Final Toll Read online

  It had been just under two hours since he had spoken to Marty Summers, so the Jones would have travelled nearly ten miles. With the large-scale map of the proposed motorway route, he was able to calculate within a hundred yards where the Jones would be at that moment. Ahead of the main team, Marson’s advance team had been laying the rough foundations. He searched out the nearest ordinary road that the footings intersected. Then he took the van and headed there.

  He was leaving all the problems to Jeff. He knew that he should have been doing all he could to find some kind of contingency plan that wouldn’t involve the Jones, but he refused to face it. He chose the path of least resistance, talked himself into a adopting a mental block: however difficult it would be to procure the Jones, it was easier than even contemplating the consequences of having to work without it. He was driving blindly, and probably too fast. The minor road came to a sudden end, and he spotted the Jones at once.

  Its engine note, flat out, split the countryside as uncompromisingly as the motorway itself. The Jones was coming on, its track rolling and crunching, its boom laced high over the cab in its folded position, tall plumes of black smoke jetting from the exhaust. Marson stood and waited. It took just over a minute to cover the intervening 150 yards, and the roar deafened him.

  He sprang on to the back and allowed the top of the track to roll him forward to the cab. There was room for only one inside. The exhaust was a foot from his head, and seemed to be splitting his skull. He opened the door and ducked his head in.

  He didn’t know Marty Summers. To his surprise he saw that Summers would have been around sixty, when his impression had been of a younger man.

  But apart from age, he’d found out a few things about Marty. He had worked on the advance team with Big Jim for years, and had taken over the Jones crawler when it first came into service. But time progresses and things change. When he’d been offered the faster and more versatile Kato hydraulic crane, Big Jim hadn’t hesitated. He took it, and offered its seat to Marty. But to Marty the Jones was his. He’d lived in it and for it. So he had chosen to stay with the Jones, even though it meant leaving Big Jim, and now Marson had the impression that Marty thought he was heading back to his old boss.

  “I’m Colin Marson,” he bellowed. “Site boss of the advance team.”

  Marty nodded. “Yeah. Yeah.” Marson had to read his lips, and he thrust his head in closer. Then he could read Marty’s eyes.

  To Marty, Big Jim would have been a god. He’d worshipped him only second to his beloved Jones. So, the decision to abandon the crane or Big Jim must have been traumatic. He had chosen the Jones, so had not been on site when Big Jim was killed. They say that nobody really dies until the last person who remembers him with affection also dies. That was how it must have been with Marty. Big Jim was alive in his mind, and the memory of those grand old days when Big Jim, the team, and the Jones were all together, had grown in his mind to a nostalgic perfection which he longed to return to, yearned for.

  And now, the opportunity had been presented. Marty and his Jones crawler were needed by his old team of mates. What a wonderful thing it is to be needed! All that would be missing from the package was Big Jim himself, and maybe Marty wasn’t aware of that in his excited euphoria. Imagine the shock when what he got was Marson.

  That was what Marson saw in those eyes — shock. Big, hazel eyes Marty had, under a mass of untidy, nearly white hair, and a long, thin face. Almost mournful, that was the first impression. But there was fire in the back of those eyes, and suddenly a deadly fear. This stranger he saw was going to tell him he was not needed, to turn him round and send him back. His mouth tightened as he braced himself.

  “Sievewright’s playing hell,” Marson shouted. “Nobody told you to take this thing away.”

  Marty’s hands danced on the two levers as he expressed himself. His mouth went square as he shouted: “There’s a bloke on...that...bridge. You’re gonna...need us.”

  The engine drummed Marson’s head into stupidity. “Stop the engine!” He was already losing his voice. “I can’t talk—”

  “Ya want us, don’t y’?” There was nothing lacking in Marty’s voice. At the full stretch of his lungs, it still contained as much entreaty as it would if he’d sobbed it.

  “You can’t just drive.” Marson tried to reason with him

  “You get outa my cab!” Marty told him forcefully. “See if I can’t.”

  “It’s illegal. He’ll get the police to stop you. You’ll be chucked out on your ear. Do you understand me, Marty? I’ve been told to turn you back. I’ve got to do that.”

  Marty turned to look at Marson again. He’d got every word of that. His contempt expressed his opinion of each one.

  “Get on with it then,” Marty shouted, managing to sneer at the top of his voice.

  They were going to get the Jones at Prescott’s Bridge, whatever anybody said or did, however many police cars he had to plough into the ground, even if he had to roll right over Sievewright himself.

  Marson put his head close to Marty’s, his mouth to his ear. “I’ve said it all. Keep going, friend.”

  He jumped down, and walked back the 200 yards they had traversed. The engine behind him rasped in defiance, and perhaps exultation.

  At the end of that 200 yards, Sievewright was waiting for him.

  “He’s not turning, Marson.”

  “No.”

  “Was that your instruction?”

  Marson offered no reply.

  He laughed in Marson’s face. “Lord, but you’re a fool. I gave you a direct order, and you’ve ignored it. You’ll regret that, you know. You’ll never work again in this country, if I—”

  “You know damn well why I’ve got to have the Jones.”

  Sievewright lifted his head. “I’ll simply turn it back.”

