The Linden Tree Read online

  Part of me wanted to do just that – had wanted to do it ever since the man first spoke to me. But if I left him now, I would in effect be betraying the trust he had put in me.

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t reassure a frightened animal and then go off and leave it defenceless in full view of its enemies, and I certainly wasn’t going to do it to a man. But if I wasn’t going to run, I had to protect him to the best of my ability.

  As he said, their field-glasses would show them clearly that we were not the friendly couple that they might have assumed at first glance. If I continued to sit several feet from him, stiff with unease, they might well begin to look at him more closely.

  Whatever had happened to make them follow him, whatever he’d done or not done, I no longer feared him; I was afraid for him.

  The man with the glasses was slowly turning towards us, taking in every detail of the landscape. His companion, the one with his hand in his pocket, was already looking in our direction. He raised his other hand to point, and in a sudden rush of compassion I bent over the man beside me, placed my arm across his shoulders and let my long dark hair fall in a concealing curtain about his head.

  I stayed still for what seemed like several minutes, terrified that if I looked up it would be to find the men advancing towards us. He was as tense as I was, hardly breathing. My lips were within an inch of his sweat-streaked cheek, my arm was pressed against the shoulder of his damp tee-shirt, but I felt no revulsion, only anxiety. Then, inch by cautious inch, I raised my head sufficiently to peer through the veil of my hair.

  Unbelievably, it had worked.

  I sat up, smiling with overwhelming relief as I saw the backs of the two men moving at a determined jog towards the woods.

  ‘They’ve gone!’ I breathed.

  He raised himself on his elbow and stared after them in awed surprise. ‘Incredible …’ He sat up and looked at me with a wide, slow smile. ‘You were wonderful, you helped me far more than I had any right to hope for. Thank you, I’m more grateful than I can say.’

  I felt absurdly pleased with myself. I’d been right, after all, to trust him; and having seen the gorillas who were on his heels, I felt sure I’d been justified in protecting him. The combination of my own smugness and his appreciative smile made me feel positively light-headed, but he jumped to his feet and reminded me of the reality of the situation.

  ‘I must go, while their backs are turned. Can you tell me where the nearest telephone box is? Once I can call some friends I’ll be able to get this whole wretched business sorted out.’

  ‘There’s one down on the promenade, beyond the putting green. But look –’ I was thinking quickly, curious to discover what the chase was all about, anxious to help if I could and – yes, I acknowledged that too – reluctant to see him disappear, ‘– look, I’m staying in a house a good deal nearer than that. Why don’t you come and telephone from there?’

  ‘May I? I’d be grateful.’

  I led the way quickly across the grass in the direction of the lane. We could see the two men far ahead and to our left, about to enter the wood; but as they approached it, they turned to look behind them.

  I broke into a run. Probably that was foolish; it would have been more sensible of me to hang back and try to give the appearance that we were simply walking together, but instinctively I began the long run for home. The men watched, one of them lifting his field-glasses, and then they too began to run, cutting diagonally ahead of us across the grass towards the far end of the lane.

  I ran faster, alarm pumping adrenalin into my system and giving me a turn of speed I’d never realized I possessed. My companion was beside me as we approached the pavilion, and when I pointed wordlessly towards the lane he caught my hand and took the lead, almost pulling me after him.

  Even though there were no people in sight, the sheltered lane spelled safety. Here were gardens and houses, telephones and sanity. I slowed, gasping for breath.

  He turned to me urgently. ‘One of these houses?’

  I nodded, hardly able to formulate the words. ‘… On the next corner … white lilac at the gate …’

  I forced myself to stumble on in his wake, though my side was stitched with cramp and if he hadn’t been holding my hand so firmly I’d have doubled up minutes ago. We reached the corner, ducking under the overhanging lilac, and I fumbled for the latch of the back gate, thinking that we were safe.

  But at that moment two men pushed their way through the hawthorn hedge just in front of us, hefty men, as gorilla-like as I’d guessed from a distance. They advanced, smiling triumphantly. One of them was holding a hard-edged object in his jacket pocket, and neither of them took his eyes off the man who was with me.

