The Loo Sanction (25 page)

“You told me earlier that you considered Strange to be the cleverest man in Britain . . . which might be considered damning with faint praise.”

The Vicar looked up. “Did I? Well, now I am sure I was right.” He turned to Yank, who had been looking on without participating, still heavy with the wine he had been drinking to excess. “Fill the doctor's glass. It appears we have reason to celebrate.”

“I'll take the wine, but you shouldn't delude yourself that we're home and dry. I still have to go back into The Cloisters and deal with Strange. You see, he doesn't know that his
Horse
is going on display in the National Gallery. He won't know that until he reads the newspapers. And I'm not sure how he will react. He's been keeping the Horse somewhere deep, and he won't be pleased to have it in the open, its gut full of films, for twenty-four hours before the auction.”

“What might he do?”

“He might smell a rat. If he does, he'll probably go to ground with the films.”

“What then?”

“We lose.”

“I shouldn't say that so fliply, if I were you, Dr. Hemlock. Remember the dire consequences to your freedom should you fail at this.”

Jonathan closed his eyes wearily and shook his head. “I don't think you see the picture. If Strange doesn't buy my story about putting the
Horse
on display to allay governmental curiosity over the selling price, then his response to me will be vigorous, probably total. And your threat of trial for murder won't matter much.”

“You seem to take that rather calmly.”

“Cite my alternatives!”

“Yes, I see. My, you
are
in a tight spot, aren't you?”

Jonathan's desire to punch that fat face was great, but he tightened his jaw and held on. “I am going to make one demand of you,” he said.

“What would that be?” the Vicar asked civilly.

“Miss Coyne's out of this from here on. In fact, she is out of your organization altogether.”

The Vicar looked from him to Maggie. “I see. I had been given to understand that you two were romantically involved—well, physically involved at least. So I suppose this request is to be expected. Are you sure this is what the young lady wants? Perhaps she would prefer to see you through this. Lend some support, if need be. Eh?”

“It's not her choice. I want her out.”

The Vicar blew out an oral breath, his heavy cheeks fluttering. “Why not? She has served her purpose. Certainly, my dear. You are free to go. And have no fears about your little flap in Belfast. It will all be taken care of.” He enjoyed playing Lord Bountiful; it was the churchman in him. “However,” he continued, turning to Jonathan, “I do think you would do well to take advantage of the Loo organization and bring a couple of our men along with you to the National Gallery.”

Jonathan laughed. “The very last thing I need is the burden of your pack of bunglers. Those men from MI–5 who tailed me to the Cellar d'Or almost blew my cover.”

“Yes, Yank told me about that. I was most disturbed. I assure you it won't happen again.”

“I wasn't able to contact the guys in time to call them off,” Yank explained from his corner.

“I don't care about that. Just keep any Loo people away from me.”

“I'm afraid our Loo organization doesn't impress you much, Dr. Hemlock. Indeed, I have a feeling that you share with Strange a certain disdain for things British.”

“Don't take it to heart. I arrived during an awkward period for your country. The twentieth century.”

The Vicar tapped the desk with his fingertips. “You had better succeed, Hemlock,” he said, winking furiously.

         

The split-reed cry of the wind around the corners of the Olde Worlde Inn slid with the force of the storm from a basso hum to a contralto quiver. Jonathan listened to it in the dark, his eyes wandering over the dim features of the ceiling.

They had not spoken for a long time, but he knew from the character of the current between them that she was awake.

“I have to give the papers time to carry the story about the Marini
Horse.
There's nothing for me to do tomorrow but keep out of sight.”

She turned to him and placed her hand on his stomach in response.

“Do you want to spend the day with me?” he asked.

“Here?”

“Christ, no. We could run down to Brighton.”

“Brighton?”

“That's not as mad as it seems. Brighton's interesting in the middle of winter. Desolate piers. Storm swept. The Lanes are empty, and the wind flutes through them. Amusement areas boarded up. There's a melancholy charm to resort areas in the off-season. Strumpets all dressed up with no place to go. Circus clowns standing in the snow.”

“You're a perverse man.”

