The Follower (20 page)

‘Ellie, Ellie; it’s me, Mark.’

At the fourth door he was answered by a little cry. His heart beating rapidly, he threw the door open and entered the room. Ellie was running towards him.

‘Mark!’

She threw herself into his arms, clinging to him like a child rescued from the terrors of darkness.

‘Oh, Mark, Mark, darling…’

HE held her close to him, kissing her mouth, feeling her heart beating rapidly. He knew there was no time. He should be planning to get her out of the house, to Oscar’s car and back to the safety of Acapulco. But there had to be this moment. She was dressed in a cool white summer suit. She looked lovely, immaculate. He let his hands slide down her back, remembering the lines of her body, restoring her from shadow to reality.

‘I saw you arrive,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Out of the window. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Oh, Mark, darling, how did you get here?’

‘It wasn’t easy, but I made it.’

‘In Mexico I had a kind of dream that you were there, but it didn’t seem real.’

‘And I never dreamed you were here until I got that note. How did you manage to get it to me?’

‘I gave the houseboy my — my sapphire ring.’ She held up her hand to show that the ring was gone. Her eyes were veiled with a curious expression almost of dread as if he were her executioner rather than her deliverer. ‘Oh, Mark, there’s so much to explain.’

‘Just a couple of things now. The rest can wait. They kidnapped you and had Frankie impersonate you? Why?’

You don’t know?’

‘I don’t really know anything.’

She gave a little gesture with her hand. ‘One night I got high. I gambled at the Lorton Club. I lost…’

‘I know that.’

‘I couldn’t pay. I got scared. I ran away. Victor sent someone after me.’

‘George.’

‘Yes, George. He was supposed to kill me. But, since I was here in Mexico, they thought out this other idea.’

‘What other idea?’

‘I didn’t know at first. All the time I was shut up in that house in Mexico City they kept me drugged or something. It it was only when they brought me here that Mr Riley explained. It’s dope.’

‘Narcotics ?’

‘Victor isn’t just in the gambling racket. He runs dope into the States too. He brings it in most through Mexico, from here, from Senor Gonzales’ yacht. Mr Riley is the middleman. Apparently he has carriers bringing it across the border all the time. And now Gonzales has a shipment of heroin. I — I don’t really understand, but it seems to be terribly valuable. Victor wanted to be extra careful with it so he thought out the idea for Frankie to take it across pretending to be me — because I’m fairly well known. Eleanor Ross. The Customs wouldn’t think about searching Mrs Mark Liddon.’

So he knew the explanation at last. It was as simple and sordid as this.

‘Oh, Mark,’ Ellie was clinging to his arm. ‘It’s been so terrible. When they brought me here and told me everything, they said they would have killed me if I’d been anyone else. But Victor didn’t want them to because — because I’d been a friend. They threatened me, though. They said they would still kill me unless I promised never to say anything and not to try to get away until they had got the shipment safely through. I promised. Of course I did. So I’m all right. But it’s different with you. You’ve been fighting against them. You could ruin everything for them. They know that. That’s why they lured you here — to kill you.’ She shook her head despairingly. ‘Oh, darling, darling, you’ve got to try to escape.’

Of course they would escape — together. Because he’d found her, because he knew the dirty truth behind Frankie’s duplicity at last, he felt immensely confident. He saw too, with grim pleasure, that he had a chance to smash Victor’s racket. The function of the two identical radios was obvious now.

The meeting at the Belvedere had been a precautionary measure played out in case of spying eyes. The distinguished Mrs Mark Liddon, staying as a tourist at the Casa Miranda Hotel, had casually run into the distinguished Senor Gonzales who had invited, her to lunch at his villa. Mrs Mark Liddon had taken her chic portable radio — but a switch would have been made. Gonzales’ radio — the one which Mark had with him — was the dummy, the carrier for the narcotic shipment.

While Ellie watched anxiously, he moved to the window. It faced into the front yard. Immediately underneath, less than five feet below, was the sloping roof of the entrance porch. The limousine which had brought Victor had disappeared and there was no one in sight. Escape seemed ludicrously, almost suspiciously simple.

He crossed back to Ellie. ‘Oscar’s waiting out there in a car. At least I’m almost sure he is. All we’ve got to do is to get out of here and run.’

‘But Mark
…
‘ She gazed at him uncertainly

He kissed her. ‘Don’t be scared, baby. It’s a cinch.’

