Gordon Williams (16 page)

“He’s a funny bugger that Yank,” said Cawsey, sniggering as he told them what had happened when he’d been caught halfway in the window. Norman Scutt interrupted him.

“So he knows you all right, Chris then,” he said. “You’re good for ten year.”

“Oh aye, he knows me all right.”

“And Bert and Phil and me were in the house and he knows us. And Tom. So what d’you want to do then, you lot, go home and wait for the coppers to come for us in the morning?”

“What’re us standin’ here for then?” Tom Hedden demanded. “I’ll get in that house, I’ll get that Niles and –”

“How’re you getting in then, Tom? Think you’re going to kick a hole in the door? Look, you buggers, us’ve got to use our brains. Plans. That’s what counts. Us use our brains and us’ll be in the clear.”

“I don’t think they’ll send we to prison for Tom shooting Bill Knapman,” said Bert Voizey.

“That’s your bloody trouble, Voizey, you’m spend all your time with rats. I’ve been inside, haven’t I? You know what it’s like – in gaol? For ten year or more?” Then Norman had an inspiration. Already he saw himself as the brains behind a gang of desperate men. “Don’t you lot remember what happened all them years ago in Soldier’s Field? They killed that fellow then, didn’t they? And nobody ever got caught. You know why? They’m knew what they were doing. They all stuck together and nobody ever breathed a whisper.”

“They’m all took a turn with the knife,” said Chris Cawsey.

“But if one of us gets any smart idea he can get off...”

“I won’t say nothin’,” said Bert Voizey, his voice a mixture of fear and indignation.

“All right then. Us stick together. Folk in Dando won’t be tellin’ the cops nothin’. They ain’t goin’ to take their side against us, are they?”

He knew he had them now. Phil was just a big lump with no brains. Maybe he thought he could have a go at the Yank’s wife. Cawsey was just dying to get his knife into somebody. Bert Voizey was too scared to run away. Tom Hedden was like a mad bull, he was crazy to get at Niles.

And himself? He’d had as much rum as the rest but he knew he was the brains. He knew what was facing them. He knew what ten year inside meant. With his brains they’d never be caught. It would
become history – like the soldier. Nobody had ever said a word to the police about the soldier. All the wives must have known. Lots of people must have known. Nobody ever told. Dando folk stuck together. They’d be heroes, for doing away with Henry Niles.

There were other thoughts going round his head. He’d been in Bristol when they hung that chap, the one that had killed the farmer. They’d hung him, the last hanging in the whole country. That night they’d battered their tin mugs on the bars and shouted and sung all night.

Sometimes they’d seen the hanging chap in the yard, exercising on his own. He’d come to chapel – they were practising carols for the Christmas service – but he’d been put behind special screens, separating him from the ordinary villains. All the time everybody had said they hated the idea of hanging a man. What was it
like
to kill somebody? Better than hitting a girl over the head? Better than getting into a posh house and turning it into a shitty mess? Better than stealing gear and going into pubs with the money and knowing you were smarter than everybody else? Better than laughing at mugs who had to work their guts out? Better than two of you getting hold of a bit of class stuff and getting her into a wood and ramming her till she would do
anything
for you?

He’d done all these things and now he remembered how he’d felt at the time.

“Right then, we’m goin’ to get in that house. Phil, you have a go at the back door, Chris you go for that window you were in before. Tom’s got the gun, you try the front door, I’ll try and slip in the window at the other end. And Bert – you got any matches on you?”

“Yeh.”

“Well then, see if you can’t get some of them curtains burning, maybe us’ll smoke ’em out. That Yankee bugger won’t know what hit him.”

They had another pass round of the rum bottle. As they began to cross the lane Chris Cawsey’s cap blew off. He slipped and fell as he tried to catch it. He laughed loudly as he scrabbled on all fours for the cap, which the wind kept blowing away from his stretching hands...

Sister Brady left the casualty ward without looking at the woman in the yellow coat. She didn’t want to know what Frank Pawson’s wife looked like. She had just been told by the casualty ward sister that Pawson had multiple skull fractures and, almost certainly, a broken spine. Shocked as she was, she was still able to think clearly. Frank was lucky he had a wife to look after him. A thing like that could often bring people together again.

