The Devil's Home on Leave (Factory 2) (26 page)

As we were going to Stoke Newington, a squad car overtook and forced us up on the pavement.

Bowman got out and came over. ‘Won’t you ever get a radio in that heap of yours?’ he shouted.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ I yelled back. ‘Get that bloody car clear.’

‘Now, now,’ said Bowman, grinning, ‘don’t panic, I’m not going to do you for speeding.’

‘Don’t get funny,’ Foden told him, ‘you cut no ice with me, mate.’

They stared coldly at each other; it was amazing how Bowman inspired immediate dislike in people. Bowman turned away from him and said to me: ‘There’s no more danger of anybody topping Bartlett.’

‘Why’s that?’ I said. ‘Did nature get in ahead of the bullet?’

‘No,’ said Bowman. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a mid-afternoon edition of the
Recorder
which he passed to me. ‘You seen this?’

I looked at the headline on page one; I hadn’t. The headline shrieked: ‘Defence Minister Dies’ and underneath in smaller print: ‘Crisis Through Overwork Suspected’.

‘It’s the kind of crisis the work he was doing does bring on,’ I said.

‘But the part they haven’t printed,’ said Bowman, ‘because they don’t know it yet, was that a constable patrolling the street he lives in pulled him for being apparently totally pissed in a public highway. The officer didn’t recognize him because what was really the matter with Bartlett was, he was dying, which kind of changes
a man’s appearance, doesn’t it? He died in a cell at Gerald Road. The doctor over there thought it was just alcohol – but it wasn’t, it was barbiturates. He’d drunk whisky as well and then managed to tumble out of his front door into the street – maybe he’d changed his mind and wanted to call for help. Anyway, they reckoned you ought to know.’

‘Yes,’ I said, after a moment. ‘OK, where are you going now?’

‘Over to the McGruder woman’s place, same as you are – and that’s the other thing. We’ve got McGruder’s money with us OK, all old notes, tens and twenties, brand-new British passport, new name, the lot.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know about the name. Gordon and I thought of it.’

‘If that’s how it goes, mind,’ said Bowman, ‘and nobody tries to get in any shooting practice.’

‘That’ll depend on them,’ I said.

‘You armed?’

‘No. Inspector Foden here has a pistol. I never go armed.’

‘What you mean is,’ said Bowman, ‘you never learn. OK, I’ll see you over there.’ He got back into his car and shouted at the driver: ‘All right, come on, then, let’s move!’ The car left with a rich burst of speed to the ascending whoop of the siren.

We left our car at the tapes that had been put across both ends of the street; uniformed police were rerouting traffic and moving on the few rubbernecks. Foden was close behind me as we walked up to the street door of Klara’s block, his right hand inside his jacket. The only people left in the street were a few inconspicuous men standing around; there would be marksmen on the roofs opposite. I felt very small. My cock felt very small too, trying to wrinkle itself up into my testicles, and my legs were like strips of old newspaper. The rain had stopped and a weak sun was shining. I remember all that plainly, but every nerve I had was aflame with fear; even the cool air burned me. I looked up at Klara’s window and saw a face – a man’s face, sudden and indistinct behind the
dirty panes. He was looking down into the street and disappeared abruptly when he saw me. For some reason, as we went into the evacuated building, where the tenants had been told there was a gas leak, and started walking up to the second floor, I found myself thinking back to when I was a child, remembering my relatives who had come back from the war after missing death by a stroke, haunted and pale. Then I banged on the door and Hawes’s voice said: ‘Who is it?’

‘You know who it is,’ I said. ‘Now open up and let’s get this over with.’

‘All right, then,’ I heard McGruder say, and the door inched open. Foden and I walked slowly into Klara’s flat; I was thinking about nothing now, just moving with my empty hands at my sides. Klara was lying on the couch I had sat on the time I talked to her. Her face was upside-down to me, hanging down near the floor, and there was blood on her teeth from a split lip. Her legs were exposed to her waist; they were grazed and dirty. She was wearing just her dress; her underwear lay scattered on the floor around her. I looked again and saw semen running down the inside of her thighs.

I said: ‘You people never let up, do you?’ She had a big bruise on the front of her forehead and more on the sides of her neck. She was still breathing, though; that was the main thing. I took her pulse; it was weak but steady. What looked like her coat was flung over a nearby chair and I covered her with it. Hawes and McGruder didn’t move, just stood there looking at me.

‘What did she do wrong?’ I said. ‘Tell a dirty joke?’ When I said this Hawes moved the sawn-off twelve-bore he was holding and went back to stand in the bedroom doorway.

