have a feeling they’re hiding something.”
After driving as far as Notting Hill, Anitra said, “They could have gone anywhere. They might be on the way to the airport.”
“I didn’t see any luggage. They may be going to her place. Stop here.” Birtles ran to a call box and checked the telephone directory. He found a Feather listed on Southside Common in Wimbledon. Back in the car, he gave Anitra the address and she took off. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Keep me alive for a while longer.”
Anitra’s ability to cover the ground brought them to the Feather residence in record time. It was a three-storey gabled house that bespoke generations of money, probably starting with dividends from the East India Company. There was no black Volvo in sight.
“It was Heathrow like I said,” Anitra predicted.
“Once around the Green,” Birtles told her.
She took it easy and when they turned back onto Southside the Volvo was there. Anitra pulled over, engine off, lights out. Lucy got out of the car ahead and Ezra Monty followed, both easing the doors shut.
“Why are they acting like that? Isn’t it her house?”
“It could be anything,” Birtles said. Their movements as they left the car and crept down a laneway beside the house filled him with fear. They were like a military patrol out to silence an enemy position. During the drive he had told Anitra about the conversation in the pub. Now he said: “They might even have Barbie locked up here.”
“Kidnapping? Is that possible? How would they have got her out of your place at night without your hearing them?”
Several minutes went by. Through the open window, Birtles could smell the delicious freshness from the Common, all those trees breathing in the night. Now there was movement at the entrance to the lane. Lucy ran out, turned and beckoned—she seemed impatient, in a state of high excitement. Monty followed and stood in front of the girl, put his hands on her shoulders, and shook her gently.
Her head fell back, and in the streetlight Birtles saw her eyes closed, her mouth open. If she had just inhaled some intoxicating substance, this would have been her reaction.
Monty fed her into the car and closed the door. He ran around and got in at the driver’s side, switched on, and drove away. Birtles touched Anitra’s shoulder and she began to drive ahead slowly. As they passed the laneway, he noticed something on the pavement. “Stop!” he told her and when she did he jumped out. By the time she parked and joined him, he was examining a dark wet smear on the concrete. He touched it and lifted his stained finger. “Blood,” he said.
“Oh, God, get the police.”
“I have to know. Have you got a flashlight in the car?” She ran away and brought it to him. He aimed its dim light at the ground and walked down the lane. Anitra kept close enough to touch a hand to his back every now and then.
They came to an out-building. The main house was a dark mass to the right. He saw grass, a concrete birdbath, rose bushes. The door was open in the shed beside him. As Birtles moved into the doorway, he smelled the pungent odor of a stable. He flashed the light over the board partitions of a stall, a leather harness on a hook, brass fittings, a saddle—then, on the stone floor, the body of a horse lying on its side. The animal was not quite dead—a leg kicked convulsively.
“Stay back.” Birtles moved in closer, felt beneath his feet the pool of blood that Monty had tracked to the street, saw the gaping opening where the broad chestnut neck had been cut through. “Insane,” he whispered. They’re both insane...”
When they were driving again, he told Anitra to take him back to the hotel. She wanted to get the police but he said he was only concerned about his daughter and if they wasted one minute they might lose Feather and Monty. “I think they came out here to do this and now they’ll be on their way.”
“That must have been her own horse. Why would she kill it?”
“I don’t know. In the pub she said, ‘I was riding her a couple of days ago.’ I thought she meant arguing with Barbie.” Birtles nursed his fear as Anitra gunned down quiet roads.
When they arrived at the Candide, they found the Volvo parked outside. Anitra pulled in and idled. “The police?” she said plaintively. “Can we have the police now, please?”
“O.K. I’ll get out and watch. You drive to the police station—there must be one near here. If you see a cop on the street, stop and tell him.”
Birtles got out and positioned himself where he could watch the hotel entrance. The Mini wheeled down the street and turned the corner. Almost immediately, the glass door was pushed open by Monty carrying a couple of expensive-looking suitcases. Lucy Feather followed with a zippered flight bag. Monty loaded the luggage expertly, closed the trunk, and went to join Lucy in the front seat.