Whatever happened, she told herself she was very lucky. It was the wife’s duty to look after her man. Life was cruel but these things often turned out for the best. When she got a man he was going to be a proper man, not a permanent invalid.

Bobby Hedden opened the door in his stockinged feet, a blackhaired boy of fifteen with a scowl on his face. With his father away and his mother sleeping and his brothers in bed and Janice missing he’d had his first chance of a proper look at his father’s books. He’d accidentally discovered them hidden under some sacking on the water tank in the attic, but he’d never been alone in the house since.

He’d been up in the attic with a torch when he’d heard the noise at the door.

Standing on the doorstep was Doctor Allsopp, his coat caked with snow, blood dried hard on his forehead and cheeks. His eyes were almost closed.

“You’m had an accident, Doctor?”

“Tom’s got a gun,” the doctor mumbled. “Must get to the...” He swayed. Bobby didn’t want to touch him. The doctor was important, not like them.

“I’m...”

The doctor began to fall, his hands clawing for a grip on the doorpost. Bobby tried to catch him but the man’s weight was too much. They both fell into the kitchen, the doctor a dead weight on his legs. Bobby Hedden dragged himself free. The doctor was moaning. Bobby gripped him by the shoulders and dragged him across the kitchen floor to the battered sofa by the fire.

He had often helped his mother to pull his father on to the sofa when he’d come home drunk from the pub. First he swung the feet up, then he caught hold under the armpits and lifted his dead weight, bracing his knee under the doctor’s back, wrestling him on to the sofa.

He couldn’t smell drink on the doctor’s breath. It must have been a crash. Where was Chris Cawsey? They couldn’t have been driving very fast in that snow. Maybe the doctor had been fighting Niles the murderer? What did he mean, Tom had a gun? Of course he had, he’d gone into the backroom for it when they’d left to go to Trencher’s. The doctor opened his eyes.

“Tom’s got a gun –” he seemed to notice Bobby for the first time. “You run to the Inn, tell them your father’s got a gun... he’s – he’s gone to Trencher’s, you get to the...” Then he went out again.

Bobby didn’t understand. Maybe he ought to fetch the doctor –
but Dr. Allsopp
was
the doctor. What did he mean, go to the Inn? Bugger that for a lark. Somebody would be coming shortly. That reminded him he was on his own, the only chance he had of a good look at his father’s books. He’d never seen pictures of women like that, hardly any clothes at all. What was his father doing with books like that on top of the water-tank? He wanted to see them again. The doctor would be all right here in front of the fire.

Bobby Hedden went back up to the attic. If anybody came he would hear them and have time to put away the books.

Snow turned to water on the doctor’s hair and face and coat and trousers and rubber boots. Soon little wisps of steam hovered above the damp folds of his clothing. He didn’t move.

Although it had been what she wanted, to let the men outside have Niles and leave them in peace, George’s apparent change of mind didn’t make Louise feel any less irritated. Whatever the real reason for her discontent – and she didn’t really know herself – she felt as though she was swamped by a deep sense of
grudge.
It showed no signs of evaporating even now that he’d seemingly come to see things as they really were. Everything about him now irritated her. He was so damned artificial. Just for a moment she’d thought he was going to belt her and funnily enough she’d felt a sense of relief, but then he’d taken hold of himself. That was part of it, he was so damned anxious to keep control of himself. He
acted
the role of a reasonable, steady, dependable husband. In her general state of unreasonable resentment she saw this as an insult; if he was sincere he wouldn’t need to act, to keep such tight control of himself.

She left him trying to get some life on the telephone and went upstairs to Karen’s bedroom. She looked at her daughter with the
wary eyes of a woman who had betrayal in mind and she could see herself for the bitch she was and she could find nothing loving to say.

“What’s happening, Mother?”

“Why don’t you go to sleep, Karen!”

“They keep shouting that man’s name, is he a bad man? What’s happened to Janice Hedden, hasn’t she come back yet? I’m frightened.”

“Don’t be silly now. They won’t be here much longer, they’ve probably gone away already, they were just worried about Janice, that’s all.”

“Did that man do something horrible to Janice? I didn’t like him, he had a funny face, Mother.”

