It was worth finding out, even if it was the last thing he did.
“Draw the curtains,” ordered the irresponsibly cheerful voice from inside the broom-cupboard. “Don’t want to embarrass the visitors, do we? Neighbours are nosy enough without encouraging ’em.” A curious, high-pitched giggle echoed brassily out of the enclosed space.
“They’re drawn,” said the small, dark, deadly one. “Get on with it.”
“All right, the current’s on.”
The third man flipped down the light-switch, the round fluorescent fixture blinked its daylight eye once, and then glowed steadily. And there they were, all five of them, two prisoners and three captors. No, six altogether, the lame man was just fumbling his way through the doorway, holding by the latch with all his weight. They hauled him inside not out of any concern for him, but so that they could close the door and keep the light within.
It was then that Luke realised at last what had been wrong with Bunty. How could she have used both hands to heave up that rock and crack this wretch on the head with it? She’d been carrying something when they set out. She wasn’t carrying anything now, except the handbag that swung from her wrist. She had both hands in the pockets of her light grey coat, and was looking round at them all measuringly and warily, her face stonily calm. She met even his eyes, and her expression didn’t change, was significantly careful not to change.
Somewhere, at some moment which he could not locate in his frantic recapitulation, Bunty had disposed of the better part of fifteen thousand pounds. The package of banknotes and Pippa Gallier’s passport and air ticket had vanished without trace.
CHAPTER X
« ^ »
Nothing else on either of ’em,” reported the giggler, shoving Luke back into the corner of the wicker settee with a careless vigour that made the white frame creak indignantly. “Never thought there would be. I told you these babes are sharper than he reckoned.”
So there was another he, not so far present. They had been gradually coming to some such conclusion. Why should all hands have kept off them so indifferently, otherwise? The one who called the tune wasn’t here yet. These four were merely waiting, and filling in time with the necessary preliminaries while they waited.
Bunty and Luke sat side by side in the two-seater settee, pushed well back into the window embrasure, as far as possible from the door of the living-room. It was easy for one man to control them there. The third man, the youngest, the dimmest, but perhaps the most vicious, too, sat on a chair placed carefully before them, far enough away to be out of their reach, close enough to have them both infallibly covered. He held his gun as though he loved it, as a call-girl might hold diamonds, and his eyes above it were like chips of bluish stone, flat and impervious, a little mad, the cunningly inlaid eyes of a stone scribe from later Egypt, built up with slivers of lapis lazuli and onyx and mother-of-pearl to give a lifelike semblance of humanity. He was dressed in what his kind and generation would certainly classify as sharpish gear, and he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one. Bunty, watching him, sat very still indeed. The little dark man would kill for what seemed to him sufficient reason, and without any qualms except for his own safety afterwards. The other two would probably kill if they were ordered to. But this young one was the kind that might go off without warning, like a faulty grenade, and kill to ease his tension, or relieve his boredom, or simply because it occurred to him momentarily as something it would be fun to do, and no consideration of his own safety would keep him back, because thought had nothing to do with his processes.
The giggler could have passed for normal any time he liked. He was big and rosy, and looked like a country butcher, well-fleshed but not yet run to fat. There was nothing at all suspect about him, except the slightly hysterical pitch of his laughter.
And the other man, the one who had been posted well down the rock path to intercept them, sat hunched in one of the big chairs now, with his left trouser-leg rolled up above the knee, painfully sponging at his calf, where Luke’s shot had torn its way straight through to ricochet from the rock behind. He had bled a lot, the water in the bowl at his feet was red. He pawed self-pityingly at the thick white flesh, and took no notice of what the others were doing. The giggler had fetched down gauze and wool and a bandage for him from the bathroom cupboard, and the victim was totally absorbed in nursing his wound. And indeed, thought Bunty, eyeing the damage, he must have been in a good deal of pain. When he had finished his bandaging, and got up gingerly to try his weight on the injured leg, all he could manage was a slow hobble, clinging to the furniture for support.
He was the biggest of them, and the oldest, a massive, muscular person with a white, sad, fleshy face. His hair was receding, and his expression was anxious and defensive. The small dark one had called him Quilley. There was something odd in the attitude of the younger ones to him, the way they left him out of their calculations, or included him only as an afterthought. Or perhaps it was not so odd, in such a world as theirs, that a man’s stock should crash when he’s disabled, or has got the worst of an encounter. He was a doubtful asset now, and a potential liability. Some wild animals, the kind that hunt in packs, kill off their injured or infirm members, as some sort of measure of social hygiene.
“It’s here, though,” said the small dark man with certainty. “It’s here somewhere. Either we find it, or he tells us where. The place ain’t that big. You sure about the car, then, Skinner?”
“I’m sure,” said the giggler cheerfully, spinning the garage key round his finger with absent-minded dexterity. “Clean as a whistle.”
“You didn’t miss out on anywhere? Under the back seat? Down the upholstery?”
“I didn’t miss out on anything. There’s nothing there.”
“What you wasting time for?” the boy with the levelled gun demanded querulously, without removing his unwinking stone gaze from his charges. “I could get it out of him easy. Or her!” The flick of excitement on the last word indicated that he would rather prefer that alternative. Bunty supposed that in its obscene fashion it was a compliment, but if so, it was one she could well have done without. She could feel Luke’s muscles stiffening beside her, his whole body rigid with anxiety. She cast one glance at him, and found his fixed profile almost too still. The cheek nearer to her was bruised and soiled. His mouth was drawn and stiff with fear for her.
“Yeah, I know!” said the dark man sardonically. “And all at once we got no clues and no witness. If anybody shuts this one’s mouth for good, it ain’t going to be while I’m in charge. Think the boss’d wear that from anybody but himself? Sooner you than me, mate! But till he gets here, you take orders from me, and my orders are, lay off. OK?”
“Well, OK, Blackie, it’s all one to me. I’m only saying…”
“You always are. Quit saying, and just keep your eye on ’em, that’s all, while we take this room apart.” He cast a long look round the airy living-room, and ended eye-to-eye with Luke. He wasn’t expecting anything to come easily, but he went through the motions of asking. “You could make it easy on yourself and us, kid. In the end you may have to, you know that? What did you do with the money?”
“What money?” said Luke.