Birtles had to make up his mind. He ran forward, opened the back door, and slid inside just as the car pulled away.
Lucy glanced at him in the rearview mirror as she moved into traffic. “You again! What gives?”
“That’s what I intend to find out. Why did you kill your horse?”
Her voice hardened. “Take care of him.”
Monty turned and gave Birtles a look of admiration. “Were you out there tonight?”
“I’m looking for my daughter. I’m convinced you two know where she is.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I found a Candide Hotel envelope in her room with some pot in it. And when I came down here I ran into you and Lucy. Lucy visited Barbara a few days ago—I heard them arguing in her room.”
“He’s quite a detective, Lucy. He’s a determined man. I like that.”
“All right,” Lucy said. “I gave Barbara some stuff when I went to pick up the book. We argued because I wanted her to come with us but she wouldn’t.”
“End of story,” Monty said. “We know nothing about your daughter, Mr. Birtles.”
“I think you do. Anyway, we’re going to have it out. My girl friend went to get the police.”
Lucy gave him a contemptuous glance. “That’s pathetic. Do you know who this is? I told you Ezra Monty—his real name is Eric Merlot. You know the book I got from Barbara? It’s about him.”
Birtles had read the book, had glanced at a couple of badly reproduced photos in the centerfold. This could be the man.
“He’s killed eleven people already. You mean nothing to him. He’ll blow you away as soon as look at you. Where shall we go, Eric? Out in the country?”
Merlot laughed and patted her shoulder. “She’s my greatest admirer. When she heard there was a book about me, she had to get a copy right away.” He became serious. “Nobody’s killed anybody here and nobody’s going to. This is England, not India. I said I like you, Mr. Birtles. Barbara’s a lucky girl to have a father who cares about her as much as you do—I can tell you that from experience. And I can see the same qualities in you that I like in her.”
“You’ve seen her then.”
“Of course I have. I was keeping quiet because she asked me to. She’s agreed to come east and work for me. I provide a service for young people traveling out there and Barbara would be ideal.”
Birtles looked at the handsome face watching him across the upholstered seat. Those pale eyes caught what little light there was—all he could see was intelligent, honest, friendly eyes. “She never said anything to me.”
“She wouldn’t. She cares about your feelings. I’m offering her glamour, excitement, her own apartment in one of the nicer hotels in Singapore. That beats a cubbyhole bedroom with Daddy listening through the kitchen wall.”
Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Then Birtles said: “You’ve been in my house, Mr. Merlot. When was that?”
“Eric, you’re going to have to kill him. This is getting worse.”
“Just drive the car. Mr. Birtles is an intelligent man. Sir, I’ll admit I was there. We came in the other night using Barbara’s key. She sent us to get her backpack. She’d decided to come with me. O.K.? I’ve told you the truth.”
“And her traveller’s checks. You got those too?”
“Of course. She said not to forget her traveller’s checks.”
“But one thing still doesn’t fit. Even if Barbara had decided to go with you she would have told me. But she hasn’t, and that means something’s wrong.”
“Eric?” Lucy said in a voice that combined a supplication and a warning.
“And if she’s going with you to Singapore, how come you two are driving away without her?”
Merlot laughed. The laugh announced that Birtles was the most entertaining company he’d encountered in a long time. “I’m going to have to give you the rest of it. Barbara wanted your feelings spared—that’s why you haven’t heard from her. The fact is, she and I met through Lucy and there was this physical thing between us. Can you understand that? She moved in at the hotel and all she cared about was—well, two things. She also loved what I gave her to smoke. She’s been stoned out of her mind for the past three days.”
Birtles waited. Yes, he could believe any woman might become infatuated with Eric Merlot. He hated the idea of Barbie falling into that existence. But right now all he wanted was to find her and see that she was all right.
“I decided,” Merlot continued, “that the best thing for me to do was disappear. Since she’s so young. So I left her in the room at the Candide—I paid for another couple of days in advance. When she wakes up and sorts herself out, she’ll come home. And, Mr. Birtles, please don’t tell her where I’ve gone.”
