‘I have a little device rigged up so that anyone crossing the gangplank sets off a buzzer inside to alert me of unwelcome visitors. Comes in handy. Certainly did tonight.’
We passed through a galley kitchen into a long well-furnished room, softly but dimly illuminated by a series of oil lamps. Now Warren moved in front of me for the first time. He seemed relaxed and assured as though all this meant nothing to him.
‘Take a seat, Mr Hawke.’ He indicated an armchair with the barrel of his gun.
I did as I was told. There was something unnerving about Warren’s relaxed, almost charming manner. There seemed to be no anger or resentment in his demeanour. Such behaviour was scary; especially in a man toting a gun.
My captor took a seat opposite me, one in which he had been sitting before if the glass of whisky and the ashtray bore accurate witness. As he sat back, I observed that he wore a large silver watch with a black strap, the face of which was on the inside of his right wrist – just as Max had described her attacker.
‘Now then, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?’
‘I want to know what you’ve done with Raymond Carter.’
Warren smiled and for a moment stared into the distance beyond me. ‘He need not concern us any more.’
‘You’ve killed him?’
He raised his eyebrows in a mischievous glance. ‘You’re the detective. You tell me. You’ve done very well to get this far, Mr Hawke, but I’m afraid this is as far as you go. Whatever we say to each other now, in the end I’ll have to kill you.’
‘Like Arthur Keating and Evelyn Munro.’
‘Not quite like Arthur Keating and Evelyn Munro. I don’t relish the thought of strangling you. I think a bullet through the heart will have to suffice on this occasion.’
‘All this has been done in the name of revenge.’
‘Sounds rather melodramatic like that but … yes, you’re right. You’ve worked it out then?’
‘Some of it. I know that you are Raymond Carter’s son, the one he abandoned twenty-five years ago and you have come back into his life to kill him.’
‘Not to kill him. To destroy him. Yes old Ray is my dad – the man who dumped me and my mother. She committed suicide as a result. Did you know that?’
I nodded.
‘Of course you did. You’re a clever fellow. Raymond Carter orphaned me at a stroke and I was shipped off to America with a cruel set of bastards called Warren. They changed my name from Freddie to Al and they tried to change me. They wanted a model, obedient, subservient all-American kid with no personality of his own. They made my life hell. They didn’t want a child, they wanted a whipping boy. Whenever I didn’t conform to their notion of what a good little son should be – they beat me. They left scars – mental scars – that have never healed. And it was all Raymond’s fault. I didn’t blame them. I blamed him!
‘Luckily I had a high-school teacher who saw my potential as a writer and encouraged me. For fun I’d write him little sketches and jokes and they would make him laugh. He’d say that what I wrote was better than the stuff on the radio. That was my seed and it soon grew. I left home as soon as I could and hiked it to New York in search of a life as a radio writer. I managed to get a job as an office boy at a radio station. I became friendly with one of the writers and before long I was supplying him with gags and then routines and then … well, you’re bright, you can guess the rest. When I’d established myself as a comedy writer at the ripe old age of twenty one, I came to England to seek further fame and fortune … and my father.’
‘To make him pay?’
Warren smiled. ‘In a way. I needed to make him suffer and – very importantly – I wanted to witness that suffering first hand. Just killing him wouldn’t assuage the pain … and the hurt that had built up inside me all those years. Never for one moment did I forget who I was and what he had done to me and my mother. That hatred grew like some kind of canker within me. It burns here still.’
He tapped his chest and the smile faded for a moment before returning broader than before.
‘I eventually found him touring third-rate music halls with the same tired act he’d been doing for years,’ he said, continuing his tale. ‘He was a has-been and a failure. Where was the pleasure in just killing such a deadbeat? It would almost have been an act of kindness. So I set about building him up. He was a decent vent but his material stank. Well, funny lines are my department so it seemed quite fortuitous. I befriended him, wormed my way into his confidence, nurtured him and helped to make him a star. You know, Mr Hawke, there were times when I was sad knowing that it had to end the way I planned. I wished that I could forgive him. I wished that I could love him. There were times when he’d do something for me or say something kind and for a brief moment my resolve would waver. But then I’d remember. I’d remember the real Raymond Carter and what he had done. The scars are too deep to erase with sweet words and gestures.’