“Sure. Do you want to come with me?”

“I don't know.”

A metallic tympany of sleet rattled against the window, then the stiff wind backed around, and the room was silent.

“Last night, at The Cloisters . . .” She paused, then decided to press on. “Do you remember what I said?”

Of course he remembered, but he hoped she had been babbling and would forget it all later. “Oh, you were pretty much out of your head with the dope. You were just playing out fantasies.”

“Is that what you want to believe?”

He didn't answer. Instead, he patted her arm.

“Don't do that! I'm not a puppy, or a child that's stubbed its toe.”

“Sorry.”

“I'm sorry too. Sorry the idea of being loved is such a burden to you. I think you're an emotional cripple, Jonathan Hemlock.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

The downward curl of the last vowel made him smile to himself.

“I have a plan,” he said after a silence. “When this thing is over, we'll get together and play it out. Gingerly. Week by week. See how it goes.”

She had to laugh. “Lord love us, if you haven't found the tertium quid between proposal and proposition.”

“Whichever it is, do you accept?”

“Of course I do.”

“Good.”

“But I don't think I'll go to Brighton with you.”

He rose to one elbow and looked down at her face, just visible in the dark. “Why not?”

“There's no point to it. I'm not a masochist. If we went to Brighton together—with its sad piers and rain and . . . all of that—we'd end up closer together. We'd laugh and share confidences. Make memories. Then if something happened to you . . .”

“Nothing's going to happen to me! I'm a shooter, not a shootee.”

“They're shooters too, darling. And worse. I'm frightened. Not only for you. I'm frightened selfishly for myself. I don't want to get all tangled up in you—my life so tangled up in your life that I can't tell which is which. Because if that were to happen, and then you were killed, I would take it very badly. I wouldn't be brave at all. I'd just roll myself into a ball and make sure I never got hurt again. I'd spend the rest of my life looking out through lace curtains and doing crossword puzzles. Or I might end up in a nunnery.”

“You'd make a terrible nun.”

“No. Now lie down and listen to me. Stop it. Now, here's what I'm going to do. Tomorrow morning I'm going back to my flat, and I'm going to get right into bed with a hot water bottle and a book. And every once in a while, I'll pad out and make myself some tea. And when night comes, I'll take a bunch of pills and sleep without dreaming. And the next day, I'll do the same. I hope it rains all the time, because Sterne goes best with rain. Then Tuesday night, I'll meet you here at the Vicarage. You'll give over the films, and we'll say good-bye to them, and away we'll go. And if you
don't
turn up at the Vicarage. If you . . . well, then maybe I'll go down to Brighton alone. Just to see if you're lying about the wind fluting through The Lanes.”

“I'll be there, Maggie. And we'll go off to Stockholm together.”

“Stockholm?”

“Yes. I didn't tell you. We've agreed to do a month in Sweden. I know a little hotel on the Gamla Stan that's . . .”

“Please don't.”

“I'm sorry.”

“And please don't telephone me before it's all over. I don't think I could stand waiting for the phone to ring every moment.”

He felt very proud of her. She was handling this magnificently. He gave her a robust hug. “Oh, Maggie Coyne! If only you could cook!”

She turned over and looked into his eyes with mock seriousness. “I really can't, you know. I can't cook at all.”

Jonathan was relieved. This was much easier on him. Play it out with banter and charm. “You . . . can't . . . cook!”

“Only cornflakes. Also, I hate Eisenstein, I can't type, and I'm not a virgin. Do you still want me?”

Jonathan gasped. “Not . . . not a virgin?”

“I suppose I should have told you earlier. Before you gave your heart away.”

“No. No. You were right to conceal it until I had a chance to discover your redeeming qualities. It's just that . . . just give me a little time to get used to the idea. It hurts a little at first. And for God's sake, don't ever tell me his name!”

“
His
name?” she asked with innocent confusion. “Oh! Oh, you mean
their
names.”

“Oh, God! How can you twist the knife like that?”

“Simple as pie. I just take it by the handle, and—”

“Ouch! You gormless twit!”

