'You'll shoot?'
'Of course I'll shoot.'
'I've got an idea,' Anne said. 'We don't want to take any risks. Give me your overcoat and hat. I'll put them on and slip out first and give them a run for their money. In this fog they'll never notice till they've caught me. Directly you hear the whistles blow count five slowly and make a bolt. I'll run to the right. You run to the left.'
'You've got nerve,' Raven said. He shook his head. 'No. They might shoot.'
'You said yourself they wouldn't shoot first.'
'That's right. But you'll get a couple of years for this.'
'Oh,' Anne said, I'll tell them a tale. I'll say you forced me.' She said with a trace of bitterness, 'This'll give me a lift out of the chorus. I'll have a speaking part.'
Raven said shyly, 'If you made out you were my girl, they wouldn't pin it on you. I'll say that for them. They'd give a man's girl a break.'
'Got a knife?'
'Yes.' He felt in all his pockets; it wasn't there; he must have left it on the floor of Acky's best guest-chamber.
Anne said, 'I wanted to cut up my skirt. I'd be able to run easier.'
'I'll try and tear it,' Raven said, kneeling in front of her, taking a grip, but it wouldn't tear. Looking down she was astonished at the smallness of his wrists; his hands had no more strength or substance than a delicate boy's. The whole of his strength lay in the mechanical instrument at his feet. She thought of Mather and felt contempt now as well as repulsion for the thin ugly body kneeling at her feet.
'Never mind,' she said. 'I'll do the best I can. Give me the coat.'
He shivered, taking it off, and seemed to lose some of his sour assurance without the tight black tube which had hidden a very old, very flamboyant check suit in holes at both the elbows. It hung on him uneasily. He looked under-nourished. He wouldn't have impressed anyone as dangerous now. He pressed his arms to his sides to hide the holes. 'And your hat,' Anne said. He picked it up from the sacks and gave it her. He looked humiliated, and he had never accepted humiliation before without rage. 'Now,' Anne said, 'remember. Wait for the whistles and then count.'
'I don't like it,' Raven said. He tried hopelessly to express the deep pain it gave him to see her go; it felt too much like the end of everything. He said, I'll see you again—some time,' and when she mechanically reassured him, 'Yes,' he laughed with his aching despair, 'Not likely, after I've killed—' but he didn't even know the man's name.
Chapter 6
1
SAUNDERS had half fallen asleep; a voice at his side woke him. 'The fog's getting thick, sir.'
It was already dense, with the first light touching it with dusty yellow, and he would have sworn at the policeman for not waking him earlier if his stammer had not made him chary of wasting words. He said, 'Pass the word round to move in.'
'Are we going to rush the place, sir?'
'No. There's a girl there. We can't have any sh-sh-shooting. Wait till he comes out.'
But the policeman hadn't left his side when he noticed, 'The door's opening.' Saunders put his whistle in his mouth and lowered his safety catch. The light was bad and the fog deceptive; but he recognized the dark coat as it slipped to the right into the shelter of the coal trucks. He blew his whistle and was after it. The black coat had half a minute's start and was moving quickly into the fog. It was impossible to see at all more than twenty feet ahead. But Saunders kept doggedly just in sight blowing his whistle continuously. As he hoped, a whistle blew in front; it confused the fugitive; he hesitated for a moment and Saunders gained on him. They had him cornered, and this Saunders knew was the dangerous moment. He blew his whistle urgently three times into the fog to bring the police round in a complete circle and the whistle was taken up in the yellow obscurity, passing in a wide invisible circle.
But he had lost pace, the fugitive spurted forward and was lost. Saunders blew two blasts: 'Advance slowly and keep in touch.' To the right and in front a single long whistle announced that the man had been seen, and the police converged on the sound. Each kept in touch with a policeman on either hand. It was impossible as long as the circle was kept closed for the man to escape. But the circle drew in and there was no sign of him; the short single exploratory blasts sounded petulant and lost. At last Saunders gazing ahead saw the faint form of a policeman come out of the fog a dozen yards away. He halted them all with a whistled signaclass="underline" the fugitive must be somewhere just ahead in the tangle of trucks in the centre. Revolver in hand Saunders advanced and a policeman took his place and closed the circle.
Suddenly Saunders spied his man. He had taken up a strategic position where a pile of coal and an empty truck at his back made a wedge which guarded him from surprise. He was invisible to the police behind him, and he had turned sideways like a duellist and presented only a shoulder to Saunders, while a pile of old sleepers hid him to the knees. It seemed to Saunders that it meant only one thing, that he was going to shoot it out; the man must be mad and desperate. The hat was pulled down over the face; the coat hung in an odd loose way; the hands were in the pockets. Saunders called at him through the yellow coils of fog, 'You'd better come quietly.' He raised his pistol and advanced, his finger ready on the trigger. But the immobility of the figure scared him. It was in shadow half hidden in the swirl of fog. It was he who was exposed, with the east, and the pale penetration of early light, behind him. It was like waiting for execution, for he could not fire first. But all the same, knowing what Mather felt, knowing that this man was mixed up with Mather's girl, he did not want much excuse to fire. Mather would stand by him. A movement would be enough. He said sharply without a stammer, 'Put up your hands!' The figure didn't move. He told himself again with a kindling hatred for the man who had injured Mather: I'll plug him if he doesn't obey: they'll all stand by me: one more chance. 'Put up your hands!' and when the figure stayed as it was with its hands hidden, a hardly discernible menace, he fired.
But as he pressed the trigger a whistle blew, a long urgent blast which panted and gave out like a rubber animal, from the direction of the wall and the road. There could be no doubt whatever what that meant, and suddenly he saw it all—he had shot at Mather's girl; she'd drawn them off. He screamed at the men behind him, 'Back to the gate!' and ran forward. He had seen her waver at his shot. He said, 'Are you hurt?' and knocked the hat off her head to see her better.
'You're the third person who's tried to kill me,' Anne said weakly, leaning hard against the truck. 'Come to sunny Nottwich. Well, I've got six lives left.'
Saunders's stammer came back: 'W-w-w-w.'
'This is where you hit,' Anne said, 'if that's what you want to know,' showing the long yellow sliver on the edge of the truck. 'It's only an outer. You don't even get a box of chocolates.'
Saunders said, 'You'll have to c-c-come along with me.'
'It'll be a pleasure. Do you mind if I take off this coat? I feel kind of silly.'
At the gate four policeman stood round something on the ground. One of them said, 'We've sent for an ambulance.'