Picking up the radio, he put an arm around her and drew her to the window. For a moment she hesitated; then, with a fleeting smile at him, she climbed over the sill and dropped on to the porch roof. He followed with the radio. In a few seconds they had both slid down the narrow pillars of the porch and were running towards the cover of the orange trees.

Any minute he expected some uproar from the house behind them. But nothing happened. Once again he had the uneasy suspicion that this was all too simple. They reached the grove. The brilliant sunshine, filtering through the leaves, made the ripe oranges burn brassily. The air was sweet with the fragrance of orange blossom. It was like running through some insane wedding bouquet. They came to a low wall which marked the edge of the property. Beyond it he could see the oleanders. He vaulted the wall and turned to help Ellie over it. They pushed their way through the tangled bushes and then, ahead, he caught a glimpse of shiny green metal.

In a few seconds they were out on the track, and there was the Buick with Oscar at the wheel.

Relief surged through him. Mark put the radio in the back seat and grinned at Oscar.

‘So you made it. Wonderful.’

The boy did not return his smile. The expression of outraged martyrdom which he had worn at the Casa Miranda was still on his face. Mark remembered the confiscated wallet and pulled it out of his pocket.

The instant he saw it, Oscar beamed with delight. His small hand shot out for it. In his eagerness, he knocked it from Mark’s fingers and it fell on to the ground. As Mark stooped to pick it up, something small and sparkling rolled out of it and disappeared under a dead leaf. He pushed the leaf back and picked the object up. He saw what it was and, for a moment, his heart seemed to stop.

The thing which had rolled from Oscar’s wallet was Ellie’s sapphire ring.

In those first seconds, as he stared at it, gleaming darkly in his palm, he could impose no pattern on his confused thoughts.

The ring had fallen out of Oscar’s wallet. Oscar’s wallet had been in his own pocket ever since he had taken it from the boy outside the Casa Miranda. And yet Ellie had said she had given the ring only half an hour ago to Gonzales’ houseman.

All he could master at this stage was the fact that Ellie had lied. She must have lied. There was no possible doubt about it.

He turned to her, holding out the ring. He mustn’t think what he was thinking. He must wait, not feel, wait and see what would happen.

In a very quiet voice, he remarked: ‘You said you gave this to Gonzales’ houseman?’

He had been hoping against hope that the question would not jolt her, that her face would not change. But the look of dread which had been there up in the room was back in her eyes. She took a step towards him, gesturing weakly.

‘I - I can explain. I said that, yes. But - I was only thinking of you. Mark, I had to get you out. I…’

The truth was beginning to dawn on him very slowly. It was like the first hint of a pain which would inevitably grow and grow until it became unendurable.

‘Mark, listen to me … ‘

He turned from her to Oscar, who was still sitting in the car, watching.

‘Okay, Oscar - how did you get this ring?’

Ellie spun around. ‘No, Oscar. Don’t.’

She took a step towards the car, but Mark pushed past her and gripped Oscar’s shoulders.

‘Tell me. And tell! me the exact truth. How did you get this ring?’

Already, even without a word from Oscar, he almost knew. How could there be more than one explanation? Last night in Mexico City, when he had left Ellie, supposedly, doped and asleep, at the Hotel Mirador, the ring had been on her finger. He had seen it gleaming in the light from the bedside lamp. According to her story - according to what he had believed - Frankie and George had come then and kidnapped her again. If that had been true, how possibly could the ring have got into Oscar’s wallet?

The pain was getting stronger and stronger - that pain without any particular focus that in the end was going to overwhelm him.

‘Tell me, Oscar,’ he insisted.

The boy glanced from Ellie’s white face to Mark. Then, with a little shrug, he said: ‘If I must choose … then, Mr Liddon, you are more my friend than Mrs Liddon. She gave it to me - last night.’

It was coming. ‘When?’

‘Just before you arrived with your gun at the Hotel Granada, she telephoned to me. She said, if I went to George and Frankie and told them I had taken her back to my house she would give me the ring. Later, after you’d left to go to George’s apartment, she came to the hotel. She gave me the ring.’

She
came
to the hotel. Ellie, whom he had left doped, incoherent, lying like a corpse in the bed at the Mirador!

