The Strange Story of Linda Lee (27 page)

While in the train Linda had done her best to make herself presentable; but her coat was torn and the bruise still showed on her cheek, where the lorry-driver had hit her. Colin had most skilfully accounted for her dishevelled appearance, and his assertion that she was his sister was plausible, because it was hardly likely that he would have brought a girl who was not a relative, in such a state and without even a toothbrush, to sleep in his flat.

The porter looked his sympathy at Linda and said, ‘Glad to meet you, Miss. Bad luck about your car, but if it was real smashed up, you’re lucky to have got off with only a bruised face.’

They went up in the lift to the eighth floor and Colin ushered her into his flat. The main feature was a huge, well-furnished room, with one twenty-foot-long window giving a beautiful view over the lake. There was a comfortable bedroom, a gaily-tiled bathroom and a kitchenette at the back. As he showed her the bedroom, with its wide but single bed, he saw her dubious look and grinned at her:

‘Don’t worry; this will be yours while you’re with me. I can quite well sleep on the sofa in the sitting-room.
I often have before, when putting friends up for the night, and it’s very comfortable.’

While smiling her thanks, she surveyed him more carefully than she had previously had a chance to do. He was slim and tall, but a little less than her six feet. His hair was only a shade lighter than hers, their faces had the same oval shape, and their noses were somewhat similar. After a moment she said:

‘How clever of you to have spun that yarn to the porter. Our eyes and mouths are quite different, but our faces do have a certain likeness, so we could pass at a push for brother and sister.’

‘That’s partly because you are so tall, and have a man’s firm features,’ he commented. ‘Now, what about a drink?’

‘I’d love one,’ she said as they returned to the big sitting-room. One end of it was a solid wall of books, except for a central cupboard dividing the three lowest shelves. Opening it he revealed a well-stocked bar and asked, ‘What’s it to be?’

‘Rum on the rocks, please. I need warming up. Another thing I need is a bath. I never feel clean after a train journey until I’ve had one.’

‘That’s easy. There are other things you need, too, as you bolted from the station without waiting for your luggage.’

‘I know. I haven’t even a toothbrush or brush and comb, and only the clothes I stand up in.’

‘Tell you what. If I go out right away I’ll have plenty of time to make a good round of the stores before they close. While you’re having your bath, I’ll slip out and get some things for you.’

Linda gave him her sweetest smile. ‘You’re awfully kind. And, of course, I’ll pay for them. Get me toilet things, a nightie, a dressing gown, a pair of nylons and
a pair of slippers, in the largest sizes they stock, and a small case for me to take them away in. But nothing too expensive, please, because I haven’t very much money with me.’

They finished their drinks and, having provided her with a clean bath towel, he hurried off. She was glad of the respite, for, as yet, she had had no opportunity to think up a suitable story about herself to tell this charming young man by whom she had had the good fortune to be rescued.

While undressing, and afterwards relaxing in the warm water, she thought hard about it, but for a time inspiration failed her. Being by nature honest, she felt that, in fairness to him, she must admit that she was wanted by the police, and so give him the opportunity to get rid of her before the police came to the flat and charged him with harbouring her, as they would do should anyone have chanced to take the number of his car. But she could not bring herself to confess that she was a thief. Then, after a quarter of an hour, an idea came to her. By the time she had dried and dressed herself, she had thought out the details.

The better part of two hours elapsed before Colin returned and he was carrying not only a handsome pigskin case, but also a load of parcels. With happy eagerness to show her his purchases, he undid them. There were brushes, powder, lipstick, scent, a padded silk dressing gown with bedroom slippers to match, a black chiffon nightie trimmed with lace, handkerchiefs, and not one but half a dozen pairs of nylons.

Linda looked at them with delight but consternation and before he had unpacked half the things exclaimed, ‘They are lovely! But I told you I hadn’t much money with me. I can’t possibly pay for all this.’

He laughed. ‘You’re not going to. I’ll not take a cent. It isn’t every day that adventure comes my way. And you are my guest, remember. I want to make your stay here something you’ll look back on with pleasure.’

