John Creasey - Send Superintendent West

Now they were on a spacious landing, oil paintings, mostly portraits, on the walls, the floors highly polished, skin rugs showing up darkly against the fight brown of the wood. Lissa went straight to a door on the left, the farthest from the staircase, opened it and went straight in. As she glanced back, her look said:

“Wait, Roger.”

He waited.

She walked across a carpeted room, and he could see the books which rose from floor to ceiling along one wall. The late afternoon sun came in at a window where the blind wasn’t drawn properly; apart from that, it was shadowy.

“Hallo, David,” she said.

Shawn didn’t speak.

“How are you?”

Shawn still didn’t speak, and the dislike Roger had felt for him came back, but he fought against it. Shawn was living in two different kinds of hell, he had never seen him except under dreadful pressure.

“I’ve brought Roger West,” Lissa announced. He’s outside.”

“Should I care?” Shawn asked. His voice was still husky, but very tired, as if finding any words was a physical effort.

“He saw Ricky last night,” said Lissa.

Even without seeing Shawn’s face, Roger sensed the tension which had clutched the man. A chair creaked. Roger moved forward, knowing that Shawn was coming towards the door. As he reached the doorway, Shawn was halfway from the window. Lissa stood against the window, and the shaft of sunlight caught her right hand and the side of her face. Shawn’s face, against the light, looked dark and full of shadows, but his eyes burned. His hands were clenched by his side. He stopped moving, just stared.

Then, from across the landing, there came a scream.

20

SCREAMING BELLE

SHAWN moved convulsively, as if someone had stabbed a knife into his back. The scream came again, as a door burst open and a woman ran across the landing into the room. Now she was screaming all the time. Roger spun round. Belle Shawn was beating her hands against her breasts, her mouth was open as if it were locked that way. She wore a simple white dress buttoned down the front, the top button unfastened, and her fair hair was braided and drawn back from her forehead. In spite of the way her mouth, stretched back, she still appeared beautiful — tall, full-breasted, with the figure of a Juno and the wildness of the demons in her eyes.

“Why don’t you stay with me?” she screamed at Shawn. “I can’t bear to be alone, you ought to stay with me. You don’t care, that’s the truth, you don’t care about me. You don’t care about Ricky. You’re a devil, that’s the truth of it, a cold, heartless devil. Why don ’ t you stay with me? ”

“But, Belle, you said —”

“I asked you not to leave me alone, I can’t stand it! And all you care about is running after her. Why don’t you go away with her? Why don’t you? That would be better than tormenting me, torturing me!”

“Belle,” Shawn said, “you asked me to leave you alone for an hour.”

“Answer my question! Why don’t you go away with her? Do you think I don’t know what’s going on? In my own house, under my own nose. Think I don’t know where you’ve been all the afternoon. In her bed, that’s where you’ve been. You left me alone, just when I need you most. You went to her.”

“That’s not true,” Shawn said in a dead voice. “You know that’s not true.”

“You can’t fool me. I know. I’ve known for months. I could stay behind, but she had to come to England with you. You pretended it was work, all you wanted was to have that wanton with you. I won’t have her in the house any longer. I won’t have her!”

“You’re not yourself,” Shawn said. “Lissa’s a good friend to us both. She—”

“Friend!” Belle screeched. “She’s your mistress, the whore, I won’t have her in the house another minute.” She turned, looked as if she would fly at Lissa, beat at her, drive her out of the house by force. “ Get out, get out, get out! ”

Lissa stood without moving.

Shawn stretched out his long arm, and his fingers closed round his wife’s wrist. She stopped, as if she knew that she had no hope of getting free.

“Be quiet,” Shawn said, and his voice became stronger. “It’s not true and you know it. Don’t go on like this Belle. I won’t have it any more.”

“Send that whore away!”

“Belle, will you listen —”

She struck at him savagely, and he backed away and freed her wrist. She pushed again and he lost his footing and went staggering back.

Belle flung herself at Lissa.

Roger would rather have been a thousand miles away, but he couldn’t just look on. The first time he had seen Belle Shawn, she had tried to push past him, and he had felled and stunned her. Now he thrust her to one side and stepped in front of Lissa, whose face was cold and set as an alabaster statue. Belle steadied, turned to fly at the new adversary, might have done so if Roger had not said:

“I saw your son last night, Mrs Shawn.”

Belle stopped absolutely still. Her arms fell by her side and at once the passion drained out of her cheeks and eyes. He had never seen anyone emptied of everything as she was then; he could not have stopped her more effectively if he had struck her. She stood quite still, legs a little apart, hands limp by her side. After a moment, the blankness of surprise faded from her eyes, but she didn’t speak.

“Ricky’s all right,” Roger went on quietly. “I saw him and talked to him.” Nothing would make him tell the Shawns about the plaster over the boy’s mouth. “He told me they hadn’t hurt him, and I could see that for myself.”

His back was turned on Shawn, his only concern then was Belle. Then a hand crashed on to his shoulder, fingers gripped him like claws. Shawn spun him round, and glared into his eyes.

