‘You’re over-simplifying,’ Collins answered, ‘but offhand I can’t think of anything better. There is one point though — try to remember that the longer we stay here the more blood I lose.’
Ignoring this sneak attack on my conscience I left Collins at his post. Of course he could think of a better plan — from his point of view, that is. He wanted me to go inside to flush the opposition out, something I’d absolutely no intention of attempting. It was one thing to be prepared to do my best to see Collins to safety, quite another to be fool enough to risk sticking my head inside the Casa Branca. Either we collared Biddencourt and Gordinho when they decided to break from cover or we didn’t catch them at all.
*
For twenty minutes I crouched beside the steps leading to the second entrance, all my senses straining to pick up sounds of activity inside, and when I did hear something I refused to credit the evidence of my ears, putting it down to imagination. Another slithering sound from above showed my ears hadn’t been deceiving me, that there really was someone on the roof.
Instinctively I huddled deeper into the shadow of the steps, doing my best to compress myself into an indistinct shape about two centimetres square. After sixty seconds’ existence as a still life I was convinced of two things. The man on the roof was moving so quietly he could only be Biddencourt — it was difficult enough to visualize Gordinho hauling himself up on to the roof, downright impossible to imagine him trying to crawl around on his protuberant stomach. Furthermore Biddencourt wasn’t my problem, he was Collins’s. Although there weren’t too many sounds to trace his progress by there were enough to tell me he was moving away from me, towards the car park. When he finally stopped he was somewhere above the main entrance, a fact which made me very glad I was me and not Peter Collins.
I was considering what I could do to help when the problem was resolved for me. Collins must have had a lot more practice than Biddencourt at getting from place to place without making a noise because, even with a couple of bullets in him, I wouldn’t have realized he was easing himself round the comer towards me unless I’d happened to be looking in that direction.
The penny dropped then and I stopped trying to blend in with the scenery, going up the steps as fast as caution allowed. It was a pleasant surprise to discover the hinges of the door didn’t squeak but once inside I had to waste valuable time while I tried to spot the obstacles in my path. The room had once been a kitchen and was littered with all manner of cooking equipment, meaning that in the near pitch darkness I had to work my way round the periphery of the room, past cupboards, draining boards and a sink, until I reached the exit I’d been looking for.
Some thoughtful soul had left this door open and it led to a corridor which seemed to run in the direction I wanted. My mouth dry, pulse rate up in the low thousands, I forced myself forward, mv shoulder brushing the right hand wall and an arm held out in front of me to give warning of what I was likely to bump into. There was nothing like stark, unadulterated fear to heighten my sensitivity and if anyone had dropped a pin within half a mile of me I would probably have jumped out of my skin. Phillis’s reasoning power told me Gordinho should be crouching behind the same wall Pepe had used, plucking up his courage to walk the few paces to the car while Biddencourt covered him from the roof. Unfortunately this self-same reasoning power had let me down so often in the past it wasn’t hard to visualize myself walking blind on to the end of Gordinho’s gun.
Instead my lead hand brushed against wood and I untensed my stomach muscles. I’d taken twelve shuffling steps from the kitchen so the door should be one of those leading to the lobby. Treating the handle as though depressing it too fast would bring the ceiling down on my head I inched the door open a fraction prior to hooking an eyebrow round the edge. I was too late and, typically, Gordinho was doing things in style. He wasn’t the man to demean himself by skulking in the shadows and there was no attempt at concealment, his familiar, purposeful tread as he strolled to the cars clearly audible where I stood.
More relaxed now I knew where everyone was I crossed the lobby, reaching the door in time to watch Gordinho skirt the DKW on his way to the Mercedes.
*
There was nothing of Gordinho’s aplomb about Biddencourt. He was still acutely aware of my possible presence in the vicinity and it took him several minutes to scramble down from the roof and make his way through the building to where I was waiting. He’d descended two of the steps before I came out from behind the door.
‘Stand still and drop your gun,’ I said softly, giving him a chance he didn’t deserve.
Biddencourt must have been as tense as I’d been when I entered the building, starting to turn before I’d finished speaking and, without hesitation, firing back into the open doorway. I allowed him two shots, both bullets whining harmlessly over my head as I lay comfortably on the floor, then I put a bullet through his chest. We were so close he seemed to fly backwards, the hammer blow lifting him clear of the steps and hurling him a good five yards through the air to land on his back on the rough ground of the car park.
In the few seconds it had taken Biddencourt to die both men outside had gone into action. At the sound of the first shot Gordinho had started the Mercedes and Collins had opened up from his corner, his carefully spaced shots thunking into the bodywork of the car. I gave him four hits out of four but he missed both Gordinho and the petrol tank because the Mercedes was out of the car park and disappearing down the road before I could make any contribution.
It was the glaring injustice which started me running down the steps. Gordinho was the top man, the person ultimately responsible for the disruption of my peaceful life in Brazil, and it was unthinkable that he should be the only one to escape. As I ran across the car park Collins shouted something after me but I ignored him, the same way I ignored the DKW, heading instead in a direction diametrically opposed to the one Gordinho had taken.
