Field of Fire by Roderic Jeffries

Author:Roderic Jeffries [Jeffries, Roderic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-05-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The telephone rang. Matilda Appleton looked across the room. “You’d better answer that, Eric.”

He wondered whether to point out it was probably for her, since Clara usually rang at about this time, but finally kept silent, as he usually did. Bitter experience had taught him that the easiest way through life was to do as she said.

He left the sitting-room and went into the hall. The telephone was on a corner shelf, together with a small tank of tropical fish.

“’Ullo, Eric. Seen any nice photos recent?”

He stared wildly at the sitting-room door to make certain it was shut. He’d believed the ghastly nightmare was almost over, yet now . . . now the crude, jeering voice told him it wasn’t. “What . . .? Who is it? he asked, his voice thick.

“The bleeding prime minister.” There was a hoarse chuckle, as if that really had been humorous. “I wants a word with you, Eric boy, so take a walk to the end of your road.”

“D’you mean now?”

“Unless you wants them photos on show?”

He slowly replaced the receiver with shaking hands. What did they want this time? Money? He hadn’t any. Another heart-stopping order to break into a desk?

He returned to the sitting-room and said he was going out just for a few minutes.

“Where?” demanded Matilda. Had she married a man of different character, she would probably have made him a warm, loving wife: but early in marriage she’d been disgusted by her husband’s strange sexual appetites and now she seldom missed a chance to humiliate him.

“I want to post a letter,” he said.

“You’ve missed the last post.”

He flapped his arms. “It doesn’t matter. I feel like a bit of exercise.”

“That’s unusual.” she studied him closely. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Tom.”

“Him! I do wish he wouldn’t keep bothering us. You might tell him that.”

“Yes, dear.” He’d managed to divert her attention by mentioning Tom: she thought the other man a crude fool. He left the room.

There was little traffic along the road at night and only a couple of cars had passed him by the time he reached the end. Few cars were parked because all the houses had garages and so he immediately identified the waiting Ford. His footsteps dragged. Vainly and stupidly his mind filled with the desperate wish that he’d never gone to Melissa Lockwood’s

The near-side door of the Ford opened. There was enough light from a nearby street lamp for him to see that the driver was young and smooth and the man in the back seat was large, ugly in a granite-like way, and obviously tough. He was ordered inside.

The car drove away from the pavement quickly and smoothly. He asked in a quavering voice what they wanted, but the answer he got was an unintelligible grunt from the man by his side. He stared through the windows, very frightened though not for the right reasons, and followed out their route along roads he knew well. They left Fortrow and drove up into the hills and when they reached a small plantation of conifers that bordered the road, they stopped.

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