  Marson grinned at him, wondering how far Sievewright could be pressed. “But would you dare? With the publicity we’re getting...” He allowed it to tail off, leaving it to Sievewright’s imagination.

  Sievewright had been smooth and almost polite up to that moment. Now it all disappeared. Marson thought for a moment that he’d strike him.

  “Don’t you threaten me, Marson.”

  “Your threat came first.”

  “You’re not big enough,” Sievewright said viciously. “Not for this job, not for playing games with me. I’ll take you off it — put somebody else--”

  “Who else? Who?”

  “I’ll dismiss you. Damn it, you are dismissed.”

  “Go to hell!” Marson shouted at him, then he slammed his way into the van.

  Jeff looked at him strangely when he got back. Marson could remember nothing of the return journey. His mind was a chaos of anger, trepidation — and excitement, he supposed.

  Jeff merely said: “We’re mixing the first run of concrete.”

  The big mixer was growling away, and they were laying the footings for the mounting bolts.

  “The Jones is on its way,” Marson said, surprised how calm his voice sounded.

  There had never, as far as Jeff was aware, been any doubt over the Jones’s course. He eyed his boss curiously, wondering where he had just been, guessing at the information he was withholding. A more experienced site boss would have known the importance of sharing his knowledge with his team. Jeff had come to know the way Marson worked, the ego that governed the man. It was as if Marson thought that by keeping the most important facts to himself he would ensure his involvement in every aspect of the operation; that he alone would hold the key to their every success. But Jeff knew that there was no time to overcome the obstacles — both physical and psychological — that such an attitude presented. If Marson insisted on his need-to-know approach, the glory he sought would fall to pieces in his hands. He alone would hold the key to their failure.

  Now was not the time. Jeff continued to update him. “The cliffs moving,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I mean, you can measure it.”
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br />   “I know.”

  “I mean, we ought to measure it. To see how much time we’ve got left.” Jeff was choosing his words as carefully as he could.

  “You want me to start a graph? Now?”

  “It would keep the locals quiet. That Allison’s been looking for you.” Marson paused for a moment, amusing himself by struggling — and failing — to think of anyone he wanted to see less than Allison. His small smile was interrupted by the sound of a man clearing his throat behind them. They turned around. It was Allison.

  There’s always one around, Marson thought sourly, the self-appointed representative of all those people who didn’t want representing. He approached, a light of battle in his eyes. Or misery, rather. Allison was miserable at the thought of battle.

  “I’m not sure I like this,” he said.

  “I’m not too pleased myself,” Marson assured him. “The cliff’s moving. You can almost feel it.”

  Marson tried to be patient. “It’ll slide, Mr Allison. Gently. In a steady acceleration. We’ll have plenty of time to make decisions.”

  “By that, you mean that you will.”

  “If you like, yes, me.” This was a new line of approach, and Marson sensed danger.

  “That’s what worries me,” Allison said mournfully, so lost in his self-torture that he didn’t realise how insulting it sounded. “It shouldn’t be left to one man.”

  “What shouldn’t?” Marson was forcing him into stating it.

  “Whether to go on with this, and possibly bring down the cliffs, or cut it free now — or at any rate before it gets too bad.”

  “What d’you suggest then?” He managed that in a nicely controlled voice.

  “A committee.”

  Marson looked past him. The bridge moved uneasily. Every now and then the woman cried out something with a loudhailer, and he could see a man on the far cliff risking his life erecting a tripod. “It’s the same argument,” he said flatly, “as a firing squad. No single person is supposed to know who has done the killing. But that’s a fallacy, because they all did.”

  Allison looked shrunken, his face rigid with strain. “It’s not quite—”

  “I’ll get you a graph going,” Marson said tightly. “Then you’ll be able to time it — you and your committee. We’ll put a notice on the parish board: the time we’re going to kill Johnny Parfitt. It’ll be just like a hanging — they can all come and watch.”

  Allison looked at him sadly — pitying him, Marson thought — shaking his head. They stood there a couple of minutes in silence, then Allison turned and went away.

  “Johnny,” she was saying, “You’re going to be all right. We’re going to get you out of there.”

  At Marson’s feet the crack had slipped a quarter of an inch since he’d looked last. He shouted for somebody to start taking hourly readings.

  Twelve

  She was there all day. The men were wonderful to her. There would’ve been about thirty in the team, and most of them had been up since two in the morning, but they always managed a friendly word when they came near. And a laugh. Every now and then they’d take her down to their mobile canteen for a sandwich and a drink, and they even offered her the use of a caravan for a rest, but she didn’t dare close her eyes. They were gentlemen. Rough and big and noisy, but they were gentle and they were real men.

  The doctor came back in the afternoon. She watched him go down to Johnny again, alone, though Cropper wanted to go with him. She could see that he was afraid, and trying not to give way to that sort of thing. You don’t have to give way, she said to herself. It was because of fear that she’d always given way to Den, and she didn’t find that thought pleasant, because she wasn’t sure that what she was doing at the bridge wasn’t just damned selfish after all. She was anxious to help save Johnny, but wasn’t it because he could tell her where they’d taken Harry? And if she knew where, she’d be able to...

