The Claw

Fourteen

He must have lost it somewhere between here and home: in the pizza parlour or in one of the taxis, perhaps. But that made no sense: he hadn't opened his briefcase since before he'd left the house – not even at lunch with Teddy, for he'd thought that there was nothing in the case except the claw. Could it have been stolen on the train while he was asleep? The possibility wasn't even worth considering. 'I haven't got it,' he muttered, hardly aware of Hethering-ton. 'It isn't here.'

'I don't understand,' Hetherington said, rather snappishly.

'Do you think I do?' He was trying desperately to recall when he'd put the claw in his briefcase. He'd been drunk last night when he'd left the hotel – he thought he'd drunk so much to celebrate being about to get rid of the claw -and Liz had had to drive. As soon as he'd reached home he'd taken the claw from the mantelpiece. No, that couldn't be right; he'd carried Anna to bed, managing to tuck her up without waking her, and then there was a vague memory of his drunken attempt to make love to Liz. Then he had stumbled downstairs, while Liz got into bed. He'd gone to the living-room mantelpiece and reached out for the claw. Now he had located the moment, he could no longer be deceived. He'd reached out drunkenly and knocked the claw off the mantelpiece, behind a chair. After that there was a blank, until he remembered lying in bed.

He must have dreamed he'd put the claw in his briefcase – but was there more, and worse, to it than that? He'd forgotten that he had the claw while he was approaching the Customs barrier at Heathrow; he'd forgotten to call the Foundation to begin with; he'd forgotten for a while that he had agreed to bring the claw. It felt very much as if his thoughts about the claw had been manipulated. In that case, could he have been made to think he'd brought the claw so that Liz and Anna would be left alone with it? 'It must be at home,' he said tightly. 'I'll have to phone my wife.'

'Is that really necessary?'

'You're asking me if it's necessary?' He wished he had the claw in his hand right now, to use on Hetherington. 'You let me keep that thing in my house, around my wife and child, when you knew what it was, and now you're begrudging me the cost of a phone call? How much do you want? I'll write you a fucking cheque.'

'That won't be necessary under the circumstances.' Hetherington had turned pale as an elderly virgin confronted by a piece of hard-core pornography. He pushed the phone across the desk, then withdrew his hand nastily, as if he couldn't bear the thought of touching Alan.

As soon as Alan had dialled, he turned his back on Hetherington, who he sensed was fuming, and listened. For a few seconds there was silence except for the measured clipping of shears, a sound that seemed to fill the room. Alan thought of sharp metal, and the thought made his fingers writhe. The next moment a woman's voice came on the line.

It wasn't Liz. Of course – Liz was having her at-home. One of the others – Gail, Jane, Rebecca – must have answered the phone. But why couldn't he understand what she was saying? Because she had begun at the end of a sentence. Only when she repeated her message, and then again and again, did he realize that it was a recorded voice, telling him that all lines to that part of Norfolk were engaged.

He slammed the receiver down so hard that Hetherington flinched. 'I can't get through. I'll have to go home at once.'

Hetherington held up one finger. 'Will you let me know what transpires, please?'

'Oh yes.' Though he was almost at the door, Alan turned so that the man could see his snarl. 'I'll be letting you know about that, don't you worry.'

He ran downstairs and out, past the braided girl and the man with the shears, which were now nibbling the very edge of the lawn, by the railings. True or not, the idea of the man as a plain-clothes guard now seemed absurd, if only because it had become so trivial. Couldn't Alan have let his professional imagination run away with him about the claw as well? Maybe he should try his hand at writing horror stories. But no – that explanation was simply too tempting to be true.

He found a free taxi before he reached Russell Square. The streets were relatively clear now, between lunch and the homeward rush, and the taxi raced toward Liverpool Street with hardly a pause; yet Alan was almost contemplating asking the driver to take him straight to Norwich and his car – or even all the way home. Commonsense told him that would be crazy. How could it be quicker, with all those winding roads? Alan's fists were aching, his palms felt raw with sweat. Should he at least try to phone again, or would he miss his train?