  I slipped through the gate and held it open for him. ‘Run!’ I gasped. ‘I’ll go and ring the police!’

  None of them took any notice of me. The man with his hand in his pocket was speaking. ‘Very ingenious,’ he said. ‘You nearly had us fooled, this time. But not quite ingenious enough, I’m afraid.’

  My companion laughed.

  Not defiantly, nor ironically; but pleasantly, though shortness of breath made it difficult. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘I can’t expect to win them all.’

  ‘A good try, though,’ the gorilla conceded. He drew his hand from his pocket. In it was a heavy metal cigarette case. He flicked it open and offered it. ‘Cigarette, sir?’

  My companion shook his head, pointing to his chest. ‘When I’ve been running until my lungs ache? What are you trying to do, Carter, kill me?’

  And then all three of them burst out laughing.

  My knees sagged. I leaned on the gate for support, staring incredulously from one to another. The hefty man called Carter turned to me almost immediately, with a smile that relieved the stolidness of his heavy face.

  ‘Sorry, Miss. Do you smoke?’

  I stared blankly at the cigarette case and then at the man beside me. ‘Do you mind,’ I said, trying to make it icy and dignified, but humiliated to hear that I was quavering with lack of breath and fury, ‘do you mind telling me exactly what’s going on?’

  Carter coughed over the cigarette he was lighting and said: ‘Didn’t Mr Allen explain? It’s an escape and evasion exercise.’

  I began to splutter with indignation and my companion intervened quickly. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll explain it all in a minute.’ He turned to the men. ‘Thanks for the run, both of you.’

  ‘Pleasure, sir,’ said the broken-nosed man with the field-glasses. ‘Always glad of a day out,’ he added hopefully, ‘any time.’

  ‘Well, we’d better be getting back,’ said Carter. ‘I’ll bring your car round to the front gate, Mr Allen.’ He nodded at me approvingly, the broken-nosed man gave me a friendly, crooked smile, and they walked away shoulder to shoulder down the lane.

  Allen looked at me apologetically. ‘Sorry about all this. Perhaps I could come in and explain … ?’

  I straightened, closed the gate firmly between us and gave him a more unwelcoming look than I’d ever managed to achieve at Drama School classes; but then, this time I meant it.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you set foot in the house,’ I said. ‘Just because I stupidly believed your story out there on the cliff, and let you make a fool of me, you needn’t think I’m going to invite you in! I’m not in the habit of entertaining perfect strangers. I think you’d better go, immediately, before I call the police.’

  He smiled. ‘Oh, they know me anyway. I’m a local man. And you know me too, or rather you did once. Have you forgotten me completely, Alison?’

  Chapter Three

  I stared at him with uneasy hostility, and then remembered. Of course. The Allen family had a farm only a couple of miles from my aunt’s house. When I came to stay during the school holidays, I used to go to the farm to ride one of their ponies. I’d been pony mad at ten and eleven.

  But when I was twelve, the pony suddenly lost his place in my affections. I fell in love with Simon Allen. He w
as training as an RAF pilot: almost twenty, very tall, very dark, head-spinningly handsome. For years, Simon was the focus of my adolescent dreams and I decided, dramatically, that if I couldn’t marry him I’d renounce marriage altogether. Even now, although it was years since I’d seen or consciously thought about him, I realized that I subconsciously measured the men I met against his remembered image, and invariably found them wanting.

  Memory plays tricks, of course. I had no doubt that Simon now, in the flesh, would prove to be a good deal less god-like than I remembered. But I couldn’t believe that he’d shrunk to a moderate six feet, that his hair had become straighter, his eyes lighter, his features more angular; on the other hand, if Simon had been equipped with those lashes, I’d surely have remembered. I could swear that I’d never seen this man before in my life.

  And then I recalled something else. Simon had had a younger brother. Thinking hard, I could visualize a long-legged sixteen-year-old who had told silly schoolboy stories, played tiresome practical jokes and openly despised small girls. He had a small scar on his right cheek, caused by a fall from a high beam on to a piece of machinery in one of the farm barns, a scar that would always be visible to anyone who knew where to look.

