Free Battle for Inspector West by John Creasey Page A

whose picture had hung in the wardrobe. Chin-chin Chinaman. He stood there like a statue, without speaking, without grinning.
    She seemed frozen. She could not move, could only stare at him.
    Why didn’t he move? Speak? Do something, anything – instead of just standing there, within a foot of the divan. He seemed to be staring through her – no, to be stripping her with his eyes. She felt as if she were in the presence of something unclean.
    The door behind him closed.
    Just when she thought that she could not stand it any longer, when she felt a scream forming in her throat, his lips moved.
    He spoke in a peculiar voice, as if he had a severe cold.
    â€˜So, Mrs Grant,’ he said.
    Three simple words; and yet he managed to put evil into them, to touch each one with horror. There was a sneer and a malice in them. ‘So, Mrs Grant.’ Just that, and it seemed to emphasize her helplessness, to remind her that she was completely in his power, that there was nothing he could not and would not do.
    â€˜You are comfortable?’
    Three more sneering words. ‘You are comfortable, but you will not be for long,’ he might have said. ‘You must not be stubborn,’ he said aloud, and moved nearer.
    Her scream came out, high, shrill.
    Carosi did not change his expression as he looked intently into her eyes, and he did not stop moving. He drew near to the side of the divan and then put out his arm and pressed her gently at the breast. Gently. Gently, but with such a threat of what he could do.
    â€˜You are comfortable?’ he said again.
    â€˜Yes—yes!’ she gasped. ‘Thank you, I—thank you.’
    â€˜You will remain comfortable if you are not difficult,’ he said, as if speaking hurt his throat. ‘I do not want you here alone for long; I wish your husband to join you. You will do exactly what you are told. You understand?’
    â€˜Yes!’
    â€˜I hope that you do,’ said Carosi, very precisely, ‘because if you do not, you will not be comfortable.’
    Now, he eased the terror a little, perhaps because he made it seem that he meant just what he said. She could not think of Michael, only of her terror.
    â€˜You have read the newspapers?’ he asked.
    â€˜Yes—yes, of course!’
    â€˜I bring you something else to read,’ said Carosi.
    He took a slim volume from beneath his coat. The title meant nothing to her: Records. She stretched out for the book because he seemed to expect it, and he appeared to be going to let her take it, then snatched it away and tapped her across the head with it. A corner caught her in the eye, which began to sting and to water, and involuntarily she closed the other eye. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see what he was going to do. She pressed one hand against the stinging eye and made herself open the other. She could only see through a mist of tears, couldn’t see clearly, still couldn’t see him.
    And then she could see.
    He had gone, without a sound.
    She lay in a daze for a long time, and then began to realise the significance of what he had said, of the awful danger for Mike. She didn’t want to think about it. She clenched her hands, and her fingers touched the book which he had left beside her.
    Records.
    She opened it at random, to do anything but think.
    There were two photographs, each taking up a full page. On the left-hand side was a young girl dressed in a swimsuit. She looked no more than twenty, and promised all the gaiety that one would expect in a young girl. On the opposite page was another photograph of a woman, dressed in a cloak which reached the ground. Her face looked old and careworn. She was smiling, and that made the expression worse, there was only misery in her; it was as if someone had ordered her to smile and she had tried, but the camera had seen through the twist of the lips to the unhappiness beyond.
    Beneath this photograph was a date: 1949. And