“Yes, of course. Let's meet tomorrow. There isn't time to talk now. I must get back.”
“All right. I’ll call you around ten o'clock. We've got that agent to see. And how about your father? Do you think I could meet him? I want to get ahead with this business now. There's no point in wasting time.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He moved towards her, but she opened the cabin door and went quickly across to the Cadillac. By the time he reached the door, she was in the car. He paused in the doorway, watching her. She started the engine, lifted her hand in his direction, without looking at him, and drove away.
He remained in the doorway, his face set, his mind busy, then he went back into the cabin again and closed the door. He sat down in the armchair, poured another whisky into his glass and gulped it down.
What was the matter with her? he wondered. His story was convincing. It must have convinced her, and yet to have left like that . . . what was the matter with her?
Abruptly he got to his feet and crossed the room to the mirror on the wall. He stood before it and stared at himself. What he saw in the reflection shocked him and gave him his answer. The gaunt, white, glistening face with its eyes sunk into their sockets, the hard, thin mouth, the skin that seemed to be too tightly stretched over the facial bones wasn't the face he was used to seeing. It was the face of a frightened man with something bad on his conscience.
He cursed softly.
No wonder she had been scared, he thought. He'd have to pull himself together. He couldn't go on looking like this. He ran his tongue over his dry lips. Had he frightened her away for good?
He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, suddenly aware that he was in a cold sweat. He went into the bathroom, stripped off his clothes and got under the cold shower. He remained under it until he was gasping, then he rubbed himself furiously with a hard towel and examined his face again in the bathroom mirror. He looked a little better, but there was still that tight, skull-like look of fear in his face.
What are you frightened of, you fool? he asked himself as he glared into the mirror. They won't find her. They can't do anything to you if they don't find her and how can they possibly find her? No one has been out to that place in months. If they had you would have seen their footprints. No one ever goes there!
Then suddenly his legs went weak and he had to sit abruptly on the edge of the bath. There had been someone there . . . someone who had watched them quarrel, who had sneaked out of the wood and killed her and had sneaked back again, covering his prints as he had gone. He had remained in the wood, watching while he had buried Glorie. This killer knew where Glorie was buried. What was there to stop him telephoning the police from a paybooth and telling them he had seen him burying Glorie?
For a long moment Harry sat rigid. He hadn't thought of this before. He remained motionless, listening to the thud of his heartbeats while he tried to think what he had best do. Then he realized there was only one thing he could do. He would have to go out there, dig up Glorie's body and hide it somewhere else.
Then if the killer did phone the police and they went out to check and didn't find her, they would think it was a hoax.
The thought of going out there and handling Glorie's body sent a cold chill through him, but he knew he would have to do it. There was no other way. His future depended on the police not finding her.
He pulled on his clothes. His hands were shaking so badly that he had trouble in doing up his shirt buttons. He would go out there as soon as it was dusk: in another hour. By the time he got there it would be dark. He would have the place to himself. He would put her body in the car and drive along the coast road until he found a safe place to bury her.
He opened the bathroom door and stepped into the bedroom. Then he came to an abrupt stop. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins, his heart stopped, then raced.
Sitting in the armchair facing him, his black dusty hat at the back of his head, a cigarette smouldering between his thick lips, his fat, dirty hands folded on his gross thighs, was Borg.
IV
For the past twenty-four hours, Borg had ceased to exist in Harry's mind. The sight of him sitting in the armchair came like a devastating punch to Harry's solar plexus. He stood rigid, his mouth a little open, his eyes fixed, his heart fluttering.
Borg watched him. It pleased him to see the naked fear on Harry's face.
For several seconds the two men stared at each other, then Harry began to recover from the initial shock. He had no illusions about Borg. This gross brute was as dangerous as a rattlesnake and much more ruthless. He realized his fear and his reaction at the sight of Borg was a complete giveaway. It would be useless to try to bluff, to try to pretend he wasn't Harry Green. Borg must know, even if he hadn't known when he had come into the cabin.
Harry thought of his gun in the glove compartment of the car parked outside and cursed himself for being so careless as to leave the gun out of reach. Not that the gun would help him now.
He was sure Borg could handle a gun far quicker than he could.
“Hello, Green,” Borg said in his hoarse, wheezy voice. “I bet you didn't think you'd see me again, did you? Sit on the bed. You and me've got things to talk about.”
Moving like a sick man, Harry crossed to the bed and sat down. He put his hands on his knees while he stared at Borg.
“Did you really kid yourself you'd lost me?” Borg went on, screwing up his eyes as the cigarette smoke drifted before his fat face.
Harry didn't say anything. Even if he had wanted to speak, his mouth was too dry for him to make a sound.
“I've been with you since you took off from Oklahoma City airport,” Borg went on. He crushed out his cigarette on the arm of the chair, burning a hole in the cover. “You've been having fun, haven't you? I like your girlfriend.”
“What do you want?” Harry managed to say.
Borg showed his discoloured teeth in a wolfish smile.
“I've got something to sell you, palsy. Something you want pretty badly.”
Harry stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I've got a car wrench with blood and hair on it as well as a nice set of your fingerprints. I thought maybe you'd like to buy it off me.”
Harry had thought he had got beyond shock by now, but this statement brought him upright, sweat running down his face.
So Borg had killed Glorie!
What a fool he had been not to have thought of Borg before!
But why hadn't Borg wiped him out at the same time? He could have shot him as he was burying Glorie. No one would have heard the shot; no one would have known.
“So it was you who killed her,” he said hoarsely.
Borg smiled.
“That's right,” he said. “She had it coming. Only you and me know I killed her. The cops will think you did it if they dig her up. They'll know you did it if I give them the wrench. Want to buy it, palsy?”
Harry's mind was beginning to work again. He must gain time, he told himself. If he could outwit this fat killer in some way . . . it was his only hope of survival.
“Yes,” he said. “I'll buy it.”
“I thought you might,” Borg said, and his thick lips curled into a sneering smile. “It'll cost you fifty thousand bucks, but it's cheap at the price.”
Harry realized then why Borg hadn't wiped him out on the beach. Borg wanted to give Delaney his money back first.
“I haven't got it,” he said. “I’ll pay forty thousand: that's all there's left.”
Borg shook his head.
“Delaney will want every nickel back. If you haven't got it you'll have to get it from your girlfriend. It should be a cinch. She's gone on you, palsy. I've been watching you. Besides, she's floating in dough.”