The Follower (22 page)

‘Maybe he’s not so much on his own as you think.’

‘Meaning?’

Frankie’s smile was exasperatingly tranquil now. ‘Do I have to begin with the bugs and the flowers? George was jailed because he was caught carrying your dope for you, yes. He was in jail three years. That’s quite a long time. It was long enough for Hitler to write a book. It was long enough for George to think up a little kampf of his own.’

She leaned forward, the cigarette still in her hand, looking kindly, like a school teacher smoothing out a problem in the eighth grade.

‘This is obviously the time and the place to tell you the story of George’s life.’

Although there were two guns directed at her, she had almost succeeded in snatching control of the situation away from Victor.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Listen to this sad little tale. You thought you had George in your pocket because he’d picked up that morphine addiction in the Army hospital and you kept him supplied with dope after he came out. When they arrested him he didn’t squawk on you. No. But things happen, as I said, in jail. One thing that happened was that they cured him of the habit. Another thing that happened was that George, being George, got cured the big way. He turned into an anti-dope crusader, with half a dozen flaming swords in either hand. Sitting there in his cell, he figured out a plan and he took it to the authorities in his hot little hand. His plan was to get his job back with you and see whether he couldn’t find out some interesting things about you. The police thought it was a dandy idea and let him out on parole.’

Still smiling at Victor, she dropped her burning cigarette on to the carpet. ‘So you see what I mean when I say he’s less on his own than you think.’

Victor hadn’t liked that at all. Mark could see the growing uneasiness take possession of him. And, as he watched, his own excitement was mounting. So much for the crook-against-crook theory. Why shouldn’t this be true? Why shouldn’t Frankie and George be on the side of law and decency after all?

Frankie was still gazing straight at Victor. Mr Riley, his puffy cheeks a splotched grey now, was caught up in the intensity that the two others had engendered. This, if ever, was Mark’s moment. He braced himself to jump on Mr Riley. As he did so, the cabin door was thrown open. All of them spun around. Ellie stood on the threshold, her eyes big as a lemur’s eyes, her face haggard and despairing. She had a leather handbag on a strap slung over her shoulder. It hadn’t been there when Mark had left her by Oscar’s car.

Oddly, now that all his emotion for her was spent, that was the only thing he noticed. She had started to run after him without a handbag — now she had a handbag.

For a moment she hesitated by the open door, her gaze moving wildly from Mark, to Victor, to Mr Riley.

Then, with a sob, she ran towards Victor, her handbag swinging like a pendulum.

‘Don’t hurt him,’ she cried. ‘Please, Victor, don’t do anything to Mark. It’s just that we had a quarrel. I can make it all right again.’

She turned to Mark and gripped his arm, gazing up at him. ‘Mark, darling, tell him you’re on our side. If you explain, he won’t do anything to you. Tell him that was just a crazy notion of yours — breaking in here trying to rescue Frankie.’

Her hands were nagging at his arms. He looked over her shoulder at Victor. The damage was done, of course. Here she was trying to ‘save her marriage’ again and, with that one sentence about rescuing Frankie, she had destroyed everything for him as effectively as if it had been part of a malicious plan.

Mr Riley’s gun was still aimed at Frankie. But Victor had swung around slowly so that his revolver was pointed straight at Mark’s stomach.

‘Well, well, Mr Liddon,’ he said quietly, ‘so you’re being smart too. Everyone’s being smart. George has his tie-up with the police. Frankie has her tie-up with you.’

Ellie was still chattering and pulling at his arm. He stepped back with her until they were both standing against the cabin wall. She was pressed at his side, the sharp edge of her handbag sticking uncomfortably into his ribs. He looked from Victor to Frankie. The girl had risen and was looking back at him. For a moment her eyes seemed to him to be haunted with anxiety. But, almost immediately, they were in control again.

Victor was watching Ellie now. His face was very grim. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he said to her. ‘I’d have liked to save this one for you, but I guess you’ll have to find yourself another husband.’ He jerked the gun forward. ‘Okay, Mr Liddon. Where’s George?’

It was Frankie who spoke. Suddenly, in a voice harsh with contempt, she said: ‘You fool, he doesn’t know.’

Victor paid her no attention. ‘I’m waiting, Mr Liddon.’

