Chapter 8
Exchange
The cards came with the breakfast.
There were two. They lay by themselves on the oak, one at the place where Ray Dunn sat and one at Frank Ross's, each in a thin gray envelope with a name typed on the front. The rest of the table had nothing. It was a quarter to eight on Friday, the eighth of March, and the porridge was cold, and they had all been looking at the envelopes for some time without anybody touching them.
Ray opened his first. He did it slowly, one-handed, with his bandaged left held against his chest. He read it. His lips moved. Then he read it again, and set it down on the table very carefully, face up, and squared its edge with the edge of the wood.
MR. DUNN.
You have been chosen as a piece for the second exchange. You may decline.
If you decline, the foreman's clock will lose six hours.
If you accept, you will be offered a choice.
Do you accept?
(Please answer aloud.)
"What does yours say?" said Ray.
Frank did not look up. He had his card in his hand and his thumb flat across the bottom of it, as if the words might get away. He read to the end and then folded it, in half and in half again, and put it in his shirt pocket.
"Same."
"Six hours."
"Yes."
"That's a lot."
"Yes."
"We could say no," said Greg. He had pushed away his bowl. "That's the whole point. Nobody's got to. It's a, they can't make you. They've got to ask."
"And the clock loses six hours," said Helen.
"So what? It's only a clock."
"It isn't," said Daniel.
"It's a number."
"It's my daughter."
It came out harsher than he had meant. Greg looked at him, and then away. In the silence the radiator ticked. On the screen at the center of the table, behind a sliding panel that had stayed open since the evening, the red numbers read 30:27:11. A small girl sat at a desk in a lamp, bent over a notebook. She looked as if she had not slept.
"I'll do it," said Ray.
"Ray," said Nora.
"It's all right. I said, didn't I? When we started. If it was a vote." He had gone very pale, but his voice was steady. "I'd rather. If it's a choice between that and her losing a, it's six hours. I'd never forgive myself. I mean, I'd probably be dead. But I wouldn't forgive myself either." He tried a smile. "You see how it is."
"No," said Daniel. "No. I won't, I'm not going to let you."
"It isn't up to you, Mr. Wells," said White.
They all turned.
"It is up to Mr. Dunn. And it is up to Mr. Ross. I would not like you to forget that, Foreman. Rule four. No piece is harmed that has not first been offered a choice. They are offered it. They are, I think, the only two people at this table who have not yet been given the opportunity to be brave on their own account." There was a faint dry pause. "I would not take it from them."
"This is monstrous," said Helen.
"It is only a game, Miss Marsh."
"It is not."
"No," said White. "You are right. It isn't."
Frank Ross stood up.
He did it stiffly, like a man getting out of a car after a long drive. He put both hands in his pockets. He stood looking at nobody, at the middle of the wall, and his face was like something carved out of an old post.
"I accept," he said.
"Thank you, Mr. Ross."
"Don't thank me."
"Mr. Dunn?"
"Yes," said Ray. "Yes. I accept."
"The court thanks you both," said White. "I would ask you now to go down."
It was the evidence room, in the lower basement.
They went down the same stone stair, the thirty-one steps, and past the coal cellar with its black pit and its beam, and along a narrow tunnel, where the wall sweated. At the end there was a double door of riveted steel. It stood open. The room behind it was long and low and brightly lit, with white-painted brick walls, and a floor of gray concrete that sloped down toward a drain. There were shelves along one side, rusted, with a row of cardboard boxes gone soft with damp. A long steel table. A set of scales.
And two cages.
They stood side by side in the middle of the room, about a yard apart. They were made of heavy steel mesh in a frame of angle iron, six feet square and eight feet high, with a gate in each. Each gate had a lock. In each cage there was a bench bolted to the wall, a plastic bucket, and nothing else. A pipe ran down from the ceiling behind each one, as thick as a man's arm, and ended in a brass valve with a wheel.
They had not been there when Tom Rudd worked in the building. He said so. He walked round them with his lips pressed together and his hand on the back of his neck.
"They kept the exhibits in a room off the clerk's office," he said. "These are new."
"They look old," said Greg.
"They've been aged."
"By who?"
"By somebody who knew how."
Daniel stood in the doorway with Helen's arm under his, and looked at them. His ribs hurt. The splint on his ankle chafed. He felt, in some way he could not have defended, that the two cages were the most precisely made things in the whole building, and that they had been made for the purpose of being looked at.
"Gentlemen," said White. "Please."
Ray went in first. He went without being touched, through the open gate, and sat on the bench in the left-hand cage with his hands between his knees. He looked about him with a sort of mild interest. Then Frank went into the right-hand one. He stood in the center, not sitting, and turned his back on the room.