‘You didn’t think that you were destroying your life as well?’
‘That is of no consequence. My mission was all. Avenging my mother and me. It was all I’ve considered important for most of my life. I couldn’t abandon it. Nothing else matters.’
‘Well, it seems that you have succeeded in destroying his career.’
Warren nodded with satisfaction. ‘It does, doesn’t it? And Charlie Dokes was an excellent associate in the process. Once the radio show was a smash I knew that it was time to start the demolition process of the smug Mr Raymond Carter. I wanted to see him crumble, to gibber and bleat. To lose all sense of reality.’
‘But in doing so, you killed two innocent bystanders.’
‘Not really so innocent. Washed-up deadbeat Arthur Keating who staggered from one performance to another for the sole purpose of supporting his need for alcohol. He was drinking himself to an early grave – I just provided assisted passage. I was doing him a favour, bringing his wretched existence to a close.’
This wasn’t rhetoric. He really believed what he was saying. There was a kind of feverish zeal flashing brightly in Warren’s eyes. All the while he was talking I kept a steady gaze on the revolver pointing in my direction. I knew that if I made any uncertain movement he would pull the trigger.
‘And Evie, the career tramp, who’d sleep with anyone to further her career. She’d have seduced Charlie Dokes and serviced a wooden pecker if she’d thought it would have been beneficial for her. Darling little Evie. Y’know she really couldn’t choose between me and Raymond. Couldn’t quite make up her mind which of us would be most useful to her and her dreams of stardom. It gave me great pleasure to bed the same girl as my errant father without him knowing. Very great pleasure indeed.’
By now Warren was almost talking to himself, indulging in a self-congratulatory monologue. In the dim light his eyes stared wildly and perspiration trickled down his brow. I reckoned it was time to bring him back to reality.
‘You don’t think you’re going to get away with this do you?’ I observed ironically.
Warren gave me a sympathetic look. ‘Of course not, Mr Hawke. I was aware of that fact from the beginning. A man may kill a stranger and get away with it as you put it, but to murder those known to you, close to you, will eventually lead to exposure. I knew that from the start. All that ever mattered to me was that I achieve my ambition. To destroy the man who was responsible for the death of my mother and who abandoned me.’
‘What have you done with Carter?’
This question prompted a fit of unsteady laughter from my captor. His whole frame shook with a mad kind of unrestricted glee. For a split second, I thought of making a move on him; either rushing forward and grabbing his gun or pulling out mine and taking a shot. But all the while he laughed, his pistol remained steady and trained on my heart.
Suddenly, almost as though a switch had been pressed, the laughter stopped and Warren’s features froze in a mask of hate. ‘What have I done with Carter?’ he chewed my words back at me. ‘What have I done with him? I h
ave crushed him. I have reduced him to a gibbering idiot who will never function as a rational human being again. That, Mr Hawke, is a thousand times better than killing the bastard. As a mark of my very satisfying feat, I have a personal keepsake from my father to remind me of what I have achieved. His left hand twitched slightly. ‘Would you like to see it?’
I didn’t reply. My attention for the moment was on the gun still aimed at me in what seemed a very unsteady and angry grasp. It veered a little as Warren reached into one of the side pockets of his jacket.
‘Would … you … like to … have a look…?’ he said, producing a small shiny object from his pocket. It glistened red in the dim lighting. Proudly, he held the object out on the palm of his hand for me to see. It looked like a small piece of raw meat, slimy with red blood. It glistened unpleasantly in the dim lighting.
I stared at it in puzzlement at first and then with a growing sense of horror as I began to realize what the thing was.
