Distant Voices. Barbara Erskine

was relieved when Mrs Cosby appeared with a new tray. Obviously familiar with Mr Danway’s taciturn nature their hostess made no attempt to talk to him as she put the plates on his table. It was to the ladies she turned at last.

      ‘Got everything, have we? Is there anything else I can fetch you, my dears?’

      A dog had bounded into the room after her and it ran to Cathie, its tail wriggling obsequiously. She patted it, flattered that it should have singled her out.

      ‘That’s Rudie,’ Mrs Cosby volunteered. ‘I hope you don’t mind. Soppy case he is.’ She stood for a moment surveying him fondly.

      ‘I think,’ Harriet’s voice was frosty, ‘we’d rather he were kept out of the dining room. Wouldn’t we, dear?’ She shot a look at Cathie who guiltily snatched her hand away from the soft slobbering head which was lovingly pushing against her knee.

      Dog and landlady vanished and the meal continued in silence. From time to time Harriet threw dark, meaningful glances at the man’s back. She seemed preoccupied and Cathie, snatching at the opportunity, helped herself to more sausages from the serving dish. The room was quite silent save for the sound of knives and forks on china; the large clock on the mantelpiece had stopped at ten past eleven.

      When Mr Danway pushed back his chair and threw down the newspaper he had been reading, both ladies jumped nervously. Cathie focused all her attention on the bowl of sugar from which she had been about to help herself.

      He stopped beside their table for a moment, looking down at them in silence, then abruptly he strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

      Cathie found that her knees were shaking a little. ‘What a peculiar man,’ she commented and reached for her teacup.

      ‘Did you see his eyes?’ Harriet’s voice was almost awed. ‘The were yellow, like topaz. Weird.’

      ‘Do you think he’s …’ Cathie hesitated a moment, hardly daring to voice her question,’ … well, normal?’

      ‘He certainly didn’t look it to me. Remember to lock your door tonight, dear. I certainly shall.’ The shudder which shook Harriet’s sturdy frame was not entirely faked.

      Cathie laid down her knife and fork. Her appetite had vanished of its own accord. Regretfully she eyed the sausage left on her plate and comforted herself with the thought that probably the dog would get it.

      The two ladies made their way back to Harriet’s room. By unspoken consent it had become their headquarters and neither woman had felt like sitting in the two formal armchairs before the defunct clock – no flying ducks, Harriet had noted with something akin to disappointment.

      The door of the room next door was ajar.

      ‘I must go to the loo!’ Harriet announced loudly, intending to be heard well beyond the confines of her room. She advanced sideways across the hall, towards the bathroom door, her eyes glued to that of the opposite bedroom.

      Abruptly she stopped. Cathie saw her expression change to one of horror before, after the briefest hesitation, she groped for the handle of the door marked This is IT and dived out of sight.

      It was a nerve-racking five minutes. Cathie waited, not liking to close the bedroom door in case a rescue was needed, not liking to walk away from it, in case – well, in case. But supposing he came and saw her standing there? She trembled at the thought.

      Then came the welcome noise of a cistern flushing and Harriet emerged. She closed the bedroom door behind her and leaned against it, breathing heavily.

      ‘He’s got a gun.’

      ‘What?’ Cathie’s voice rose up in a squeak.

      ‘He’s got a gun. It’s lying on the bed. I saw it.’

      They looked at each other in silence for a moment. There was a strange suppressed excitement in Harriet’s eyes.

      ‘What shall we do?’ Cathie breathed the words tremulously and Harriet, probably for the first time in her life, shrugged, at a loss.

      ‘Do you think she knows? Do you think he’s got some kind of a hold over her?’ Harriet carefully left the door and went to sit on her bed. Her legs were trembling a little and she raised her chin defiantly to hide the fact from Cathie.

      Cathie’s eyes widened as she considered the possibility. ‘He had an unpleasant face; thoroughly unpleasant.’ It was as near as she ever got to being critical of someone’s appearance.

      ‘Capable of anything, I’d say.’ Harriet forgot herself so far as to lick her lips. ‘I wonder if he’s escaped from somewhere?’

      ‘We’d have seen it in the paper.’

      ‘Not necessarily. They might not have wanted to spread panic.’

      Somewhere close by there was the sound of a door slamming and both ladies jumped violently. Cathie ran to the window. The garden was dark and deserted. Beyond the low wind-flattened hedge at the end of it, the salt marsh and fields spread out towards the luminous sea. Dusk had closed in now and the wind was gathering strength. One or two leaves whipped from a stunted apple tree at the corner of the garden and flicked against the glass near her face and she flinched. She drew the curtains, making sure there was no crack between them, and returned to her seat on the bed.

      It was then that they heard the heavy footsteps outside in the corridor. There was a loud knock on the door.

      They clutched each other in fright. Harriet rose to her feet. With considerable dignity she went to the door.

      ‘Who is it?’ There was only the slightest quaver in her voice.

      ‘Danway.’

      She closed her eyes and swallowed. ‘What do you want, Mr Danway?’

      ‘I’ve brought your cases. You and the other lady. Leave them out here, shall I?’

      There was an instant surge of relief on Harriet’s face. ‘If you please, Mr Danway. That is kind of you.’

      They listened to the double crash of the heavy cases being dropped on the floor, the tramp of his footsteps and the bang of his door. Harriet cautiously opened hers a crack.

      She hauled in the two cases and then shut it again. ‘Now what?’

      ‘I need my case in my room, dear,’ Cathie commented. ‘Surely he didn’t think we were sharing?’

      ‘I doubt if it crossed his mind.’ Harriet was tart. ‘Go on. Take it and run over. I’ll cover you.’ She wasn’t too sure what the last phrase entailed, but it certainly seemed appropriate.

      ‘I can’t run. It’s heavy.’

      ‘Well, drag it then.’

      ‘Should we go to bed, do you think?’

      ‘Well, I’m not going to sit up all night. Lock your door.’ Harriet was beginning to feel alarmingly tired. She had driven nearly two hundred miles that day and now, to find her room was next to that of a gunman – actual or potential – it would be surprising if she had not found the situation exhausting. She watched Cathie drag her case across the hall and disappear into her room, then with a sigh she closed her own door and locked it.

      The rest of the evening was uneventful. She managed to reach the bathroom safely, then she regained her bedroom where she climbed into bed with a book and her little transistor radio to listen to the news. The news, when it came, was disappointingly lax in reporting any escapes from any prisons anywhere and she turned it off, half relieved, half disappointed, and opened her book. Hercule Poirot was hot on the trail; she began to gnaw her thumbnail avidly, her pages turning more and more quickly as the book neared its climax.

      And then she heard it. In the silence of the room she could just make out the sound of a movement next door. She dropped her book on the counterpane and listened intently. Yes, there it was. A scraping and tapping. And then footsteps.