Full Fury (11 page)

Most
of the meat came in Paul’s own evidence. He’d grown up with it. His father had been dismissed from the force six months after Neville Gaines was convicted. This father, you could get the picture, wasn’t a tough character by any means. No resilience. It had hit him low. He’d tried to build up a detective agency, but the people who’d go to an ex-cop who’d been thrown out would be apt to expect somebody not too honest. Or maybe he didn’t try hard enough. Anyway, it drifted on for two years, then Hutchinson was on the labour market again. A policeman doesn’t get any technical training that’s any use in a factory. He tried labouring. As I say, he wasn’t tough enough. One job drifted on to the next, with always the mounting feeling that his dismissal was haunting him, chasing him from one failure to the next.

Paul
had been about sixteen when his mother died. I got the impression she just gave up. Poppa Hutchinson dragged on. There were incidents. A fight or two—Hutchinson claiming somebody had sneered at him. Very soon it wasn’t just the lack of money that drove him—he and his son—from rented rooms to bed-sitters; there were neighbours in whom Hutchinson was certain to detect a knowledge of his past failings. Then they’d have to leave. Paul said in evidence that he was at seven schools in six years. But he’d been a brainy lad, and his ability had at last provided him with the means to make his own life, apart from his father.

You
could see, from Paul’s statement, that he had been very uneasy—even guilty—about leaving his father to carry on alone. But he’d had as much as he could handle. Towards the end Hutchinson was attempting to retain work at a factory as a nightwatchman. As his letter indicated, the last job didn’t go on for long, and it was all the man could take. His obsession had for some time been robbing him of sleep, and his doctor had had him on sedatives. Enough of these had been left to do the job.

I
handed all the stuff in and left. Oh—I got her name for you. Daphne. She said she was free that evening, and I told her I was getting married on Friday. She pointed out it was only Wednesday, so I got out of there fast.

I
was away from the kerb before I’d decided what to do. Birmingham, and a quiet evening with the tele? You’re joking. Shropshire and The Beeches—or to Elsa? I didn’t want to see anybody such as Elsa. Nobody I liked. I had a desire to meet somebody I could kick in the teeth. Yet it was too early for Finn at The Beeches.

Paul
Hutchinson had been killed for his father’s letter and to keep him quiet. Something he’d said or inferred had given somebody the wrong idea. He hadn’t got any intention of shaking-up that old case. Hadn’t he said something to Myra about where the second gun was found being important? It was—to Paul. Because it’d been found where his father had searched. No, he hadn’t been interested in who killed whom and why, all he’d wanted was a way of getting back at Crowshaw, who’d had his father dismissed with a snap of the fingers, when the poor chap had really done his best.

I
’m an economical type myself. I hate waste. Paul’s death was waste. His father’s was waste.

In
the end I drove out and picked up the M6, and batted along there for an hour. It didn’t do me any good, but it warmed the engine.

It
wasn’t as dark as I’d have wished when I got to The Beeches. Half a mile short of the entrance I found a pull-off by a bridge and eased the car in there out of sight. Then I continued on foot. At that time of the evening the car park would be empty, and I didn’t want to dump the Porsche in the middle of a naked expanse of tarmac. On the way up the drive I kept well in under the trees. In the west the sky was still green and gold beneath a line of hard, purple cloud. The lights were dim in the ballroom and gaming room. I kept on straight up the side of the building, and round to the row of garages.

The
first four were still locked. There was nothing in any of the others. So much for all my crafty work. I was walking away, treading even and gentle to cut down the sound, when it occurred to me that there was something not quite right. I’m not the thinking sort; I go by impressions and instincts. This was an instinct. I stopped. I turned.

I
was standing exactly where I’d parked the Cambridge thirteen years before. Looking round, going by the glow left in the sky, I felt the feeling growing stronger. My memory is not for facts—I get mental pictures. Now I had a mental picture of how it had looked from the Cambridge, and something was different. After thirteen years, so what? I stood poised, and worried about it. Then I saw it.