Warren read my thoughts and confirmed my stomach-churning suspicions.
‘Yes, Mr Hawke, it’s my father’s tongue.’
THIRTY-FIVE
* * *
Peter pulled the collar of his raincoat up around his chin, partly to keep the sharp evening breeze from his face and partly because it replicated the way detectives in his comics behaved when involved in covert investigations. He thrilled at the idea that he was actually on a case, following clues, trailing Johnny to unravel the mystery surrounding Raymond Carter’s disappearance.
It was really dark down by the river. It was only the moonlight reflecting on water that provided any real illumination and then wispy clouds trailed across the surface of the moon dimming the light even more. He cursed himself for not having brought a torch. A good detective should always be prepared. He made a mental note to acquire one with next week’s pocket money. He stared at the long line of barges along this section of the waterway with dismay, each one a large black amorphous creature defying identification. How on earth was he going to be able to find Mermaid III amongst this lot? He’d read about houseboats in one of his annuals but he had never seen one until now. The idea of actually living on the water appealed to him. He thought it would be exciting. When he was grown up and a fully fledged detective like Johnny, perhaps he’d get one for himself.
He dragged his mind from the wish-fulfilment future to the task in hand.
He crouched down by the side of the first barge and slithered along the ground looking for the name of the vessel. Eventually he came to a plaque with fancy lettering that spelt out Mary Ann. One down, he thought. Lots more to go. He carried out this painful process all down the line of barges, his knees getting muddier, he shoes more scuffed and his patience being stretched to its limit.
Eventually he reached his goal: Mermaid III, the last barge in the line. He grinned as he stood upright at last and rubbed his aching knees, displacing the tiny particles of grit that were lodged there. Then came the question to which he’d given no thought. What did he do now? Having successfully arrived at the address he’d memorized from Johnny’s pad, what was he going to do about it? He looked around for some sort of answer. The darkness of the night pressed in on him. He was alone, isolated on the inky landscape. There was no sign of Johnny and, indeed, there was no sign of life from Mermaid III or anywhere else for that matter. It was a dead world.
Well, he knew what he ought to do. Be a good boy and go home before he got himself into further trouble. But that is not what a successful detective would do – and he aimed to be a good detective. He needed to investigate further. That meant trespassing. Breaking the law. Johnny would not be at all pleased with him doing that. Well, Peter reckoned, Johnny wouldn’t be happy to discover that he’d not gone home either. He was in for a roasting anyway so he may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb – it was a phrase he had heard the grown ups mutter when they were about to take a risk, but he had never understood it. For a brief moment Peter felt a small pang of guilt, but he quickly quelled it. He had come this far so it would be stupid just to give in now. He had some serious sleuthing to do.
He looked around to assure himself that he was not being watched, and then very much in the manner of Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood, he leapt from the bank on to the deck of the houseboat, ignoring the sedentary gangplank. He landed quietly but he tottered off balance and in panic clasped the side rail tightly. The last thing he wanted was to fall backwards and land in the river.
He waited a few moments to get his breath back and calm his nerves before taking further action. Like all the other vessels it was shrouded in darkness. He stood for a moment on the little deck area and strained his ears in an attempt to detect any sound from within. All he heard was the eerie moan of the wind whipping across the great river and the gentle slap of the water on the side of the boat.
Crouching down, Peter felt his way, slowly and gingerly, round the front of the main hulk of the houseboat to the river side so that he could not be observed from the tow path should anyone pass. A thin cloud that had been veiling the moon for some minutes slipped past into the dark blue. It was as though someone had switched on a low wattage bulb. The boats and the river were now bathed in a soft creamy light and Peter could see things much more clearly. He observed that there were three low rectangular windows at his knee height along the side of the boat. He observed that there was a thin sliver of light escaping down the side of the third window along. He made his way towards it on his hands and knees. His luck was in: the curtain had wrinkled, exposing a small gap of about an inch which revealed a portion of the interior. This allowed Peter to see inside. Pressing his face close to the glass and twisting his head awkwardly, he peered into the dimly lighted room. He saw a man he did not recognize. He was youngish and wore large glasses. The man was sitting in an armchair, leaning forward, talking to someone in an animated manner. But what gave the boy’s heart a jolt was the fact that his hand held a revolver and it was pointing at the person he was talking to – someone who was out of Peter’s range of vision.
