Eye Of The Needle

There was a crash of breaking glass inches away from her face. She jumped. She felt a small sharp pain in her cheek, touched the spot, and knew that she had been cut by a flying shard. She hefted the shotgun, waiting for Henry to come through the window. Nothing happened. It was not until a minute or two had passed that she wondered what had broken the window.

She peered at the floor. Among the pieces of broken glass was a large dark shape. She found she could see it better if she looked to one side of it rather than directly at it. When she did, she was able to make out the familiar shape of the dog.

She closed her eyes, then looked away. She was unable to feel any emotion at all. Her heart had been numbed by all the terror and death that had gone before: first David, then Tom, then the endless screaming tension of the all-night siege…

All she felt was hunger. All day yesterday she had been too nervous to eat, which meant it was some thirty-six hours since her last meal. Now, incongruously, ridiculously, she found herself longing for a cheese sandwich.

Something else was coming through the window.

She saw it out of the corner of her eye, then turned her head to look directly at it.

It was Henry's hand.

She stared at it, mesmerised: a long-fingered hand, without rings, white under the dirt, with cared-for nails and a bandaid around the tip of the index finger; a hand that had touched her intimately, had played her body like an instrument, had thrust a knife into the heart of an old shepherd.

The hand broke away a piece of glass, then another, enlarging the hole in the pane. Then it reached right through, up to the elbow, and fumbled along the windowsill searching for a catch to unfasten.

Trying to be utterly silent, with painful slowness, Lucy shifted the gun to her left hand, and with her right took the axe from her belt, lifted it high above her head, and brought it down with all her might on Henry's hand.

He must have sensed it, or heard the rush of wind, or seen a blur of ghostly movement behind the window, because he moved abruptly a split-second before the blow landed.

The axe thudded into the wood of the windowsill, sticking there. For a fraction of an instant Lucy thought she had missed; then, from outside, came a scream of pain, and she saw beside the axe blade, lying on the varnished wood like caterpillars, two severed fingers. She heard the sound of feet ru

The exhaustion hit her then, closely followed by a rush of self-pity. She had suffered enough, surely to God, had she not? There were policemen and soldiers in the world to deal with situations like this. Nobody could expect an ordinary housewife and mother to hold off a murderer indefinitely. Who could blame her if she gave up now? Who could honestly say they would have done better, lasted longer, stayed more resourceful, for another minute?

She was finished. They would have to take over: the outside world, the policemen and soldiers, whoever was at the other end of that radio link. She could do no more…

She tore her eyes away from the grotesque objects on the windowsill and went wearily up the stairs. She picked up the second gun and took both weapons into the bedroom with her. Jo was still asleep, thank God. He had hardly moved all night, blessedly unaware of the apocalypse going on around him. She could tell, somehow, that he was not sleeping so deeply now, something about the look on his face and the way he breathed let her know that he would wake soon and want his breakfast.

She longed for that old routine now: getting up in the morning, making breakfast, dressing Jo, doing simple, tedious, safe household chores like washing and cleaning and cutting herbs from the garden and making pots of tea… It seemed incredible that she had been so dissatisfied with David's lovelessness, the long boring evenings, the endless bleak landscape of turf and heather and rain…

It would never come back, that life.

She had wanted cities, music, people, ideas. Now the desire for those things had left her, and she could not understand how she had ever wanted them. Peace was all a human being ought to ask for, it seemed to her.

She sat in front of the radio and studied its switches and dials. She would do this one thing, then she would rest. She made a tremendous effort and forced herself to think analytically for a little longer. There were not so many possible combinations of switch and dial. She found a knob with two settings, turned it, and tapped the Morse key. There was no sound. Perhaps that meant the microphone was now in circuit.

She pulled it to her and spoke into it. "Hello, hello, is there anybody there? Hello?"

There was a switch that had "Transmit" above it and "Receive" below. It was turned to "Transmit." If the world was to talk back to her, obviously she had to throw the switch to "Receive."

She said: "Hello, is anybody listening?" and threw the switch to "Receive." Nothing.

Then: "Come in, Storm Island, receiving you loud and clear."

It was a man's voice. He sounded young and strong, capable and reassuring, and alive and normal.

"Come in, Storm Island, we've been trying to raise you all night… where the devil have you been?" Lucy switched to 'Transmit', tried to speak, and burst into tears.

Percival Godliman had a headache from too many cigarettes and too little sleep. He had taken a little whisky to help him through the long, worried night in his office, and that had been a mistake. Everything oppressed him: the weather, his office, his job, the war. For the first time since he had got into this business he found himself longing for dusty libraries, illegible manuscripts and mediaeval Latin.

Colonel Terry walked in with two cups of tea on a tray. "Nobody around here sleeps," he said cheerfully. He sat down. "Ship's biscuit?" He offered Godliman a plate.

Godliman refused the biscuit and drank the tea. It gave him a temporary lift.

"I just had a call from the great man," Terry said. "He's keeping the night vigil with us."

"I can't imagine why," Godliman said sourly.

"He's worried."

The phone rang.

"Godliman."

"I have the Royal Observer Corps in Aberdeen for you, sir."

"Yes?"

A new voice came on, the voice of a young man.

"Royal Observer Corps, Aberdeen, here, sir."

"Yes?"

"Is that Mr Godliman?"

"Yes." Dear God, these military types took their time. "We've raised Storm Island at last, sir… it's not our regular observer. In fact it's a woman."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing, yet, sir."

"What do you mean?" Godliman fought down the angry impatience. "She's just… well, crying, sir."

Godliman hesitated. "Can you co

"Yes. Hold on." There was a pause punctuated by several clicks and a hum. Then Godliman heard the sound of a woman weeping. He said, "Hello, can you hear me?" The weeping went on.

The young man came back on the line to say, "She won't be able to hear you until she switches to 'Receive,' sir ah, she's done it. Go ahead."

Godliman said, "Hello, young lady. When I've finished speaking I'll say 'Over,' then you switch to 'Transmit' to speak to me and you say 'Over' when you have finished. Do you understand? Over."

The woman's voice came on. "Oh, thank God for somebody sane, yes, I understand. Over."

"Now, then," Godliman said gently, "tell me what's been happening there. Over."

"A man was shipwrecked here two, no, three days ago. I think he's that stiletto murderer from London, he killed my husband and our shepherd and now he's outside the house, and I've got my little boy here… I've nailed the windows shut and fired at him with a shotgun, and barred the door and set the dog on him but he killed the dog and I hit him with an axe when he tried to get in through the window and I can't do it anymore so please come for God's sake. Over."