The gates swung to. The locks clicked.
"The second game is called the Exchange," said the voice. "In chess, an exchange is a trade. One piece is given up in order to take another. It is usually correct to do it when you are the stronger side, and a fool's bargain when you are not." A pause. "It is the first time in the game that a piece may be lost not by accident but by a decision of the king."
"Oh, God," said Nora.
"The rules are these. Each cage will begin to fill with water. It will do so at the same rate. At the end of twenty-eight minutes, the water will reach the ceiling. There is one key." A panel in the wall beside Daniel's shoulder slid open, and in it, on a small black cloth, lay a key. It was iron, long, very old, with a blackened ring for a handle. "It will open either lock. It will turn once. When it has turned, it will break off in the lock, and it will not turn again. The foreman will hold the key."
"Take it, Daniel," said Helen, very softly.
He took it. It was cold, and heavier than it looked.
"The foreman will decide which cage to open," said White. "The other will not be opened. I would add that the rest of you are free to speak, and to persuade, and to implore, and to try to break the locks. I wish you luck. I have tried them. I have also tried the walls." The voice was gentle. "I regret to say that they are very good."
"Twenty-eight minutes," said Frank.
"It begins now."
There was a groan, deep in the pipes. A hiss. And in the ceiling of each cage a brass valve turned a quarter turn, by itself, with a thin metallic squeak, and out of the pipe came a bright thick rope of water that fell to the floor and spread.
It was not fast.
That was the dreadful thing. It was nothing like a movie. The water came in a steady gray column, about as thick as a wrist, and it fell to the concrete and ran toward the drain, and the drain, which was meant to take it, was a small round hole with a rusted grate. It coughed. It choked. And behind the grate, an inch at a time, the floor of each cage began to disappear.
At five minutes it covered the soles of Ray's shoes.
At ten it was over his ankles. He had climbed onto the bench. He sat with his knees drawn up and his arms round them, looking down at the surface, which was perfectly flat and gray, with a small bright ring on it where the water fell.
"I can't swim," he said conversationally.
"You won't need to," said Helen.
"It's, I never learned. They didn't teach it. In the home. I mean when I was a boy." He laughed, a little. "I thought about it once. I looked at the pool. But I was, there were children."
"Hush."
"I'm only saying."
"Don't say it," said Nora. She had both hands wrapped round the mesh. She was standing on the concrete as close as the bars would let her, with her face pressed against the wires, and her voice was thin and high. "Don't say anything. Save your, just breathe."
"It's a bit cold," said Ray.
On the other side Frank Ross stood still. The water was at his shins. He had not sat, or spoken, or moved. He was holding the bars of the cage with both hands, with his back to them, and his big shoulders were round and rigid under the gray shirt, and he looked as if he had been turned to stone.
"Daniel," said Helen.
"I know."
"You've got eighteen minutes."
"I know."
"You'll have to say it."
"I know."
He had the key in his hand. It had made a mark in his palm. He had been standing in the same place for ten minutes, a yard from the cages, between one lock and the other, and he did not seem able to move. The room was cold and bright and smelled of wet iron. Nobody had said what they all wanted him to say.
"It's got to be Ray," said Greg.
"Why?"
"Because he's hurt. Look at him. He can't, his hand's, he's got a hand. If he gets out, he's no use to anyone for a week. If it's Frank, he can walk. He can run. He's a cop." He swallowed. "He can find us a way out of here."
"That's a very convenient reason," said Helen.
"It's a logical one."
"It's a reason for you."
"It's the only reason. Come on! It's a trade, it's an exchange. You said it yourself. It's right to keep the strong piece. That's chess."
"It isn't chess," said Nora. Her face was streaming. "It's a person. It's Ray. He's, he said he'd go in first. He said it. He said it for her, for the clock. He's been, he's the only one who, he's never asked anyone for anything." She looked at Daniel. "You can't."
"I haven't said."
"You can't do it. You can't choose Frank. He'd, he'd die for it. You'd know."
"It's a coin," said Tom, heavily. "That's what I'd say. Toss a coin and don't think."
"I haven't got a coin."
"Then you've got a decision."
"Fourteen minutes," said Helen.
Daniel looked at the key.
He thought of his daughter. He could not help it. He thought of her at the metal desk, with the lamp, in the sweater with the blue stripe, with her pencil going. He thought: she'd choose Ray. He knew it. She would have chosen Ray at once, without a second's pause, as she would have chosen the wounded bird on a path or the smallest dog at a pound. She was twelve. She had not yet learned what it costs.