The car slowed down and halted at a traffic light. “I’ve been told so many things,” Birtles said. “First, you were taking her to Singapore. Now you’ve left her and she doesn’t know you’ve gone. It could all be lies.”
“Shut up,” Lucy snapped. “Just shut your mouth and get out of the car.” She pulled on the hand brake, leaving herself free to sprawl back over the seat and open the back door. “Just get out and go away. And consider yourself lucky.”
Birtles got out. He slammed the back door and opened the front door beside Merlot. He put an arm lock on the younger man’s head and dragged him from the car. “You’re going, too,” he said. “I want you with me until I find my daughter.”
The light changed. They were in one of the middle lanes and Birtles had to dodge cars as traffic began to move. Lucy had no choice but to drive on. When they reached the sidewalk, Merlot laughed in a high shrill voice. “Fabulous!” he screamed. “You incredible sonofabitch, that’s the sort of thing I’d do!”
He was still laughing when they reached an Underground station. As they went down the steps, Merlot’s arm firmly held by Birtles, the Eurasian said: “That’s how I got away from the police in Rajasthan. Impulse. A window was open, so I climbed through and ran across a yard and out the gate. You keep your eyes open and you take quick, decisive action.”
They missed a Central Line train heading east and had to wait on a deserted platform. Merlot glanced at the hand locked onto his upper arm. “Getting tired?” he asked. “I know how hard it is to hold somebody who doesn’t want to be held. That’s why I use a lot of drugs. You should buy me a coffee and put a few capsules in it.”
Birtles pushed Merlot onto a bench and knelt before him. He took his right foot in both hands and twisted sharply. “Oh, Christ, no—” Merlot groaned. The bone snapped and Birtles released the foot.
“Now you won’t run,” he said. “Not on a broken ankle.”
Merlot threw his head back so hard it hit the tiled wall. His eyes were glazed. “Sadistic bastard, you didn’t have to do that.”
“I think I did. Anyway, you killed that horse, don’t talk to me about sadism.”
Merlot struggled to get a handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose. “Want to know why we killed the horse? It was Lucy’s idea. She’s worse than both of us put together.”
A train was approaching. Birtles drew Merlot up and supported him on the lame side. They boarded the train and the doors closed. They sat on a double seat.
“The horse,” Merlot said. “I needed money and Lucy got it for me by selling some of her parents’ things. Her father threatened to sell her horse to recoup the money. That was what made up her mind to come away with me. Before we left, she decided to kill the horse so they couldn’t sell it.”
“I think you two deserve each other,” Birtles said grimly. “But God help the world if you should spawn.”
Merlot laughed. “You think I’d marry or have children? Put more life into this rotten world? Have no fear.”
When the train arrived at Queensway Station, Merlot’s eyes were closed. As Birtles helped him onto the escalator, he asked: “How’s the ankle?”
Merlot seemed still to be thinking of the absurdity of his marrying Lucy Feather. “She’s just a contact for me in London—a source of money while I hide. A gang of English kids in Katmandu gave me her name. When I broke jail the last time, it gave me a place to come and stay.”
The three-block walk to the hotel took time. Merlot gritted his teeth and limped on. His weight was light but his slender, supple frame reminded Birtles of the aluminum tent poles he used to erect on camping trips. They were practically unbreakable.
Approaching the Candide, he kept a lookout for a police presence. There was no sign of vehicles or uniformed men. Of course, Merlot had been gone for some time—Anitra would have returned with the police to be told their man had checked out. By now she and the police would be on the way to the airport.
Inside the hotel, on the stairs to his first-floor room, Merlot said: “Your daughter is O.K., I promise you that. When you’re satisfied, will you let me go?”
“All I care about is Barbie,” Birtles said. But did he mean that? The man on his shoulder was a murderer, escaped from police custody. He was a psychopath, capable of killing a horse with a knife. How could he be let free? He was smug and con-fident, holding in contempt the laws and the society that Birtles had supported all his life. “I don’t care about you,” he added.
