Hell Is Too Crowded

(11)

He went into the kitchen, had another coffee and waited for her to go to sleep. It didn’t take long. He stood outside her door and listened and then he pulled on his jacket and went back into the kitchen.

He managed to find a memo pad and pencil and sat down at the table to write her a note. After two attempts, he crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into a corner. There was really nothing left to say.

It was almost two a.m. when he closed the door of the apartment and went quietly downstairs.

He unlocked the car, took the road map from the glove compartment and left the keys in its place. There was a good chance he would never get out of London and when they caught him, he didn’t want to be in Anne’s car. He’d involved her too much already.

The fog had reduced visibility to thirty or forty yards and he walked briskly along the pavement, his senses alert for danger.

He had his first break half an hour later in a side street near the Albert Hall. A small and battered van was parked in a cul-de-sac. The lock on the door was already broken, but the owner had taken the key with him. Brady climbed in and reached behind the dashboard. He tore the ignition wires free and joined them together. A few minutes later he was driving cautiously away.

He stopped a little while later in a quiet side street and consulted the map. Essex was a county he knew reasonably well. Only three years previously he had been engineer in charge of a bridge project near Chelmsford.

Harth was near the tip of a spur of the coastline that jutted out where the River Blackwater emptied into the North Sea. It seemed to be a sparsely inhabited area with few roads. As the young maid had told him, Shayling Island was about two miles off-shore.

He stuffed the map into his pocket and drove away. According to the fuel gauge, there were only a couple of gallons in the tank, but for the moment, he concentrated on his driving. Minor problems could wait till later.

There was a surprising amount of traffic still on the roads. Probably people who had been delayed by the fog, he decided. Once out of the centre of London, he kept to the back streets, working in the direction of Romford, finally coming out on to the Chelmsford road.

Once past Romford he relaxed, lit a cigarette and concentrated on his driving. The fog was not as bad as it had been in London, but bad enough and it was a full hour before he turned off the main road and lost himself in a maze of back-country lanes.

He stopped frequently to consult the map and passed through several villages until finally, he took a wrong turning. As the first cold light of dawn crept through the fog, he drove through Southminster.

He followed the road to Tillingham for another half-mile and then the engine seemed suddenly to lose power, coughed once asthmatically, and died.

The fuel gauge still indicated two gallons which didn’t prove a thing and he got out and had a look at the tank. There was still a little in there and he lifted the hood and examined the engine.

As he did so, a police constable rode out of the fog on a bicycle, cape swinging from his shoulders. He braked to a halt and propped the bike against the hedge before coming forward.

“Having a spot of bother?” he said cheerfully.

Brady kept his head down. “Nothing I can’t handle, thank you.”

What was it Joe Evans had called it? Lag’s Luck. The unexpected that always happens to the man on the run?

“You’re not from these parts, are you?” the constable said.

“No, just passing through,” Brady told him.

There was a heavy pause before the man said, “I wonder if I might have a look at your driving licence, sir?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t got it with me right now,” Brady said.

The engine suddenly coughed into life again and he quickly pulled down the hood. “I guess that fixes it.”

As he moved towards the van door, the constable caught hold of his arm and jerked him round. “Now, just a minute, sir. I’m afraid I’ll …” The words died away as a look of complete astonishment passed across his face. “You’re Brady,” he said stupidly. “Matthew Brady.”

The engine stopped again and somehow there was something utterly final about it. There was a moment of complete stillness and then, as the fingers started to tighten on his arm, Brady struck out wildly at the big, genial face and ran into the fog.

Once out of sight, he forced his way through the hedge and ran across a ploughed field. He came to a fence, clambered over, and kept on going. After he had covered half a mile, he stopped and slumped down to the ground under a tree in a small copse.

There was no sound of pursuit, he hadn’t really expected any. By now the constable would be at the nearest telephone, nursing his smashed mouth and passing on his news to his superiors. Within an hour, two at the most, every able-bodied man in the district would be looking for him and he was trapped. Trapped with his back to the sea. His one chance was to reach Harth, steal a boat and reach Shayling Island.

He started to walk, but the fog was so thick that he lost his sense of direction completely after the first hour. He didn’t feel tired, but there was a slight ache in his legs and his stomach felt empty.

He finally decided to have a rest and sat down under a tree and smoked his last cigarette. A small wind lifted through the trees, bringing with it a good salt smell of the sea. A sudden thrill ran through him and he scrambled to his feet. If he kept on walking straight into the wind, he would come to the shore. After that, he only had to follow the coastline to reach Harth.