Eventually they kissed, then they nestled into what had become their habitual sleeping entwinement. The rain rattled on the window, and the wind exercised the Chinese tonic scale. At last, Jonathan slipped into a deep sleep.

         

“Jonathan?”

He gasped awake, sitting up, hands defensively before his face. “What?”

“Why do you think I'd make a terrible nun?”

“Good night, Maggie.”

“Good night.”

Putney

I
t was midmorning when Jonathan arrived back at the Baker Street penthouse, having driven rapidly up from Brighton with the windows of the Lotus down and the wet wind swirling his hair.

The day spent alone had been good for him. His nerves were settled, and he felt fit and fast. It had rained without letup—a drowning, drenching rain that gushed down drainpipes and frothed into the gutters. He had bought a cap and a scarf and had walked slowly through the deserted Lanes and out onto the blustery piers—his wide raincoat collar the outer boundary of his vision and caring.

It was best that Maggie had not come with him. She was a wise girl.

He had eaten in a cheap café, the only customer. The owner had stood by the rain-streaked front window, his hands tucked up under his stained apron, and lamented the high cost of living and the weather, which, he had reason to know, had been changed for the worse by Sputniks and atomic tests.

To keep a low profile, he had stayed at a cheap bed-and-breakfast place, the energetic, talkative landlady of which recognized his accent and asked if he had ever met Shirley Temple face-to-face—bless her soul with that good ship
Lollypop
and that blackie who used to dance up and down the stairs (they can all dance, you have to give them that). Too bad all the picture houses were being made into bingo parlors, but then, they don't make movies like that anymore, so maybe it wasn't such a loss. Still . . . the landlady hummed a bit of “Rainbow on the River” to herself. No. He had never met Bobby Breen either. Pity.

That night he had jolted awake—stark awake so suddenly that ugly fragments of a nightmare were caught in the light of memory before they could scurry into the dark of the unconscious. The Cloisters. Strange had not bought his story and was going to kill him. Two-mouths rode on a bronze horse, both of them grinning. Leonard's drooping eyelids revealed only bloodshot whites. He was choking . . . gasping in a mute attempt at laughter. Amazing Grace was there—haughty, nude. He was strapped to an exercise table. An altar. Eccyclemic violence.

Then the images had faded, all sucked down into the vortex of the memory hole. He had smiled at himself, wiped the icy sweat off his face, and gone back to sleep.

As soon as he entered his penthouse flat, before unpacking or even removing his overcoat, he telephoned Vanessa Dyke. All morning he had been uneasy about her, fearing that she would return to London early for some reason. The phone double-buzzed again and again, and he felt a sense of relief. Then, just as he was going to hang up, there was a click and a male voice said, “Yes?”

Jonathan thought he recognized the voice. “May I speak to Miss Dyke?” he asked, apprehensively.

“No, you cannot. You certainly cannot do that.” The voice was mushy with drink, but he now recognized it.

“What are you doing there, Yank?”

“Oh, yes. Dr. Hemlock, I believe. The man who makes jokes about the Feeding Station.”

“Pull yourself together, shithead! What are you doing there? Has anything happened to Van?”

It was a different, an empty and weak Yank who responded. “You'd better come over here.”

“What is it?”

“You'd better come over.”

Goddamn it!

He angrily snapped open the drawer of his chest. Automatically he checked the load of the two .45 revolvers: five double dumdum bullets in each cylinder and the hammer over an empty. He put the guns in the bottom of an attaché case and covered them with the half-dozen newspapers he had purchased outside his hotel, each one carrying an article on the forthcoming auction of the Marini
Horse,
and the news that it would be on display at the National Gallery today. The papers would provide an excuse for the attaché case when he brought it to The Cloisters.

But first Vanessa.

He stepped from the cab and paid the driver, then he turned up through the open gate and the shallow garden with its tarnished hydrangeas.

Yank opened the door before he knocked, a vagueness of expression and a toppling rigidity of stance indicating that he had been drinking. “The bad guys beat you to it, Jonathan baby. Come on in and make yourself at home.”