The
row of garages presented the appearance of a long, low building with a row of double doors down the length. But why was there a high double door inset into the end of the building?
That
hadn’t been there before. I went to have a closer look. They were heavy doors, and there was a large padlock on them. The end garage therefore had two sets of doors, on adjacent walls.

I
went back to the Porsche, keeping on the grass. I dug it out with some difficulty, then drove openly up the drive and round to the parking lot. The floodlights weren’t on. I slid the car in against the far fence, next to the only other car there.

When
I got out I saw it was the dark grey Rover. Every thing was quiet, and by that time it was quite dark. One of these days I’ll buy myself a torch. What I could detect by touch and the flash of my lighter spark, the blustering wind taking the flame off before it caught, indicated that somebody had been doing some work on it. There was no abrasion along the offside bonnet. There didn’t seem to be any dent in the bumper.

I
went on into the club. Dead and empty. No Feeney at the door. In the ballroom a couple of women were polishing the floor. Low and discreet lights from the walls were the only illumination. The women spoke in echoes. I went on through the curtains.

The
bar was also dimly lit. No customers and no barman. The counter gleamed with polish. Behind it, Carter Finn and another man were standing with their backs to me, drinking scotch. A curtain makes very little sound opening. I allowed it to drift back into place with even less. Finn’s companion was a bull of a man, his glass tiny in a hairy great hand. I trod gently. The phone booth was the other end of the bar.

‘
One seventy-five,’ said Finn.

Bull-neck
laughed. I’d know that bellowing, scornful low anywhere. ‘A quid.’

I
got opposite them, and smiled. ‘Use your phone?’ Then I sailed on past. The bull’s face was heavy and jowled, sideboards low and luxuriant. He looked startled.

Inside
the booth I found I hadn’t got the sort of change you feed them with. I went out again to see if Finn could split me a fifty. His friend was gone. It had been so fast that the only place I could imagine for him was crouching under the bar. You could tell Finn wasn’t pleased to see me. What’d he expect? You hire a private detective and he’s apt to drop in any time. He bashed a key on the cash register, and the drawer flew open.

‘
What the hell you want round here?’

‘
Reporting in… boss,’ I said blandly.

He
gave me change and watched me with controlled disgust. As I turned away: ‘Use the one in the office.’

Which
he’d got tapped? I leered at him. ‘No thank you. But I’ll put the call on your bill.’

Freer
was still at his office. ‘Oh, it’s you again.’

‘
Listen, mate,’ I said. ‘I’m doing you a favour. Say the word, and I’ll ring off.’

There
was a minimal silence, then a shift in his tone when he got it out. ‘All right. Sorry. What’s up?’

‘
I’m at The Beeches. Finn’s place. Know it?’

‘
I know it.’ His voice was suddenly keen and sharp.

‘
That hi-jacking case you’re on. Don’t tell me…’ He didn’t. ‘Was it whisky?’

‘
How’d you guess?’

‘
You’re always waiting to pounce,’ I complained. ‘What sort of wagon?’

‘
An articulated,’ he said. ‘Loaded with the stuff.’

‘
Which you haven’t found?’

‘
The thing can’t have evaporated.’

I
turned and looked out of the narrow glass door. Finn wasn’t hovering. ‘There’s a row of garages here, the first four of them locked. There’s another double door at the end. If somebody knocked down three separating walls they could back an artic into there and lock it away.’

‘
That’d be clever. This is a hunch, is it?’

‘
It was. But I’ve just seen Busoni here.’

We
both knew Busoni very well. He operated from London, but spread his net wide. Busoni would buy anything from anybody, never asked a question, and had markets so hidden that not even Scotland Yard had managed to pin him down.

‘
I’ll be right over,’ said Freer.

‘
Better make it fast. Finn knows I’ve spotted Busoni.’

We
didn’t have time to say goodbye. The phone was dead in my hand. I went out to thank Finn for his accommodating attitude, but he wasn’t there. Nobody was there.

Just
at that time I had every intention of telling Finn that the investigation was a dud. Paul Hutchinson had been chasing a revenge campaign against Crowshaw. There was nothing in it for Finn or for Myra. I was getting married on Friday, and I’d had enough of it. That was what I was going to say. But he wasn’t there. So I couldn’t tell him, could I?

