No Birds Sing

by Jo Bannister

  This time it went wrong before they reached the end of the lane. As Donovan went to turn out the little red car turned back in, flashing its lights waspishly. Donovan, reversing all the way to the cottage, had his attention fully occupied but Charlie could see that Gates was spitting tacks. He couldn’t guess what had gone wrong this time but plainly something had, and this time Gates wasn’t blaming himself. Charlie couldn’t see how it could be his fault but he crossed his fingers just the same.

  The cars pulled up side by side in the yard, disgorging all five occupants, tense and quarrelsome. Gates was ruddy with anger. ‘Pack up, we’re leaving.’

  ‘What happened?’ If Charlie hadn’t asked Donovan would have had to.

  ‘They were waiting for us! The town was full of coppers! They thought they were being discreet. They thought since they weren’t in uniform no one could possibly know who they were. But there was no missing them. All the places we’d thought about hitting? – they were watching them. Electrical showrooms and jewellers. We did a quick tour, without getting too close, then we got out fast. They didn’t spot us.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Charlie emptily. ‘How could they be waiting for us?’

  Gates was incandescent. ‘How? Charlie, isn’t it obvious? Somebody talked!’

  Patsy took three quick steps back, out of range of his hands. Then her eyes flew to Donovan.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said rapidly, ‘I’ve been chaperoned since I got here, the only way I could’ve talked to anyone is by telepathy.’

  Gates stared at him, the elf eyes sharp as flint; then he nodded. ‘I know that. I don’t think it was you, or anyone here. Thanks to Harry and his bright ideas, two of our people are sitting in police cells right now. I imagine the pressure proved too much for one of them. Martin, probably – kids can’t take it like a grown man.’ He shook his head in angry disbelief. ‘He can’t have told them much or they’d be here. But he’s said enough for them to watch the places we’d want to hit at the times we’d want to hit them.’

  Charlie cleared his throat. ‘Maybe not. We’ve done this a lot of times now – maybe they finally worked out how.’

  He was too big to slap but Gates rounded on him with the same viciousness that Patsy provoked in him. ‘You ever hear of police budgets, Charlie? You really think this one-horse town can afford to guard every shop we might be interested in? No, they were told.’ His eyes circled the yard like cold fire, settled on the girl half behind the car. He started towards her and she shrank before him. His voice was a soft menacing monotone. ‘I warned you what would happen if you let me down. I warned all of you.’

  ‘Me, Tudor?’ Her voice soared and cracked, and she stumbled backwards, trying to keep the vehicle between them. ‘I haven’t done nothing. I never told nobody.’

  ‘You robbed that train. That’s where our troubles began. But for that we’d have been finished here days ago. Harry’d be alive, nobody’d be in jail, nobody’d be talking to policemen.’ His hands went to his narrow waist, tugging at the buckle of his belt.

  Stripped of the social polish he was just another thug, cleverer than some, nastier than plenty. In the face of failure the elegant manner, the well-modulated voice, the air of gentle irony all deserted him and the man who bet on which dog could rip out another’s throat was revealed.

  ‘You’ve been trouble since I first clapped eyes on you,’ hissed Gates, stalking her leopard-like between the cars. ‘You were another of Harry’s bright ideas: I should have told him to stick to driving then, if I had he’d still be here. But he wanted you in and I gave way. I thought, What harm can it do? But you poisoned him. Did you think I didn’t know?’ His voice turned to savage mimicry. ‘“Oh, Harry, you’re the best man here. Oh, Harry, you could be so much more than just a driver. Oh, Harry, why don’t we do something of our own while Tudor’s away? Do what I say, Harry, and I’ll let you shove it up me some more!”’

  The girl screamed at him in terror, ‘That’s not true! I never told him to go behind your back. Sure I liked him, but I was happy the way things were. The train was Harry’s idea – I just went along for the laugh.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you laughing now?’ Almost close enough to grab her, the little man moved on the balls of his feet like a dancer, the belt in his hand swinging free. ‘Laugh, Patsy. Go on – laugh.’

  It was as if no one else was there, just the two of them engaged in some sadistic game. Andy watched with a malevolent satisfaction that was clearly, if unconsciously, sexual. Charlie’s broad face screwed up unhappily and he raised a hand in protest but somehow lacked the resolve to intervene.

  Which left Donovan. Different rules apply under cover but he still didn’t see how he could stand by while a vicious little crook flogged a young girl. OK, the girl was also a vicious little crook, but what she was mattered less than what Donovan was. All that crap about the King’s Shilling: funny thing was, it mattered. You didn’t take the money then make excuses not to do the job. You didn’t do only those parts of the job that were easy and safe and got you home by six every night. You did, in so far as you were able, what needed doing, and accepted the long hours and the risks that came with the package.

  And you didn’t stand by and watch someone commit an assault occasioning grievous bodily harm. That was funny, too. He’d known the girl was a threat to him, thought it was because she remembered him from the train. But it would have made no difference if she’d forgotten him, had never seen him, if he’d never been on the train. What was going to betray him was his own sense of duty.

  So he slipped behind Gates and reached over his shoulder to catch his wrist as he raised his hand. ‘Don’t do that.’

