Quicksand (5 page)

 

 

"We can't allow that, and that's definite," the policeman said. "I don't
know who you think you are, madam, but this is our business, not yours."

 

 

"For your information, young man, I'm Barbara Weddenhall, JP, and if you
ever turn up to give evidence in my court I shall remember your face,
I can promise you that!"

 

 

The policeman blanched and recoiled. Abruptly Paul was furious.
"Mrs Weddenhall!" he said loudly.

 

 

"Yes?"

 

 

"Have you ever had any experience of rape?"

 

 

" What?" The horrified bellow was all she could utter; following it,
her voice gave out and she simpiy stood with eyes bulging.

 

 

"You ever seen a rapist, officer?" Paul continued, turning to the policeman.

 

 

"Well . . . Yes, sir. I helped to arrest one a few months ago.

 

 

"Was he marked at all?"

 

 

"Not half as bad as the poor girl he'd attacked. But yes, that was what
clinched the evidence. He was all scratched on the face where she'd tried
to drive him away."

 

 

-- Am I doing that poor devil Faberdown an injustice? I hope not.

 

 

"Mrs Weddenhall didn't see the victim of this alleged madwoman. I did. And
he had three scratches down his cheek exactly where the nails of a girl's
right hand would have put them. See my point?"

 

 

The policeman rounded his mouth and nodded.

 

 

"It's by no means certain the attack was unprovoked. Think it over.
There's another condition besides insanity where a woman -- or a man,
come to that -- can display extraordinary strength like what you'd need
to pick up a grown man and throw him at a tree, as the victim put it. And
that state is mindless terror."

 

 

"You think he went for her first, maybe?"

 

 

" Maybe. That's the important word. You're going to look pretty stupid
if you go out with dogs and guns and what you finally come up with is
some hysterical teenager."

 

 

-- Exactly what an innocent teenager would be doing walking nude around
here in February, I won't try and guess, but it ought at least to make
Mrs Weddenhall reconsider.

 

 

There was the noise of another car approaching, and the policeman cheered up
noticeably.

 

 

"That'll be Inspector Hofford, I expect," he said, and excused himself.

 

 

 

 

Hofford proved to be a matter-of-fact countryman In a tweed coat, chewing
a briar pipe. He heard the constable's account of events up till now,
had a short talk with Mrs Weddenhall which Paul didn't overhear but
which climaxed in her ill-tempered return of both dogs to her car,
and then addressed Paul.

 

 

"I gather you don't think the victim was entirely truthful!"

 

 

"I'm simply reserving judgment," Paul answered.

 

 

"I'll join you in that. Now let me ask you to look over the scene with me.
I'm always glad of assistance from an expert, though there are other kinds
not so welcome." He jerked his head meaningly in the direction of the
Bently. "Got a torch by any chance?" he added. "It's pretty dark in
this wood."

 

 

"I keep one in my car. Just a second."

 

 

He fetched it under the stony gaze of Mrs Weddenhall and rejoined Hofford,
who had gone to the gateway beside the copse and was flashing his own torch
across the grass beyond.

 

 

"Now as I understand it he pulled up to answer a call of nature. He wouldn't
have wanted to climb this gate, would he? It's soaking wet and there's moss
on the top bar here. Let's see . . ."

 

 

The beam of light swung to play along the rusty wire fence enclosing
the trees, stopping on a broken post which dragged the upper wire low
enough for a man to step over.

 

 

"That way, I think," he murmured, and swung his leg across.

 

 

Paul was impressed with the accuracy of the guess. Not more than five yards
further on, they found a patch where the undergrowth -- mainly bramble --
had been violently disturbed. His torch showed something round and brown
snagged on a thorn, and he bent to pick it up. A tweed cap. He showed it
to Hofford.

 

 

"Belongs to the victim, I suppose," the inspector commented. "Thank you."
He turned it around in his hand and went on, "No blood or anything on it --
just rain. Well, some professional advice from you, please, Doctor!
Would the woman have stayed nearby or taken to her heels?"