His lips hardly moved.

“Don’t lie!”

Roger said: To hell with you.” He doubled his right fist and drove it into Shawn’s stomach, with all his weight behind it. The sudden surge of fury blinded him to what Shawn might do. Damn Shawn, damn this hysteria which made mockery of distress. Shawn staggered back, his eyes losing their fire as astonishment caught him, stumbling against a chair.

“I saw the boy, and he’s all right,” Roger said harshly. “If you had only behaved like a father instead of a mad bull, you might have had him back by now. Tell us what messages you get, help us find the kidnappers, instead of getting in our way.” Shawn, still dazed, gave no answer, and Roger turned on Belle. “You’re just as bad — in fact you’re worse, you stop your husband from doing what he should. You’re flagellating yourself with unnecessary horror. Lissa was driving with me all the afternoon. She’s tried to help you both, and you’ve made it an ordeal for her. If she had any sense, she would leave you to manage for yourself.”

Lissa was watching him, and the corners of her lips were curved slightly. He didn’t notice that

“You — saw — Ricky ,” Shawn said with slow disbelief.

They took me, too. We were held at the same house. I got away. By the time I reached the police, Ricky had been moved, but the police are closer now than they’ve ever been. They’ll find him, if you do what you ought to.”

Shawn said very simply: “I would do anything in the world to find him. Anything in the world.”

Belle cried: “You saw Ricky!” It was as if she had only now realized the truth. Roger half turned as she rushed at him and flung her arms round his shoulders, thrusting her face very close to his. “You saw him, and — and he was all right. You swear he wasn’t hurt. Swear it!”

“He wasn’t hurt.”

“Swear it!”

“God help me, your son was not hurt, Mrs Shawn,” Roger said quietly. “I spoke to him. I spoke to his kidnapper. I was told they didn’t intend to hurt Ricky. They know that nothing is his fault, they’ve nothing against him.”

Belle dropped her arms; and the soft warmth of her moved away. She looked past him, at Shawn.

“David, did you — did you hear that?”

Shawn’s voice was choky with emotion.

“I knew he was all right, Belle, I was sure they wouldn’t hurt him.”

“Ricky’s not hurt,” she said in a distant voice. He’s all right, and — and this man’s seen him. Oh, David.”

She didn’t move towards him, her arms fluttered, then her hands went to her face, she buried her face in them and began to cry. Her shoulders heaved, but she stood still. Shawn went to her; he looked gigantic by her side. His arm went round her shoulders gently, and it was easy to think that he had for-gotten Roger and Lissa.

Lissa took Roger’s arm, and they moved away. On the landing they stopped, turned and looked back at the tableau; the strength of Shawn’s arm seemed to have stilled the heaving shoulders.

Lissa took her hand away from Roger’s, and they went downstairs together, out into the bright sunlight and then beneath the shade of trees between the house and the swim-ming-pooL Mosquitoes and flies hummed lazily. There were hammocks and a swing garden-seat. They sat down, Roger cautiously as pain twitched the muscles of his leg. He took out cigarettes which Sergeant Al had pressed on him.

“I wonder how long this new mood will last,” he said dryly.

“They need a shot of Roger West once every hour or so.” Lissa was still pale, as if the scene upstairs had really hurt her. “Belle can be so very sweet. It’s hard to believe, but she can. I wonder if this would have happened if David hadn’t been forced to leave her so much.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Oh, for years. I’ve worked with David for ten. She’s never turned on me quite like that before,” Lissa added, and looked rueful “She sounded so convincing.”

“She chose the wrong afternoon.” He laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “When did she first show signs of strain?”

Lissa considered. “A year ago, I suppose. She was always very temperamental, you would never have called her even-tempered. Nor David, for that matter.”

“And David has been a year on this special work that has to be done in England,” Roger said.

“Yes. Belle didn’t want him to go. I remember the scene when he told her that he was leaving. She had tried hard to make him refuse the assignment. I think I was astonished when he decided he had to take it on. God knows he didn’t want to. But he knew he was the most likely man to do the work. He hasn’t had it easy, Roger, and he put first things first. You have to know David and what has happened before you blame him for anything.”

Roger waved away mosquitoes.

“Gissing could have started working on Belle a year ago, if it is an espionage job.”

Lissa said slowly: “We always assumed that the trouble was because Belle missed David so much. Or at least didn’t want him away from her. Nothing’s ever suggested that Gissing started as soon as that.”

“Have you ever tried to talk to her about it?”

“No. These emotional outbursts didn’t really begin until Ricky was taken away. That is, they didn’t come into the open. We watched David closely, and there were accidents which might have been attempts on his life. Immediately we knew about the kidnapping, we saw the possibility that they were really planning to break David up, to bring him back here. And they have.”

The seat swung gently to and fro, and a soft breeze blew from the hills. It was very quiet and deceptively peaceful

They,” echoed Roger flatly. “Gissing and who?”