Oscar’s voice went on: ‘I did what she told me. I went around to Bolivar 45. George and Frankie were coming out to go to their car. I told them I had Mrs Liddon back at my house. I told the story most well so that they believe me. Then - I went upstairs and helped you to escape.’

Mark had given up struggling now. This was the truth. It was a truth bitter as strychnine, but he had to swallow it.

When Frankie had told him at the Belvedere that Ellie was back at Oscar’s house it had seemed the flimsiest of all her flimsy lies. It had, of course, been a lie. But it hadn’t been Frankie’s lie. It had been a lie which she had believed to be the truth, a lie which had been deliberately manufactured by Ellie and Oscar.

He could see the whole picture now. It was a picture shockingly unlike anything he had ever imagined. He had thought it was Frankie who had telephoned Victor from the Hotel Mirador last night. But it had been Ellie. It was Ellie who had played a gigantic hoax that had fooled them all.

It wasn’t Frankie who was Victor’s ally. It was Ellie.

Oscar was looking at him beseechingly. ‘Mr Liddon, was such a pretty ring. Always I want so much a sapphire ring. Was it then bad what I did? Was it bad against you — my friend?’

It seemed preposterous that even Oscar could be caring about Oscar at that moment. Okay, the boy had been playing all of them against each other. With his immense talent for intrigue, he had kept himself on a three-way payroll. But who cared? Venality was Oscar’s function in life, anyway. Who cared about Oscar?

He made himself turn to Ellie although it took almost more strength than he had left. There seemed to be some block to his vision. He was looking at her, but she seemed quite different, small, insubstantial like a ghost with great staring eyes in a thin, gaunt face.

Slowly, forming each word with an effort, he said: ‘Last night — when I saved you from Oscar’s house, you were only pretending to be doped.’

Her hand fluttered out to him. Her voice sounded quite different too — thin, almost piping like a ghost’s voice.

‘Mark, if only you’ll listen … ‘

He went relentlessly on, snapping fact after fact into place. ‘Everything you told me back in that room was a lie — a distortion. Frankie wasn’t going to carry that heroin for Victor. It was you. You were going to do it yourself.’

‘Mark
      
…’

‘You came from New York to do it. Then Frankie and George managed to stop you and Frankie took your place. When I rescued you, you wanted to be rescued, but you didn’t want me. I was just something in the way — something to be got rid of as soon as possible so you could carry on for Victor. You just pretended to fall asleep at the Hotel Mirador last night; probably you let that picture drop out of the compact on purpose so that I’d find out that George was Victor’s barman and go chasing after George. Because you wanted to get me out of the room, didn’t you? So you could call Victor. So you could tell him: “Look, George and Frankie kidnapped me but I’ve escaped. I’m on the job again. Of course, there’s that lug of a husband of mine blundering around, lousing things up, but I can take care of him. Okay, Victor, I’m free again. What’s the order of the day?”’

She opened her mouth to speak, but he went on:

‘And now, here at the villa, you weren’t any prisoner up there. You were just one of the kids, one of Victor’s cozy little clique. Oh God, you said when you saw me, here comes the old water-buffalo lumbering in again. Let’s write it a note and send it shambling away.’

He hadn’t wanted to be bitter, but the bitterness flowed out from some secret part of him, turning everything sour.

Ellie was crying. Dimly he was aware of it. And dimly her thin, piping ghost’s voice trailed through to him.

‘If you’ll listen — Mark, if only you’ll listen to me. Yes, I did all that. I said I’d carry the dope for Victor. But it was only because he made me, he forced me. If I didn’t, he said, he’d tell you — tell you dreadful things about me. He’d make it, he said, so’s you’d never want even to touch me again. Mark, he forced me. Don’t you see? I loved you. I love you. To do this for Victor, to settle the score — that was my only hope to keep him quiet, to save our marriage. And now, up in that room, I couldn’t tell you the truth. How could I? If I did, you’d have despised me, I’d have lost everything I’d been fighting for. But I wanted you to escape because there is terrible danger for you here. So I wrote that note to save you. Oh, Mark, if you’d try to believe me…’

He was only half listening, only half understanding. She’d done all these things to save their marriage — because she loved him. She was saying that again. If she hadn’t squared Victor, he’d have told things that would have made Mark hate her. What things? What could Victor possibly have to say that could make any difference? There was still so much he didn’t understand. Maybe, eventually, it would all be of terrible importance. But he couldn’t cope with it now.