Although I was prepared for the slope I didn’t manage to stay on my feet. The ground seemed to drop away from me and instead of running I was sliding on the seat of my pants, my feet making a bow wave in the scree. Thirty feet or so of this and a rocky outcrop brought me to a painful halt. At the second attempt I managed six steps, then I was down again, rolling this time until the next rock came along.
It was a rut I didn’t think I’d ever escape — fall, slide, hit a rock, up on my feet, fall again. Luckily I was on my feet when I cut the road for the first time, the only reason I didn’t break my neck. My second step after bouncing off yet another rock and I was space walking, floating above the lights of the city until, ten feet down, I hit the tarmac, doing a paratroop roll to save my legs. Before it occurred to me to give up I was sliding feet first again and once the pattern was re-established I had no real choice in the matter.
At least the gaps in the trail of skin I was leaving behind me were growing longer as I adjusted to the routine, a kind of skiing without skis which increased my speed while cutting down on the falls. There were even small trees to break my fall at the next cliff, growing out of the cracks in the rock face, and the branches whipping back across my face were amply compensated for by my feather bed landing, a drop of no more than six feet to the road from where I hung on to one of the sturdier trees.
And there was the satisfaction of discovering I was ahead of Gordinho. My unconventional route hadn’t been more than two hundred yards in a straight line, on the road it would have been well over half a mile with speed right out of the question and Gordinho was approaching the bend fifty yards uphill from where I’d landed. I knelt on one knee in the middle of the road, flexing the bruised and grazed knuckles of my right hand while I watched the headlights of the Mercedes, at first cutting twin paths in the dark void above the city, gradually swinging inwards as Gordinho slowed down into the bend until they merged into one dazzling, white beam as the car finally negotiated the corner.
On seeing the obstruction in his path Gordinho slowed momentarily, almost im
mediately stamping on the accelerator as he recognized it for what it was, leaping the Mercedes towards me in a surge of power. Grimly I willed myself to remain where I was, the revolver clutched in both hands and aimed above the headlights on the driver’s side. At thirty yards my nerve broke and I cut loose, the gun bucking wildly in my hands as I frantically squeezed the trigger until, mercifully, the hammer dropped on an empty chamber and I could throw myself to the left, out of the path of the approaching juggernaut. My evasive action wasn’t a moment too soon. The wheels passed so close that small stones hurled up by them splattered my face and the slipstream felt like a small hurricane, threatening to rip the shirt from my back, but I was untouched and the car kept on its course. There was no wobbling, no yawing, absolutely nothing to show my bullets had done any damage — except that there was no slackening of speed as the Mercedes went into the next corner.
The offside wing ploughed into the rock face with a grinding, metal-buckling crash, turning the car on to its roof without losing forward momentum. Upside down and at thirty miles an hour the Mercedes became a flying hearse, sailing yards through the air before there was a second scream of tortured metal striking rocks. On this first bounce the petrol tank exploded, shooting flames high in the air, and the car was transformed into a fireball rolling down the mountainside with undiminished speed, its progress easy to follow even after the car itself was out of my sight.
It was my own personally produced cataclysm and the sight must have thrown me into shock. I should have been moving, doing something to get Collins and myself off that blasted mountain, but I just stood helplessly at the side of the road, gazing at the glow from the fiercely burning wreckage. Only the sound of a second car descending from the Casa Branca snapped me back to reality. Anxiously I swung round, willing Collins to make it. It was madness for him even to think of driving, especially on that road, but at least he was giving us a chance to leave the vicinity before anyone thought of visiting the Casa Branca to check the starting point of the wrecked Mercedes.
The DKW was moving a little more than walking pace, mainly because he sensibly wasn’t showing any lights, and it seemed like hours before he pulled up beside me, opening the driver’s door and sliding across into the passenger seat himself. He sat hunched there, both hands clutching his stomach, while I hastily settled myself behind the wheel. Collins must have been on the far side of the mountain when the Mercedes began its spectacular descent for he was star
ing fixedly at the flames, an expression of awe on his face.
‘I knew I could trust you to be discreet,’ he said weakly as I released the hand brake.
Epilogue
Gregson was as big as he was ugly and he was very, very ugly. Stripped to the skin, he stood six feet four inches and weighed over seventeen stone; wrapped in a duffle coat and scarf against the bitter cold of a grey Liverpool dawn he seemed twice the size. As Philis walked away from the ship Gregson stepped in front of him, placing one enormous hand flat on his chest and pushing him back a couple of paces.
‘Someone wants to see you.’
Gregson made no effort to be civil, doing nothing to make his approach anything but unpleasant. For a second he thought Philis was going to take a swing at him, then the other man relaxed. Two inches shorter than Gregson, he stood there in this thin, tropical suit, a battered suitcase in his right hand.
‘Get stuffed,’ Philis answered, a slight smile on his face. ‘I can’t think of anyone you’re likely to know who I’d want to meet.’
Philis had started forward again, intending to skirt Gregson who hadn’t moved from his path. Gregson responded by grabbing Philis’s free arm with both hands, twisting it behind his back and pushing the wrist so high between his shoulder-blades that Philis grunted with pain.