He started forward and there was a sudden cry from somewhere on his left. He turned, crouching, as three men emerged from the fog and paused on the edge of the trees.

“Stand where you are!” one of them called.

As Brady turned to run, a shotgun roared and lead pellets sang through the trees above his head. Behind him a dog barked excitedly, but he kept on going, scrambled over a fence and found himself ankle-deep in marsh water.

As he progressed, it grew deeper until he was floundering knee-deep, the brown water churning about his knees. He kept on moving over to his left, pausing occasionally to listen to the cries of his pursuers, but finally they faded and he was alone.

He could hear the waves breaking on the shore long before he saw them and then he came up out of the marsh, over a small sand dune and down on to the shore.

He started to trot along the wet sand as rain began to fall, lightly at first, and then with increasing force. Soon the fog started to lift.

He was beginning to feel tired and once he fell. When he got up, his legs were trembling slightly but he forced himself to break into a stumbling trot again.

His mouth was dry and there was a slight ache somewhere behind his right eye, but he kept on going because he had no choice. The hounds were in full cry now. It was with a sense of shock that he found himself knee-deep in water. At this point the sand ended and the sea swept in close against jagged rocks.

On the other side of them stood a boathouse stoutly constructed of weathered grey stone with a slipway running clear into green water.

A headland jutted out on the other side of the tiny cove and beyond it, chimney smoke lifted into the grey morning. When he turned and looked out to sea, there was Shayling Island, half-veiled in a curtain of rain.

He slid down the rocks knee-deep into water and plunged towards the slipway. The wooden door of the boathouse wasn’t padlocked, but he hadn’t expected it to be. Fishing communities were the same the world over. Boats were never kept under lock and key. Emergencies were too frequent.

He opened the doors wide and moved inside. There was a heavy fishing cobble which needed at least three men to handle it satisfactorily, but at one side, he found a small sailing dinghy.

The wind was freshening, lifting the waves into white-caps as he ran the dinghy down into the water and stepped the mast. The sail billowed out as soon as he unfurled it and the dinghy heeled slightly and water poured over the gunn’l. He adjusted his weight to compensate and a moment later, moved out of the cove into the North Sea.

He had last sailed a dinghy off Cape Cod during long summer holidays as a boy, but never in weather like this. The light craft wasn’t built for it and bucked wildly over the waves, shipping water constantly.

Within a short time he was soaked to the skin and bitterly cold. He hung on desperately to the tiller as the wind freshened and the waves began to chop menacingly.

Through the curtain of rain, the island loomed larger. Great cliffs lifted out of the sea and at their feet, the waves rolled in to dash upon jagged, dangerous-looking rocks.

There was no sign of a landing place. He tried to trim the sail to follow the shoreline, but the wind was too strong for him and suddenly, the cliffs were no more than a hundred yards away.

He dropped the sail hurriedly and reached for the oars, but it was too late. He was caught in a giant hand and carried helplessly in.

Strange, swirling currents twisted him in a circle and there was a hollow, slapping sound against the keel of the boat. At one side, the water broke suddenly, white spray foaming high in the air, while all around him, white patches appeared and rocks showed through as the tide went out.

The dinghy slewed broadside on into the surf, lifted high and smashed down against a great green slab of rock. Brady disappeared over the stern into a cauldron of boiling water.

He tried to stand up. All around him, boulders were appearing and disappearing as the waves foamed over them and then he was lifted with irresistible force and carried over the reef towards the base of the cliffs.

The water receded with a great sucking sound and he hooked his fingers into the gravel and forced himself to his knees.

He lurched forward, scrambling desperately over the rocks. A moment later, the water boiled waist-high again, tugging at his limbs with great curling fingers that tried to take him out to sea. He grabbed at a crevasse in a boulder and hung on.

As the water receded, he forced himself forward over the final line of jagged rocks. A moment later, he was safe on the narrow strip of beach at the base of the cliffs.

He sat down, holding his head in his hands, and the world spun away into the roaring of the sea and the taste of it was in his throat and he retched, bringing up a great quantity of salt water.

After a while he got to his feet and turned to examine the cliffs behind him. They were no more than seventy or eighty feet high and sloped gently backwards, cracked and fissured with great gullies.

It was an easy enough climb, but he was tired — very tired. The sea still roared in his ears and there was an element of unreality to everything as if none of this were really happening to him.

What am I doing here? he asked himself. There was no answer. No answer at all and he hauled himself over the edge of the cliff and sprawled face down in the wet grass.