The Claw

Fifty-four

At first all he could see was the claw. Its talons were upturned toward him, beckoning. When he looked up he saw Anna cowering among the toys. She must have flung the claw away from her, he realized. Perhaps something had made her throw it down in front of him, a challenge. He had yet to do what must be done.

First he had to get Anna out of the room, away from the claw. He mustn't give in to the temptation to hurl the talisman into the fog, even if that might persuade her to trust him. It had to stay here, where he knew where it was. But when he moved toward her and the claw she cowered back into the cupboard like an animal into its lair.

He mustn't do anything that might make her run into the fog. Somehow he didn't want to leave her for any length of time in the room with the claw. He stepped forward again, slowly so that she could see what he was doing, and kicked the claw into the furthest corner of the room, near the mark where something had been thrown at the wall.

His gesture seemed not to help. Anna looked ready to dodge around him and out of the door the first chance he gave her. He remembered how she'd done that once before. 'All right, Anna,' he said. 'AH right, baby. I won't hurt you. I want to take you where you'll be safe.'

Her face made it clear how that sounded to her. He mustn't let that reach him now; there would be time enough to feel shame and guilt and grief. 'Mummy's hurt,' he said. 'Granny Knight's taken her to the hospital. She'll want to see you're all right. Come on.'

She was staring at him with a child's boundless contempt, as if she couldn't believe he expected that to take her in. How could he have thought she would want to see Liz? He'd hoped that the idea of her mother in hospital would move her, but things had obviously gone too far. There was only one way to make her obey him, dismaying though it was. 'You don't want to stay here with me, do you?' he said.

He had to steel himself against the sudden terror in her eyes. 'Well then, come downstairs where I can see you while I phone for a taxi,' he said. 'You can sit on the stairs.'

He stood back from the doorway, though that took him toward the claw, until at last she crawled out of the cupboard. It looked as if cramp was forcing her to emerge. All the way across the room she seemed ready to run, to slam the door in his face. When he took her arm as he closed the door he felt her give herself up for lost.

He sat her down a few stairs from the bottom and managed to find a taxi firm that was operating in the fog. 'Just a few minutes, sir,' the girl on the switchboard promised, but he still wondered if he'd made his need sound urgent enough. Now there was nothing to do but wait and feel the exhaustion of his journey out of Africa threatening to overcome him, remember burying Isaac's body and saying as much over the grave as he could think of before trudging blindly through the jungle until luck brought him back to the road, remember the immeasurable sad resignation in Mrs Banjo's eyes before he had spoken a word… How long would the taxi be now? How long could he expect Anna to sit there without plotting to escape? Was the taxi delayed by the fog or by the follower of the claw, the blood-caked deathless famished follower? Surely it must try to stop Alan if it realized what he meant to do.

The soft sounds outside the house, a murmur and a thud, made Anna's eyes brighten with fear. It wasn't until the front door thundered that Alan was sure they had been the sounds of a taxi. 'Taxi for Knight,' the red-faced driver said, sniffing.

'We're ready,' Alan said, trying to pretend that every- thing was normal. The doors of the dripping vehicle had child-proof locks, thank God. He locked Anna in the back and turned away from her desperate look. 'I won't be a moment,' he told the driver, and ran upstairs.

He had to be quick, in case Anna persuaded the driver to let her go. All the same, he faltered when he reached the door of Georgie's bedroom. Suppose the bloody man was there, waiting to be fed or to save the claw? But the room was deserted except for a faint metallic smell that made his stomach churn. He grabbed the claw and felt nothing: no compulsion, no fear. What he had done in Africa had neutralized its influence over him. He shoved it inside his jacket, then he ran down to the taxi and sat beside the driver. 'Norwich,' he said urgently.

The fog appeared to be thickening. The road was a winding tunnel whose walls were closing in. The middle-aged driver slowed down even more whenever he heard a car. Alan tried to avoid meeting Anna's eyes in the mirror, but when he stared through the windscreen he thought sometimes that a figure was pacing the vehicle, just the other side of the wall of fog. Whenever the fog drifted he expected to see the figure waiting, red as blood.

The fog fell back as it reached the streets of Norwich. Five minutes later the taxi drew up in front of the hospital. He ascertained which ward Liz was in and hurried Anna through the gleaming corridors. For a while it seemed the corridor would never end.