‘He doesn’t know.’ Frankie took a step forward. Her chin was thrust out defiantly. ‘Don’t you have any sense? Can’t you see he’s been fighting us all along the line? For God’s sake, forget about him. Give him back to his wife.’

Victor did glance at her then and his face broke slowly into a grin of triumph. ‘So that’s the way it is. Very interesting. Very interesting and romantic. Two of you. Two beautiful babes — both stuck on Mr Liddon.’

Frankie glared at him. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

‘I won’t make you laugh, sugar. I promise, cross my heart, I won’t make you laugh.’ Victor looked down at the gun pointed at Mark and then looked up at her. ‘Okay, Frankie. Tell me where George is or I shoot your boy-friend. I’ll give you a count of ten.’

The cabin was deathly quiet now. Mark looked straight at the revolver, feeling nothing.

‘One, Frankie. Where’s George? Two. Where’s George?’ Ellie, pressed against Mark, was shivering. He could hear her breath coming in tiny sobs. The handbag, half hidden behind her arm, was digging against him. Suddenly, when there seemed to be no hope, a thought came. Ellie had not had the handbag in the car. Although she’d been running after him, she had stopped and collected it.

Why? Because there was a gun in it?

His hand dropped behind Ellie’s. Very slowly he started to inch his fingers up the slippery leather side.

‘Three. Three, Frankie. Where’s George?’

Frankie was looking terribly young and ingenuous. She had looked that way at the Belvedere when she had been really frightened. But he knew, of course, that she wasn’t going to tell. Why should she? This was George’s life against his and she was George’s girl. There was nothing devious, vacillating or perverse about Frankie. She knew where her loyalties lay.

His fingers crept cautiously higher and higher up the handbag’s side. Ellie’s arm was in front of him, shielding it from Victor’s view. But he couldn’t be sure that she was shielding it on purpose. He couldn’t even be certain that she realized what he was doing. It was ironical. This was his wife, the girl he had loved, but, although he could understand everything that was passing through Frankie’s mind, Ellie was still a complete mystery. Her loyalties were as incomprehensible as a Martian’s. Now that it was his life or Victor’s which way would she jump?

‘Four, Frankie. Where’s George?’

Frankie had half turned towards Mark. Her hand went out to him in a hopeless little gesture. He knew exactly what it meant. She was letting him know that it was agony for her, but there was nothing she could do. He understood. He wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise. This hadn’t been any of her doing. She had done everything in her power to keep him out of it. But it was unbearable for him to see her suffering so much, and he hated Victor then — not for what he was doing to him, not even for what he had made of Ellie, but for what he was forcing Frankie to endure.

Mark’s fingers, moving up Ellie’s handbag, found the clasp. He eased it open and his hand crept downwards into the bag. As it did so, he felt Ellie stiffen. His hand froze. His heart was beating like a bird’s wings smashing against a window pane.

‘Five, Frankie.’ Victor twirled the gun around his finger.

Slowly, very slowly, Ellie’s hand started to crawl up the bag towards Mark’s. In a few seconds it was at the clasp. Then it started to slide down into the bag itself. Vaguely, Mark realized that his whole marriage was finding its meaning at this moment. It was wretched, of course, beyond any hope of repair. But this one moment would show whether there had ever been a spark of validity in it.

‘Six, Frankie,’ said Victor.

Ellie’s hand, moving down, touched his. For one second the fingers seemed to hesitate, then they settled around his. This, if she were on Victor’s side, would be the moment when she would scream her warning. Mark waited, tense as a violin string. But the scream didn’t come. Ellie’s fingers tugged at his; they were guiding them expertly deeper into the bag.

‘Seven, Frankie.’

Mark’s hand touched metal. Ellie’s fingers pressed his down against the revolver. Then, when she was sure he had clasped the gun, she withdrew her hand stealthily and her arm was back slack at her side again, hiding his hand from Victor.

He had the gun now. A panoramic montage of his marriage rushed through him There had then been something to it, after all. For this one second, at least, Ellie had been his wife.

Victor grinned at Frankie. Then he twirled the gun again.

‘Eight, Frankie. Where’s George?’

With one rapid movement Mark tugged the revolver out of Ellie’s bag and shot. Victor’s gun pirouetted through the air. Mark shot again. Victor’s right hand soared bizarrely upwards. His face took on an expression of immense surprise. Blood spurted from his shirt front and, as the gun clattered to the floor, he pitched forward after it on to his face.