  I peered up at his cheek. ‘Oh, it’s you, Nicolas,’ I said without enthusiasm.

  He lifted a finger to the scar. ‘You remembered it?’

  ‘Yes – I was there when you did it. You were showing off at the time by trying to run along the beam.’

  ‘That sounds likely,’ he admitted. ‘And I can remember your lack of sympathy – you took one look at me, shrieked and bolted.’

  ‘Yes, for help.’ I suddenly remembered the circumstances of our present meeting, and rounded on him. ‘Good grief,’ I exploded, ‘are you trying to tell me that you knew me as soon as you saw me? And yet you hadn’t the decency to say who you were – you went through that wickedly silly game, frightening the life out of me and making me behave like – like –’

  I subsided lamely, the memory of the way I had behaved making me hot with humiliation. There was a movement at my feet; the cat Tabitha was purling round my ankles, demanding attention. I bent to pick her up in an attempt to hide my mortified face, but she struggled indignantly to be put down at once. Nicolas Allen gave her a single chirrup, ‘Hallo, puss,’ and the treacherous little beast lifted herself to the top of the gate in one graceful spring and offered him the privilege of scratching her behind the ears.

  He addressed the cat. ‘I really do apologize, Alison,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid that I took advantage of your kindness. If it’s any consolation to you, though, Carter and Briggs didn’t realize that you didn’t know me. They assumed that you’d been waiting there to give me cover.’

  It was in fact a considerable consolation, though I had no intention of admitting it. ‘I think it was … contemptible of you to lie to me as you did,’ I said bitterly. ‘I never liked you as a boy, and the way we’ve met today hasn’t encouraged me to revise my opinion.’

  He gave a wry shrug. ‘That’s understandable. On the other hand, I’ve gained nothing but admiration for you. You showed kindness and generosity and courage – there’s nothing for you to regret or feel ashamed of about that, is there?’

  I refused to be mollified. ‘But all for an exercise – you frightened me and conned me into helping you just for a stupid game of some kind!’

  ‘Not entirely stupid. I borrowed the idea of escape and evasion exercises from my brother Simon. He’s an RAF pilot and they do these exercises as part of their training, to teach them how to evade capture if ever they should have to eject over enemy territory. It’s an excellent way of adding interest to cross-country running – it keeps you fit and makes you use your wits at the same time. It’s thirsty work though, running four or five miles. You couldn’t possibly see your way to letting me have a glass of water, I suppose?’

  I hesitated, reluctant to prolong the conversation; and then, for Simon’s sake, I opened the gate and said grudgingly, ‘You’d better come in.’

  Nicolas grinned with relief and ducked his way under the lilac. ‘Thank you. I was afraid for a moment that I’d offended you irreparably.’

  ‘Don’t think you haven’t,’ I snapped, marching ahead of him with practised dignity across the shaggy lawn that I’d conveniently forgotten I was supposed to cut. Tabitha led the way in high-tailed hope to the back door, pushed past me into the kitchen when I opened it and positioned herself pointedly by her empty dish.

  I handed Nicolas a glass, keeping unwelcomingly straightfaced, but as he moved towards the tap I relented a little.

  ‘There’s some orange juice in the fridge,’ I said ungraciously, stationing myself at the open door as a hint that he was not expected to prolong his visit.

  ‘Thank you. And you must be thirsty too.’ He went to take another glass from the dresser, but I shook my head. In fact I was as thirsty as Aunt Madge’s tray of seedlings that I’d only just that morning remembered to water, but I was determined not to make it a social occasion. All I wanted was to get rid of him as quickly as possible – but first I had to know the answer to a question that mystified me.

  ‘But what I don’t understand is how on earth you recognized me. It’s ten years since we met – you were usually away camping and climbing when I came here in my teens. And yet you knew me when you saw me on the cliff. It’s not possible.’

