“If we let her. You’ve got to stop her.”
“How could I, for God’s sake? She’ll be walking through that door in just over forty minutes.”
“She won’t. You’ll take care of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Make sure she doesn’t get to see the police.”
“Sarah, she phoned to say she is coming. They made an appointment.”
“So she breaks it. They get hundreds of calls from nuts. They’ll file it and forget it.”
“They know who she is and they know she was at the party. If she doesn’t come to them, they’ll go to her.”
“And she won’t be there. End of problem.”
He shook his head. “I just don’t follow this line of reasoning.”
Sarah’s green eyes assessed him. “You said you love me. Is that still true, or was it, like, one of those things you say in bedrooms?”
“Of course I meant it. Only you told me—”
“—to forget it. That’s right.” She looked away at the orb web between the trees and the campanile. “Maybe I was a little hotheaded that night. You interrupted a conversation. It shocked me to see you so jealous of Ed Cunningham. I didn’t like to see you like that and I guess I went overboard in some of the things I said.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “That’s the nearest I’ll ever get to an apology.”
It broke over Don like a wave and lifted him high. “Oh, Sarah.”
“Don’t say any more. Words don’t mean much to me. If you and I have any future, you must stop Meg Kellaway.”
He frowned. “Stop her?”
“Silence her, then.”
“How?”
She clicked her tongue impatiently. “Can’t I leave that up to you?”
He shook his head. “It’s not so easy. Meg is in a very nervous state of mind. Finding that spider under your jacket really upset her. She has a hatred of them bordering on arachnophobia. Now that she’s got it into her head to go to the police, I don’t think anything I can say—”
“‘Say’?” broke in Sarah. “It’s too late to say things.”
“Well, how else can I stop her, for Christ’s sake?” He stopped. “Oh, no. If you think I would use force...”
“She knows exactly what she’s doing,” said Sarah. “She means to destroy me. Will you let her?”
This was a nightmare. “Sarah, let’s be rational about this. If you have to admit you were attacked by Saville, it’s rough, but there’s no way it can destroy you. We can make damned sure the police treat this thing in confidence.”
She said in a low voice, “Don Rigden, you’d better decide. If you won’t take care of this, I’ll do it myself, but don’t ever come near me again.”
“Sarah, will you listen to me? I just don’t see the need—”
“You don’t?” She nodded once. “That’s all I wanted to know.” She turned and walked away, fast, without looking back.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come along? It’s no trouble. I can work in the library while you talk to the police.”
“Thanks, Nancy,” said Meg, “but I’m a whole lot better now. And it’s important to me to get on top of those fears I had. I’ll take it calmly and quietly and prove to myself that the things I see I really do see, and it’s not my imagination. See you later.”
She walked to the end of the passage and stepped into the elevator. When she got out and was crossing the lobby to the front door, the dormitory superintendent called out to her from his desk.
“Message for you, Miss Kellaway. Someone called Bernice called just now from the Ecology Department. Said the location is changed and they’re sending a car for you.” He glanced out of his window. “That’ll be it out front. A red Ford Pinto, she said.”
The door of the Pinto was already open for her. She bent to say, “I’m Meg Kellaway.”
The driver was wearing black clothes. And a crash helmet and shades. It was a girl’s voice that said, “Check. Get in.” Meg took her seat and closed the door. The car moved out into the traffic. Fast. She began to understand the reason for the helmet.
She turned to take another look at the driver. And saw red-gold hair showing on the back of her neck where it was tucked under the helmet.
She said, “I know who you are. What is this?”
“Easy,” said Sarah Jordan in a pacifying voice. “I offered to pick you up. We both have to go to the same place.”
“Where?”
“Police headquarters. Downtown. It won’t take long.”
“I’d rather walk.”
“You’d never make it. Relax.”
“Let me out of here, please.”
“What are you scared of?”
She didn’t answer. She was telling herself not to panic. The police might well have decided to see her at headquarters, as her statement was volunteered. Maybe the detectives on campus were too busy seeing the people on their lists.
But why was Sarah Jordan going to the same place? Maybe the police had information already that she had been in the gym when the man had died. If they also wanted to talk to her at headquarters, it was reasonable that she should drive Meg there.
“Do you have an interview?” she asked as casually as she could.
“Sure.”
“Mine is at three.”
“That’s why I’m driving fast.”
They were going south on Broadway, past Lincoln Center, snaking through traffic at a rate that had a chorus of horns serenading them.
“Where is it?”
“Near City Hall.”
“That’s a long way.”
“We’ll make it.”
The police could not possibly know that Meg had information linking Sarah with the man’s death. She had said on the phone that she wanted to volunteer a statement, no more than that. The fact that she was getting a lift from the girl she was about to implicate was pure coincidence. There was no sense in getting disturbed about it. Sarah Jordan herself was not aware of the information Meg was about to give the police.
They were approaching the Lower East Side now, past Union Square and left onto Fourteenth Street. They turned into one of the avenues and went a few blocks before turning left again, still at a speed approaching fifty, which was faster than Meg cared to be driving in a crowded area.
“You seem to know the way,” she commented.
“I’ve been here before.”
But as they drove deeper into the Lower East Side, and derelict and burned-out buildings loomed on either side, whole blocks abandoned to arsonists and looters and left as shells surrounded by junk — abandoned cars, armchairs, bedsteads — Meg’s thin shell of confidence cracked.
“Would you please stop the car?”
“Why?”
“I want to get out.”
“Don’t be so dumb.”
“There’s no police headquarters down here. I’m getting out.”
Sarah Jordan spun the wheel violently and the car swung off the street onto a vacant lot littered with the debris of the gutted brownstone block overshadowing it. As they turned and Sarah decelerated, Meg jerked open the door and threw herself out.
She hit the ground hard, taking the impact with her right shoulder and hip and rolling over to try to break the fall. The pain was sharp and violent, but she got up and started running. She didn’t care where — just away from the car and Sarah Jordan. Footsteps started behind her, but she didn’t look back. She made for the building, sprinting over rubble that collapsed underfoot as it took her weight, threatening to wrench her ankle at each step.
With a spasm of terror she realized that the door she was trying to reach was barred. And the windows at ground level were boarded over. She couldn’t change direction now without Sarah Jordan’s cutting her off. She knew it would come to a fight and she was desperately weak from her fall and the strain of the past several days.