‘Crikey,’ he muttered to himself, as he felt his stomach flip over. After he had absorbed this piece of frightening information, he shifted his position, twisting his body in a desperate attempt to view the room from the other perspective and in particular to catch sight of the person the killer was threatening with his gun; but all he could see were the victim’s feet. It was a man. At least he could determine that, but that information wasn’t much use.
Suddenly it became clear that ‘the victim’ had begun talking. He couldn’t hear the words but the voice had a different tone and the feet which had been still now began moving. And then the man leaned forward as though addressing his captor with a kind of earnest passion. The man wore a hat so that Peter could still not see his face. But he recognized the hat. There was no mistaking that battered trilby.
It was Johnny’s.
Peter gave a gasp of horror and recoiled in shock.
Then it struck him. Of course it was Johnny. He had come here to arrest this man, or discover some vital piece of evidence. But he had been caught.
Trapped by the murderer!
And now this man was going to kill Johnny.
Peter’s stomach lurched once more. Instinctively he rose to his feet, his body shuddering with fear. His hand flew to his mouth and he found himself biting on his knuckles to stifle a cry. Blindly, he staggered backwards, his foot slipping on the wet deck.
As he did so, he heard something on the cold night air that caused his heart constrict with anguish, causing him to lose his balance.
It was a shot.
Loud and clear.
Peter gave a bleating cry of horror and lost his footing completely. He felt a rush of night air and before he knew it, he had fallen from the deck of the houseboat and was hurtling towards the cold embrace of the seething river. As he hit the icy water, which shook all the breath out of him, Peter’s over-riding thoughts were that Johnny was dead and that he couldn’t swim.<
br />
THIRTY-SIX
* * *
I gazed with a strange mixture of fascination and horror at the grisly chunk of human flesh which Al Warren held out on his left hand: Raymond Carter’s tongue.
‘I’d like to see him do a vent act now,’ he beamed, his eyes feverish behind his owl-like lenses. ‘Or try to chat up the ladies.’ The grin turned into a chuckle.
For some moments I couldn’t keep my eyes off the gruesome severed tongue while the contents of my stomach thrashed and boiled inside me. With a Herculean effort I managed to quell my guts. Now, I told myself, was not the time to be sick.
Eventually, I found my voice. ‘Where is he?’ I asked again, gently, trying to keep any trace of emotion from my voice.
‘He’s around. You’ll see him later, no doubt. I hope the world sees him later, too. That would be the icing on my particular cake.’
I shifted my position and leaned forward in my chair. As I did so I slipped my hand surreptitiously into my overcoat pocket. It sought out the revolver nestling inside. I could, I believed, if necessary, fire it from there and wound Warren. But, if I did so, it was more than likely he would blast me too. Besides I didn’t want to use the gun if I could help it. I don’t like shooting people and I didn’t want to damage my nice new overcoat.
‘Look, hasn’t this thing gone as far as it should?’ I said with some passion. ‘Isn’t it time to give yourself up? Killing me will only give you a little more time.’
Warren beamed at me as though I was a silly little child. ‘I’m afraid I lied to you, Mr Hawke. I’ve no intention of killing you if I can at all help it. As far as I am able to make out you are a good man who is trying to do his job. Killing you would take the focus away from the real motive of my revenge. As I indicated, Evie and that drunken oaf were pawns in my game, essential to the end result. You are not. You are not even in the game.’
Requiem for a Dummy Page 23