Free Trusted Like The Fox by James Hadley Chase Page A

at him.
    “There’s time,” she returned. “We’ll go on as soon as I’ve rested, but they’re not likely to come before nine. That gives us more than two hours.”
    “It’s all very fine for you to talk,” he exploded. “You’re not crippled. You can talk about time. You can run if they come, but I can’t; I’m stuck!”
    “It’ll be all right,” she said quietly, soothingly. “We’ll find somewhere to hide in the wood. I’m not going to run away.”
    That was really what he wanted to know. He would have liked to have asked her why she wasn’t going to run away, but he thought it might not be safe. She might stop to think why she was staying with him, and realise that she had no reason to; that she could leave him now and make sure of getting away. If she couldn’t see that he wasn’t going to point it out to her.
    “I’m not leaving you,” she said suddenly, answering his unspoken question. She looked him straight in the face. “You helped me . . . gave me food. The least I can do is to help you now, although you haven’t been very nice to me.” She bit her lip, flushed. “But then I’m used to that,” she added without bitterness. “No one has ever been kind to me. It’s funny, but you’ve been nicer to me than anyone else I’ve known.”
    He thought of the squashed pie he had flung at her. He saw her sitting on the floor eating the broken jam tart from the sticky paper bag. “You helped me. You’ve been nicer to me than anyone else I’ve known.” All right, if she was such a fool to take that kind of treatment he’d give her some more of it.
    “Well, get on,” he said roughly. “I don’t want to listen to a lot of slop. You’ve rested long enough. Get on!”
    Meekly she picked up the rope, turned and began to drag the stretcher once more over the grass. Now that it was slightly downhill the stretcher moved more easily, but it was still desperately hard work.
    But she went on and on, staggering sometimes, slipping, panting. The progress was sure. The wood came nearer and nearer until she reached the shade of the first line of trees. She flopped down, her head drooping, her lungs almost bursting. He could see she was utterly spent, so he said nothing. He stared at the wood with suspicious eyes, waited impatiently.
    There was a thick, uneasy feeling in his stomach and the light airy faintness inside his head worried him. He was hot; his skin felt dry, and every now and then a shiver would run through him. He imagined himself spending days in the open, getting steadily worse until the girl, losing her nerve, went for help.
    With fingers that trembled he took out a carton of Player’s, lit one. When he inhaled the smoke, the trees and the sky seemed to get mixed up and spin before his eyes. He continued to smoke, not caring how he felt until the sour sickness rose in his mouth, forcing him to throw the cigarette away, and to lie still, fighting his queasy stomach.
    Grace was on her feet now. She moved into the wood, but he was feeling too bad to care where she went. He shut his eyes and waited.
    She seemed to be away a long time, and when she did come back she had to shake him gently before he opened his eyes.
    He heard her say something but he couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell him.
    “I’m going to be ill,” he muttered. “I’ve got a fever. Don’t bother me with anything. You’ll have to do it all yourself.”
    He felt the cool firm hand on his forehead.
    “If you get a doctor we’re sunk,” he rambled on. “Do you understand? You’ve got to work this out yourself. I’d rather die than be caught.”
    “You won’t die,” she said. Her voice sounded as if she were in a long tunnel, she at one end, he at the other. “I won’t let you die.”
    Ellis sneered wearily and closed his eyes.
     

PART TWO

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    “Don’t bother me with anything. You’ll have to do it all yourself,” Ellis had said, and Grace accepted the trust without