  But she wasn’t sure what she could do about Den, because that sort of fear grows right into your veins. Chris came back, shattered again, and terribly white. She ran to him, and he was shaking his head, meaning that for a moment he wasn’t able to speak. “It’s all right,” he said. “There’s been no change.” “It frightens you,” she said.

  He managed to smile, but she could see it was an effort. “It’s not just the bridge,” he told her.

  Her heart was suddenly beating terribly. “Then what?”

  He took her arm and walked with her, away from the bridge and the men. “All the time I’m down there,” he said, “every second, I’m expecting something.”

  She stumbled, and he took her weight with his fingers. “I don’t understand.” She made sure he didn’t see her face.

  “There’s a feeling going around,” he told her, his voice very deep. “Around the district. You must have heard it. A feeling that the lower farms are in danger from the cliffs. Somebody, somewhere, wants Johnny dead, so that they could drop the bridge into the river and the cliffs would be safe.”

  He was so close to the truth. She couldn’t help making a suppressed cry. He stopped. “So you know about it?” He took her arm, holding her still.

  She nodded, waiting, and fearing how much he might have found out — or guessed.

  He went on: “And that same person is prepared to kill me, if I try too hard for Johnny.”

  She told herself this was no more than dramatics. He was really quite ugly, she saw, in an attractive way. But he was no good at telling lies, and that was what he was doing. Or at least, not telling all the truth.

  “The superintendent’s got other ideas,” he said doubtfully. “But I don’t think he’s quite sane.”

  It was almost as though nothing was real, there on the heath, with Chris coming out with it so calmly. “What does he think?” she asked, trying to be as calm as Chris.

  He shrugged. “It’s an obsession. Forget it.”

  He began to walk ahead again. They were making a circle of the encampment. He seemed to have said all he was going to.

  “Is that all you wanted to say?” she asked, with a jerk at his arm, pretending to a lightness she didn’t feel.

  “I was hoping to persuade you to go home,” he said gravely. “You’re exhausted, and under great strain.”

  “I can’t leave him now.”

  “He’s not responding.”

  “I thought he was. There’ve been odd times... “ She stopped, her throat thick.

  “I can’t take on any more patients, Laura,” he said. “I’m not on your books.”

  “You’re on my mind. I need to leave it clear for Johnny.”

  They walked a few more yards, then she said: “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll stay around a bit longer.”

  “He means that much to you?”

  She considered how to answer that. “I loved Johnny, very dearly. I try to remember it, but somehow I can’t feel the same.”

  “Then why, Laura, are you making yourself ill for him?”

  He was always being dramatic. “Not specially for Johnny,” she told him. “More for my son.”

  That stopped him. His fingers were painful on her arm. “Yes,” he said. “You mentioned a child.”

  She smiled at the relaxation in his voice. “He’ll be five now. Harry. Johnny’s boy. He was born a year before it...his arrest happened. It...” How could she put it without mentioning Den?

  “It wasn’t a good thing, just at that time, to have Harry with me at the farm, so I asked Johnny’s parents to take him for a while. They were pleased. Nice people, though I don’t think they cared much for me.”

  She knew it didn’t sound very sensible, the way she was telling it. She wasn’t putting it over quite as it seemed to her. He seemed to notice and grimaced to help her. “I can see what’s coming,” he said.

  “Oh, you mustn’t think badly of them,” she said quickly, trying to justify what the Parfitts had done. “Their only trouble is that they’re not exactly honest. I suppose it runs in the fam
ily. Anyway, the police were looking for them, and they just upped and offed — with Harry. That was two years ago, and I still haven’t found out.”

  “But that’s quite fantastic,” he burst out. “You’re not suggesting they’re deliberately...no, of course not. But surely, the police...”

  “I told you, they were already looking for them.”

  “This is terrible. Haven’t they written to you?”

  “They’re not too good at writing. The odd postcard, once from Aberdovey, I remember. I wondered at that time if they were in a touring caravan. I wouldn’t say they’ll never bring him back to me...”

  “I should hope not.”

  “But sometimes I panic.” It came over her like waves, drowning her. “And all sorts of silly ideas go rushing through my mind.”

  He was very solicitous, though a little heavy with it, not used to being tender. “There are people who do tracing,” he suggested. “If you’re really worried.”

  “I’ve tried that. Saved and saved, then spent every penny on a man who came up with nothing.”

  Then Chris realised what she’d been trying to say all along. “So you see Johnny as your last hope?” And said like that it did sound as though she was being very silly and childish.

  She was defensive. “He would tell me. Johnny would.”

  “But of course he would.” He sounded surprised that she needed to say it.

  “If you can rescue him.”

  “I can’t promise anything.”

  “You’re doing all you can. I know that. More than anyone else would.” She was aware that he was watching her questioningly. “With somebody trying to stop—”

  He cut in, laughing. “I was perhaps exaggerating things.”

  “Were you?” She glanced at him. “Perhaps not. Is Mr Grey doing something about this man?”

  He hesitated. “He says he is. Says he’s waiting for the next move. What’s the next move likely to be, when he’s already taken shots at me with a rifle?”