As if he had three pairs of eyes, Mark saw with simultaneous exactness, Frankie plunging for Victor’s gun, Mr Riley swinging around towards him and Ellie flinging herself forward.

As Frankie leaped on Victor’s gun, Mr Riley fired straight at Mark. In the same instant, Mark’s gun arm was knocked sideways and Ellie was stumbling on to her knees. A fourth shot rang out and Mr Riley staggered back against the cabin wall, groaned and slid, like a stuffed sack, on to the floor.

Automatically, Mark’s mind went on ticking, putting things into place. Mr Riley had fired at him; Ellie had thrown herself in front of him to save him, and then Frankie had shot Mr Riley with Victor’s gun.

That was it. That was what had happened. Ellie was still on her knees. He stooped to put his arms around her. She gave a little whimpering cry. She half turned towards him and he saw her profile, white and contracted with pain and fear. And, as he half sank to the ground beside her, he saw the blood too on her white suit.

Suddenly all the old tenderness for her came surging back. She had seen Mr Riley moving before he had. She could have waited. She could have left it to Mark to fight his own battle. But she had thrown herself across him to take the bullet.

‘Ellie,’ he whispered. ‘Ellie.’

Frankie was somewhere there. Her voice, quite unnatural to him, was saying: ‘Victor’s dead. Mr Riley’s out. It’s all right. I’ve got his gun.’

On his knees, Mark bent over Ellie. Her eyes, still dark with fear, were gazing up at his.

‘It could, Mark,’ she said. ‘It could have — worked out.’ He found one of her hands and held it tight. He would have done anything to make the fear go from her eyes.

‘Ellie,’ he said. ‘Ellie, baby.’

But he could feel the life sinking out of her. Although her eyes were still fixed on his face, she wasn’t seeing him. He could tell that.

‘Ellie,’ he said again.

Then he knew that she was dead in his arms.

HE slipped his arm from under her and stayed on his knees at her side. She was dead. His love — the pursuit — everything had ended like this.

Vaguely he was conscious of blood soaking through the sleeve of his right arm. Vaguely too he became aware of pain. He looked at his arm. The pain was concentrated there. He was wounded, then. The bullet that had killed Ellie had passed right through her heart and lodged in his arm. He gazed stupidly at the stained sleeve, thinking:

‘It’s there. The bullet that killed her is in me.’

A hand on his shoulder demanded attention. He glanced up. Frankie, the blonde hair falling forward around her young solemn face, was bending over him.

‘Mark, I’m sorry. I want you to know that. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay.’

He turned back from her to look at his arm. She noticed it too.

‘You’re shot.’

‘It’s okay.’

She was on her knees at his side. She was unbuttoning his jacket and pulling it back over his shoulders. As she drew the sleeve off his right arm, the pain flared up. He welcomed it. It was something to focus on, something that wasn’t the body in front of him or the charnel-house horror of the cabin.

Rather clumsily she had pulled back the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the wound on his upper arm. She said, ‘I’m not good at this sort of thing, but I’ll try.’

In a few seconds she was twisting a handkerchief tightly around his biceps above the wound. Her face, very close to his, was taut with concentration.

She said: ‘You’ve got to believe one thing. I didn’t lie about her. I did think she was at Oscar’s in Mexico City.’

All his thoughts seemed to be in miniature, tiny images of past, uninteresting things.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It was Oscar. She bribed him to tell you that. Oscar’s been playing all ends against the middle.’

She was trying to tie the handkerchief into a knot. The wound throbbed, bringing him a sensation of queasiness.

‘I didn’t realize it,’ she said. ‘Neither did George. We thought everything was okay. I never dreamed I was walking into a trap here.’ The handkerchief was tied now. She worked at his necktie, undid it and managed to construct a sling for his arm. There.’

She picked up his jacket and arranged it on his shoulders like a cloak. You saved me,’ she said suddenly. ‘I thought you were going to ruin everything and it was you who saved me.’

He started to get up. Her hand went out as if to stop him. But he got to his feet.

He said: ‘I haven’t saved you yet. There are still Gonzales and his pals at the villa.’

He glanced back towards Ellie, and Frankie cried:

‘Don’t. Don’t look at her.’ She gripped his left arm. Don’t.’