I
lit a cigarette and looked around. In the gaming room the wheels were tidily clad in green baize nightdresses, and the ghosts of happy losers laughed in the eerie silence. I could go over there and through the door into the hall and winkle out the Finns. But I didn’t. The scotch had gone from the bar, so I couldn’t help myself to a drink. I wandered out to the car park.

The
sun had called it a day and the black clouds had closed down on the horizon. The blustery wind was picking up cold. I threw away the cigarette and thought I’d do the same as the sun.

One
thing I hadn’t tried. I tried it. To my surprise the Rover’s door was open. I reached in. A box of paper handkerchiefs in the glove compartment. I fumbled behind it and my hand fell on a torch.

I
hadn’t been wrong. There was no dent in the bumper. The wing was perfect. It wasn’t just a fill-in and smooth-over, but looked like a new wing. Fast work, if that was the case. In the torchlight I couldn’t detect any variation in shade between the wing and the rest of the car. That’s where it usually shows; they never quite match the original colour. A complete re-spray? Surely not. Nobody could have done all that work in the time. I checked the number plates, and I’d got the right car. But on this one the tyres were Cinturatos. On the other they’d been Goodyears.

There
wouldn’t be any need to change the tyres, surely! I crouched down low, checking. No, they hadn’t changed the tyres, they’d changed the whole bloody car.

Now,
that really was smart work, and even faster than a re-spray would be. But somebody had gone out with clear instructions. A dark grey Rover 3 litre automatic, circa 1968. Get it, bring it in, switch the plates. Hell, Finn had got some useful connections. And somewhere, deep in a desolate ravine or in somebody’s abandoned quarry, there’d be lying the burnt-out wreck of a dark grey Rover, now unrecognisable.

Finn
was good. He was very good.

All
I heard was the creak of leather as a shoe changed emphasis, and the soft hiss of something heavy moving through the air. I heard it because it finished up just above my right ear.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I lay still awhile after consciousness returned, and thought about it. Not that I gained anything, except perhaps the time to get scared.

We
were in a car. It was moving fast. There was a contented hum about the engine and a self-satisfied comfort in the upholstery that told me we were probably in the Rover. But there was a good chance I was on my way to join the other Rover, which might not yet be a burnt-out wreck. They probably wanted to make it look good with the burnt-out body of a driver inside.

I
eased open one eye and surveyed the possibilities. On one side of me was Troy, just about obscuring the nearside window. We were in the back, and on the other side of me was somebody else I couldn’t see, but could smell—aniseed. He was sucking aniseed sweets. Wedged between my thigh and Troy’s was the box of paper handkerchiefs. He dug into them from time to time. Troy had the sniffs. It was too late to hope it might develop into pneumonia. The driver was just a heavy bulk between me and the wheel. That made three of them. I couldn’t see much I could do with three.

Troy
took another paper handkerchief. The floor around his feet was scattered with them. Then suddenly he shone a pencil light in my eyes and caught me in the middle of a frown.

‘
He’s with us,’ he told the other two.

‘
You might at least chuck ‘em out of the window,’ I said.

‘
What?’

‘
The handkerchiefs. It ain’t hygienic.’

It
struck him as funny. There were shaking movements from him, but no sound.

‘
It wasn’t a good idea,’ I told him.

The
thing behind my right shoulder breathed aniseed all over me and grumbled: ‘Shut him up, for Chrissake.’ I’d know the voice again—and the breath.

‘
What wasn’t?’ said Troy.

‘
Switching the car. It’s too obvious.’

‘
It was scratched, so it had to go.’

‘
Yes, I can see that.’

Troy
was being affable, like offering me the best meal he could, just before the end. ‘Traded it in,’ he said smoothly.

I
had a brief impression of streets crowding us. We were going through a town. There were lights beyond the windows.

‘
Nothing funny,’ Troy said softly.

And
just what, in the funny line, could I have done?

Then
we were out of there and climbing. The box was dropping all the time into third, then into second when tight corners began to slow us.

‘
Here?’ said the driver suddenly, and I felt my muscles bunch.