‘Let’s go,’ Gregson ordered, his tone harsh.
The muscles beneath Gregson’s hands tensed, preparing for the violent action which would cost Philis a broken arm, but the resistance was only momentary, ceasing when Philis sensed the strength of the man holding him.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he protested. ‘You’re hurting me. My arm isn’t supposed to bend that way.’
In reply Gregson hauled his arm a couple of inches higher, provoking another grunt, and propelled his prisoner towards the Bentley which was parked a hundred yards away. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy. Pawson had warned him to be ready for fireworks but handling Philis had proved to be like taking sweets from a baby.
*
On this, his first showing, Philis was a grave disappointment to Pawson. From the photographs he’d been prepared for his physical characteristics — the muscular, athletic build, his normal, good-humoured expression, the unruly mop of black hair. What he had been totally unprepared for was the meekness with which he’d allowed himself to be manhandled by the oafish Gregson.
Admittedly, not many people could be expected to come out on top in a rough and tumble with Gregson, his brute strength being nature’s compensation for his lack of brain, but both Reece and Collins had praised Philis to the skies, going into raptures about his resource and adaptability. The impression they, and Peters, had given was of a natural, someone definitely not to be trifled with, yet trifle with him was exactly what Gregson had just done. There hadn’t been the slightest display of aggression or defiance and, watching Philis squirm ineffectually in Gregson’s implacable grip, Pawson began to suspect Reece and Collins had merely been attempting to divert attention from their own deficiencies.
‘Will you tell your tame gorilla to let go of my arm?’ Philis pleaded when he reached the car. ‘I may need it again.’
Through the rolled down window of the Bentley Pawson examined his pain-racked face. He was frightened and hurt, a tough who had met someone just a little too big and strong for him. Definitely not SR(2) material, only a loose end to be tidied up.
‘All right, Gregson,’ Pawson said, irritated by the wasted journey to Liverpool. He’d had a lot of plans for Philis. ‘Give him his arm back.’
Gregson released his hold, smiling contemptuously. He was disappointed as well — he’d been looking forward to a work-out with no holds barred.
‘He’s quite strong for a growing lad,’ Philis commented.
The bravado failed to ring true, the wince as Philis flexed his bruised arm belying the flip tone.
Seconds later Pawson had to revise his opinion. There was no warning, the decision to act and its implementation absolutely simultaneous. The heavy suitcase in Philis’s right hand swung up between Gregson’s legs with sickening force, the blade of his left burying itself in Gregson’s throat a fraction of a second later. Pawson’s despondency began to disperse, vanishing completely when Philis put the boot in, a measured kick behind the ear, after which Gregson ceased his agonized writhing on the ground.
‘Satisfied?’ Philis asked with a grin. ‘I thought you’d prefer a grandstand seat, rather than have me rough him up in the middle distance.’
Pawson laughed, amused by the arrogance of the man and thinking it should prove even more amusing to take him down a peg or two. Unasked, Philis walked round the bonnet of the car and slid into the front seat beside Pawson, throwing his suitcase into the back.
‘I take it you’re Pawson.’
This was more a statement than a question.
‘That is correct.’
Philis pulled out a cigarette and lit it, not offering one to Pawson. He seemed completely at his ease.
‘You should be the one lying out there,’ he said. ‘Not Grierson or whatever his name is. You’re lucky I’m not the kind of person to bear a grudge.’
‘You mean the girl?’
‘Chiefly, yes.’
Tm sorry about what happened to her.’ Pawson’s regret was genuine. ‘I’ve arranged for her to have the best possible treatment.’
Philis smiled cynically but said nothing. Outside Gregson was beginning to groan but not loudly enough to compete with the tooting of
the tugs on the river.
*
Pawson and Philis were alone in the hotel suite, a modem, brightly decorated room halfway up the tower of concrete and glass, both of them comfortably seated with a whisky near to hand.
‘What do you plan to do now you’re back in England?’ Pawson asked.
He already knew the answer. Philis was going to work for SR(2), whether this figured in his present plans or not.
‘I was thinking of a career in journalism,’ Philis answered blandly.
Although he remained outwardly calm Pawson was bubbling with mirth inside. The nerve of the cocky upstart, he was thinking, the absolute bloody neck to consider blackmailing him, Pawson. The more he saw of Philis the more he admired his style, not that this would save him from being put firmly in his place.
‘Have you had any experience?’ Pawson only just managed to keep a straight face as he spoke. ‘It’s a difficult profession to break into.’
‘It shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I’ve quite a good story to sell.’
Philis was mocking him now, the smile softening his features and making him look almost boyish.
‘You weren’t thinking of publishing your Brazilian memoirs by any chance?’ Pawson queried, finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his sober exterior.
‘How ever did you guess?’ The guileless expression on Philis’s face was a minor classic.
Thoughtfully Pawson pushed himself from his armchair and walked across to the sideboard to replenish his glass, an action which was entirely for Philis’s benefit. In reality it was no more than an excuse for Pawson
to turn away for a minute in order to release the smile he could bottle up no longer.
The Fall Guy Page 19