Free The Old Vengeful by Anthony Price Page B

“They’re all new to me.”
    “What about her ?”
    “You may well ask!” Pause.
    “What d’you mean?”
    Elizabeth held her breath.
    “They were just about to do something very nasty to her when I crashed their party.” Pause. “I tell you, Aske … whatever they want here, they want it badly, and that’s the truth.”
    “What sort of state is she in?”
    “Not bad, considering what she’s been through—and considering what I’ve done to her, filling her up with brandy while she’s still in shock. I wanted her to talk—and now I can’t stop her.”
    “Charming! What are you going to do to her next?”
    A tear ran down Elizabeth’s cheek. He had been so kind and sympathetic, she had thought. And she had confided in him.
    “I’m not going to do anything to her—you are.” Pause. “I’m going to take this house apart.”
    “And just what exactly am I going to do to her?”
    “Take her to the safe house. David Audley will have to decide what to do with her after that.”
    “And if she doesn’t want to go?”
    Elizabeth’s knees weakened, and she slid down the wall to the floor.
    “She’s in no condition to argue,” said Paul Mitchell harshly. “Tell her it’s for her own good—tell her anything you bloody-well like, Aske. But just get her out of here.”
    “Mmm … well, if this massacre is anything to go by, it probably is for her own good. Because, I must say … it does rather look as though the Russians mean business this time, old boy.”
    The Russians? She must have misheard—the Russians didn’t make sense … But then nothing made sense.
    “For God’s sake don’t mention the Russians—I didn’t mean that. She’s frightened enough as it is, I don’t want her to have hysterics,” Paul Mitchell whispered angrily.
    She hadn’t misheard. It still made no sense, but she hadn’t misheard.
    “She’s the hysterical type is she? Just my luck! And Bannen tells me she’s plain as a pikestaff, too,” groaned Aske. “All right—let’s get it over.”
    Elizabeth closed her eyes for an instant. Then, because she didn’t trust her legs, she began to crawl back towards her chair.
    She wasn’t going to have hysterics—she wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction: that was what anger did for her.
    On the other hand, the way she felt, she was about to be unpleasantly sick to her stomach.

IV
    ONE THING SHE had learnt in nearly 24 hours, thought Elizabeth, was that none of them looked like any sort of policeman—not hateful Dr Mitchell, not polite Mr Aske and monosyllabic Mr Bannen, and certainly not the man in the doorway.
    “Good afternoon, Miss Loftus.” He closed the door behind him. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting so long.”
    The voice was wrong. He was a big ugly broken-nosed boxer running to seed, in an old shirt with a frayed collar and a pair of clean but paint-spotted khaki slacks. But for that tell-tale Oxbridge voice he could have been the gorilla-man of hideous memory from yesterday.
    “But we’ve had a lot to do, and Sunday isn’t the best day for doing it—please don’t get up—“ he motioned with his hand as she started to move “—not if you’re comfortable where you are.”
    Elizabeth rose from the scatter of Sunday papers on the carpet around her. Mr Aske had said his boss was coming, it was almost the only thing he had said. And this gentle-voiced paint-spotted thug was that man, those words and that voice both told her—and therefore more to be feared than any of them.
    “I’m afraid you’ve had a bad time—and I don’t suppose we’ve made it seem any better … Do please sit down—“ he indicated the one comfortable chair in the bedroom “—and then I shall be able to sit down too.”
    Elizabeth pulled the stool from under the dressing table and sat on it. It seemed strange to her, with all she wanted to say, that no words came to her at all. But then, when she began to think about it, silence seemed quite sensible.
    The