Troy
peered ahead and behind. I could see now that the wipers were working. There wasn’t anything but darkness out there.

‘
It’ll do.’

I
did what I could, but the space was confined. They didn’t stop the car to give me more room, but did it on the move. Aniseed-breath mainly held me. Once or twice he cursed and added his fist when I managed to get in the odd blow; but that was at first. Then Troy justified my faith in him and got in a few short-arm jabs, so I was nearly unconscious when he started in with the gun.

He
smashed my left hand with it, while his mate held it hard on the top edge of the front seat. It took him three hefty swings. Then at last, satisfied, they opened the nearside door and pitched me out.

We
were doing around forty at the time, but fortunately we were close in, so that I hit grass. Wet grass. For a distance I slid along head first, then managed to scramble round for what I was sure to be going to hit, and went through the low, white fence with my feet. Then I went straight on, pitching and twisting down the slope beyond. Small gorse bushes slowed me. I stopped with my head beside a racing brook, with a rustling movement around me, and lay breathless under the sweet and gentle rain.

After
a couple of minutes the car came past along the road in the opposite direction. I could just see the top, and the lights kicking into the rain. They did not stop to see if there was anything left of me to push around.

After
a while I managed to force myself on to hands and knees. Steaming shapes moved around me in the darkness and one of them coughed gently. The sheep had come to see who was visiting.

I
could not tell what had happened to my left hand, but it felt bad enough and looking at it wouldn’t have helped. I didn’t know the time. My watch is—was—luminous but while he was at it Troy had smashed that too.

I
decided to try the slope. On the way down it had seemed steep enough. On the way up it was near vertical. With only one hand and arm to drag myself with, and the short grass slimy with rain, I had difficulty making any progress at all. The gorse bushes helped, those I hadn’t torn out on the way down. Every now and then I lay with a heel wedged against the stubble of bush, and rested. Then I had another go at it.

I
reached the white fence. It occurred to me that somebody’s sheep were going to be wandering out of the hole I’d made, but you can’t have expected I’d stop and mend it, surely. As it was, it took me all my time to crawl through the hole.

Then
I sat and waited on the grass verge. I got out a cigarette but couldn’t light it in the wind. What had been blustering at The Beeches was a half gale there.

In
all directions I could see nothing but darkness. The sweat I’d worked up was now helping the wind on its way to my tender skin, and it soon became obvious that I couldn’t sit there and wait. I stood up. As it was dark I’d got no line of reference, so it was difficult to stand vertical. Then I started moving, downhill because I couldn’t have done otherwise.

I
could barely see the road. The rain was steadily soaking through my suit and running down into my eyes, and very soon I found myself walking in a limping, crab-like way, in order to keep the wind from my face. There was almost complete darkness, just the tarmac surface faintly grey ahead of me, and here and there the low, curved parapet of a bridge, where I could hear water rushing beneath the road. No trees, at any rate none I saw. Where there were boundaries to the fields, they were stone walls. I don’t know what sort of stone, except that it was hard. I walked into it several times.

But
there was no traffic.

There
comes a time when movement seems apparently to have ceased. All that existed for me was that grey area in front of my feet, never becoming absorbed by my progress. I did not dare to stop; I would never have got going again. At one point I thought: God, a man could die out here. I could feel my body temperature gradually sliding away. They said you dozed, exposure cases, dozed away gently into eternal darkness. I walked in my sleep, numbed and confused, concentrating on the complex business of getting one foot to move in front of the other.

I
became aware that a line of stonework on my left was becoming visible. Shadows moved sideways in the screen of rain, consolidated, and became light. Then I saw my own shadow go streaking ahead of me on the tarmac. I turned. Headlights were bearing down on me.

There
is no recognised way of stopping a speeding vehicle at night. I did not dare stand aside, or he might have driven past. I faced him, raised my arms, and I think I shouted. The tyres screamed. It reared up in front of me. Somehow, blinded by the headlamps, I fumbled round to the cab door, but I couldn’t manage the step. It was some huge vehicle with a high cab. He got down in the rain.

‘
An accident,’ I mumbled.

