A dark figure rose silently from the darkness before him on the road leading into the Map Country. A torch beam licked out, dazzling him. The gleam of a revolver muzzle showed beneath the light.
McArdle said: “And I’ll have the map now, Mister Crane.”
IX
Bemused, Crane held up a hand, trying to shield his face from the prying light, caught off balance.
“Don’t waste my time, Crane. The map, hand it over. And the Amullieh. Be quick about it.”
“I don’t know anything about the map — or this Amullieh thing you mentioned.”
McArdle showed only as a dark shadow behind the torch glow; there was less even of him visible than when Crane had seen him on the rainslicked Belfast street asking his way to the Queen’s Bridge. But that grating, ear-serrating voice was the same.
“The Amullieh you broke from my wrist when your girl friend hit me… And don’t think I’ve forgotten that!”
“The chain — You mean the chain. I’d forgotten about that…” Crane dug it out of his pocket, feeling the leather map wallet brush against his fingers. His hand snagged the chain and he dragged quickly upwards so that McArdle would not suspect anything else of value lay in that pocket. “Here.”
As McArdle reached forward hungrily with an empty hand, and the torch splashed pallid light over the glinting length of chain between Crane’s fingers, Crane slashed viciously with his other hand at the light, knocked the torch spinning away. A chance; but he doubted if McArdle was three-handed.
Stars and volcanic explosions burst luridly in Crane’s head. He staggered back, arms upflung, tripping, as McArdle leaped forward to strike again.
“Try to be clever, would you, Crane? I may have put my gun away; but I don’t need a gun to deal with a weakling like you.”
Again the bunched fist holding the golden chain swung towards Crane. He ducked desperately, sought to grapple with McArdle. Another blow knocked him down and blackness rimmed with red wavered like an aurora borealis over his eyes. He gasped once for breath, felt McArdle’s fingers slide into his pocket, take the map, gasped again, and then gasped no more as McArdle slammed one last blow home.
He heard that grating voice laughing, heard McArdle say: “I have the map! The map! I have it! At last! At last!”
Holding his breath, eyes shut, feeling the road hard under him, Crane made his last effort. McArdle must be feverishly opening the wallet, unwrapping the wax paper, taking out the map. The man had to be sure he had the prize safely. So his attention would be fully engrossed. Crane pushed with his legs, rolled over, slid off the road and fell sprawling in the paling darkness into the ditch at the bottom of a ten-foot slope.
A small black-shadowed bush grew from the side of the ditch three yards away, just visible in the growing light. Crane tensed, about to wriggle for its cover.
The revolver above him spat flame, once, twice. Crane heard the bullets whicker into the bush, the crack as one hit a branch. He screamed as though in mortal agony.
“That’s settled you, Crane! Good riddance. And now… Now to return to my kingdom!”
McArdle’s harsh footsteps on the road above faded back — away from the direction of the Map Country.
Crane took a deep dragging breath. He was shaking. So McArdle had taken the dark shadow of the bush for him and had shot to kill. But Crane was still alive — bruised and shocked, but alive.
Alive without the torn map that was the passport and key into the Map Country where Polly had been taken captive by the living lozenges of light. Crane pushed up onto a knee, thrust down with a hand, stood up with his feet in water. He felt chilled to the marrow.
McArdle had gone back away from the Map Country; that could only mean he was going for his car; he had been driving the car and had stopped and walked back in a quiet detour and had taken Crane, lost in memories, completely by surprise. Crane felt a fool. But he had to get that map back, or, failing that, go with McArdle into the Map Country. He scrambled along the ditch until the bank dipped a little, climbed up broken turfs and muddy hollows, crept cautiously out onto the road.
The true dawn could be only minutes away. He had to reach the car and McArdle before the sun speared above the horizon and revealed him. McArdle would kill him, out here on this lonely bogland road, without compunction.
McArdle’s car still faced towards Omagh as Crane, back in the ditch, crept level with it. McArdle sat behind the wheel and his shadowed silhouette against the reflected glow from the lights showed as an evil puppet-figure. The engine revved hard, reverse clashed excruciatingly and the car inched back. McArdle was afraid of running his wheels into the ditch. Crane reached the conclusion the man was a bad driver.
As the boot edged back over the ditch with the car jerking along as though on spring jacks instead of wheels, Crane slithered up out of the ditch on the near side, the blind spot, and reached for the rear door handle. As the car jerked, jumped, and then, as McArdle found bottom, moved forward, Crane opened the door with a single motion and bundled inside.
The car stopped.
“What’s going on?” demanded McArdle. He looked back over his shoulder and now the light was sufficient for them to see each other’s faces clearly at that short distance.
That fierce jut of jaw, that livid gash of mouth Crane had glimpsed beneath the downdrawn hat in Belfast had not belied the lean, sardonic, satanic look of the man. Heavy black eyebrows met over a long thin nose. Fierce, evil and utterly ruthless, McArdle stared at Crane, his brilliant eyes so dark they appeared black pinpoints of hate.
“You fool! Why follow me here when I failed to kill you!” McArdle’s throaty rasp held only contempt and impatience. He wanted to get on, to get into the Map Country. “You’ve made so many mistakes, Crane… But this is your last.” The revolver barrel snouted up over the back of the seat.
Calmly, quietly, Crane showed McArdle the grenade.
He held it in his hand, the pin still between !is teeth, and the lever nuzzled his palm like a dog’s nose.
Crane spat out the pin.
“You know what this is, McArdle?” he said joyfully, his teeth barely opening to let the words bite out. “A grenade. You shoot me, my hand releases the lever and — blooey! Your head will be blown to mush.”
“You wouldn’t dare! What about you…?”
“Don’t worry about me, McArdle. Worry about yourself. Think of your face hanging in shreds, your eyeballs dangling. Think of your brains spattered against the windshield… Go on, man… think!”
“No… No, Crane… I won’t shoot…” McArdle’s fears were, Crane realized with an insight he found curious, directed more towards preserving his life for a purpose rather than from terror of being blown up.
“You won’t shoot. That’s nice… Very nice…”
“But I won’t give you the map. And you can’t force me.”
“Just drive on, McArdle. Just drive on into the Map Country. That’s all I want.”
McArdle’s sigh of relief sounded genuine. He put the gun down on the seat beside him. Then he said: “Be careful with that grenade. It’s a primitive weapon.”
“Sure it’s primitive. And you know what they say about primitive weapons. They’re dangerous. Drive!”
The car started, jerkily, and McArdle crashed the gears in a way that would have set Polly’s teeth on edge.
“And primitive means of conveyance like this car — they’re dangerous too!” McArdle said savagely. He hadn’t liked that grenade shoved under his ear one little bit.
“This is a pretty high-class piece of automobile merchandise,” Crane said mildly. “It’s only dangerous when there’s a dangerous jerk behind the wheel.”