Days of Your Fathers (6 page)

She wondered if they could tell that she was armed. That was not an urgent matter yet, nor likely to be. Still, it was worth a thought. Certainly they could be sure, after such long, detailed observation, if the gun had been in a shoulder holster or a pocket. She doubted, however, if an automatic nestling across the navel could be spotted from behind. They might reasonably assume that someone who might be searched would not be such a fool as to carry one. They would be on their guard of course, but not keeping the
question continually in the forefront of consciousness. That might be important.

They had been following for six kilometres now, tiring and inclined to say to hell with the contact to whom she might be leading them. Their keen sense of duty, their strong instinct against running her in at once, ought to be revived. She decided to show more caution as if she were nearing her destination. It would be the first quick glance over her shoulder that they had seen, and therefore important. It would no longer be connected with the post box, left so far behind.

She looked round. She could not spot any followers at all. Had the walk and the discipline been all for nothing? Careful! That could not be assumed yet. She reminded her agonised feet of what was going to happen to them if she allowed herself to be too confident.

She chose a long residential street. There were very few pedestrians. If the hunters were still determined to take no action and stick to the trail, they would have to be very careful. However casual they appeared, they were bound to be out of place and conspicuous. Her experience had taught her how they – if they existed – would arrange that one. It was going to show how relentless the pursuit really was. If they knew their job (and no one knew it better) there ought to be a car moving more or less on parallel lines. As soon as her two shadows were forced to fall too far behind, they would signal the car to take over.

She spotted the car. It drove past in the same direction and parked on the other side of the road. She could not really have said why she was certain it was the car. Perhaps because it did exactly what it should, covering the road she was in and two side streets into which she might turn; perhaps because nobody opened the door at which the driver was ringing or pretending to ring; perhaps the instinct of the hunted.

It was oddly comforting to get her fear back. Now she knew that she had not imagined they were after her. Also she had proof that so far she had decoyed them into believing her movements significant. That report collected
from the post box must already have been read. Her guilt was beyond question. Yet they still thought it worthwhile to see where she was going before they struck.

She continued eastwards. She was now passing through a local shopping centre, and the two could safely close up. She longed to confirm that they were still on her trail, but every trick she knew for seeing who was behind her was equally well known to them. Show absolute unconcern, and they would wait. Keep walking, and they had to know the reason why. The view of her steadily moving back must be beginning to hypnotise them.

All the same it was tempting to make a dash for it. Through a house or shop? Into a back garden? The bushes of a park? But she hadn't a hope and knew it. There would always be a car or two on that parallel course and uniformed police somewhere in the background.

Nearly two hours now. Ten kilometres more or less. To do more in a straight line might not be convincing. They would accept it as normal that she should not take a taxi all the way to her rendezvous, but why not take one part of the way? The weary conversation behind her must have become a debate, one of them in favour of picking her up without delay, the other protesting against such a waste of the long grind.

So it was time for another sweetener. She looked at her watch and began to stroll more gently. Round two blocks and back to her starting point. She saw the car again. That was careless of them. It confirmed that they had never detected any hint that she was on her guard.

Again she looked at her watch and made a gesture of impatience, hardly perceptible but they wouldn't miss it. She started to stride out at a good six kilometres an hour towards the outskirts of the city, and allowed that hypnotising back view of her to show some anxiety.

She knew where she was going and when she meant to arrive. There might be a hope, just a slight hope, if the same two obstinate men continued on the job. Probably they would. After all their trouble, they would ask permission to carry on. Headquarters would be very
impressed indeed if they could follow their suspect across the whole city and out of it and discover her contact in the end. There was little point in substituting fresh agents for the two who by now were familiar with her character.

The real difficulty was not these two, but their unknown colleagues. The field. The rest of the hunt. Some occupation must be found to delay them. There was a newspaper seller ahead on the other side of the road. That would do. A shop would not. If she entered any sort of shop, it would break the spell. She crossed the road, bought two papers almost without slowing her stride and walked straight on, feeling sorry for the newsvendor who was sure to be investigated in case more than a coin had passed between them.

She rolled the papers up as she walked, but had trouble in keeping them rolled. She needed two rubber bands or strips of gummed paper. She hadn't got either. A couple of stamps were the only available means. And who the devil would take something from a handbag and stick it on rolled newspapers without stopping? Well, but she must not stop, not on any account. They would have to work it out for themselves. Perhaps she was in a tearing hurry. Perhaps it was all a part of some new, interesting technique which would fascinate their curiosity.

She kept walking, holding a rolled paper in each hand until the gum was safely dry. She knew what she wanted: a high fence or wall. In that district of builders' yards and small workshops it should not be hard to find. She saw the proper setting at last, up a turning to the right. There was a big printing works on one side, small houses on the other. She turned sharply into the street, threw one of the newspapers over the printer's wall and walked on. As soon as the two turned the corner and took up the trail, they wouldn't miss the obvious inference that one paper had gone over the wall and that the other was still to be delivered.

By God, no, she wouldn't be arrested now! She was really worth following. Especially since the printer happened to be a government printer. The newspaper would – presumably – be easily found, but what had been rolled up in it and who had picked it up? That unfortunate printing works was going
to be turned inside out. She reckoned that the whole of the team would be instantly and urgently occupied except for her two followers. They were committed to her so long as their boots and feet held out.

She was clear of the inner suburbs and among the factories. The main avenue was landscaped, bordered by lawns and imposing offices. Behind it were the service roads, the waste lots, the dumps, the uninviting cafés. She looked at her watch, on this occasion because she really wanted to know the time. It was going to be a close thing, but she must not hurry.