‘That’s very sweet of you,’ she smiled. ‘But that nightie alone must have cost a packet. Can you really afford to spoil me in this way?’

‘Sure I can. My old man brews beer. Thousands of gallons of it, and he gives me a mighty fine allowance, on top of what I earn as a science graduate in his laboratory.’

As Colin spoke, he was undoing other parcels, containing a large lobster, a tin of foie gras, hot-house grapes, a carton of ice-cream, cocktail nuts and bottles of hock and champagne. When he had done, he said, ‘I’d have liked to take you out; but if someone is after you, even for you to be seen down in the restaurant on the ground floor might be dangerous, so I thought we’d feed up here.’

‘How right you were. And, anyway, I’d like it better. I’m hungry, too, so we can have an early dinner. I only wish I had a pretty frock to change into, to be worthy of the occasion.’

He glanced at the now sadly crumpled tweed coat and skirt she had been wearing ever since she had escaped from The Fisherman’s Paradise. ‘Forget it, please. If only I’d known a bit about the size you take and your taste, I’d have bought you something. But you look fine just as you are. You’d look lovely in anything.’

‘You flatter as well as spoil me. But … well, how would it be if I wore that beautiful dressing gown you bought me?’

‘That would be fine,’ he grinned. ‘I’ll change into a
dressing gown, too. And why should we wait? Let’s get going. I’ll fetch my things from the bedroom, then it’s all yours.’

Three-quarters of an hour later, Linda had done her face and hair, admired herself in her new finery in the mirror and made the toast for the foie gras, and they were seated opposite each other at a table in the sitting-room. They had already had two glasses of champagne apiece and, with young, healthy appetites, now did full justice to the feast Colin had provided. During the meal with a tact that she greatly appreciated, he did not ask her a single question about herself, but told her gaily about his life in Toronto, and the fun he had had a few years earlier when his father had sent him for six months to Europe. He said that he was twenty-five, that his major fun was fishing from a motor launch he owned, skiing in the winter, and girls. As she looked across at his slightly wavy hair, merry brown eyes and strong face, she felt sure that he had no difficulty in finding plenty of pretty girls to fall for him.

At length, when they were replete, she insisted on clearing the table and washing up the dishes, while he dried them. Returning to the sitting-room, he produced a bottle of Benedictine and filled two glasses. When they had settled themselves comfortably on the big sofa, she said:

‘Now I think it’s quite time I told you my awful story and gave you a chance to throw me out. I’m wanted by the police.’

‘That’s bad,’ he said with a sudden frown. ‘I imagined you were just getting away from some chap’ who had been horrid to you.’ Then, on a lighter note, he added, ‘What have you done, robbed a bank or hijacked an aircraft?’

‘No. But I may be sent to prison if they get me. I suppose you’ve never heard my name before?’

‘I can’t say I have.’

‘That’s not surprising, as I’m not yet very well known; but I’m a concert pianist. Incidentally, although I was brought up in England I’ve since become an American. But for the past year I’ve lived in Montreal. When I first went there from the States, I was given introductions to several members of the Musical Society at McGill; so naturally they became my social circle. Another bond with many of the students at the University who are French is that I am quite a polyglot. My grandmother was French.’

Colin gave her a sudden stare. ‘Are you mixed up with the F.L.Q.?’

She nodded. ‘That’s it. As you are so obviously British, I suppose you’re very anti?’

‘By God, I am! But it’s not a matter of my being of English descent. Canada is now a great nation in its own right, and I’m one hundred per cent Canadian. If those bloody fools had their way, they’d split the country into two nations, cause hopeless confusion in industry, finance, legal rights, education and Lord knows what else. It would bring ruin to thousands and eventually probably lead to civil war, with close relations fighting one another. If I’d had my way, I’d have shot that egomaniac, de Gaulle, for the speech he made a few years back, encouraging the French-Canadians to strive for Quebec Province to be given independence.’

