Full Fury (4 page)

‘
To and from the bank?’

I
don’t know what it was about me; I seemed to be attracting aggression from the most unexpected quarters.

‘
If I get paid. So far I’m doing nothing but make polite noises.’

She
didn’t like that. There was a fractional tightening of the hand on my shoulder. ‘You went out of step.’

‘
I’m always out of step.’

‘
Then you should try harder.’

‘
I need the practice, that’s what it is.’

The
moment had passed; we’d touched swords. She withdrew, smiling, her little nose quivering. ‘You must come again. I’ll give you lessons.’

‘
Free membership,’ I said. ‘Now free lessons.’

‘
Everybody wants you to be happy.’

‘
Everybody,’ I agreed.

Except
the band, which switched to a bosa nova that left me completely wrong-footed. So I took her back to Paul, who was seated at a corner table looking morose and impatient.

Carter
Finn was sitting with him. He stood as we approached. He never even glanced at Karen.

‘
Want a word with you,’ he said.

The
tables were nearly all occupied by now, and I saw that Myra was circulating dutifully. She seemed to know everybody. Her personality was crackling clear across the floor. As I watched, a man at one of the tables touched her arm. She turned to him with a brilliant smile, and her laughter beat through the bosa and gave something new to the nova.

‘
In my office,’ went on Finn, seeing my eyes were occupied. His voice had gone very thin. I turned and saw Karen flash a glance at him. No smoke now—fire rather.

His
office was just beyond the phone cubicle I was aching to get to. We were alone. There was a desk, and a combination safe in the wall making no attempt to look like anything else. I slumped into the one easy chair. Finn went to his desk, but only to get a cigar. He clipped it and lit it and looked down at me.

‘
You’ve seen her? What do you think?’ I said nothing. After a moment his teeth showed. ‘You didn’t think anything?’

‘
I may report to my client.’

He
rolled the cigar between his fingers. There hadn’t been any suggestion that I should try one.

‘M
allin, I want you to go carefully,’ he said at last. ‘She’s my wife. She’s not Myra Gaines any more. I don’t want her upset. You understand?’

‘
It was Gaines who was upset.’

‘
Look it over,’ he suggested. ‘But make it easy.’

How
many clients was I working for? ‘I’m paid by the day, until I can tell my client the job’s done.’

‘
Keep it short, and I’ll see you don’t lose by it.’

‘
I wasn’t talking about me.’

He
thought about it. His face was no longer affable.

‘
This where they sit?’ I asked. ‘All the mugs who can’t pay their gambling debts and have to come and ask for time.’

‘
You asking for time?’

‘
And then you send for Troy, just for them to see?’

‘
You haven’t got any time, Mallin. So don’t try double-talking with me.’

I
crossed my legs and reached for my cigarette case. ‘Then send for Troy.’

His
voice grated. ‘I thought we understood each other.’

‘
Perhaps that’s the trouble.’

I
got up to use his table lighter, just to get the feel of it in case I needed something lethal in my hand. As I reached for it I felt him close behind me.

‘
Why not have a cigar?’ he said softly.

I
took a cigar. He had himself in control.

‘
I think we’d better start again,’ he said. ‘I wanted to keep everything friendly.’

But
I’d had enough. ‘You said it. Keep it short, you said. Maybe I will. I don’t know. I’ll follow my nose. At this particular moment, something smells.’

I
stood in the bar for a moment, savouring the havana. There was no sign of Troy. So I went to the ballroom, where Myra was no longer circulating. Paul and Karen I could not see. I looked in the conservatory, in case they were retrieving something they regretted losing. They weren’t. Nor were they losing anything else in the gaming room, though I did notice that Smoking Jacket had recouped a little.

Just
my luck. When I needed Paul, he had to go missing. And I certainly needed him just at that moment.

I
went out into the parking lot. His Mini was no longer there. I cursed him and climbed into the Porsche, and wondered what were my chances of overtaking him.

What
I should have done was drive straight back to Elsa’s, and to hell with the lot of them. But as I say, I made the mistake of chasing after Paul Hutchinson.

CHAPTER THREE

He lived in Bridgnorth, he had said, and he’d mentioned a factory involved in electronics, where he was engaged on research. He didn’t sound like a writer.

Because
I didn’t want to have to hunt out the address I drove fast in the hope of overtaking him. I had twenty-seven miles to do it in. The Porsche loves this sort of thing.

As
I swung out on to the main road the first spatters of rain clattered against the windscreen. It was cold. I put the heater on. The visibility was poor, and the road was strange to me. To Paul it would be known. I began pushing things a bit, trying to make up on him.

There
was a long, winding climb between near-vertical banks of glistening sandstone. The exhaust blatted back at me as I took it fast in third. Headlights ahead led me on. I was closing in. At the top I burst out into the open. Orange and blue streetlamps sparkled in the distance, uneasy through the lashings of rain. The headlights of two cars were plunging down the long and protracted hill in front of me. I rammed my foot hard down and the tachometer gave me an uneasy look.