“Then we understand each other,” Merlot said in a quiet voice with just a trace of an edge.
Merlot had kept his key. As he unlocked the door of his room he glanced at Birtles and read the inquiry in his eyes. “There was no way Lucy was getting on that plane. I was going to give her the key and send her back to take care of Barbara. O.K.?”
They went inside where Merlot snapped on a light and closed the door. It turned out to be a small suite. He indicated a closed door. “She’s in the bedroom.”
“You, too,” Birtles said, pulling Merlot with him.
Merlot opened the door and Birtles went into the bedroom. He saw a familiar shape in the bed, recognized the curly head on the pillow even in near darkness. He left the limping man and hurried to the bed. As he bent over her, Merlot turned on a lamp. The light fell on Barbie’s face, undamaged but passive as a sculpture.
“Barbie? Love?” Birtles touched her cheek. There was warmth. “Are you all right?”
Her eyelids flickered, raised—she saw him and immediately there were tears. “Oh, it’s you,” she slurred. “Daddy, I was hoping you’d come—”
“I’m here now. You’ll be O.K.”
“They gave me drugs. They wanted my money. I couldn’t phone, I couldn’t move or do anything.”
“I’ll get a doctor for you. We’ll have you home in no time.”
“Daddy, I’m not going away. I’m going to stay with you—”
“Shhhh.” She had reverted to the school girl who used to feign illness so she could stay home in bed where he would bring her lunch on a tray and the deck of cards for a game of rummy. “We’ll talk about it when you’re better.”
He heard the bedroom door close, heard the snap of a key in the lock. He got up and ran to the door. “Merlot, don’t be crazy!”
“She’s O.K., right? That’s my side of the bargain. I don’t trust you, Mr. Birtles—I’m off.”
“You’ll get nowhere on that ankle.”
“Pain is all in the mind. I’ve turned off worse than this when I had to.”
Birtles hit the door with his fist. It was old-fashioned, a solid, heavy panel. “Merlot!”
“I’ve been in three jails and got out every time. You never had a hope of holding me.” His voice drew away. “Goodbye, Mr. Birtles, you’ll never see me again. Too bad—I like you.” The outer door closed.
Birtles went back to the bed. “Barbie, I’m going to make some noise. I have to break the door. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”
She gave him the wise, mature smile—his mother encour-aging him to do his best. He went back to the door and balanced himself. It took five lunges to put his boot through the panel. A minute later, he was outside and running for the stairs.
The lobby was deserted, nobody on duty at the desk. Merlot was crafty enough to be hiding somewhere inside, but Birtles decided to have a quick look on the street. Self-hypnosis or whatever, he couldn’t be covering the ground very quickly.
Outside, he saw a crowd gathering at the corner of Bayswater Road. He stared and could hardly believe his eyes when he made out what looked to be the familiar blue Mini. Running in that direction, he picked out Anitra Colahan’s peach coiffure glistening under the street lamp in the midst of the crowd.
He reached her and when she saw him she took his arm for support. “Oh, God, he ran right in front of the car! You weren’t here when I got back with the police. I was cruising the neighborhood looking for you. I turned the corner and he was running across—not running, limping.”
“It’s O.K.” Birtles looked down, saw the pale-blue eyes staring. Somebody would have to close them for him now. “That’s Merlot, the man who was holding Barbara. They drugged her to rob her. He’s killed a lot of people.”
Anitra turned away. A police car was pulling up. “Here they come,” she said grimly. “Three tries to get my license and now I’m going to lose it.”
Birtles looked from her to the dead man and back at her angry face. All right, so there were signs all around that it was indeed the selfish, imperfect world Merlot believed it to be. Not so long ago it was a jungle and people were eating each other.
“When you’ve given the cops your statement,” he said, “come back to the hotel. I’ll be with Barbie, waiting for the doctor. When she’s taken care of, you can drive me home.”
As he walked away, Birtles realized he’d just told Anitra that he loved her.