"Mary Stewart - Madam Will You Talk [txt]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

"When was this?"
"Two days ago."
"Where?" The question was quiet, but somehow I could sense behind it some intolerable strain. I was reminded sharply again of David.
"In Tarascon," I said, at random, some memory of the morning's encounter with the bus no doubt still in my mind. The people were nearly up the steps now, were pausing on a landing to look back at the view....
"Whereabouts in Tarascon? Did he say if he was staying there?"
"No. I told you I didn't know. I only met him for a short time when we were looking at -" Panic flooded me for a moment. What was Tarascon? What did one look at in Tarascon? I plunged on a certainty--"At the Cathedral."
I heard him take in his breath in a long hiss and looking up I saw his eyes narrowing on me in a look that there was no mistaking. It was not imagination this time to see violent intentions there. If ever a man looked murder at anyone, Richard Byron looked it at me on that bright afternoon between the flaming beds of flowers in the gardens of Mimes.
Then the little group of tourists was round us, and I turned to go with them. Anywhere, so long as I was among people, safe in a crowd, safe from the danger of betraying David to this hard-eyed man who stood in the sunlight looking like murder.
"Why, hallo," said a soft American voice. "Didn't I see you before--down at the bull-ring? Kind of a quaint Fil place, isn't it? Where's yuhli'l boy?"
It was the woman who had picked up my bag. She smiled charmingly at me, but my mouth felt stiff. I just looked at her.
"Mom," came a plaintive voice, "Hi, Mom! Can yuh fix this film for me?"
She smiled at me again, and hurried towards Junior, who was wrestling with his Kodak at a cafe table. I started to follow, but a hand closed round my wrist, and gripped it hard.
"Just a minute," said Richard Byron again.
He pulled me round to face him. I turned as if I were a wax doll--I had no more resistance. His grip was hurting my wrist, and he pulled me close to him. The group of tourists, self-absorbed and chattering, moved by, paying no attention. He drew me behind a group of statuary.
"Let me go!"
"So you were in the Arena to-day with a boy?"
"Let go my wrist or I'll call the police!"
He laughed, an ugly little laugh. "Call away."
I bit my lip, and stood dumb. The police--the questions-- my papers, my car--and I still had to get quietly out of Nimes with David. Richard Byron laughed again as he looked down at me.
"Yes, you'd be likely to call the police, wouldn't you?" His grip tightened, and I must have made a sound, because his mouth twisted with satisfaction before he slackened his hold. "Now, where's this boy you were with?"
I couldn't think. I said, stupidly: "She's mistaken. He wasn't with me. I was just talking to him. It wasn't David."
He sneered at me.
"Still lying? So you were just talking to him, were you? The way you talked to David Shelley in the Cathedral at Taras con?"
I nodded.
"Would it surprise you to be told," said David's father, "that Tarascon is a small and dirty village whose main claim to fame is a castle on the Rhone? And that, though I suppose there must be one, I have never even seen a church there?"
I said nothing. I might have known. Johnny always said I was a rotten liar.
"And now, damn you," said Richard Byron, "take me to David."
And he pulled my arm through his own, and led me towards the steps.
He did not speak as we went down the long shallow flight of stone steps to the lower gardens, and I was grateful for the chance to think. Why he was acting like this I could not imagine, and I did not intend to waste time thinking about it yet. I must think of nothing but how to shake him off, and get out of Nimes and back to Avignon without his following me or seeing David.
One thing was certain, I thought, remembering the boy's panic-stricken flight from the Arena on hearing his father's voice, David was mortally afraid of meeting his father. So all that mattered for the moment was that David should get away. If only he had told me then, we could have left Nimes straight away. And after meeting Richard Byron, I knew that, sooner than let him get his hands on David, I'd murder him myself.
I stole a glance at his profile, with its expression of brooding bitterness, and the unpleasant set to the mouth. Then I remembered, with a queer cold little twist of the stomach, what Mrs. Palmer had said.
"He must have been mad . . . they ought to have locked him up ... he must be mad!"
Panic swept over me again, and at the same time a queer sense of unreality that I believe does come to people when they are in fantastic or terrifying situations. This could not be happening to me, Charity Selborne; I was not walking along the canal-side in Nimes, Provence, with my arm gripped in that of a man who might be a murderer. A man who had hurt me and cursed me, and looked as if he would like to kill me. These things didn't happen . . . my mind spiralled stupidly; I wonder if Johnny thought it couldn't be happening to him, when he came down over France with his wings in flames . . .?
"Well?" said Richard Byron.
He had paused at the corner leading to the Arena, and looked down at me.
I said nothing, and his brows came down sharply into a scowl.
"Well?" he repeated with the sneer in his voice. "You beautiful little bitch, what about it?"
Then suddenly, gloriously, I was angry. Someone once described it as a "chemically useful reaction"; I believe it is. At any rate, my mind cleared at that moment and I forgot to be afraid of him, madman or no. And I knew what to do.
I looked up the street that leads to the Arena, and saw, parked at the extreme end of it, a big grey car, and I remembered Loraine's panicky whisper . . . "A big grey car with a GB plate ..." I looked the other way towards the square; there was a bus standing there, and I could see its destination: MONTPELLIER.
Then I put a hand to my eyes, and my lip quivered.
"All right," I said. "I was lying to you, but you frightened me, and I wanted to get away. I was with David Shelley in the Arena."
His arm moved sharply under mine.
"That's better. Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
"Now look here, my girl -"
I shook my head impatiently: "Can't you see I'm telling the truth now? He didn't want to go up to the Tour Magne with me. He went off on his own."
"Where are you meeting him again?"
I hesitated, and I could feel him tensing.
"In the square," I said reluctantly. Oh, David, I prayed, it it doesn't work, forgive me!
"When?"