We
were diving down in sweeps and curves between rising fields and wooded slopes. For one second I would lose touch with them, then the lights would be there again. There was something disconcerting about the two cars—their lights were too close together. I caught blanketed glimpses of them as the rain curtain caught in the wind. Then I was close enough to be sure.

The
Mini was being hounded by a larger car. You could tell by the erratic sweeps of the headlights, not entirely accounted for by the curves in the road, that the Mini was weaving frantically, beating off the other’s approach.

I
was on the limits of adhesion on corners, flicking into drifts. The wipers lashed away the streaming water angrily. The larger car was attempting to edge alongside, and the Mini was fighting it away. I could not see clearly. A large and dark car—but there could be no certainty. My tyres were screaming, the engine howl deafening me.

There
was a half mile of open road, still sloping downwards, at the end of it a sweep under heavy trees. The cars touched, touched again. The Mini veered. It recovered, scraping the nearside bank, then plunged out of sight beneath the trees. I felt the tunnel of gloom pound back to engulf me.

Visibility
was abruptly short. It was going to be tricky. 1 veered into the winding tunnel, touched the off-side bank with a steep drop beyond it, then howled round a corner in third—and rammed on the brakes.

Headlights
were tumbling through the trees on my right.

The
Porsche was still skidding when I fell out and ran back. Rain blinded me. The Mini had stopped plunging, and one light was still on, way below me through the shattered trees to where I could hear the roar of a small river. The bank was nearly vertical. Way ahead on the road was the distant whine of a high-powered engine disappearing into the distance.

Then
everything was silent. I plunged down the bank with only the reflected light of that canted headlight to go on, slipping and sliding and reaching for tree trunks. It was on its side, one rear wheel still spinning. When I was twenty feet away the first flicker of flame trickled from underneath. I let myself go, pitching forward so that in the end the car stopped me. There was a heavy smell of petrol. I scrabbled at the door I could reach. It was jammed. The windscreen had crazed, but there was no hole in it. I put my fist through as the flames grew round my feet.

He
was forward over the wheel, his head down and sideways on, twisted at an awkward angle. There was blood flowing from his mouth and his eyes were open, turned up, blind. I think he was dead. I tell myself he was dead.

There
was nothing I could do. Heat lapped around me. I pounded at the door, but it would not budge. Then there was a surge of igniting fuel and the heat flung me back, rolling. I twisted round, sliding on my side with the left sleeve of my jacket smouldering. I came to a halt and dragged myself around. Slowly I crawled up past the car. The flames were licking sparks from the pine needles above. I went on past, awkwardly and painfully back to the road, crawling.

The
Porsche was side-on in the middle of the road. headlights still blaring. Nobody had come along. I got in and drove on. There was a phone box just over the bridge. I dialled 999. The lot: police, ambulance, fire. Then I went back and watched Paul Hutchinson’s funeral pyre, gradually dying to a ball of concentrated heat. I dug out the roll of nylon raincoat from my glove compartment, but the suit was already ruined. My cigarette case had fallen out, somewhere down there.

The
police car arrived first. They parked the white Zodiac on the bank, and got out to have a look, pounding their black leather fists into their palms.

‘
What happened?’

‘
I was behind,’ I said. ‘There was a big car seemed to be trying to get past. I didn’t see how it happened. The bend.’

I
pointed back. ‘When I got here he was down the bank.’ This one was very big and probably amiable, but he looked grim just at that time. ‘You got to him?’

‘
I got to the car. No good.’

‘
Mmm!’ They looked at each other. ‘Was he dead?’

‘
Certainly unconscious.’

‘
Lucky.’

I
agreed. Lucky. He gave me a cigarette.

The
ambulance and fire engine arrived together, racing each other for it. They got foam going and rigged up some lights for when the flames would be out. Then they cooled it down with water. They forced the door open with a crowbar. What they dragged out was not recognisable. It was not a job I’d like.

I
was down there while the lights were still on, looking for my cigarette case. I found it in the mud at the edge of the river, but I didn’t pick it up until they doused the lights and I could reach inside the car on my way back and dig the keys from the ignition. They were still hot.

They
took some details from me. Then the car went off with a howl of siren that hardly seemed necessary. The firecrew were neatly putting away their gear. I got in the Porsche and went on to Bridgnorth.

Paul
had given me a few clues and the actual address. Hobs Terrace. Perched between High Town and Low Town, he’d said, up a steep run of steps cut out of the rock. He had mentioned a view of the river. I drove into town, carefully skirting the lower road, not making much fuss with the exhaust. I parked the car on the silent forecourt of a petrol station, and got out. Paul had said he had nowhere to park, so the steps obviously climbed directly from the road.

The
rain had ceased. A few stars came out. I found a wicket gate opening on to a climb of steps leading off at an angle. Twenty steps up, there was a painted sign that said this was Hobs Terrace. I climbed on. The vertical sandstone surface nudged my left elbow; a tubular steel rail protected my right. At the top the steps opened out on to a bit of flat. There were two old houses, dug into the rock. I could see the river, with beyond it the orange street-lamps of the Kidderminster Road. This was the right place.