Liz was trussed up in a bed at the near end of the ward. Her chest was bandaged, her right leg was held in the air by cords; she tried her best to lift her head to see who had come to the ward. Anna stared at her from the doorway and wrung her hands, then she ran into the ward, crying, 'Mummy.'

Isobel got up to restrain her, and caught sight of Alan. 'I won't be Jong,' he said, striding away before she could stop him. Of course he didn't know how long he would be, he only hoped. At least the sight of her mother in hospital had swept away Anna's fear, and now he had to make sure there was nothing to be afraid of, had to make sure that the claw could harm nobody else. He could feel how hard it would be to break. He climbed into the waiting taxi. 'Liquid Gases,' he said.

They had to go back along the road toward the coast, a journey of several miles. He couldn't have gone straight there, couldn't have risked taking Anna. Even now the sight of the storage tanks, looming like huge balloons out of the fog, made his stomach tighten, made him grasp the claw inside his jacket until the talons scratched his chest. It wouldn't be long now.

The rear lights of the taxi dwindled, staining the fog red, as Alan picked up the phone at the gate. 'Alan Knight for Mr Rothwell.'

'I don't know if he's on site just now. If you'll come to Reception I'll find out.' The owner of the rich deep Norfolk voice, which reminded Alan suddenly and poignantly of Isaac, released the gates for him, and Alan hurried along the paved crooked path which led to Reception. Apart from a tanker, he could hear nothing near him in the fog.

'He shouldn't be more than a few minutes.' The young man behind the window at Reception gazed at him. 'You're the writer, aren't you? I read The Cold Cold War. Borrowed it, actually, I hope you don't mind. The scene when they turn the hose on the girl is the one Mr Rothwell helped you with, isn't it? There were a couple of things there I wanted to ask you about…'

Alan couldn't cope with this just now. 'Do you mind if I find myself a seat in his office? I've been doing quite a lot of walking.'

'I suppose not, seeing it's you.' The other didn't look suspicious, only disappointed. 'You know where it is.'

The upper floor seemed deserted. Nothing moved beyond the frosted glass partitions of the offices. Alan sat by the site manager's desk, which was spread with a flow chart, and hoped he wouldn't have to wait long. If the site manager wanted to know why he wanted a sample of liquid nitrogen, he need only say that he would like to see how it affected metal for himself. Ten minutes' immersion and the metal of the claw ought to be ready to snap.

Perhaps the floor wasn't entirely deserted. Someone must have come in through an exit to the site, for he could hear them snuffling. Colds were to be expected in this weather. He glanced along the corridor, but could see nobody. He might be better occupied in finding Rothwell, since the manager didn't know he was waiting. The sooner the claw was beyond anyone's reach, the better.

He hurried to the nearest exit and down the metal staircase on the outer wall. The tanker was still manoeuvring in the fog, quite close now. Gravel crunched under his feet as he made for the building that housed the compressors. What with the fog and the noise of the tanker, he couldn't be sure if anyone had followed him out of the office building, couldn't tell if they were snuffling.

As soon as he stepped over the threshold, all he could hear was the constant shriek of the compressors. He climbed the steps and hurried along the catwalk, past the shrieking barrels fat as railway engines. When he mouthed 'Rothwell' at a man wearing a hard hat and ear protectors, the man pointed him toward the building where the turbines were.

The fog was closer now. It felt like concrete walls, massive and chill. Had it been a tail-light that reddened the fog just as he emerged? It had gone now. He wanted very much to find Rothwell.

The turbine building was smaller, the noise level even higher. All the machines looked grey with fog. He walked through quickly, wishing he could stop his ears. Nothing moved but the machines. Perhaps Rothwell was at the tanks, where the tanker must be loading.

Alan hurried toward the tanks. The shriek of the turbines had just faded into the crunch of gravel, and he was straining his ears to make out whether another sound was moving with him in the fog, when he faltered, clapping his hand over his mouth. He shouldn't look for Rothwell or for anyone, since the only way for the power of the claw to survive was for it to be passed to someone else.

He mustn't involve Rothwell. He'd remembered that the site manager had children. The only safe course now would be to involve nobody. He made for the tanks, as quickly and quietly as he could.

When a rounded shape loomed out of the fog he ran to it, for in the muffled silence he was sure he could hear snuffling. By the time he was close enough to make out that the shape was a tanker filling up with liquid nitrogen, the driver had seen him. 'Looking for someone?' he said.