But I have.
He looked at Frank. The old man had not turned round. Water was at his knees. He stood with his legs apart in a gray flood, with his big hands on the bars, and the back of his neck was a single thick cord. He had put out his own jacket, at the other end of this, to warm a stranger's hands.
I could ask him, thought Daniel. I could ask him what to do. He'd tell me.
He'd tell me, and I'd have asked.
"Daniel," said Ray.
His voice was perfectly clear. He sat on the bench in his cage, with the water now at the level of his shoes, and his bandaged hand pressed to his chest. His face was the color of milk. But he was looking straight at Daniel, and his eyes were mild and wide and steady.
"It's all right," said Ray.
"Ray."
"I want you to. I'd rather it was, I mean I'd rather it was me. I've thought about it. I'm no good at this. I'd be a nuisance. Frank's good. He can get you out." He swallowed. "Please. I'd feel like I'd done something."
"You have."
"Not really." He smiled. "I mean it. Don't make it harder. I'd, I'd have to make a speech, or something, and I'd be sick."
Somebody laughed. It was a ragged and dreadful sound, and it came from Helen, and she clapped her hand over her mouth.
"Eleven minutes," she said, from behind it.
"You'll want to say Frank," said Ray. "Go on. I'll take it better than you will."
Daniel turned.
He walked the three steps. It was the longest walk of his life. He heard his boot on the concrete, the click, the slight drag of the splinted ankle. He heard the water falling, and the cough of the drain, and Nora's breathing, high and quick. He put the key into the lock of the right-hand cage.
It went in as easily as a spoon into a jar.
"No," said Nora.
"I'm sorry."
"No. No. Daniel."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He turned it.
It broke with a small bright snap.
The gate swung out. The water that had gathered behind it, a gray fan of it, a foot deep, poured across the concrete and soaked his trousers to the knee, and Frank Ross stepped out of the cage with his face like a wall.
He did not look at Daniel. He did not look at anyone. He walked three paces, and stopped, and stood with his back to them all, with his hands hanging, and his shoulders shook once, very slightly.
Then he turned round.
"Ray," he said.
"It's all right, Frank."
"Ray, I."
"It's all right."
The water in the left-hand cage was at Ray's knees. He was sitting upright on the bench now, with his feet drawn up to the very edge, and the line of the surface was only a hand's width below his seat. He looked, in his brown shirt, with his wedding chain showing at the collar, entirely ordinary. A man in a waiting room.
"Can I say a thing?" said Ray.
"Say it."
"Not to you." He turned his head. "To Mr. Wells."
"I'm here."
"Good." He looked at him. "I wanted to tell you. I was going to tell Helen. But there's not, I'd like it to be you. You were, you did it. And I think you ought to know."
"Ray, you don't have to."
"It's about the thing I did." He took a breath. He kept his eyes on Daniel, steadily, and it was clear he had gone over every word in his head. "I told a policeman a thing, once. A long time ago. It was a, it was a lineup, you know. They put five men in a row, behind a glass. And I'd seen a man. I'd seen him in the street, going by in a car. Or I thought I had. I was nearly sure it was a blue one, and I was nearly sure it was a man, and it was dark." The water had reached the edge of the bench. He lifted his feet. "I said I couldn't tell. I said I was sorry. And a man came, a big man with a gray, with a very kind face, and he put a hand on my arm. And he said, Take your time, Ray. Which one of them looks like the driver?"
Frank Ross made a noise.
It was small and thick and not a word.
"And I looked," said Ray. "I looked at them all. And I didn't know. And he held my arm, just here, just above the elbow. He squeezed it. Like this." He lifted his good hand and closed it round his own forearm. "And I said, Number three. And he said, Good man."
"Ray," said Frank. His face was the color of ash.
"I don't blame you. I never did. I thought, I was only mostly sure. I thought it must be right, because you said so. Because you were a, you knew things. I thought, he'll know." The water slopped against his shins. It was almost at his waist. "But it wasn't. Was it?"
"I don't."
"I think I got a man put away. And I think he wasn't the one."
He said it simply. There was no accusation in it. It was a plain, quiet, steady statement of fact, spoken by a man who had carried it for nine years and had decided to set it down.
"I wanted somebody to know," said Ray. "That's all."
Nora was crying aloud. She was clinging to the mesh with both hands, with her forehead against it, and she was making a thin, high, broken sound like a small animal. Helen had her arm round her. Tom Rudd was standing with his big hands over his face. Greg Pruitt had turned his back and was staring at the brick wall as if he'd been told to memorize it.