There
was a little light. The two houses were numbered 37 and 38. I went round the side of number 38. There was a wooden outside staircase with a rickety rail. The places were old black and white buildings, pressed hard against the rock face behind. I got out Paul’s keys.

I
needn’t have troubled. The door was a weak planked job with an old sneck latch. They’d fitted a new Yale, but they must have had difficulty setting it in the rotten woodwork. Somebody had leaned on the door, and it had opened.

I
went in, but I knew it was too late.

Paul
Hutchinson had two rooms, this sitting-room and a bedroom beyond. The window in here was tiny, with flowered curtains and a white earthenware sink beneath it. One tap—obviously no hot water. There was a table with a cover on it and two chairs, and an old easy chair in front of a fireplace that had an inset gas fire. The high mantel had a little skirt of the curtain material. There were genuine hand-hewn beams across the ceiling, low enough to cause me to duck.

The
bedroom matched it, the window even smaller, the beams sloping to the roof-line. The bed was iron with brass knobs, but he had a candlewick spread on it. There was a chest of drawers that had a varnished surface, now worn down to bare wood. But there was no wardrobe.

I
started in the bedroom and worked my way back to the butchered door. I was hoping for some notes, at least, of the lines his enquiries might have been taking. But I found nothing. In the living-room there was a kitchen cupboard against one wall, and in the left-hand drawer I found a loose-leaf binder with notes on electronic circuits. There was a whole run of radio manuals and text books in a low bookcase beside the fireplace.

Beneath
the loose-leaf binder was a manilla envelope, eight inches by three. I picked it out by the edges only and squeezed it to open its mouth. A letter fell out. It was dated two months before and was from a firm of solicitors in Wolverhampton called Fiston & Greene. Mr Greene was writing. He said he enclosed a letter from Paul’s father, which the coroner had now released. There was no enclosed letter, but there was a paper clip where it had been.

I
put it all back, then put out the lights and went away. Paul had been a tidy lad. It was a pity his death had been so messy.

It
was nearly one o’clock. My first case had lasted around nine hours, and I’d lost my client. Keep it short, Finn had said. He couldn’t have had it much shorter than that. I decided to go back and tell him, watch the pleasure seep into him, and I wondered whether he would forget he had said I wouldn’t lose by it.

The
Beeches was still bouncing with activity. It was only one-forty when I drove in there again. I parked in the same spot. The 3 litre Rover wasn’t where it’d been, but I wasn’t sure it was Finn’s anyway. I had a quiet look round, but there was no dark, large car that bore impact marks. It was time to go on in, I decided. No it wasn’t. There were the old stables over the other side still to be investigated.

I
limped round. My ankle was aching a little; nothing that mattered. I knew just where the stables were, because we’d parked in front of them the day I’d brought Crowshaw. This side of the house was where they had their front door. They had changed the stables into a row of eight garages with wooden doors. The first four were locked, so I left them alone. I tried the other four. The end one had something big crouching in the gloom. I closed the doors quietly behind me and searched for a light switch by touch. It turned out to be a length of cord with a knot in it. A naked bulb sprang into life.

It
was the grey Rover. There was a dent in the front bumper—off-side—and a score along the bonnet. The doors were locked. I couldn’t see any red Mini paint in the score. I turned to reach for the knot.

Troy
had the door open a yard or so and was leaning on it with one hand level with his shoulder, preserving the plum-coloured jacket from contact. ‘I wouldn’t hang around here,’ he said. ‘It could be dangerous, Mr Mallin.’

It
was the nearest his voice had approached to warmness, just a shimmer of water on the icy surface.

‘
I must have lost my way.’

He
nodded. ‘Some of the boys might have drifted round. They’re very rough, the boys.’

‘
I was looking,’ I said, ‘for a large, dark car with scores along the sides.’

‘
Were you?’ He stood back for me to leave. I heard a slight tinkle from the chain on his wrist. ‘A pity you didn’t find it.’

I
agreed. ‘You didn’t give me time.’

‘
If I find one,’ he promised, ‘I’ll let you know.’

‘
Thank you.’

‘
If you’re around.’

He
lit a small cigar and watched me walk away. I took it steady, a prickly feeling between my shoulders. But nothing happened to the back of my head, and I arrived safely at the club entrance.

Feeney
Keston was still on duty. He looked shocked on seeing me. His eyes were going up and down, taking me in with horror. Then I realized. They had a tall mirror on one wall, so I checked.

I
had discarded the nylon raincoat. There was caked mud all down the right side of my trousers and a scorched hole in the left arm of my jacket. My tie was twisted and drooping, the shirt soggy. I turned and grinned at him.

‘
I’d like to see Karen Gaines,’ I said.

‘
Karen?’ he asked. ‘Karen Finn?’

‘
So you find her and bring her out here. Eh?’

He
got the point, and went.

While
he was away I tidied what I could. Then I lit a cigarette to create an impression of lack of concern for my appearance. She was three minutes.