‘One more you can cross off. His parents didn’t see him for most of Saturday, he came in after midnight. But there’s a girl. A clinger, it seems. All Saturday afternoon and evening she never let go. You can take the story he told to you as being on the level, tyre-tracks and all, for what they’re worth. Whoever knocked old Worrall on the head, your Number One didn’t.’
Chapter VII
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The evening paper wasn’t dropped into the Felse family’s letter-box until the last edition came in at about five o’clock. Bunty Felse was alone when it came, with the tea ready, and neither husband nor son present to eat it. Dominic was always late on rugger practice afternoons, but even so he should have been home before this time. And as for George, when he was on this kind of case who could tell when she would see him?
She sat down with the paper to wait for them patiently, and Annet Beck’s face looked out at her from the front page with great, mute, disconcerting eyes, beneath the query: ‘Have you seen this girl?’
‘Anyone who remembers noticing the girl pictured above,’ said the beginning of the text more precisely, ‘with a male companion in the central or southern districts of Birmingham during last week-end, should communicate with the police.’
Bunty read it through, and in fact it was as reticent as it could well be and still be exact in conveying its purpose and its urgency. She sank her head between her hands, threading her fingers into the bush of chestnut hair that was just one shade darker than Dominic’s, and contemplated Annet long and thoughtfully. ‘A male companion,’ ‘it is believed,’ ‘helping the police in their enquiries’ – such discreet, such clinical formulae, guaranteed non-actionable. But a real girl in the middle of it, and somewhere, still hidden, a real boy, maybe no older than Dominic.
They were pretty sure of their facts, that was clear. They knew when they laid hands on the partner of Annet’s truancy they would have Jacob Worrall’s murderer. What they didn’t know, what nobody knew but Annet, was who he was. And Annet wouldn’t tell. Bunty didn’t have to wonder or ask how things were going for George now, she knew.
No one could identify him but Annet. And she wouldn’t. Why, otherwise, should they be reduced to appealing to the public for information, and displaying Annet as bait? He might be anyone. He might be anywhere. You might go down to the grocer’s on the corner and ask him for a pound of cheese, and his hands might be trembling so he could hardly control the knife. You might bump into him at a corner and put your hand on his arm to steady yourself and him as you apologised, and feel him flinch, recoiling for an instant from the dread of a more official hand on his shoulder. He might get up and give you his seat in a bus, or blare past you on a noisy motor-bike at the crossing, and snarl at you to get out of his way. He might be the young clerk from the Education Department, just unfolding the paper in the bus on his way home. He’d killed a man, and he was on the run, but only one girl could give him a face or a name.
How well did he know his Annet? Do you ever know anyone well enough to stake your life on her? When all the claims of family and society and upbringing pull the other way? If he was absolutely sure of her loyalty, there was a hope that he wouldn’t try to approach her at all, that he’d just take his plunder and make a quiet getaway while he was anonymous, leaving Annet to carry the load alone. Could she love that kind of youth? Plenty of fine girls have, owned Bunty ruefully, why not Annet? It might be the best thing, because if he started running he would almost inevitably lose his nerve and run too fast, and just one slip would bring the hunt after him. Somewhere away from here, where he couldn’t double back to remove, in his last despair, the one really dangerous witness.
But if he couldn’t be sure of her, if he feared, as he well might, that under pressure she might break down at last and betray him, then from this moment on Annet’s life was in great danger. If you’re frightened to death, you stop loving, you stop thinking or feeling but in one desperate plane of reference, you fight for your life, and kill whatever threatens it. These, at least, thought Bunty, must be the reactions of an unstable young creature, not yet mature, the kind of boy who could have committed that brutal, opportunist crime in the shop in Bloome Street. The commonplace of today, the current misdemeanour, cosh the shopkeeper, clear the till, run; quick money to pay for this and future sprees, in three easy movements. It happens all the time. Preferably old men or old women in back-street shops, because they’re so often solitary. No, the boy who did that wouldn’t keep his love intact for long when it was his life or Annet’s.
Bunty got up suddenly and went to the telephone in the hall. It wasn’t so much that she was really anxious about her offspring; just a sudden unwillingness to be alone with this line of thought any longer, and a feeling that company would be helpful. It might even help her to think. How could she leave alone a problem that was tormenting George?
‘Eve? You haven’t got Dominic there, have you?’
‘I did have, sweetie, for about ten minutes, but that was half an hour ago. They blew in and went into a huddle in the corner, and then they up and made a phone call, and went off again. They brought the paper in with them. I did wonder,’ said Eve Mallindine, resigning the idea reluctantly, ‘if they’d come to you. They never said a word. And when I looked at the “News” – well, you’ll have seen it.’
‘Yes,’ said Bunty, and pondered, jutting a dubious lip. ‘Eve – they were where they said they were, surely? Over the week-end? They couldn’t, either of them—’
‘No,’ said Eve, firmly and serenely, ‘they couldn’t. Neither of them. Not in any circumstances.’
‘No, of course not! My God, I must be going round the bend. It’s such hell growing up, that’s all. And I’m afraid to think we’ve got angels instead of boys – such arrogance! And there was the first time, for Miles – don’t shoot me down in flames, but it did happen.’
‘Listen, honey,’ said Eve’s bright, confident voice, for once subdued into a wholly private and unmocking tenderness, ‘it didn’t happen. Not even that once. Don’t tell anyone else. I promised Miles I wouldn’t ask him anything, or tell anything, and I wouldn’t now if we weren’t all in a pretty sticky situation. Miles never tried to run away anywhere, with or without Annet Beck. So you can put that out of your mind.’
‘But they were picked up at the station,’ said Bunty blankly, ‘with two cases. And two tickets to London.’
‘So they were. Two cases. But both of them were Annet’s.’
‘Both of them? But Bill would have known! For goodness’ sake! He took Annet home with one case, and brought Miles back with the other. Do you mean to tell me he doesn’t know the family luggage?’
Eve said, with curiosity, wonder, and not a little envy: ‘You know, George must be a tidy-minded man, to inspire such confidence in husbands. Bill?’ A brief, affectionate hoot of laughter patted his name on the head and reduced him to size. ‘Bill doesn’t know his own shirts. Every time we dig the cases out of the attic to pack, he swears he’s never seen half of them before. “When did we buy this thing, darling?” “I don’t remember this – did we pinch it somewhere?” I could filch a tie out of his drawer and give it him for his birthday, and he wouldn’t know.’
‘But how, then? I mean—’
‘I don’t know, I never asked. When Bill dropped on them and jumped to conclusions, Miles arranged it that way, that’s all. And she let him. I got the case back to Annet afterwards. I took advantage of Regina Blacklock’s car to do it, but she never knew, and you knew Braidie, he was so correct he was stone-deaf to everything but what he was supposed to hear. It was very easy, I just telephoned to Annet at the hall, and asked her to get Braidie to call here when he took her home, some day when her parents would be out. So I know what I’m talking about, my love. I’d thought the poor lamb had bought it specially for the jaunt, you see, and I started to unpack it, out of pure kindness of heart and helpfulness. Thank God Bill wasn’t there! All Annet’s best frocks! You should have seen his face! After he’d covered up for her so nobly, and then to see me meddling. I tell you, I had the honour of all mothers in my hands.’