Fred Hoyle - Element 79

“Better give me your insurance card, or your name. Here’s mine,” he said, handing over the insurance certificate he always carried in his wallet.

“Think you’re going to get mine, do you?”

“Unless I do, the police will know exactly what to think.”

“You poor fish, you poor, bloody fish. What makes you think I haven’t got the police and the magistrates all sewn up around here?”

“You may have them sewn up, but I can assure you Counsel from London will very soon unsew them.”

At this Hadley realized he’d been unlucky. He’d drawn an educated man who wouldn’t be put down. It didn’t really matter, of course, only the no-claim bonus. It was just that he didn’t like to be beaten, to be shown up to be in the wrong. He would have paid out a hundred no-claim bonuses just to be able to fix this little bugger. However, he realized he’d better turn over his name and address: Arthur Hadley, “The Gables,” Arntree Road, Nottingham.

The flashing blue light of a police car could be seen approaching from the direction of Nottingham. Behind the police car was an ambulance. Both vehicles drew to a halt by the side of the road. Out of one came two policemen, out of the other two attendants with a stretcher. Adams was at first surprised. Then he remembered his impression of somebody peering into his car, a passing motorist who had obviously called the police. He walked toward the attendants. It would be best to get them to drive him to the Renfrew household—at least now he would have a good excuse for being late. The Hadley man, he knew, would be tackling the police. Let the fool talk to them as much as he wanted. God, what a bore the fellow was. The police would come to him for his story all in good time, better when he was rested than now. The thing to do was to get to bed as soon as possible. There was certain to be some delayed shock.

Adams stepped up to the nearest ambulance man and said, “Luckily neither of us is badly hurt, a few bruises, perhaps. I wonder if you’d be kind enough to take me into Nottingham?”

The man was walking toward him, his companion behind, as they carried the stretcher. Neither of them paused in the slightest degree. The rear man came so close that Adams felt the fellow must surely brush against him. Yet he felt not the slightest contact. Hadley came rushing up, “Can’t make the buggers hear. Not a bloody word. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but why don’t you shut up? Stop the verbal diarrhea just for a couple of minutes.”

This kept Hadley quiet, more or less, for a little while.

The policemen and the attendants conferred together. Adams heard one of them say, “Looks bad,” then another added, “This sort of thing always gets me in the pit of the stomach.” Then the four men busied themselves in the wreckage. Adams watched as something was lifted, presumably a body, into the ambulance. “Funny, there’s only one corpse,” he heard an attendant say to one of the policemen, “where’s the other one gone?”

Hadley could take it no longer. He strode up to the four men and shouted, “Stop this fooling, you silly buggers. Can’t you see we’re here. We’re all right. There’s nothing wrong with us. What you need is your bloody lugs cleaning out.”

This outburst produced not the slightest response. Hysterically desperate now, Hadley rushed at the nearest man. There was no effect, no contact. Then Hadley broke down. Alternately, he whined and roared and jabbered, nothing but gibberish. Then he stopped and began to shiver violently.

The ambulance men searched around again and then drove away. There was nothing Jonathan Adams could do to stop them. The policemen stayed around for quite a while longer, making extensive notes. When they drove off there was nothing that could be done to stop them either.

“You’d think they were a lot of muckering ghosts, the way they’re going on,” said Hadley.

“When you say ghosts, I think you’re not very wide of the mark. Except it’s exactly the other way round.”

“You mean we’re ghosts?”

“Yes. Doesn’t it strike you as queer we’re both of us pretty well unhurt? I hardly seem to be bruised.”

Hadley became much calmer.

“What’s to be bloody well done about it?”

“I don’t know. The strange thing is they seemed to have one body in the ambulance. Did you have a passenger in your car?”

Hadley wondered if by any chance Blanche White had sneaked into his car. Then he realized she couldn’t have. He’d left her in a state of undress, as the newspapers put it, in the big bed out at his place. “No, I didn’t. What about you?”

“I’d hardly have asked the question if I’d had a passenger, would I?”

The two of them began to walk along the road toward Nottingham. A number of cars passed by. They walked on for half an hour or so when Hadley asked, “Did you see that body?”

“No. I tried to, but somehow the light was never right.”

“Whose body d’you think it was?”

“One of us.”

“How the hell could it be?”

“I don’t know. If it wasn’t one of us, who else was it?”

“There should have been two bodies.”

“You’d certainty think so.”

“Could the other one have got minced up, into pieces?”

“I doubt it. That’s what they were looking for.”

“Where were you going to in Nottingham?”

“To stay with an acquaintance.”

“He’s not going to put out the bloody welcome mat now, is he?”

“Hardly. You know, the curious thing to me is the road is just as hard as it always was and the wind is just as cold. Quite nippy, in fact. I suppose I’d better go to a hotel. At least there shouldn’t be any difficulty about getting in, not if they can’t hear me or see me.”

“Hell to that. You’d better come home with me. See if we can stir up the wife. Told her I’d be away tonight. Actually, I was intending to spend it with a douce.”

“A what?”

“A douce, a bird, a female. Out at a little shack I’ve got in the country.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, something cropped up. Anyway, we’ll see what the little wifie’s got to say.”

It was about two-thirty a.m. when the two men arrived at “The Gables.” Hadley let them in with his key. To his surprise, the lights were all on, everywhere.

“Funny, I didn’t notice the lights when we were outside.”

“Nor did I.”

They went out again, and sure enough the house was in darkness. Inside again, the lights were on. Hadley tried flicking the switches. It made no difference, the lights stayed on.

Hadley went off upstairs to see if he could get any response from Jennifer. Within seconds, Adams heard him roaring and ranting. It went on for a couple of minutes or so. Then Hadley appeared at the top of the stairs and shouted down, “Hey, come up here a minute.”

Adams trotted up the two flights. At the top Hadley took him by the arm and literally ran into a large bedroom. Like everywhere else, the light was burning. In the bed was a brunette with a fair-haired young man, both sound asleep. “Look at that, just look at that, look at the bloody bitch,” shrieked Hadley.

Adams surmised this must be the “wifie.” She had a bare arm out across the bedclothes. Her hair was streaming over the pillow. It was impossible to mistake the languid, satisfied expression on the woman’s face, even in sleep. Hadley rushed furiously at the bed, snatching at the blankets, with the evident intention of ripping the covers off the pair of them. Once again, there was no contact. Further roaring and ranting was of no avail.

Adams began to get sleepy, which meant he was getting bored. But then the woman turned in her sleep. The hair moved and tickled the young man into wakefulness.