Keeping her even, persuasive pace, she turned off the avenue into the worst stretch of all, empty and far too long. Surely they must realise what was going to happen and arrest her now? She imagined she heard their footsteps closing up, but dared not look back or run.

The third corner was a possible. Far from perfect, but all the chance she was ever going to get. She shot round it and crouched behind a lump of concrete, once part of a weighbridge and now standing shapeless among thistles. There were a few workers further along the road, all busily occupied with brooms or vehicles or last-minute loading.

The two followed almost at once without any precautions at all, startled out of their trance by her sudden evasion just as she hoped they would be. They were still the same pair, seen once near the post box two-and-a-half hours earlier. Hurrying to restore the broken contact, they passed within two yards of her silenced gun with their eyes fixed ahead on the parked vehicles and the factory gate. She let them pass. It had not been her intention, but why take an unnecessary risk? Lucky for them that they had panicked and tried to catch up instead of searching the corner itself.

The factory clock struck six. Cars, bicycles and pedestrians surged out of the gate and surrounded them. She saw them trying, she thought, to give orders to the mixed and flowing column. She wrapped her head in her sweat-soaked scarf, turned her coat inside out and ripped the heels off her shoes so that neither her height nor her bearing would be familiar to her followers if they were in
any position to pick out individuals. At last she could allow herself to appear as tired as she felt, shuffling along in a bunch of fellow workers like a weary factory hand twice her age.

She kept walking, now no longer alone, until she saw a bus ready to start. Where it went was unimportant; for her its destination was freedom. Her name was still unknown and her papers in perfect order. After a few professional, quite simple changes in her appearance she could cross the frontier.

Yours Obediently

They all wanted to do something for Mr Melman – the Major especially – though suggestions when discussed seemed more in the nature of persuading him to do something for them. That was reasonable enough. The obvious and most valuable way to befriend a newcomer was to give him an active interest in the community.

Mr Melman was not a recluse but lived quietly. When he first arrived his manner at once attracted the pious and perplexed, for he was very ready with words of comfort. Tolerance, melancholy, a sort of watchful kindliness – all those were stamped into his worn, dark face. The Major wondered if he had not in the past been affected by some oriental creed of renunciation. He kept this surmise to himself. Long experience had taught him that the play of imagination, unless one had a more than military command of words, was usually misunderstood.

The village naturally was curious. A passive curiosity. Mr Melman was known to have lived abroad as some minor official in the Colonial Service, and that was enough. So many of the little houses of main street and square had been purchased by unknown Londoners: schoolmasters, journalists, small businessmen who had made sufficient money to retire. The past of any of the newcomers was therefore irrelevant, belonging to a wider world. Curiosity confined itself to the odder daily happenings of the present.

Melman's gentle firmness in the affair of the vicar's dog had impressed everyone. The dog was nearly blind with age but still preserved its youthful habit of taking chances in crossing the village street. The screech of brakes had undoubtedly enhanced its estimate of its own importance.

Punishment was the worst possible: paralysed at one end
and normal enough at the other to lick bewilderedly its master's hand. The vet was away. The vicar was distraught. The Major, to his own shame, found himself dithering. It was Melman, his face motionless, his eyes pitying, who placed the dog under the decent cover of the churchyard wall and borrowed the Major's gun.

‘I am sorry,' said the Major, walking home with him. ‘I am very sorry. I shouldn't have let you. But you were the only one of us who was calm.'

‘I was glad to be of assistance. And I quite understand. I have noticed before, Major, that soldiers are very sensitive.'

‘What's surprising about that?'

‘Well, ending life …' Mr Melman murmured with a delicacy which seemed to the Major unnecessary.

‘Oh, I see! I've thought a lot about that. Put it this way! A man is prepared to die for what he believes in – country, regiment or just his unit. But it does nobody any good if he simply throws his life away. So that means – bluntly – that he must kill before he's killed. Morally wrong perhaps, but it feels natural enough when you're in it and excited.'

‘I'm sure you are right, Major,' Melman said. ‘But I can't imagine myself finding any excitement.'

Towards such a man the Major was protective. He prized a sense of duty and could spot it when he saw it. He had no doubt at all that Melman, as a civil servant, had carried out orders promptly and to the best of his ability. That picture fitted a police sergeant rather than a grave comforter, but was all the more reason for respecting Melman's privacy.

‘If you took the trouble to draw that man out,' his wife had insisted, ‘you don't know what you might find.'

Well, that at least was undeniable, though she herself had failed to get anything out of Melman but reserved, conscientious politeness. Women, the Major often thought, preferred life to resemble a pond into which they could throw stones; they liked to take from and give to an ever-expanding circle regardless of the consequences. But one saved a lot of trouble by leaving ponds alone until such time as an appeal came in to drain, clean or renovate, when one
accepted duty to the neighbour and did as much over as could secretly be managed.

So, continually pressed to do more than lean on Melman's garden gate and talk genially about the weather, he compelled himself to venture a more personal approach.

‘Ever thought of standing for the Rural District Council?'

‘I couldn't make a speech, Major.'

‘Anybody can. All you need to make a speech is an opinion. It runs away with you. Before you know it, you've made a speech.'

‘I wouldn't feel strongly enough. There are always two sides to every question.'

‘That's useful, too,' the Major persisted. ‘You could lay off the local politics and help everyone with administration.'

Indeed he could. He seemed to be perfectly at home among government forms and was always willing to help the shy or the ignorant with their claims for benefits, licences and pensions. It had naturally been the widows and spinsters of his own age who first came to the kind Mr Melman for advice, but word had quickly spread of his ability to fill in blank spaces with ease and authority.