"Four minutes," said Helen. Her voice cracked.
"Edwin's here," said Ray, suddenly.
"What?"
"Edwin. That's my mother's, I told you. Tell her he's here." He was smiling a little. "It'd be a, she'd like that. She'd say, oh, there you are. Where've you been?"
"I'll tell her," said Daniel.
"Thank you."
"I'll go myself."
"That's kind." He had to hold his chin up now, to keep it clear. The water was at his chest. It was perfectly flat and gray, with the white rope of the pipe falling into it from the roof. "I'm not frightened. It's funny. I thought I would be."
"Ray," said Nora.
"It's all right, love."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for." He smiled at her. It was the gentlest smile Daniel had ever seen on a human face. "You were kind. You were all, you were all very kind. I don't think I've ever, I never had a, so many people, in one room."
The water closed over the bench.
It was not violent. It rose and rose, and he stood up on the seat, and put his head back to the ceiling, with his bandaged hand held out of the water as if holding a cup. He took a long slow breath, as a man does before diving. His eyes were open. They were looking up at the pipe.
And then the gray went over his face.
Nobody screamed.
There was a thin, high, silent pause, in which the whole room seemed to stand on tiptoe, and then the pipe in the ceiling shut itself off, with a small cough, and the white rope of water vanished. A bubble went up. Then another. A long way down, in the green light, a hand opened and floated.
The gate of the cage clicked, gently, and swung out.
They got him out when the water had gone down.
It took twenty minutes. It was Tom who did it, and Frank. They went in together with the water running out of their sleeves and lifted him between them, and laid him on the long steel table, and Nora, who would not be stopped, knelt and tried to find a pulse. She tried it for a very long time. Nobody told her to stop.
Daniel stood by the empty cage with his ruined key.
He was not thinking. There was nothing in his head at all, only a vast, humming, level silence, like a sheet of white paper. He looked at the bench, and the bolts, and the three iron rings in the wall. He looked at the wet concrete. He looked at a single brown shoe, which the water had washed to the foot of the gate.
I did that.
It did not feel like a sentence. It felt like a stone he had been handed and could not put down.
He was about to turn away when he saw the corner.
It was under the bench, on the underside of the seat. It was a pale edge, a straight line, a few millimeters of white. Something had been fixed there with tape, out of sight, where the water had never reached. He crouched. It hurt so badly he nearly fell. He put two fingers under the edge of the seat and felt the tape, slick, fresh, and drew it away.
It was a plastic sleeve, clear, the size of a sheet of paper. Inside it was a single yellow form.
He stood up, with his back to the room.
It was very quiet. Behind him, he could hear Nora's sobs, thick, wet, endless. He could hear the long steel table creak. He took the form out of its sleeve with the tips of his fingers and held it in the glare of the strip.
It was a verdict. It was MC-J-417 (Rev. 3/09). It was the same form he had signed, in the jury room, three days ago, for the Pen. Only the type was different. It was older. It had been typed on a manual machine, in a hard black face that bit into the paper, and then signed by hand.
STATE OF MARLOW v. MARTIN LOWE.
We, the jury, find the defendant, MARTIN LOWE, GUILTY of the offense charged in Count One of the indictment.
Foreman: D. WELLS.
Dated: March 9.
The signature was in black ink. It was a plain, quick, upright hand, with a long tail on the W. It was the handwriting of a young man in a hurry to go somewhere.
He had written it with a pen that was not his own, standing up, at four-twelve in the afternoon, with his coat already on.
He folded the form into four. He put it in his shirt, against his skin, behind the bandage. His hands did it without him. They did it exactly as a man's hands will when he has just seen, on a stranger's table, an object he has dreamed about for nine years.
Martin Lowe.
He had not heard that name aloud since a Thursday in March.
"Daniel?" said Helen.
He turned.
She was standing a yard away, with her handkerchief to her mouth. Her eyes were red and steady. She looked at his face and at his hands, and at the flat place under his shirt, and then, with great deliberation, at nothing.
"Nothing," said Daniel. "I'm all right."
"Of course," said Helen.
Behind her, on the steel table, someone had folded Ray Dunn's arms across his chest and covered him to the chin with a gray blanket. Frank Ross stood at the head of it. He had taken off his wet jacket. He stood with his big gnarled hands hanging open at his sides, staring down at the dead man's face, and his lips were moving. It took Daniel a moment to understand. He was counting. He was counting under his breath, in a low, steady, hopeless whisper, as a man counts who is trying to keep a thought from catching up with him.
One. Two. Three.
Number three.