Secretly Linda was in entire agreement. Before knowing Rowley, she had thought little about such matters, but he had been a diehard Imperialist, who never tired of proclaiming the greatness of the British Empire and the immense amount it had done to bring
health, education, prosperity, law and order to millions of its subject peoples who had, since independence, died by the tens of thousands as victims in civil wars or now lived in police states. She recalled Rowley’s indignation when Horrible Harold—as he termed the then Prime Minister of Britain—had met Mr. Ian Smith for a conference in a cruiser and was reported to have deliberately sought to humiliate the leading representative of the Rhodesian people by consigning him to a third-rate cabin without even a telephone. But, greatly as it went against the, grain, she had now to maintain the part she had decided to play; so, with a sigh, she replied:

‘You may be right, but people’s views differ according to their circumstances. Most young people know little about practical considerations, and are idealists. They feel that every minority should be given independence and have the right to make its own laws. That goes for Americans, too.’

Colin gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Don’t I know it! I have a lot of American friends. They are the kindest and most generous people one could meet. But about this thing they are a bunch of unconscious hypocrites. In the early stages of the last war they nearly bankrupted Britain in exchange for arms to defend the world from Nazi terrorism. Then they took advantage of her indebtedness to bully her into prematurely surrendering her Empire to people mostly unfitted to govern themselves. But what about America’s own huge population of Negroes, and the Red Indians from whom they stole their country? Do you think they will ever give them States of their own? Not on your life! And they’d be damn’ fools if they did.’

‘I know. But while I lived in the States I imbibed a
lot of the ideas that they have inherited from their own revolution, and my natural sympathies are with the French. Surely you can understand how I came to see eye to eye with the powerful group of students at the University who would like to see Quebec Province independent?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Anyhow, you became committed to the F.L.Q. What have you done? Why are the police after you?’

‘The F.L.Q. have difficulty in printing their propaganda pamphlets in Canada, so they had a big quantity done in the States. Their problem was to get them across the frontier; so they asked me to import a piano, in which thousands of these pamphlets, printed on thin paper, could be concealed. As I am a concert pianist, there was no reason to suppose my sending for a grand piano from my own country would arouse suspicion, so I agreed.’

‘But the Customs rumbled you after all, eh?’

‘No. I cleared it all right and had it brought to my own apartment. It was the following night that things blew up. One of my group phoned to tell me that someone had squealed on us, and that it was not pamphlets that were concealed in the piano, but three machine guns.’

‘My God! Then you were properly in the soup!’

‘Yes. My friend told me to get out at once. I did, but only as the police were coming in at the front door. I hadn’t time even to pack a night bag. But I got away through the garden. It was in getting over the wall that I tore my coat.’

‘You poor little devil—though you’re hardly little.’ Colin’s tone was more sympathetic. ‘Then you’re more of an idiot than a dangerous criminal. Those rotten
maniacs took advantage of you, then one of them sold you out, regardless of the fact that he could have landed you in prison, not just for a few weeks, but for years.’

‘That’s it.’ Linda nodded. ‘And none of them is going to admit complicity by coming into court and giving evidence in my defence, so no judge will believe that I’m not guilty of knowingly importing weapons for use by revolutionaries. Now I’ve told you everything, I’ll get into my clothes and go. You have been terribly kind to me, so I’m not going to risk the police tracing me here and involving you in my troubles.’

As she spoke, she meant what she said, and stood up. But he caught one of her hands and pulled her down again. ‘Wait a minute. If anyone had taken the number of my car and given it to the police, they would have been here long before this. You’ll be safe here for the night, anyhow, and I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the face in the mirror tomorrow morning if I turned a girl like you out into the streets with nowhere to go.’

She hesitated, then smiled. ‘You are out-Galahading Galahad now. But I’ll stay only on one condition. You must promise me that if the police do catch me here, you will swear that you had no idea I was wanted by them—that I told you that I was running away from a man I had been living with who had gone crackers and had threatened to kill me if I wouldn’t stay with him.’

Colin released her hand, finished his Benedictine and said, ‘O.K. That’s a deal, and in the morning we’ll talk about what you’d best do when you leave here. You’ve had a long and very tiring day, so now you’d better get some shut-eye. While you go into the bathroom and wash your teeth, I’ll make up a bed for myself here on the sofa.’