The taxi swung down the slope at Liverpool Street a couple of minutes before a train was due to leave for Norwich. Without waiting for change, Alan thrust a five-pound note at the driver and dodged through the crowd to the ticket barrier.

There was no time to phone. But, maddeningly, once he'd stumbled panting into the nearest carriage and thrown himself and his empty briefcase on a seat, it seemed that there were minutes to spare. The train ought to be moving by now, yet two minutes, three, elapsed, and still it seemed to show no sign of moving. His body was straining to race for the phones, and he was just beginning to doubt that he was capable of holding it still, when the train suddenly lurched forward and it was too late.

Now that the train had trapped him, it seemed almost to be taunting him. It stopped at every station, even when Robody was boarding or alighting. Between stations it cruised as if it had all the time in the world. Shapeless clouds paced it along the horizon, and made Alan feel that the train was drifting slowly as clouds. His time was slowing down to a standstill, but at home time must be moving faster. It would take only a second for the first blow to fall, and then there would be raw flesh for the claw to tear…

He must stop imagining what might be happening at home, or he'd never be capable of driving when he reached Norwich – but how could he stop? He found to his dismay that he was muttering to himself; he had no idea how long he'd been dping so. An old lady who'd boarded the train at the last station with her arms full of bags of apples leaned across the aisle. 'Are you all right, my dear? What's the trouble?'

'Oh, it's nothing.' Yet saying that only made him feel more uncomfortable. He longed to tell her he'd been unkind to his wife and child and wanted to get home to make it up to them, but he was appalled by his own glibness – especially when he thought what might actually be happening. Yet surely he was worrying unnecessarily: after all, nothing very bad had happened to them yet; nobody at home had been affected like Joseph. There had never been any Leopard Women, it didn't matter that Liz was at home with the claw. But that felt like a contrivance in a story, a device he didn't believe in, but had to use to keep the plot moving.

The old lady alighted two stations before Norwich. One of her bags burst, spilling apples over the platform. Alan had jumped to his feet and was opening the door to help her until the thought of missing the train stopped him. Wasn't he too eager to believe that there was no danger at home? Didn't he feel too reassured – suspiciously so? He'd already forgotten the claw too often, and he was beginning to be on the alert for sighs that his thoughts were being manipulated.

Before the train came to a halt at Norwich, he'd flung open the door and was running toward the ticket barrier. By the time he reached the station forecourt his keys were in his hand. He backed the car out in a single sweeping movement and swung it out onto the main road. Now he felt in control, no longer helpless. AH his instincts were tuned at last.

He drove steadily toward the coast road. He would be in time, he must be. The green landscape sped past, water flashed and vanished. He was halfway home when he thought of the last time he'd driven so fast – the day he'd scared Anna so badly. Liz had accused him of trying to kill the child. Had that been what he'd wanted? He was driving faster now, no longer calm, muttering curse after curse at Marlowe, who'd given him the wretched claw in the first place.

The shadows lengthened as he drove along the coast road, darkness already fingering the landscape, reaching for his home. His readiness to manufacture images dismayed him, but so did the thought that they might be true. Overhead the clouds were thickening, hastening the twilight. Everything ahead of him looked smudged, and he would have slowed down if he'd dared. Nothing was clear any more.

Now he could see the house. It looked utterly innocent: lights in the curtained windows downstairs, the kind of sight that would look welcoming at the end of a winter drive. He slewed the car into the driveway and turned off the engine. There was silence – no sound of the women, no sound of Anna or Jane's baby, Georgie. No doubt Liz's at-home was over by now, but why was the house so still? He left the car in front of the garage and ran across the lawn to the front door.

He had the key ready. It slipped easily into the lock. The door swung inward on the hall, the darkest place in the house. Then there was Liz, coming slowly toward him. He couldn't see her face, and that made him afraid to speak.

'Everything all right?' he said, to get it over with.

'Oh, Alan,' she said. 'I'm afraid to tell you what's happened.'