 

 

"It's impossible to say. If she was sane and the man did attack her, she'd
have run off, but she might not have reached a house before collapsing
from shock. It's a pretty exhausting experience, being assaulted by
a stranger. Alternatively if she is insane she might be miles away or
equally she might be strolling unconcerned across the next field."

 

 

"Damnably complicated, aren't we -- we human beings?" Hofford turned back
towards the road. "Well, I'd better start a check at the houses nearby,
make sure nobody has had a weeping girl arrive on the doorstep. And
after that I'm afraid we'll just have to comb the area. Filthy night
she picked to bring us out on!"

 

 

Paul didn't accompany him back to the cars. The running-water noise
of the rain on the trees had brought the pressure due to his earlier
drinking to an urgent climax, and he seized the chance to slip away out
of sight and attend to that minor problem before it began to interfere
with his concentration. He picked his way awkwardly to the middle of
the copse, brambles tugging at and releasing his legs on every step,
and stood shivering a little against a dying tree.

 

 

-- Mirza and his horror film . . . Ought to be here now:
The Hound of
the Weddenhalls!

 

 

He had snapped off his torch to conserve the battery, and without it the
dank misery of the drenched woods overwhelmed him. Silence might have been
better, and absolute pitch blackness. The sodden murmur of rain was like a
complaint of nature against his intrusion; the faint voices which carried
to him were just faded enough to escape comprehension, heightening his
sensation of being cut off in a solitary private universe, and though
a gap between the trees afforded a line of sight toward the cars, he
could not see the people there as whole persons; they were mere shadows,
and incomplete at that, their passage back and forth, their gestures,
every movement, curtailed as their voices were blurred. An arm and hand
melted into the clawing twigs of a tree branch; a head into the black sky.

 

 

-- A prisoner in Plato's cave, watching the shadows of the greater world.
In another minute, back on the road: who are you, what are you doing here?
Inspector Hofford, I'm Dr Fidler and you were talking to me a moment ago!
My name isn't Hofford and your name isn't Fidler and this world is a trick
and a lie, a vault of illusion and the time for deceit is over. . . .

 

 

Shuddering, he turned to retrace his path, hurrying a little because
that momentary vision seemed so much of a piece with his surroundings.

 

 

" Tiriak-no?"

 

 

The voice struck out of nowhere, uttering that single incomprehensible
word on a rising, questioning note. Paul gasped and whirled, his torch
beam slashing across tree trunks flick-flick and halting. To be spoken
to here, and in an unfamiliar language, was a foretaste that his vision
would come true.

 

 

Then he saw her, uncertainly shading her eyes against the light, and
brief terror was swept aside by disbelief.

 

 

-- She can't be the one! Damn it, she's so tiny! Like a doll! And yet
there couldn't very well be two women walking this wood without clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*6*

 

 

She stood in the beam of the torch, a pallid, somehow pathetic figure.
The world paused long enough for Paul to study her and compile an almost
clinically thorough description of her in his mind.

 

 

-- Feet and half her calves out of sight in the undergrowth but the rest
perfectly proportioned, so . . . Not over five feet at the tallest.
Age? Twenties, just possibly eighteen/nineteen but I think older.
Take that hand away let me see your face -- ah. Black hair cropped very
short. Sharp face: sharp nose, chin. Big eyes. Never seen a facial
structure quite comparable. Must be white European, but she has the
epicanthic fold. Chinese somewhere, generations back? I've no idea how
long it keeps recurring after the initial incrossing. Small breasts,
nipples practically unpigmented, navel not re-entrant so no fat on the
belly, all muscle, narrow hips, legs scratched all to hell with thorns
and a patch of mud on the thigh as if she's been pushed over and sat on
wet ground. . . .

 

 

She was still just standing, poised either to flee or to defend herself.

 

 

-- If you're really the girl who beat up Faberdown, you're a wildcat.
You can't possibly weigh more than eighty pounds. And I said: must be
like Mrs Weddenhall.