‘
Christ, mate,’ he said.

He
got me in there and slammed the doors. It was hot inside, oh Lord how wonderfully hot! I sat in sodden exhaustion and looked at the streaming window.

‘
Here,’ he said. I looked at him. A fat chap with a moustache and the top off a thermos in his hand. It steamed. It was coffee. Sweet and strong.

‘
Light me a fag?’ I asked.

He
gave me one of his own. I drew it in, gasped it out. ‘Walked for miles,’ I told him.

‘
Pretty quiet here.’ He paused. ‘I didn’t see anything.’

‘
Went through the fence,’ I explained.

‘
Why didn’t you phone?’

‘
I didn’t see a box.’

‘
There’s one a mile back. No lights in it, though.’ He thought about it. ‘Vandals, I suppose.’

I
said a quiet prayer for vandals, wherever they might be.

‘
All right now?’ he asked.

I
said I was fine. The inside of the screen was steaming up when he got into gear and let out the clutch. I think I went to sleep.

He
nudged life into me. My first realisation was of the pain in my left hand. I looked at it. There was no blood, but things were pointing in unconventional directions.

He
said: ‘This do you?’

This
was a low, softly-lit building down a short drive. ‘What is it?’

‘
Hospital,’ he explained. ‘You’ll need some looking at. You can do some phoning from there.’

It
didn’t seem a bad idea. He got me down on to the ground. ‘Help you in there,’ he said.

‘
Nonsense,’ I protested, and promptly went down on my hands and knees. So he helped me in there, into the comfortable lobby smelling faintly of ether and sterilised nurses. I turned to thank him, but he had gone.

It
may have been a maternity hospital, for all I could tell. There was a grey-haired nurse behind the reception desk. She looked at me and reached for the phone, said a few quick words, then came round to help me into a chair.

‘
An accident,’ I explained.

‘
So I see.’ She did not approve of accidents.

Then
somebody in a white jacket was taking my pulse and two others were helping me along a corridor, through a door, and on to an examination table.

‘
Better get your clothes off.’

‘
I’ll need them.’

‘
Not tonight.’

‘
Tonight,’ I said.

He
smiled. ‘You can have them back. And dry.’ I let them take my clothes away. The right hand jacket pocket was torn away, the one where I always keep my change. I said: ‘A sec.’ They paused. ‘My wallet.’ They looked as though I’d accused them of something. ‘Thought of something,’ I explained, and they relaxed. It was just as I’d suddenly remembered. I’d spent my last three quid on petrol for that batting up and down the M6.

They
took them away to be dried.

The
man said it would have to come off. It turned out to be a joke. He’d shot my hand full of something and it was beautifully numb. Only one finger was broken, number three, and my middle finger was dislocated.

‘
Lucky, really,’ he said, grinning.

I
agreed how lucky it was.

‘
This didn’t come from any car accident.’

‘
No. It happened in a car, though.’

‘
I ought to phone the police.’

‘
A gun butt,’ I told him. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

He
put a plaster and bandages on it until it was heavier than the rest of my arm. He made a neat job of everything, all the cuts and abrasions.

‘
Where’s my clothes?’ I said.

‘
You ought to stay the night.’

‘
Business to attend to,’ I told him.

He
shrugged and went to get my clothes. They’d tumble-dried them, and some kind lady in the far reaches had stitched on the pocket again. But too late to save my small change.

He
helped me dress. ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said. ‘Send me a bill, will you. I’m right out of cash.’

‘
On the house,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Any time. Come again, it’s been a pleasant change.’

He
left me in the lobby. I sat down for a minute because my legs seemed to prefer it. Then I asked the old dear in reception if I could use her phone.

‘
What was it you wanted?’

‘
A taxi.’

‘
You’re not to do any driving,’ she said warningly.

I
promised not to do any driving. Certainly not a taxi.

‘
And you mustn’t think of going to work tomorrow.’

I
said I wouldn’t give it a thought. Tonight for me.

So
she rang her nephew or some such relation and asked him to come round. I sat in the lobby and waited. The clock over the dear lady’s head said it was ten to eleven.