“All right,” she said to her daughter. “You get off now. Don’t be back too late.”
Maria slid off the chair behind the reception desk.
“I won’t be back until two,” she said sulkily, “so don’t expect me before then.”
Madame Brossette grunted. She was long past worrying about her daughter. In another year the girl would be walking the back streets of Cannes and would be hiring a room at the hotel. Madame Brossette believed in sacrificing sentiment for profit. What had been good enough for her when she had been young should surely be good enough for her daughter.
She watched Maria leave the hotel, then, lighting a cigarette, she settled down on the chair her daughter had vacated and with a bored grimace, picked up her magazine and began to leaf through its pages.
Jay moved silently to the head of the stairs and looked down at her; then, satisfied she would be occupied for a while, he moved on bare feet down the corridor to the broom cupboard.
He paused to listen outside the door, then he put his hand on the door handle and turned it gently. He eased open the door a few inches and was surprised to find himself looking into total darkness. He listened and, hearing nothing, he moved into the cupboard, closing the door behind him. For some moments he remained motionless, his breathing coming hard and fast while he tried to pick up any sound that would tell him he was in the room in which Kerr was sleeping. Finally, hearing nothing, he took out his cigarette lighter and flicked the flame alight. Then he saw where he was — in a broom cupboard and seeing an electric light switch, he put on the light.
Madame Brossette’s conversation with Joe which he had overheard told him there must be a false wall in the cupboard and it didn’t take him more than a few minutes to discover the spring release that operated the false door.
He stood looking into a small room, not more than ten feet square. There was a bed, and, on the bed, lay Joe Kerr, his breathing heavy and punctuated with slow, strangled snores.
Jay moved back to the cupboard door and slid the bolt that was on the inside of the door, then he moved silently into the inner room until he reached the bed.
He stood looking down at Joe as he slept, the light from the outer room giving enough illumination for Jay to see the raddled, tired face in some detail.
He pulled the razor from his wrist-watch strap, then he sat on the bed and reaching out, gently shook Joe’s shoulder.
Joe was dreaming of his wife and for a change, the dream wasn’t a nightmare. He was seeing her, in slacks and a flowered patterned shirt, weeding the flagged path that led up to the cottage Joe had rented for their honeymoon and Joe smiled as he watched her in his dream.
Then he became aware of a hand on his shoulder gently shaking him and the dream was spoilt, stopping abruptly the way the picture on a movie screen stops when the film snaps.
Jeanne again! he thought angrily. Why can’t she leave a guy alone? He hunched his shoulders, mumbling a protest, then he tried to free himself from the persistently shaking hand.
Fingers gripped his coat more firmly and into his dream-dazed mind came a sudden sense of danger and a warning that these weren’t Jeanne’s thick, heavy fingers that had so often shaken him awake. Slowly he turned his head and opened his eyes.
He looked up at Jay, who sat motionless at his side, his left hand resting on Joe’s shoulder.
Joe couldn’t believe what he was seeing, then, with a gasp of fright, he started to sit up, but the fingers on his shoulder suddenly turned into steel claws and dug into his flesh, making him gasp with pain and fear and forcing him flat again.
He lay motionless, his heart thumping, sweat on his face, as he looked at the compact motionless figure who was sitting beside him and for the first time in his life, Joe experienced real fear: fear that turned him cold, that dried his mouth, that paralysed him.
The pale expressionless face with its dark glasses, the lips curved in a meaningless smile, struck a sick terror into him like a knife thrust.
“It’s Mr. Kerr, isn’t it?” Jay said, leaning forward slightly so Joe could see his own reflection in the two dark screens of the boy’s glasses.
“How did you get in here?” Joe croaked. “You... you’ve no business in here.”
The thin, pale lips moved into a smile that accelerated Joe’s heartbeat.
“Oh, but I have. I’ve come for the photographs and the negatives. Where are they?”
Joe tried to pull himself together. Again he attempted to sit up, but again the steel fingers bit into his flesh. He was horrified to realize this slight boy was so strong.
“Where are they, Mr. Kerr?” Jay repeated. “I want them.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe mumbled, shrinking back on his pillow. “You get out of here.”
Jay withdrew his hand from Joe’s shoulder. His very stillness made him seem more menacing to Joe.
“The photographs and the negatives, please,” he said softly. “I haven’t much time.”
There was a threat in his voice that made Joe touch his dry lips with the tip of his tongue.
“I haven’t got them. She’s got them. You ask her for them.”
Jay said gently: “I could persuade you, Mr. Kerr.”
He lifted his right hand so Joe could see it. The razor lay in his open palm and Joe suddenly felt very sick. He watched the boy open the blade that glittered in the electric light.
“The photographs, please,” Jay said. He lifted the razor. “Unless you give them to me... ” He paused and his pale lips moved into a smile that chilled Joe’s blood. “I wouldn’t wish to hurt you, Mr. Kerr.”
The flashing strip of sharp steel filled Joe with horror. What was left of his drink-sodden courage disintegrated.
“Don’t touch me!” he said, his voice quavering. “You can have them! I’ve got them here... ”
He pulled out his wallet and spilled its contents out on to the bed. Among the few crumpled thousand franc notes, his press card and a faded snap-shot of his wife was a soiled envelope.
Jay picked up the envelope, got to his feet and moved away from the bed. He put the razor on the table, then he opened the envelope and took out three negatives and a number of prints. He checked them, then laid them in the ashtray on the table.
“Are there any more, Mr. Kerr?”
Joe shook his head.
Jay stared at him and he felt certain the man was so frightened he was telling the truth.
“She hasn’t any either?”
Again Joe shook his head.
Taking out his cigarette lighter, Jay applied the flame to one of the photographs. He stood over the little burning pile until there was nothing left but black ash which he scattered over the carpet.
“So now, Mr. Kerr, it is your word against mine,” he said. “I wouldn’t advise you to talk to the police. My father has a lot of influence. Besides, the police would want to know why you hadn’t told them before. Attempted blackmail carries quite a stiff prison sentence. From what I hear a French prison isn’t very comfortable.”
Joe felt if he didn’t have a drink, he would faint and with a hand that shook violently, he grabbed up the bottle of whisky and poured whisky into the glass by his bedside. He half-filled the glass with whisky before Jay moved up to him and took the bottle out of his hand.
The touch of Jay’s cold fingers against his feverish skin made Joe start back. Then, as Jay moved away and set the bottle on the table, Joe picked up the glass and drank greedily.
The effect of the whisky on him was immediate. He felt as if he had been hit on the back of his head and he realized the mistake he had made in drinking the whisky so quickly.
He felt the glass slide out of his hand and he heard it, as from a long way off, thud on to the carpet. His brain now seemed to be wrapped in a hotbed of cotton wool. He lay back, feebly blowing out his raddled cheeks, feeling the violent acceleration of his heartbeats.