The Rainbow and the Rose Read Free Page B

Presently I glanced at my watch, and it was time to go.
    She said a little anxiously, ‘Don’t go and buy it yourself, Ronnie.’
    ‘I won’t do that,’ I promised her. ‘There’s trouble enough over there already.’
    I put my old leather coat on in the hall, and kissed her; she came to the door with me. ‘Will you be able to ring me?’ she asked.
    I thought for a moment. ‘After dark,’ I said. ‘I’ll ring you after dark tomorrow night and let you know the form.’
    I drove back to the airport and locked the car up in the park. In the office the flight crew were getting ready to take off the freighter. We exchanged a few words about Johnnie Pascoe and went out to the machine; we took off on time and settled down to a long flight against the head wind. I sat on the floor with my back against the freight, dozing a little; it was very cold and draughty and noisy in the unfurnished shell. I was glad of my leather coat. It was nearly half past three in the morning when they put her down at Launceston and taxied in.
    We had radioed the airport control to ask them to get a car to meet us, to drive me sixty miles to Buxton. It was waiting for us with a very sleepy driver, and I got in beside him and we started off. It was a quarter past five when we got near the little town, and the driver asked me where I wanted to go.
    ‘Better take me to the hotel,’ I said. I remembered it from my forced landing, years before. ‘What’s its name?’
    ‘The Post Office Hotel,’ he said. ‘They won’t be open yet. They don’t get out of bed till about nine.’
    We drove into the deserted street, black and silent and wet. ‘Well, take me there, anyway,’ I said.
    He stopped in front of the hotel. I got out and knocked on the door for a few minutes, with no result. Then I went exploring round the back with my small torch and found that the kitchen door was unlocked. I went back to the street and paid off the taxi, returned to the hotel kitchen, and switched on the light.
    It was a pretty dirty sort of place, and smelt a bit. It was warm, though, with the residue of heat from thestove. I was hungry again and there was nothing much to do for an hour, so I started ferreting around and found the larder, smelling a good deal worse than the kitchen. There was an electric cooker there, so I made myself a cup of tea and boiled a couple of eggs and cut some bread and butter.
    It was still dark outside at half past six, and there was still no movement from upstairs in the hotel. The controller at Essendon had said that the woman at the Lewis River would be speaking on the morning schedule at seven o’clock; before then I must get to a radio and find out what was happening. I wrote a note for the hotel on a page torn from my diary and left it on the table with a ten bob note to soothe any ruffled feelings there might be, and went out to the yard, and so to the street. I could see the length of it now in the faint light, but the wind was still high and there was a little rain with it.
    It didn’t take me long to find the police station. There was a light on in the front office, and when I opened the door a young constable got up from a desk. Behind him on a table was the black metal case of a transceiver. I had come to the right place.
    He said, ‘Guid morning,’ in a strong Scots accent. ‘And what can I do for you?’ He could not have been in the country very long.
    ‘My name is Clarke,’ I said. ‘Have you heard anything about me?’ He shook his head. ‘Well, I’m a captain with Australian Continental Airways.’ I went on to tell him briefly why I’d come to Buxton. ‘They told me at Essendon that Mrs Hoskins would be speaking on the morning schedule at seven o’clock. Mind if I listen in?’
    ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘There’ll be others coming to hear that. Mr Monkhouse, the ground engineer, for one, and Sergeant Farrell from the house. Nae doubt they’ll be making a great effort to get him out of it