Алистер Маклин - Bear Island

‘I don’t think so. I’ve been lying here for hours, just thinking, and I don’t think so.’ From the lifeless voice and the lifeless face I was pretty sure she was still under the influence of the sedative. ‘You will get him, won’t you? The man who killed Michael. Michael wasn’t as bad as people thought, Dr Marlowe, no, he really wasn’t.’ For the first time a trace of expression, just the weary suggestion of a smile. ‘I don’t say he was a kind man or a good one or a gentle one, for he wasn’t: but he was the man for me.’

‘I know,’ I said, as if I understood, which I only partially did. ‘I hope we get the man responsible. I think we will. Do you have any ideas that could help?’

‘My ideas are not worth much, Doctor. My mind doesn’t seem to be very clear.’

‘Do you think you could talk for a bit, Miss Haynes? It wouldn’t be too tiring?’

‘I am talking.’

‘Not to me. To Lonnie Gilbert. He seems terribly anxious to speak to you.’

‘Speak to me?’ Tired surprise but not outright rejection of the idea. ‘Why should Lonnie Gilbert wish to speak to me?’

‘I don’t know. Lonnie doesn’t believe in confiding in doctors. All I gather is that he feels that he’s done you some great wrong and he wants to say “sorry”. I think.’

‘Lonnie say “sorry” to me!’ Astonishment had driven the flat hopelessness from her voice. ‘Apologize to me ? No, not to me.’ She was silent for a bit, then she said: ‘Yes, I’d very much like to see him now.’

I concealed my own astonishment as best I could, went back to the main cabin, told an equally astonished Lonnie that Judith Haynes was more than prepared to meet him, and watched him as he went along the passage, entered her room and closed the door behind him. I glanced at Luke. He appeared, if anything, to be more soundly asleep than ever, absurdly young to be in this situation, a pleased smile on his face: he was probably dreaming of golden discs. I walked quietly along the passage to Judith Haynes’s room: there was nothing in the Hippocratic oath against doctors listening at closed doors.

It was clear that I was going to have to listen very closely indeed for although the door was only made of bonded ply, the voices in the room were being kept low and I could hear little more than a confused murmur. I dropped to my knees and applied my ear to the keyhole. The audibility factor improved quite remarkably.

‘You!’ Judith Haynes said. There was a catch in her voice. I wouldn’t have believed her capable of any of the more kindly emotions. ‘You! To apologize to me! Of all people, you!’

‘Me, my dear, me. All those years, all those years.’ His voice fell away and I couldn’t catch his next few words. Then he said: ‘Despicable, despicable. For any man to go through life, nurturing the animosity, nay, my dear, the hatred–’ He broke off and there was silence for some moments. He went on: ‘No forgiveness, no forgiveness. I know he can’t – I know he couldn’t have been so bad, or even really bad at all, you loved him and no one can love a person who is bad all through, but even if his sins had been black as the midnight shades–’

‘Lonnie!’ The interruption was sharp, even forceful. ‘I know I wasn’t married to an angel, but I wasn’t married to any devil either.’

‘I know that, my dear, I know that. I was merely saying–’

‘Will you listen! Lonnie, Michael wasn’t in that car that night. Michael was never near that car.’

I strained for the answer but none came. Judith Haynes went on: ‘Neither was I, Lonnie.’

There was a prolonged silence, then Lonnie said in a voice so low that it was a barely heard whisper: ‘That’s not what I was told.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t, Lonnie. My car, yes. But I wasn’t driving it. Michael wasn’t driving it.’

‘But – you won’t deny that my daughters were – well, incapable, that night. And that you were too. And that you made them that way?’

‘I’m not denying anything. We all had too much to drink that night – that’s why I’ve never drunk since, Lonnie. I don’t know who was responsible. All I know is that Michael and I never left the house. Good God, do you think I have to tell you this – now that Michael is dead?’

‘No. No, you don’t. Then – then who was driving your car?’

‘Two other people. Two men.’

‘Two men. And you’ve been protecting them all those years?’

‘Protecting? No, I wouldn’t use the word “protecting”. Except inadvertently. No, I didn’t put that well, I mean – well, any protection given was just incidental to something else we really wanted. Our own selfish ends, I suppose you could call it. Everybody knows well enough that Michael and I – well, we were criminals but we always had an eye on the main chance.’

‘Two men.’ It was almost as if Lonnie hadn’t been listening to a word she’d said. ‘Two men. You must know them.’

Another silence, then she said quietly: ‘Of course.’

Once more an infuriating silence, I even stopped breathing in case I were to miss the next few words. But I wasn’t given the chance either to miss them or to hear them for a harsh and hostile voice behind me said: ‘What in the devil do you think you are doing here, sir?’

I refrained from doing what I felt like doing, which was to let loose with a few choice and uninhibited phrases, turned and looked up to find Otto’s massively pear-shaped bulk looming massively above me. His fists were clenched, his puce complexion had darkened dangerously, his eyes were glaring and his lips were clamped in a thin line that threatened to disappear at any moment.

‘You look upset, Mr Gerran,’ I said. ‘In point of fact, I was eavesdropping.’ I pushed myself to my feet, dusted off the knees of my trousers, straightened and dusted off my hands. ‘I can explain everything.’

‘I’m waiting for your explanation.’ He was fractionally more livid than ever. ‘It should be interesting, Dr Marlowe.’

‘I only said I can explain everything. Can , Mr Gerran. That doesn’t mean I’ve got any intention of explaining anything. Come to that, what are you doing here?’

‘What am I – what am I–?’ He spluttered into outraged speechlessness, the year’s top candidate for an instant coronary. ‘God damn your impudence, sir! I’m about to go on watch! What are you doing at my daughter’s door? I’m surprised you’re not looking through that keyhole, Marlowe, instead of listening at it!’

‘I don’t have to look through keyholes,’ I said reasonably. ‘Miss Haynes is my patient and I’m a doctor. If I want to see her I just open the door and walk in. Well, then, now that you’re on watch, I’ll be on my way. Bed. I’m tired.’

‘Bed! Bed! By God, I swear this, Marlowe, you’ll regret – who’s in there with her?’

‘Lonnie Gilbert.’

‘Lonnie Gilbert! What in the name of hell – stand aside, sir! Let me pass!’

I barred his way – physically. It was like stopping a small tank upholstered in Dunlopillo, but I had the advantage of having my back to the wall and he brought up a foot short of the door. ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. They’re having a rather painful moment in there. Lost, one might say, in the far from sweet remembrance of things past.’

‘What the devil do you mean? What are you trying to tell me, you – you eavesdropper?’

‘I’m not trying to tell you anything. Maybe, though, you’d tell me something? Maybe you would like to tell me something about that car crash – I assume that it must have been in California – in which Lonnie Gilbert’s wife and two children were killed a long long time ago?’

He stopped being livid. He even stopped being his normal puce. Colour drained from his face to leave it ugly and mottled and stained with grey. ‘Car crash?’ He’d a much better control over his voice than he had over his complexion. ‘What do you mean, “car crash”, sir?’