“Mr. Davos at one of his daughter’s parties?” she chuckled. “That’ll be the day. He never gives interviews, anyway.”
“Have you any idea where he is now?”
She nodded. “He went down to the island this morning. Made up his mind just like that. Had us all running round in circles.”
“The island?” Brady said.
“Shayling Island,” she explained. “It’s about two miles off the Essex coast near a fishing village called Harth. He has a house there.”
“What’s it like?” Brady said.
She shuddered. “Gloomy sort of place. I spent a few weeks there last summer when he had guests. It always seemed to be raining.” As Brady put down his cup she got to her feet. “But you’re wasting your time. He won’t see you, even if you go down there.”
“Oh, you never know,” Brady said lightly. “I might catch him on a good day.”
“He never has good days,” she said cryptically.
“Thanks for the tea,” he said, “and the information. You’ve probably saved my job.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” she said and he grinned and closed the door.
By now, the party had really started to fan out and there seemed to be noise and disturbance echoing from every corner of the house. He could still hear it clearly on the night air as he went down the front steps to the car and drove away.
The fog had thickened so that at times, traffic was reduced to a crawl, but it still only took him half an hour to get to that quiet square in Kensington.
He parked the car and went upstairs quickly. When he opened the door, the apartment was in darkness. He stood outside Anne’s door for a moment, listening to her steady breathing before moving into the kitchen.
He felt surprisingly hungry and started to make a bacon-and-egg fry. As he scooped it from the pan to plate, there was a slight noise behind him and he turned to see her standing in the doorway.
She was tightening the cord of a housecoat, her hair straggling across her face, the eyes still swollen and full of sleep.
“Would you like something to eat?” he said.
She shook her head. “Just coffee.”
He poured coffee into a cup for her, strong and black with plenty of sugar and she sat on the opposite side of the table and watched him eat.
All at once, there was an intimacy between them, a definite feeling that this was how it always should be. Brady sensed it and realized that she did also, but it remained unspoken.
She smiled gently. “You look tired.”
“It’s been a hard night,” he said.
“Did you manage to find this Jane Gordon person the Soames woman told you about when we were in the car?”
“I’m afraid I was too late,” he said, “but I found what I needed to know in the end.”
He lit a cigarette and gave her a brief outline of the events of the past few hours. When he had finished, she sat there without saying a word, staring sombrely into space.
“What do you think?” he said.
“I think you should go to the police,” she said. “I think things have gone far enough.”
“But Davos is the one person left on earth who knows the truth,” he said. “Do you think it’s likely he’ll make a confession at this stage?”
She frowned, her fingers twisting together nervously. “But what about the others who’ve been mixed up in this affair? Das and Professor Soames, for examples. The police should be able to get something out of them.”
He shook his head. “Not a chance. Even Soames didn’t know who Jane Gordon was working for. My one hope is to get to Davos, to force him to confess before the police lay me by the heels.”
“And what if he refuses?” she demanded. “What will you do then? Kill him?”
“And why not?” he said bitterly. “If ever a man deserved to die, he does.”
He got to his feet and paced restlessly across the floor. After a moment he turned back to the table. She sat with her head bowed and he pulled her to her feet and held her close in his arms. “I lost control there for a moment. I’m sorry. I’m tired. I suppose we both are. Better go to bed.”
“The man who handled your case before,” she said. “This Inspector Mallory. Couldn’t he do something?”
“He certainly did a hell of a lot for me last time,” Brady said. He led her through the living-room and back into her bedroom. “Now forget about it. We’ll talk it over in the morning.”
“What about you?” she said.
He shrugged. “I’ll manage on the divan in the living-room.”
She got into bed, but her face was still strained and anxious. “You will go to the police, won’t you, Matt?”
“Sure I will.” He leaned down and kissed her.
The last thing he remembered was her smile, warm and wonderful as he switched out the light and gently closed the door.
(11)
He went into the kitchen, had another coffee and waited for her to go to sleep. It didn’t take long. He stood outside her door and listened and then he pulled on his jacket and went back into the kitchen.
He managed to find a memo pad and pencil and sat down at the table to write her a note. After two attempts, he crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into a corner. There was really nothing left to say.
It was almost two a.m. when he closed the door of the apartment and went quietly downstairs.
He unlocked the car, took the road map from the glove compartment and left the keys in its place. There was a good chance he would never get out of London and when they caught him, he didn’t want to be in Anne’s car. He’d involved her too much already.
The fog had reduced visibility to thirty or forty yards and he walked briskly along the pavement, his senses alert for danger.
He had his first break half an hour later in a side street near the Albert Hall. A small and battered van was parked in a cul-de-sac. The lock on the door was already broken, but the owner had taken the key with him. Brady climbed in and reached behind the dashboard. He tore the ignition wires free and joined them together. A few minutes later he was driving cautiously away.
He stopped a little while later in a quiet side street and consulted the map. Essex was a county he knew reasonably well. Only three years previously he had been engineer in charge of a bridge project near Chelmsford.
Harth was near the tip of a spur of the coastline that jutted out where the River Blackwater emptied into the North Sea. It seemed to be a sparsely inhabited area with few roads. As the young maid had told him, Shayling Island was about two miles off-shore.
He stuffed the map into his pocket and drove away. According to the fuel gauge, there were only a couple of gallons in the tank, but for the moment, he concentrated on his driving. Minor problems could wait till later.
There was a surprising amount of traffic still on the roads. Probably people who had been delayed by the fog, he decided. Once out of the centre of London, he kept to the back streets, working in the direction of Romford, finally coming out on to the Chelmsford road.
Once past Romford he relaxed, lit a cigarette and concentrated on his driving. The fog was not as bad as it had been in London, but bad enough and it was a full hour before he turned off the main road and lost himself in a maze of back-country lanes.
He stopped frequently to consult the map and passed through several villages until finally, he took a wrong turning. As the first cold light of dawn crept through the fog, he drove through Southminster.
He followed the road to Tillingham for another half-mile and then the engine seemed suddenly to lose power, coughed once asthmatically, and died.
The fuel gauge still indicated two gallons which didn’t prove a thing and he got out and had a look at the tank. There was still a little in there and he lifted the hood and examined the engine.