“For God’s sake, Karen! Go to sleep will you? I’ve told you there’s nothing wrong, that’s all I –”

The whole house seemed to be hit by one big bang. Somebody kicked the front door. At the same time there was a dull thudding noise from the other side of the house. Somewhere in the din she heard glass breaking.

“I’m scared,” Karen sobbed.

Good God, she thought, what’s George doing now? Why the hell isn’t he speaking to them, telling them they could take Niles away?

“Stay here and don’t cry,” she snapped at Karen as she left the bedroom, slamming the door behind her, but forgetting to lock it.

As she crossed the upstairs landing she heard Niles moaning in the lavatory. It served him damn well right, she thought. It was the best place for him if he had to be in the house at all. She felt her temper rising.

“George! What the hell are you
doing
?”

“Christ, they’re all over the place,” he said, standing in the gloom
of the sitting-room, a dark shape in the red glow from the fire.

“Damn you, George, I’m sick of it!”

She knew it was up to her. George was hopeless. She cursed as she caught her shin on the edge of the coffee table. She found the handle of the door into the hall.

“Where are you going, Louise?”

“I’m coming,” she shouted.

George realised she was going to open the front door. He strode towards the hall, forgetting about the armchair. He lost his balance as he bumped into it and fell forward, crashing with the chair to the floor.

“Louise!”

“Stop kicking the door, damn you,” she was shouting. “It’s this damned chain.”

George scrambled to his feet and moved towards her, his hands up to protect his face in case he ran into the open hall door.

He got to her just as she was slipping the chain catch along its slide. He caught hold of her wrists and pulled her away from the door.

“Let me go!”

“What are you doing? Those guys are crazy!”

Her voice was grimly controlled.

“George, if you don’t open that door right now I’m going to leave you. I’m not joking. Open that door and let them take that man out of this house or I’m going.”

“But they’ll –”

“Did you hear me? It’s
him
they want, that thing upstairs. Make up your mind, George, he goes or I go.”

He knew she was right. He was a civilised man and there was
nothing he could do but open the door and let them drag Niles out of the house. Tomorrow they’d pay, he’d make sure of that. But tonight, now, they were like a pack of wolves and there was nothing he could do.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell him.”

He shot the bolt and turned the Yale handle. The door opened about four inches until the chain went tight.

“Tell them to stop it,” he said, putting his face to the gap. “You can have Niles. But if you harm him I’m going to make sure the police know exactly who you are, you and your pals.”

Tom Hedden had his hand against the door, shoving at it.

“Did you hear what I said?” George asked. He knew they would harm Niles, he knew exactly what they’d do to him, but nobody would blame him.

“Let me in the door.” Tom Hedden’s voice was a snarl of hate.

“I said you aren’t going to do anything to him.”

Tom Hedden was maddened by rage and drink and frustration. He rammed his shoulder against the door. George let go of his hold. The door pulled hard on the chain and then rebounded, the Yale lock clicking as it slammed shut. Tom Hedden hit it again with his shoulder.

“I’ show you, dirty Yank bastard,” he roared,

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, GEORGE, OPEN THE DOOR!”

Before he could reach the lock handle he was deafened by a noise that hit him and Louise like a blow on the face. For a second they stood still, the deafening boom pounding in their heads. Then, acting instinctively, he grabbed at Louise and pushed her towards the sitting-room. Like a dream in which nameless horrors are instantly recognisable, he knew that the man outside had fired his
shotgun. Louise said something but his ears were full of a dull roar. He tried to speak but he couldn’t hear his own words.

They clung together in the shelter of the wall...

When they heard the boom of the shotgun the others came running round to the front of the house.

“Open the bloody door!” Hedden kept shouting. When Norman Scutt realised what had happened he knew the answer to one thing that had bothered him. Tom Hedden’s shotgun would do any killing they had to do. Hedden was out of his mind, mad enough to shoot the lot of them. The thought made him happier. You had to think of Number One. He knew what they had to do if they weren’t going to be locked up for ten years, but he hadn’t reckoned on killing them himself. Better for Tom – and Cawsey – to do it. That way, even if they were caught, he could get out of it. He’d say Hedden had the gun and
he’d
been trying to stop him.