Алистер Маклин - When Eight Bells Toll

I’d come to see Lord Kirkside, and whoever this was it wasn’t Lord Kirkside, for whatever Lord Kirkside was in the habit of doing I was fairly certain that he didn’t go to bed in boots, braces and cloth cap, with a bayoneted rifle lying on the blankets beside him, which was what this character had done. I couldn’t see his face, because the cloth cap reached as far as his nose. On the bedside table beside him lay a torch and a half-empty whisky bottle. No glass, but from what little I could see of him I would have judged that he was, anyhow, one of those characters whose direct and simple enjoyment of life has not been impaired by the effete conventions of modern civilisation. The faithful watchman prudently preparing himself for the rigours of the West Highland night before taking his turn at sentry-go. But he wouldn’t be making it at the appointed hour for there was no one now to call him. From the look of it, he’d be lucky to make it for lunch.

It was just possible that he might wake himself up, those stentorian snores wouldn’t have gone unremarked in a mortuary. He had about him the look of a man who, on regaining consciousness, would find himself in need of thirst-quenching nourishment, so I unscrewed the bottle top, dropped in half a dozen of the tablets supplied by my pharmaceutical friend in Torbay, replaced the top, took the torch and left.

Behind the next door to the left lay a bathroom. A filthy basin with, above it, a water-stained mirror, two shaving brushes covered with lather, a jar of shaving cream with the top off, two unwashed razors and, on the floor, two towels that might just possibly have been white at some distant æon in the past. The interior of the bath was immaculate. Here was where the watchman performed his rudimentary ablutions.

The next room was a bedroom as dirty and disorderly as the watchman’s. It was a fair guess that this was the home of the man I’d left lying out among the gorse and stones on the hillside.

I moved across to the left-hand side of the central block – Lord Kirkside would have his room somewhere in that block. He did, but he wasn’t at home. The first room beyond the sleeping warrior’s was his all right, a glance at the contents of the nearest wardrobe confirmed this. But his bed hadn’t been slept in.

Predictably in this symmetrically designed house, the next room was a bathroom. The watchman wouldn’t have felt at all at home in here, this antiseptic cleanliness was the hall-mark of an effete aristocracy. A medicine cabinet was fixed to the wall. I took out a tin of Elastoplast and covered the face of the torch till I was left with a hole no more than the size of a sixpence. I put the tin in my pocket.

The next door was locked but locks, in the days when the Dubh Sgeir Castle had been built, were pretty rudimentary affairs. I took from my pocket the best skeleton key in the world – an oblong of stiff celluloid. I shoved it between door and jamb at bolt level pulled the door handle back in the direction of the hinges, eased in the celluloid, released the handle, repeated the process and stood stock-still. That click might have wakened my watchman friend, it should certainly have wakened the person inside. But I heard no sound of movement.

I opened the door a fraction of an inch and went through the stock-still standing process once more. There was a light on inside the room. I changed the torch for the gun, went on my knees, crouched low and abruptly opened the door wide. I stood up, closed and locked the door and crossed over to the bed.

Susan Kirkside wasn’t snoring but she was just as deep in sleep as the man I’d just left. She had a blue silk band round her hair, and all of her face was visible, a sight that must have been rare indeed during her waking hours. Twenty-one, her father had said she was, but lying there asleep, smudged eyes and all, she looked no older than seventeen. A magazine had slipped from her hands to the floor. On the bedside table was a half-empty glass of water and beside that a bottle containing a commercial brand of Nembutal tablets. Oblivion appeared to be a pretty hard thing to come by in Dubh Sgeir and I’d no doubt Susan Kirkside found it more difficult than most.

I picked up a towel from a basin in the corner of the room, removed the worst of the moisture and dirt from head and face, combed my hair into some semblance of order and gave my kindly reassuring smile a try-out in the mirror. I looked like someone from the pages of the Police Gazette.

It took almost two minutes to shake her awake or, at least, to pull her up from the dark depths of oblivion to a state of semi-awareness. Full consciousness took another minute, and it was probably this that saved me from a screaming match, she had time to adjust herself to the slow realisation of the presence of a stranger in the middle of the night. Mind you, I had my kindly smile going full blast till my face ached, but I don’t think it helped much.

‘Who are you? Who are you?’ Her voice was shaking, the blue eyes, still misted with sleep, wide open and scared. ‘Don’t you touch me! Don’t you – I’ll scream for help – I’ll–’

I took her hands just to show her that there was touching and touching. ‘I won’t touch you. Sue Kirkside. And a fat lot of good screaming for help would do around these parts. Don’t scream, there’s a good girl. In fact, don’t even talk above a whisper. I don’t think it would be very wise or safe, do you?’

She stared at me for a few seconds, her lips moving as if she were about to speak, but the fear slowly leaving her eyes. Suddenly she sat bolt upright. ‘You’re Mr Johnson. The man from the helicopter.’

‘You should be more careful,’ I said reproachfully. ‘They’d have you arrested for that in the Folies-Bergère.’ Her free hand hauled the blankets up to her chin and I went on: ‘My name is Calvert. I work for the Government. I’m a friend. I think you need a friend, don’t you, Susan? You and your old man – Lord Kirkside, that is.’

‘What do you want?’ she whispered. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here to end your troubles,’ I said. ‘I’m here to cadge an invitation to your wedding to the Honourable John Rollinson. Make it about the end of next month, will you? I’m due some leave, then.’

‘Go away from here.’ Her voice was low and desperate. ‘Go away from here or you’ll ruin everything. Please, please, please go away. I’m begging you, I’m begging you. Go away. If you’re a friend, go away. Please, oh please go away!’

It seemed that she wanted me to leave. I said: ‘It appears that they have you pretty well brainwashed. If you believe their promise, you’ll believe anything in the world. They won’t let you go, they daren’t let you go, they’ll destroy every shred and trace of evidence that might ever point a finger at them. That includes anyone who has ever had anything to do with them.’

‘They won’t, they won’t. I was with Mr Lavorski when he promised Daddy that no one would come to any harm. He said they were businessmen, and killing was no part of business. He meant it.’

‘Lavorski, is it? It had to be.’ I looked at the earnest scared face. ‘He may have meant it when he said it. He wouldn’t have mentioned that they’ve murdered four people in the last three days, or that they have tried to murder me four times in the last three days.’

‘You’re lying! You’re making this up. Things like that – things like that don’t happen any more. For pity’s sake leave us alone!’

‘There speaks the true daughter of the old Scottish clan chieftain.’ I said roughly. ‘You’re no good to me. Where’s your father?’

‘I don’t know. Mr Lavorski and Captain Imrie – he’s another of them – came for him at eleven to-night. Daddy didn’t say where he was going. He tells me nothing.’ She paused and snatched her hands away. Faint red patches stained her cheeks. ‘What do you mean, I’m no good to you?’