  Nicolas had taken the jar of orange juice from the refrigerator and helped himself with appalling generosity. I watched indignantly as my breakfasts for the remainder of the week disappeared down his throat in a long muscular swallow.

  He sighed appreciatively and put down his empty glass. ‘Delicious, thank you, just what I needed. Oh, I had no trouble in recognizing you. You’re an actress, after all, and that makes you in a sense public property. I saw you last month in that play at the Court – I’m not surprised that it folded, it really was terrible.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t say that you were terrible. The play didn’t give you much scope, though, did it? But you were as convincing as you could be in the circumstances, and at least you looked decorative.’

  I gave him a very thin smile. An uncomfortable thought had sowed itself in my mind, taken root and now began to blossom. ‘All right, so you’d seen me on stage,’ I said slowly. ‘You knew me by sight. But surely you’d have been surprised when you found that I was the girl on the cliff … unless, of course, you’d been watching me and saw me go there …?’

  Nicolas had pulled on his blue sweater and carelessly brushed an untidy wedge of dark hair out of his eyes with his fingers. Now he folded his arms and leaned comfortably against the dresser. ‘You’re right,’ he said calmly. ‘I have been keeping an eye on you. You spent every afternoon this week on the cliff, so I knew I had a pretty good chance of finding you there today.’

  ‘You’ve been –!’ He was even more brazen than I’d suspected. ‘You have the effrontery to stand there and tell me that you’ve been spying on me!’

  ‘Oh, not spying,’ he reproved. ‘Simply taking an understandable interest in an attractive girl who used to be a childhood friend.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ I retorted. ‘We were never friends and you know it. And if you simply wanted to meet me, why not come backstage at the theatre? Or why not write, care of my aunt? Come off it, Nicolas, you’ve conned me long enough. What exactly is it that you’re after?’

  ‘Strange as it may seem,’ he said with a deprecating smile, ‘your help. No –’ he lifted his hand as I started to say something indignant, ‘– it isn’t for myself, so there’s no need to tell me what you think of my behaviour. It’s a girl of about your own age who needs the help. Look, why don’t we sit down while I tell you about it?’

  I sat down, rather suddenly, on the bench at the pine table. I was tired, thirsty and thoroughly confused. The cat had been making herself persistently tall and agreeable round Nicolas’s legs ever since he opened the refrigerator, and no
w he took it upon himself to open it again and pour some milk into her dish. She settled to it eagerly, her ringed tail gradually subsiding as she concentrated her energy on the art of lapping.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ he offered me hospitably before putting the milk bottle away. I nodded. He filled and switched on the kettle and began to ferret for the teapot, and I was too bemused to offer any guidance.

  ‘When you want to enlist anyone’s help, Nicolas,’ I said, trying to be patient and reasonable, ‘do you usually make a point of approaching them in the way you approached me this afternoon?’

  ‘Very rarely,’ he said cheerfully, putting far too much tea in the pot. ‘There was a good reason for my behaviour this afternoon, though. I knew what you looked like, you see, and I knew your background, but nothing at all about your character. There would be no point in discussing the matter with you if you were a shy or timid girl, and if your reaction to fear was to scream and run. I had to find out what kind of person you are, and the best way to do that seemed to be to put you under some kind of stress. That was why I thought up the escape and evasion exercise and persuaded you that it was for real. I know that it was unfair of me to mislead you and I apologize for it. If you’d panicked, I wouldn’t have bothered you any further. As it is, since you acted with courage and presence of mind, I know that you’re the ideal person for the job.’

  ‘The job?’

  ‘The job of giving help. Sugar?’

  I shook my head impatiently. ‘About this girl – ?’

  ‘Ah yes.’ He put my cup in front of me and then took a photograph from his wallet. ‘Do you know her?’ he asked.

  I sipped the strong tea as I stared at the face that looked back at me. There was something extraordinarily familiar about the girl, though I couldn’t for the moment give her a name. She was in her early twenties, with long dark hair brushed straight back from an oval face, high cheekbones, a wide mouth, a tilted nose that, infuriatingly, suggested a comedienne rather than a serious actress …