‘Which of you raped her?’ I said. ‘Or was it both of you?’

‘Why should you fucking worry, where you’re going?’ sneered Hawes, moving the shotgun again.

Behind me Foden said: ‘See this pistol, Hawes? It’s a thirty-two – it makes a terrible hole in a man.’

Hawes shifted the shotgun in his grip. ‘So does this, copper.’

I was standing in the middle of the room facing Hawes; McGruder had gone over to lean against the far wall. He looked relaxed and expressionless, as usual, and was unarmed as far as I could see. Hawes’s eyes were red and bitter. He had been drinking export beer with whisky chasers; cans and bottles lay around the place. He pushed his safety-catch forward to the firing position; it made a deadly little sound.

‘I’m telling you, put that gun down, Hawes,’ said Foden, ‘it’s your last chance.’

But Hawes didn’t move. I said to McGruder: ‘Your money’s ready for you downstairs, all fifty thousand of it.’

His tongue flickered over his lips. ‘Cash? Used notes?’

‘Old tens and twenties.’

‘They’d better not be marked.’

‘They’re not,’ I said, ‘and so now only one problem remains – if either myself or this other officer gets as much as a cut finger from you two, the deal’s automatically off.’

‘You’re in no position to say what’s on or off,’ said Hawes.

‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ I said, and McGruder said easily: ‘Yes, that sounds very reasonable – when do I see the money?’

‘The moment we get the woman out of here,’ I said. ‘They’ll bring the money up with them when they come to take her down.’

‘I’m not having any more coppers up here,’ said Hawes, ‘there’s more than enough with you two.’

I shook my head. ‘She goes down,’ I said to McGruder, ‘the money comes up.’

‘Where’s she going?’ sneered Hawes. ‘Down to the Factory to make a statement?’

‘She’s going to hospital.’

‘Yes, it’s fair enough,’ said McGruder. He just couldn’t wait to get hold of the money; it showed all over him. I said: ‘Ernie, would you just get a party up with a stretcher for Mrs McGruder? And tell them to bring the money, but no weapons.’

McGruder bent over Klara and said: ‘She’s not really hurt.’

‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘I can see she enjoyed it.’

‘It wasn’t rape anyway. Pat screwed her, that’s all, and I watched them. Christ, he’s screwed her often enough before. She was willing.’

I said to Foden, who was on the walkie-talkie: ‘Yes, when they arrive, tell them to knock and wait, they’re not to come in; you just take the case.’ I tried to forget that Hawes’s gun was covering me; tried not to show any fear. I did as little as I could with my hands. I glanced at Klara McGruder, then back at Hawes, red-eyed, dishevelled and armed. It was a disgusting scene in a disgusting room, charged with desperation, greed and terror. I said to Hawes: ‘Put that gun up now.’

‘Why?’ said Hawes. ‘All you lot are fucking barmy.’ He said to McGruder: ‘And I’ve had it up to here listening to you yap on about your money, Billy – what’s going to happen to me?’

‘I’ll square you, Pat,’ said McGruder calmly. ‘I told you before, I’ll work you in on the deal.’

‘I’ve only your fucking word for that.’

McGruder took no notice of him. He said to me: ‘It was all right while they were screwing. But she’d been hitting the bottle with him, and after they were through she started giving Pat a bit of blag and there was a battle, see?’

‘It’s like living in a farmyard with you lot around,’ I said.

‘You can count me out,’ said McGruder, ‘I don’t even drink.’

‘You make me feel like killing you,’ Hawes said to me suddenly, ‘and what’s more, I’m going to.’

Foden had finished talking to downstairs. He said to Hawes: ‘You’d do better to see how you can get out of the jam you’re in, son. Listen to reason.’

‘I’ve got my reason right here in my hands,’ said Hawes. ‘You listen to it.’

There was nothing left to say. Once Klara McGruder groaned under her coat; otherwise the room was quiet. Hawes’s gun was
pointing at my balls; I felt perched on the very edge of life like a bird sitting on the last slate of a roof. Hawes grinned at me, his teeth glittering in a mouth that looked like a new moon bent out of shape. Then his twelve-bore rose lazily to the level of my face, and I was looking straight into the two black eyes of death.

‘I can do it now,’ he said. ‘I’m ready, you bastard.’