Jonathan pushed past him into the sitting room where he and Vanessa had taken tea a few days before. It was cold now, and damp. No one had thought to light the fire. The portable typewriter was still on the spool table by the window, and reference books were open upside down beside it. The Spode from which they had drunk was still laid out, the cozy slumped beside the pot, the evaporated lees of tea a dark stain in the bottom of the cups.

She had never left for Devon.

Jonathan glanced around at the quaintly old-womanish furniture, the lace curtains, the antimacassars. Everything accused him.

“Dead?” he asked perfunctorily.

Yank was standing in the doorway, supporting himself against the frame. “She struck out. Dead as a doornail—or was that Marley?”

“Where is she?”

“Yonder.” He waved in the direction of the kitchen beyond a closed door. He picked up a bottle of Vanessa's whiskey and poured some into a glass.

“Cloisters?” Jonathan asked, taking the glass from him and setting it aside.

“Who else, amigo? Their modus operandi is a calling card. It was done in the style of the Parnell-Greene murder. I think I'd best sit down.” He dropped into an easy chair and let his head rest on the antimacassar as he breathed orally in the short pants of nausea. “There must have been three or four of them. They . . .” He wet his lips and swallowed. “They raped her. Repeatedly. And not just with their . . . with themselves. They used . . . things. Kitchen utensils. She died of hemorrhage. She's in there. You can take a look if you want. I had to, so it's only just that you should.” He stood up too quickly, his balance uncertain. “You know? You know what I was thinking? It was probably the only time she ever made love with a man.”

Jonathan turned half away, then spun back, driving the heel of his hand into Yank's jaw. He went down in a boneless heap. It was unfair, but he had to hit somebody.

There was a half-filled suitcase on a chair. She must have been packing when they walked in on her. On the carpet was a long cigarette burn. The cigarette had probably been slapped from the corner of her mouth.

He steeled himself and stepped over Yank to enter the kitchen. She was on the kitchen table, covered from face to knees with a raincoat. Yank's. Only the torso was on the table. The bare, unshaven legs hung over the edge. The feet were long and bony, like the Christ of a Mexican crucifix, and their limp, toed-in dangle spoke death louder even than the sweet, thick stink. Needing to accept his share of the punishment, Jonathan pulled down the coat and looked at the face. It was contorted into a snarl that bared the teeth. He looked away.

There had been no bruises on her face. Apparently they had kept her conscious as long as possible. Two or three of them must have held her onto the table while Leonard raped her, before looking through the kitchen drawers to find things to . . .

Leonard! Jonathan said the name aloud to himself.

Yank was back on his feet by the time Jonathan returned to the sitting room, but he was unsteady. And he was weeping.

“I'm getting out of this,” Yank said to the wall.

“Sit down. Pull yourself together. You're not all that drunk.”

“How can people do this kind of thing? And not only The Cloisters people. How can something like the Feeding Station exist? I don't want any of this. I just want a ranch in Nebraska!”

“Sit down! I'm not impressed by your sudden delicacy in the face of violence. Just remember that I wouldn't be involved in this thing—and Vanessa wouldn't have been—if you people hadn't roped me in with that murder setup. So just shut up! Are the police in on this yet?”

“You're a cold-blooded bastard, aren't you? A real professional.”

“How hurt do you want to get?”

“Go ahead! Beat me up!”

Jonathan wanted to. He really wanted to.

But he took a breath and asked, “Have the police been informed?”

Yank drooped his head and held it in his hands. “No,” he said quietly. “They'll receive an anonymous call later. After we're out of here.”

Jonathan looked around the room. He hadn't given her name to Strange, he had only confirmed it as a token of sincerity. So it wasn't really his fault. And immediately he felt contempt for himself for taking refuge in that thought.

Before leaving, he turned back to Yank. “Don't forget your raincoat.”

Yank looked up at him with disbelief and disgust swimming in his bleary eyes. “She was your friend.”

Jonathan left. For an hour he walked through the zinc-colored streets of Putney, through the gritty fog, past melancholy brick row houses, some of which had tarnished hydrangeas in their pitiful little front gardens.

Then he caught a cab for The Cloisters.