Kenneth Cameron - The Frightened Man

‘We’ll come in,’ Janet Striker said.

The girl shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ She gave Denton her smile again.

The hall ran right through the house to another door at the back, now standing partway open. Two doors on the left led to a parlour and, at the back, he supposed, to a kitchen. The hall was small, barely big enough for two people, he thought; the walls, papered in a small pattern in shades of grey-green, were nondescript, probably depressing after a little time; the woodwork was dark but dull.

Janet Striker looked back from the first door, nodded at him, and he followed her, feeling the girl close behind him.

The parlour had been emptied of furniture except for one armchair, in which a woman in a dark coat and a small black hat was sitting. She looked at them with dull eyes, said nothing.

‘Mrs Satterlee?’ Denton said.

‘Oh, she won’t say nothing; she never does.’ The girl giggled.

Denton went closer to the woman, bent down to see her face. Under a layer of powder, it was lined and blotchy. The eyelids quivered.

‘Mrs Satterlee, we’re looking for your daughter — Alice.’

‘I told you, she won’t say nothing! She don’t know nothing! ’ The girl danced into his line of vision. ‘Ask me; I know lots of things.’

He felt real physical revulsion, wanted to slap her. In a hard voice, he said, ‘Where’s your sister Alice?’

‘She went away.’

‘Where?’

‘How should I know? She went away and she didn’t come back, now my story is all told.’ She gave him the smile, then bent her torso forward and put her right hand into the small of her back as if to deepen the curve of her spine. The posture was that from a cheap postcard — a woman offering herself, the pose designed to reveal the breasts, cleavage if she had had such a thing. Denton felt his attention lurch, saw his sister at thirteen, and in an angry, pained voice, he cried, ‘Don’t! You stupid little-’ He’d have said bitch , but a louder voice from the stairs stopped him, stopped them all, and their eyes, even the seated woman’s, went to the door, hers open with fright.

‘You bloody stupid bastards, I told you to be careful! Now look what you’ve done to the plaster, you stupid bastards! God, man, lift it-!’ Something heavy bumped against the wall; there was a thump, a different voice swore, and a third male voice said, ‘You talk to us like that any more, guv, I’ll drop this bloody thing on your toes.’

More sound — bumps, a dragging along the floor, men’s heavy breathing — and the first voice shouting, ‘Have a care — you shouldn’t be allowed to move stones, you bloody imbeciles-’ and a man backed down the hall past the doorway, one side of a chest of drawers in his arms, then another man at the other end.

And then the third man came, his eyes on the two who were carrying the dresser.

Satterlee was tall, very solid but with a heavy gut; his hair was dark, almost black, his face red from shouting, sun-and wind-burned. He looked into the parlour as he was passing; his eyes took in the four of them, and he recognized Denton just as Denton recognized him. Neither had any doubt. Denton didn’t need to see more than the eyes and the forehead.

Satterlee reached into the right rear pocket of his trouser; Denton was putting his hand into the overcoat, then closing it on the Colt and feeling the pistol catch in the fabric as he tried to draw it out. Satterlee by then had his hand out, a dark shape in it that, with a flick, became a heavy-bladed knife.

The girl screamed. She ran towards her father. She shouted. ‘Papa, don’t!’

Denton, wrestling with the pistol, trying to tear it loose from the pocket, still had part of his brain respond to the words: Of course, that’s what Mulcahy heard the other girl say — Don’t, Papa — Oh, Christ -

Whatever Satterlee had intended — to kill Denton, probably, to eliminate the only one who could connect him with the attack — he was momentarily frustrated by his daughter. She reached with both hands for the hand that held the knife (knowing? having reason to fear it?), managing to catch his arm; she was saying, almost crooning, ‘Please, Papa, no-’ over and over, as if with this voice she was able to quiet him.

Satterlee shoved her with his forearm, then wrenched himself free of her and tried to turn; she tried again to grab him. Denton, trying to tear the pistol out of his coat, missed what happened next but saw only the result, a spurt of red that spattered the floor and the wall as the girl spun away; then he heard her scream and, behind him, the screams, all alike and repeated as if by a machine, from the woman in the chair.

Satterlee looked at him. His eyes were manic, enraged. He might have come at Denton then, but the Colt was at last coming free, the curve of the handle visible above the pocket, Denton’s thumb cocking the single-action hammer. Satterlee in one grab pulled Janet Striker to him; the shoulder of her coat and dress ripped with the violence of the movement, and then he was dragging her out of the room and she was screaming at Denton. Satterlee shouted at somebody in the corridor; there was a crash and a male scream.

Denton had the pistol out and crossed the parlour in two strides, saw down the hall the two workmen, one on the floor, blood on the wall, Janet Striker being pushed out of the back door. He tried to run down the hall, jumped over the fallen man, cannoned off the narrow doorframe at the back and fell to one knee as he failed to see the step down from the house to the rubble outside. When he was up again, Satterlee was forty feet away, dragging Janet Striker, who was struggling with him, trying to punch and kick him and failing.

‘Satterlee!’

Denton put himself into a sprint. There was no way Satterlee could outrun him if he held on to the woman. Denton ran wide of their path, meaning to swing around him and come in at an angle where he could have a shot, but Satterlee looked back and in one move — the man was powerful and fast — swung Mrs Striker against him and held her there as a shield. He had the fingers of his left hand wound in her hair and her head pulled cruelly back; the knife was against her throat, and already a thin ribbon of blood was trickling down.

‘Get off!’ Satterlee shouted at him. ‘Back off or I’ll kill her!’

Denton stopped. He raised the pistol.

Satterlee ducked his head behind Mrs Striker’s. His voice came, heavy and dangerous, ‘Throw down that pistol, or I’ll kill her now!’

‘Kill her, and I’ll kill you.’

Satterlee pulled her head back still farther. Mrs Striker had hooked her left hand inside the arm of the hand that held the knife, but there wasn’t a hope that she could keep the knife from slashing her throat. Denton’s mind raced through possibilities — shoot one of Satterlee’s feet, his shoulder — but none would stop him from killing her.

‘Throw the gun down or I’ll do it!’

The cleared field stretched behind Satterlee to the line of trees, still white with frost despite the low morning sun. Not another figure was in sight.

He had been holding the gun at arm’s length since Satterlee had swung around to face him. The front sight was steady on the point where some part of his head might appear. Denton thought that he needed only a fraction of a second, two inches of skull. He waited. His own breathing quieted. If somebody could go around Satterlee from behind-

But nobody would. Denton knew what Satterlee would do next, and he wouldn’t wait much longer. He’d slash her throat and run, risking the bullet. And she’d be dead.

‘Janet-’ he called.

Her head was pulled back again. Satterlee shouted, ‘I’m going to bloody kill her!’

Denton thought about risking a shot close enough to graze her and hit Satterlee, but he couldn’t. And Satterlee would react automatically; the knife would do its work no matter what. He kept the pistol level, aimed, ready.