‘You haven’t got your money yet, Billy,’ I said, without taking my eyes off Hawes’s gun. I thought, he hasn’t got his money; he isn’t even armed; he’s going to drop me in it. I knew that the triggers of the twelve-bore would be wired together. Hawes only had one shot and I was going to get it; Foden would be too late, and when Hawes pulled the back trigger my head would disintegrate like red ice sprayed out from under a sleigh. My brains would alter a section of the ceiling; shards of my skull would shower the wall behind me. Without moving I said to Foden: ‘I think this is it.’

‘So do I,’ said McGruder. There was a bang on the outside door out of my line of sight. McGruder said to Foden: ‘Well, open it. Go on, just open the bloody door.’ When Foden didn’t move McGruder went to the door himself with two strides, moving directly between Hawes and me. McGruder took the briefcase that was offered through the open door, while I was still listening to the click of Hawes pulling the trigger. My head was where it had always been and I heard Foden saying to Hawes: ‘You can give me that now, son.’

I said, to no one really: ‘I don’t understand, a villain’s shotgun usually works better than that,’ and McGruder answered: ‘It’s not much use without shells, though.’ He took two out of his pocket and threw them at a far corner of the room. Our folk had come in by now and were taking Klara McGruder away, also Hawes with cuffs on him, between two officers. There were tears in Hawes’s eyes and he was shaking.

I said to McGruder: ‘When did you get those shells off him?’

‘We were very uptight waiting in here,’ said McGruder, ‘also
Hawes started getting nasty with me, particularly once he started drinking, that took his fear of me away, especially since he was the only one of us that was armed. But what really bothered him was that he didn’t know if I knew that he’d been screwing her before – while I was away on my trips, I mean. I did know, of course,’ he added, nodding. ‘I always know these things, always find them out. Well, so Pat was drinking, and my old boiler was drinking – nothing for me, you know me, just Coke, there, you can see the cans, I never touch alcohol. So, when the two of them were well pissed, sitting together on the divan there, he said to me, I fancy your old woman, Billy, so I said, go ahead, we’re all mates, aren’t we, have a go, feel free, no charge, Klara means nothing to me. You can watch if you like, he says, we don’t mind, do we, Klara, and I said, all right, I’ll do that, then, it’ll be something to do till the law gets here, won’t it? Well, it cost him dear, that charver did. I meant it to. He had to take his clothes off and put his gun down to have it. He had his work cut out to get it up and all, he was that pissed. So when they were finished they both had a nice little bit of kip. I unloaded the gun and that was it, he never thought to check it again.’

‘Supposing he had?’ I said.

‘Well, it wasn’t loaded any more, was it?’ he said. ‘Besides, I’ve always got this.’ The razor was out in his palm again.

‘You might as well have taken the gun right off him while he was asleep,’ said Foden. He paid no attention to the razor.

‘Why bother?’ McGruder said. ‘Pointing a gun at a geezer the whole time, it’s tiring. Besides, he might have tried to have a go – he was pissed enough – and then I might have shot him. Been a shame to do that – might have screwed our deal up. Anyway,’ he added, ‘I thought it was a right giggle to play it the way I did. You never sussed there was nothing in the gun, Pat never sussed it – nobody did. No one ever bunks up with Billy McGruder’s women,’ he said, his eyes empty. ‘Not even when he’s finished with them.’

‘You could have let us off the hook a lot earlier,’ I said. ‘I don’t like that, I don’t like it at all.’

‘Well, I don’t like the law either,’ he said. ‘Besides, you’re both all in one piece, aren’t you, what are you moaning about?’

‘Watch your mouth,’ said Foden, ‘or I’ll take both hands and shut it for you.’

‘Well, I was enjoying myself,’ said McGruder, ‘let’s just put it that way.’ He sat down with the briefcase on his knees. ‘And now I’m going to enjoy myself some more,’ he said, and snapped up the latches. ‘Ah, isn’t that lovely?’ he whispered when he saw the notes. He started to count it. When he had finished he said: ‘That’s correct, it’s all there.’ He picked up a twenty-pound note, kissed it, put the note back in the case and shut it. ‘Money?’ he said gently. ‘Best thing there is. Better than a woman, does just what you tell it and it never talks back – you can take it anywhere.’

Foden gave him the envelope with his nice new British passport in it. McGruder opened the envelope and took the passport out. ‘It’s like Christmas,’ he said, ‘isn’t it?’ He opened the passport. ‘Angell,’ he read aloud. ‘Frederick William Angell, company director. Now isn’t that nice! Angell, Mr Freddie Angell, life and soul of the old bistro. Yes, now that’s a really nice name, that is; I can just fancy going round calling myself that.’