'Mr Rothwell.'

'He'll be along in a minute.' The driver, a burly humourless man, looked suspicious. As Alan took a step back toward the other tanks he said, 'What've you got there?'

'Nothing.'

It was the worst answer he could have given. He cursed it and himself as soon as it left his mouth. 'Nothing, is it?' the driver said. 'Let's have a look.'

'If anyone does that it'll be Mr Rothwell, not you.' Alan was saying the first thing that came into his head – anything to avoid handing over the claw. He had no chance now of getting to a tank unnoticed and turning liquid nitrogen on the claw. If he tried to sneak away the driver would be after him. He stood trying frantically to think of some way to deal with the claw before Rothwell came, as ice gathered on the pipe that was filling the tanker, melting ice rained down from the tank. He was still trying when he heard the crunch of gravel beyond the cab of the tanker.

It wasn't Rothwell. He knew that when he glimpsed red, moving just inside the fog. It was the follower of the claw, the man who had had it made and been possessed by it, waiting to be fed – waiting for Alan to be forced to pass on the claw. It knew he would have to. Alan felt despair, colder than the fog that was forming a crust on the pipe, and then he had a last desperate idea. 'What's that?' he said, pointing toward the snuffling. 'A dog, is it? Chewing your tyres.'

The driver listened to the snuffling, then he went grimly toward the front of the tanker. 'Don't go away,' he warned Alan.

Nothing was further from Alan's mind. As soon as the driver was out of sight he grabbed the pipe to unscrew the connection. It was more difficult than he'd hoped; ice had sealed it to the tanker. He wrenched desperately at it and heard the ice crack. He spun the heavy ring, spun it again when the pipe didn't budge, wrenched again at the pipe. This time it came free, and he leapt back barely in time as it spilled liquid nitrogen over the gravel.

He had no time to waste. He pulled out the claw and slipped it into the belly of the tanker, into a bath of liquid nitrogen that must already be several feet deep. He hefted the pipe, which felt capable of gluing his hands to itself with ice, and shoved the end into the aperture in the side of the tanker, had to adjust it before he could spin the ring and seal the connection. Then he stepped back and turned to face what he'd heard.

He'd heard the driver cry out and fall. Now he heard a scrabbling of gravel. It wasn't until the driver called 'Mr Rothwell, are you there? Can you come here for a minute?' in a strange pale voice that Alan realized he was struggling to his feet. It must have been shock that had made him lose his balance. Alan could guess what he'd seen even before it came out of the fog, toward him.

It looked starved and desperate. Its scrawny naked body glittered with dried blood and ice. Its face looked hardly human now, if indeed it ever had. As it clawed at the tanker and the pipe it looked feeble but determined. Perhaps it couldn't deal with the connection because it was nearly all animal now. It tried a last time to reach the claw its nails screeching on the side of the tanker, then it turned on Alan.

Its bare feet had stuck to the spilled nitrogen. It lurched at him, tearing itself loose, leaving skin and flesh behind on the gravel. If it could do that in its desperation, what might it do to him in an attempt to make him retrieve the claw? All the same, he stood his ground. Whatever the follower might do to him, the claw was safely out of reach.

He wouldn't have been able to hear the intense cold inside the tanker break the claw, but he saw when it happened. He saw the naked figure jerk to a halt a few feet away from him, jerk and contort like metal under intolerable stress. All at once the crust of blood broke open in a multitude of places, and then the scrawny flesh did as its own thin blood boiled out. The figure collapsed as if age and death and its aftermath had seized it all at once, yet for an instant Alan thought he saw a kind of relief, almost gratitude, in its eyes.

He moved away from the stain on the gravel as Roth well and the driver ran up. 'What was it?' they demanded. 'Did you see?'

'Whatever it was, it's gone now,' Alan said, and didn't care that they stared at his audible relief. They glared about then, not quite believing him. 'I'll come back another time,' he told Rothwell, who was hardly listening.

He knew he never would come back. The fog felt clean on his skin as he headed for Reception to call a taxi to take him to the hospital. He was himself now, and he knew Liz must be herself again. The influence was destroyed for ever. The sooner he was at the hospital, the sooner they could guide Anna back to trusting them. Sunlight began to break through the fog, and it felt like a blaze of hope.