John Creasey - Send Superintendent West

He started the cautious circling round the room; it seemed like second nature to walk with his hands outstretched. He felt rough wood walls, kicked nothing, began to think that it was empty of everything, and then his hand touched a shelf. He groped along it Something moved. He explored it slowly, and knew that it was something cold, smooth and round. He gripped it as tightly as he could and took it off the shelf, and then he realized what it was — a flashlight.

Would it work?

18

“EMPTY” HOUSE

ROGER pressed the switch. There was no strength in his fingers, and it would not budge. He screwed himself up for the effort, and light came on. It shone into his eyes, and he jerked his head away. The beam wove a yellow pattern on walls and floor, before he held it still He raised it towards the shelf. There was no sound but the creaking of boards beneath his feet, the light shone on some tins, rope, a hurricane lantern — then a rustle of movement made him swing round. Before he saw what it was, a heavy weight struck his hand, knocking the torch from his grasp. It clattered to the floor and went out Blackness — always blackness. His heart thumped and he felt suffocated.

They’d caught him.

“You looking for anything?” a man said laconically.

Roger opened his mouth, muttered a sound that must have seemed like gibberish. The man said:

“You heard me. What are you doing around here?”

Roger said slowly and carefully: “I — am — lost.”

“That so?” The voice was still laconic. “Just come to the door, friend. I’d like to take a look at you.”

The voice came from the door, but Roger could see nothing. He moved forward, a step at a time. A light shone into his eyes, not powerful enough to dazzle him. Then it dropped and a woman said:

“Mike, he’s just another bum.”

“Looks like,” said Mike. The light travelled again to Roger’s face. “Looks like he’s had a long walk, I guess. You a stranger to these parts?”

“I have just come —” the words seemed to hesitate before they came out — “from England.” As if that would mean anything to them — except to suggest that he was lying.

“From England,” the woman echoed.

“That so?” Mike’s voice had calmness in it and could have been friendly. “Then you’re a mighty long way from home.” He kept the light steady. “Honey, you just step behind him and make sure he doesn’t carry a gun.”

She moved without hesitating. After a moment, Roger felt her hands at his sides, patting his coat and trousers; she was thorough.

“No,” she said.

“Okay, stranger,” Mike said. “You can come this way.” He began to move, just visible in the reflected light of the torch. The woman took Roger’s arm, as if she realized his weakness.

He almost blacked out. He knew they were both helping to keep him on his feet. There was some trouble at a flight of steps before he stumbled inside a dimly lighted room and was lowered into a chair. He heard odd words. “Coffee.”

“Looks mighty sick to me.”

“Don’t wake them kids.” Kids. The boy!

He opened his eyes wide and started to speak, but Mike wouldn’t let him. Mike was a big, hardy-looking man with a grey-streaked beard, wearing a lumber jacket of coloured squares, trousers held up by a silver-buckled belt and a pair of old boots. The room was small and two other rooms led off it. The woman had disappeared, but Roger could just distinguish the clink of china and it wasn’t long before she came back with a percolator and cups on a tray. There were sandwiches as well as coffee. She poured out.

“Mike, you want to take his shoes off?”

“For why?”

“You want to use your eyes,” she said tartly. “He’s been wading in the lake.” She stirred sugar into the coffee and pushed cup and saucer into Roger’s hands. “Just you drink that, and then eat some, and then —”

“Thanks,” Roger said. “I — thanks. But don’t touch my shoes.” Mike was on one knee obediently. “I’ve got to — go on. I must get to the police.”

Mike stopped moving, just stared up at him. His wife went still.

“I must telephone the police,” Roger said, as if he were repeating a lesson learned parrot-wise. “There is a kidnapped boy.” He waved his left hand, nearly knocked the cup out of the saucer. “Up there.”

Husband and wife looked at each other, looked back at Roger.

“There is,” he persisted. “I must tell the police. How far away — are they?”

“State troopers in Wycoma,” Mike said, as if he were talking to himself. His wife was staring intently at Roger, but once looked towards the door she hadn’t been through. “The nearest telephone is six-seven miles, I guess. You sure about this boy?”

“Yes. We must hurry.”

“Where is he, you say?”

“Drink your coffee,” the woman ordered.

“Up there. A big house — in a clearing. Trees all round it. Firs — or pines.” The warm coffee was thawing Roger out, he felt more able to cope, and he was beginning to feel that these people might help. “I don’t know how far. Miles. It’s at the top of a hill.”

Mike said: “Webster’s old place. Webster doesn’t live there any more, since his boy died. Heard some funny stories about the guy who took over. So there’s a kid. What’s the name of the kid?”

“Shawn,” said Roger. Tricky Shawn. He was kidnapped in England —”

Mike moved quickly for the first time. On his way to the door, he said:

“You want to look after him while I’m gone, honey? Won’t be that long. Could be the kid’s up there, or could be this guy’s crazy, but it won’t do any harm to look and see. I’ll telephone Wycoma, stranger, and be right back with the police.” He stopped in the doorway. “I’m Mike Hill,” he said, and obviously expected a comment.

“You’ve been very —” Roger began, and stopped, forcing a smile. “I’m Roger West I’m not crazy. Hurry, Mike, please.”

Two minutes later, the quiet of the lakeside was broken by the stutter of a car engine. Soon it moved off, missing on one cylinder but chugging steadily. Mike Hill’s wife was pouring more coffee and urging Roger to eat the sandwich: a chicken sandwich. The sound of the engine died away.

• • •

There were three New York State troopers in uniform, two other men, Mike Hill and Roger. Hill’s old car was left by the lake, his wife stood in the doorway of the cabin, watching a big Pontiac and an Oldsmobile moving along the track towards a dirt road, head-lights carving a light through the trees. By road, Webster’s place was fifteen miles away, Roger was told; he had walked nine. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning.

They had asked few questions, all seemed sleepy and taciturn. Now he matched their silence. His eyes were so heavy that sleep was always threatening him, and his limbs would not stop aching. He knew that they were in the Adirondacks about two hundred miles from New York City, that was all.

The narrow road twisted all the way, ran uphill, and on the hairpin bends there was hardly room for two cars to pass. The journey took them forty minutes.

It didn’t surprise Roger that Webster’s house was empty. Gissing, the boy, the new prisoner — all of them were gone. He forced himself to keep up with the others as they searched. Evidence of hurried departure, bullet marks in the floor and the door-frame, blood on the carpet where the man had died, told them he hadn’t been lying. Of them all, the most morose was a lean, leathery man with a puckered dent in the side of his neck, from an old injury. The others called him Al, and he had a sergeant’s stripes. They had finished the search and were back in the room where Roger had seen Gissing. Sergeant Al went towards the chair where Gissing had sat, looked at Roger with small shiny brown eyes, and said thinly: