When the cab came, Charles left in a surge of family effusiveness, and then, feeling like the hero of some of the terrible thriller films he’d been in during the fifties, he told the driver to go to Steen’s home instead. As they approached Streatley, he lost his nerve and asked to be dropped by the bridge. The driver, with the predictability of all motorists over the last few weeks, commented on the petrol crisis, overcharged grossly, and drove off into the night.
The bridge at Goring is long and narrow; there are two spans to an island in the middle; one side is Streatley, the other Goring. Charles stood on the narrow pavement, leaning on the wooden parapet, and looked down into the water, which seemed infinitely deep in the darkness. Somewhere the church bells rang in the distance, calling the faithful to evensong. Their old-fashioned domesticity seemed incongruous as his thoughts darkened.
The pressure which had been building up all weekend was nearing some sort of explosion. The Steen business had to be sorted out that evening. Charles felt an uncomfortable sense of urgency. It was now nearly a week since Bill Sweet’s death on Sunday 2nd December, and Jacqui was still in great danger. Charles had known the full implications of the situation for only twenty-four hours, but he had a sick feeling that time was running out. A sense of gloom blanketed his thought as he looked down to the dark water and heard the hiss of it rushing over the invisible weir ahead of him. Somewhere down in the depths, he felt certain, lay Marius Steen’s gun, thrown away after the murder was committed.
He’d wasted the day. The fishing, the slides of Tenerife were all irrelevant; he should have been dealing with Steen. It was one of the most important responsibilities of his life. And this was one he couldn’t shirk. It must be done straight away. He looked at his watch. Nearly seven. The pubs would soon be open. Just a quick drink for a bracer and then it must be done.
It was twenty past nine when he left the cosy fireside of the Bull. He was braced to the point of recklessness. Two hours of sipping Bell’s and listening to the quacks of the local Scampi and Mateus Rose crowd made the whole issue seem much simpler. If Steen was there, Charles had only to tell him the truth; if he wasn’t, then he could leave the photographs with an anonymous note explaining Jacqui’s innocence. He couldn’t think why it hadn’t occurred to him earlier, as he marched briskly (after a bit of trouble with the door latch) out of the pub.
The moon was fuller than the night before, but its light was diffused by cloud. He could see quite clearly as he climbed the hill out of the village. It didn’t feel as cold as it had done earlier in the day. He stopped to relieve himself into the roadside bushes and almost lost his balance as a car screeched round the corner in a clatter of gravel. He zipped himself up and strode onwards. A strange sense of purpose filled him, even a sense of honour. Sir Galahad nearing the end of his quest. Marius Steen, the giant who seemed to have been looming over his life now for a week was about to be confronted. A fragment repeated itself inappropriately like a mantra in Charles’ mind. ‘My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.’
He was almost disappointed when he reached the gates. He’d expected a great brazen trumpet hanging, with a legend in outlandish characters-‘Who dares to brave the giant’s wrath, let him sound this trump.’ And in the trees, clattering sadly, the armour of those who had dared, and failed in the combat. He turned to look at the trees, but they were bare. And the only sound was the wind breathing on their branches.
Charles leant unsteadily against the gate-post and pressed the fluorescent button. He didn’t wait for any response, but pushed open the heavy white gates with a scrunch of gravel. The bungalow again seemed to have grown in the moonlight, and was now a Moorish temple, where the infidel foe lurked. A light shone through a chink in the curtains of a window above the garage door.
No one appeared as Charles approached the front door, but he felt as if he was being watched. Suddenly the night had become very silent. He beat a tattoo with the door-knocker, and again its reverberations filled the whole world. But no one came. The quarry was lying low.
Charles pushed the door but it was very solid. He backed away and looked along the front of the house. The windows appeared to be shut firm. Garage? He walked heavily down the ramp and grasped the handle that should lift the door up and over. Locked.
But he had reached a pitch where he couldn’t give up. He stumbled round the side of the house, through the flower beds, feeling the windows. All were tightly locked.
Round the back of the bungalow he was suddenly aware of the slow wash of water at the end of the lawn. There was no other sound and no light was visible on this elevation. But he knew Marius Steen was inside.
There was a small door which corresponded with the back of the garage. He walked up a crazy-paving path and tried the handle. Braced for a shove he nearly overbalanced when the door gave inwards.
It was very dark. He blinked, trying to accustom his eyes to the change, but still couldn’t see much. There were no windows and only a trickle of light came in through the door behind him. From what he could see, it illuminated a pile of boxes. Perhaps he was in some sort of store-room rather than the garage. He moved slowly forward, groping ahead with a breast-stroke motion.
But discretion was difficult in his alcoholic state. There was some thing in the way of his foot, then an object with a sharp edge fell agonisingly on to his ankle. Whatever it was precipitated an avalanche of other objects which thundered down around him as Charles fell sprawling to the ground.
He lay frozen, waiting for some reaction, but there was nothing. It was only his tense state that made the crash sound so loud. Gingerly he reached forward, found a wall and levered himself up against it. Then he felt along to a door frame and followed its outline until he found a light-switch.
The sudden glare was blinding, but when he unscrewed his eyes, he could see he was in a kind of windowless utility room. There was a washing machine, a spin dryer, a washing-up machine, a deep-freeze and rows of neatly hanging brooms and mops. Above these was a cluster of meters, fuse-boxes and power-switches. Deep shelves on the opposite wall contained boxes of tinned food and crates of spirits. There was a spreading honeycomb of a wine-rack, full and expensive-looking.
And on the floor Charles could see what had caused his fall. A pile of boxes lay scattered like a demolished chimney. He knelt down and re-piled them. They were heavy, as he knew from the numbing pain in his shin. He looked at the writing on the boxes. ‘Salmon’, ‘Trout’, ‘Strawberries.’ ‘Do not refreeze.’ Marius Steen certainly knew how to live.
When he had finished piling the boxes up, Charles looked once more round the room and his eyes lighted on the very thing he needed at that moment-a torch. It was a long, black, rubber-encased one, hanging from a hook by the back door. He took it down, switched on, turned off the light and opened the door into the rest of the house.
He was in the garage. It was large, but dominated by the huge form of a dark blue Rolls-Royce. Remembering a detail with sudden clarity, Charles knelt down and looked at the left-hand side of the front bumper. There was a little dent, which he’d lay any money corresponded to the dent in the back right-hand wing of Bill Sweet’s Ford Escort. The door of the Rolls was not locked. Key in the ignition, nothing in the glove compartment and the petrol gauge read empty.
Charles moved round the great car, looking for any other clues it might give. He felt his foot slip under him and sat down with a jarring shock, landing uncomfortably on a spanner and a piece of plastic tubing. Fate seemed determined to translate his dramatic mission into slapstick.
He found the door which led to the body of the house. Along a corridor and into the large hall. All the walls were hung with hunting prints which were anonymously expensive, bought on advice by a man without natural taste. Two enormous china Dalmatians stood guarding the front door. They seemed to reflect more of their owner’s personality. They were Steen the showman; the prints were Steen the man who wanted to gatecrash high society, the man who wanted a knighthood.