Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett [129]
People walked at four miles an hour, she remembered reading somewhere. Henry was athletic, but he had hurt his ankle, and even though it seemed to have healed rapidly, the running he had done after the jeep must have hurt it. She must be a good hour ahead of him, she figured.
(She had no doubt he would come after her; he knew as well as she did that there was a wireless transmitter in Tom’s cottage.)
She had plenty of time. In the back of the jeep was a half-gallon can of fuel for just such occasions as this. She got out of the car, fumbled the can out of the back and opened the tank cap.
Then she thought again, and the inspiration that came to her surprised her by its fiendishness.
She replaced the cap and went to the front of the car. She checked that the ignition was off and opened the hood. She was no mechanic but she could identify the distributor cap and trace the leads to the engine. She lodged the fuel can securely beside the engine block and took off its cap.
There was a spark plug wrench in the tool kit. She took out a plug, checked again that the ignition was off, and put the plug in the mouth of the fuel can, securing it there with tape. Then she closed the hood.
When Henry came along he was certain to try to start the jeep. He would switch on, the starter motor would turn, the plug would spark and the half-gallon of gas would explode.
She was not sure how much damage it would do, but she felt certain it would be no help.
AN HOUR LATER she was regretting her cleverness.
Trudging through the mud, soaked to the skin, the sleeping child a dead weight over her shoulder, she wanted nothing more than to lie down and die. The booby trap seemed, on reflection, dubious and risky: gasoline would burn, not explode; if there was not enough air in the mouth of the can it might not even ignite; worst of all, Henry might suspect a trap, look under the hood, dismantle the bomb, pour the gasoline into the tank and drive after her.
She contemplated stopping for a rest but decided that if she sat down she might never get up again.
She should have been in sight of Tom’s house by now. She could not possibly have got lost—even if she had not walked this path a dozen times before, the whole island just was not big enough to get lost on.
She recognized a thicket where she and Jo had once seen a fox. She must be about a mile from Tom’s home. She would have seen it, except for the rain.
She shifted Jo to the other shoulder, switched the shotgun from one hand to the other, and forced herself to continue putting one foot in front of the other.
When the cottage finally became visible through the sheeting rain she could have cried with relief. She was nearer than she thought—perhaps a quarter of a mile.
Suddenly Jo seemed lighter, and although the last stretch was uphill—the only hill on the island—she seemed to cover it in no time at all.
“Tom!” she called out as she approached the front door. “Tom, Tom!”
She heard the answering bark of the dog.
She went in by the front door. “Tom, quickly!” Bob dodged excitedly about her ankles, barking furiously. Tom couldn’t be far away—he was probably in the outhouse. Lucy went upstairs and laid Jo on Tom’s bed.
The wireless was in the bedroom, a complex-looking construction of wires and dials and knobs. There was something that looked like a Morse key; she touched it experimentally and it gave a beep. A thought came to her from distant memory—something from a schoolgirl thriller—the Morse code for S.O.S. She touched the key again: three short, three long, three short.
Where was Tom?
She heard a noise, and ran to the window.
The jeep was making its way up the hill to the house.
Henry had found the booby trap and used the gasoline to fill the tank.
Where was Tom?
She rushed out of the bedroom, intending to go and bang on the outhouse door, but at the head of the stairs she paused. Bob was standing in the open doorway of the other bedroom, the empty one.
“Come here, Bob,” she said. The dog stood his ground, barking.