 

 

The absurdity of the idea made Paul want to laugh, but memory of the
salesman's injuries sobered him. He was by himself with a girl who had
probably broken a man's arm with bare hands, and he was going to have to
be very tactful indeed. He cast around for something to say and decided
on a phrase which promised maximum reassurance.

 

 

"Hullo. I'm a doctor. I've come to look for you."

 

 

She raised both arms, fists clenched, not menacingly but with an
expression of dismay. After a pause she responded, but his tense ear
could not identify the wards.

 

 

"English!" he said slowly and clearly. "Do you speak English?"

 

 

Her head lifted in a quick gesture he recognised from seeing Cypriot nurses
do it at the hospital: a Balkan negative equivalent to a headshake.

 

 

-- Deadlock.

 

 

He realised suddenly he was shivering. And if he was chilled, how about her?
He hesitated, weighing the facts: the salesman's arm against the way she had
shown herself when he might have walked past without noticing her.

 

 

-- Watch it. Don't let superficial helplessness persuade you because
you don't like men in imitation old school ties.

 

 

Nonetheless, if he didn't act quickly Hofford would have filled the wood
with noisy men and that lingering terror on her face would spur her to
flight. He unbuttoned his coat carefully, one-handed.

 

 

"Here, put this around you," he said, trying to make the tone convey
what the words could not.

 

 

-- That headshake. Greek, perhaps? I don't know what Greek sounds like.
But what in hell is she doing here?

 

 

Cautiously she accepted the coat. Her eyes never wandered from him;
she slipped the garment on purely by touch.

 

 

-- In case I go for her while she's hindered from striking back? What did
Faberdown do to her?

 

 

The coat came to her ankles and was impossible to button closely. She
tugged the belt as tight as she could, drew a deep breath, and seemed
to pluck up the courage to abandon her watchful suspicion. Favouring
her right foot, she came up to him with her hand outstretched. He took
the small cold fingers in his and led her towards the road.

 

 

"Inspector!" he called. "I've got her!"

 

 

She tensed at the cry but didn't try to hang back. At the low point of
the wire Hofford and one of the constables appeared, silhouetted in the
light of Wolseley's headlamps. A torch stabbed towards them.

 

 

"That's her?" Hofford exclaimed. "Why, she's only a child!"

 

 

Beyond the two men, Paul noticed with satisfaction, Mrs Weddenhall was
venturing to take a closer look.

 

 

-- So much for bloodthirsty maniacs to be hunted with dogs and guns.
But I bet you won't learn anything from this.

 

 

Hampered by the coat, she negotiated the fence, accepting aid from
Hofford, and Paul saw the reason far her limp: a cut just behind her
right little toe, no longer bleeding but obviously tender.

 

 

"More than a child, I think," Paul told Hofford. "But she's definitely a
half-pint. Goodness knows who she is or what she's doing here, though. She
seems to be a foreigner -- doesn't appear to understand English."

 

 

Hofford blinked. "Are you sure? Couldn't she just be . . . ah . . . 'mute
of malice,' as the phrase goes?"

 

 

"That's just it. She's not mute. I'd never have noticed her if she hadn't
spoken to me."

 

 

A semicircle of frowning faces focused on the girl. She had detached her
hand from Paul's and was peering at the things close to her, especially
at the cars. Now she raised her eyes to Paul as though asking silent
permission, and went to the nearest, the police Wolseley. The driver,
reporting her discovery over his radio, watched her nervously.

 

 

She touched the door of the car as if she had never seen anything like it,
walked to the rear and first examined, then touched, the maker's insignia.

 

 

"Don't think she's going to break and run, do you?" Hofford whispered
to Paul.

 

 

"I doubt it. But I can't figure out what she's up to!"

 

 

The girl turned from the police car to look at the Bentley. Two eager dogs
returned her gaze. One of them barked and clawed at the car's window.