  Charlie stared at him in horror, Andy in resentment, Patsy in shock. Gates spun dervish-like, wresting his arm free, his face aglow with indignation. Coals sparked in the amber eyes. Like a foul-mouthed child he yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Take your fucking hands off me!’

  Donovan had just enough time to think, ‘He really is mad. He’s got no more control than a kid in a tantrum.’ Then Gates’s right arm whipped back, and the narrow strap split the air and opened Donovan’s cheek to the bone.

  Shock cushioned him from the pain. He was aware of the skin parting as under a blade; clapping his hand to it he met the start of blood. For a moment he could only stand and pant, fighting light-headedness. When that receded anger came. He fastened both hands in Gates’s clothes and lifted him on to his toes. ‘You little shit! Take my hands off you? I’ll turn you over my knee and spank you.’ He dropped him then, thrusting him away like week-old rubbish. ‘Or I would if I didn’t think you’d enjoy it.’

  Charlie separated them, one big hand on Donovan’s shoulder, stopping short of laying the other on Gates but interposing his solid body. ‘Come on, now,’ he rumbled mollifyingly. ‘Let’s cool it, shall we? Enough’s gone wrong without us laying into one another.’ He looked at Donovan’s cheek, winced and groped in his pocket; but all he came up with was a used tissue and a toffee-paper.

  Forced to stand back, Gates too was appalled at what he’d done. In his pocket was a newly laundered handkerchief. He took it out and proffered it. ‘Hugh, I’m so sorry.’ His voice had dropped a full octave from that banshee wail to a murmur of apparently sincere regret.

  Donovan regarded him sourly for some moments but finally took the handkerchief. ‘What, no lace?’ he growled. When he touched it gingerly to his cheek it came away dyed in his blood.

  The murderous rage had passed but Gates had not forgiven Patsy. His eyes on her were cold with hatred. ‘This was your fault. Pack your gear and get out. If you show your face again I’ll bury you.’

  People come into crime in all sorts of ways – by design, carelessness or accident, for the money, for the kicks. Mostly it serves up more problems than solutions, but it fast becomes a way of life and the way out is not the way back. When Harry Black brought her in it was the nearest thing to a family Patsy could remember. Difficult as it wa
s to imagine a way of life so bankrupt, so bereft of meaning, that dossing in tumbledown cottages between ram-raids was a step up, that was where Patsy had come from. And she didn’t want to go back. So Gates’s threat shook her in a way that his hands never had, that even the lash of his belt would not have done. Patsy couldn’t face being alone again.

  Whether it also shook loose a last chip of memory, like the last slate that hangs on for days after the storm before falling, or whether she remembered earlier and couldn’t think what to do about it, there was no way of knowing. But her eyes flared at him and she shook her head urgently, the electric hair dancing. ‘Tudor, no! You can’t send me away. It’s not my fault! I didn’t grass you up, he did!’

  Donovan looked up balefully over the bloody rag but there was no question about it: she’d finally decided where her loyalties lay. She was practically poking him in the eye.

  Gates’s gaze was caustic with disbelief. ‘You – poison! He took that for you.’ He jerked a hand at Donovan’s cheek. ‘That would have been your face if he hadn’t stepped in.’

  She shot back, ‘He isn’t who you think! You think that dog in the shed makes him one of us but he’s not. He isn’t even Hugh. Duggan. His name’s Donovan, he was on the train, and Harry reckoned it was him called the police.’

  Chapter Twenty

  So sure was she that it was Brian ringing the doorbell, Liz didn’t even hurry to answer it. She wiped her face, composed her mind – a little, it would have taken too long to do the job properly – and fixed at the front of it what she wanted to say. She certainly owed him an apology, probably more than that, but something less than her soul. Where they went from here would have to be discussed, but whatever she’d said she didn’t want to go alone. He was an ordinary man in many ways – too often she had put him aside while she dealt with urgent and important matters – but she was amazed at the size of the gap his absence left in her. That was the first thing she had to say.

  It wasn’t Brian. Gail Fisher of the Courier stood half sideways on the step as if expecting a rebuff. Liz blinked. She wasn’t surprised that Fisher knew where she lived; she was astonished to see her here. ‘I’m sorry, Gail, I’ve nothing to add to what I said in court.’ A brittle note conveyed her displeasure.

  ‘I’m sure.’ Fisher nodded quickly. ‘That isn’t – exactly – why I’m here. Can we talk for a moment? I won’t stay, I don’t want to embarrass you, I just thought I ought to warn you about – well, what I’ve done.’

  Liz sighed, took her to the living-room. ‘I didn’t just come floating down the Arrow on a bubble, you know. I’m not going to be amazed to see what I said in open court quoted in Thursday’s Courier.’

  ‘Well, that’s the point,’ said Fisher. She seemed ill at ease, perched on the edge of the big sofa as if poised for flight. ‘You won’t have to wait till Thursday – I’ve given something to the dailies for tomorrow morning. I’ve also recorded a piece for the local radio: it’ll be in their news magazine at nine tonight.’

  If she’d thought about it Liz would have anticipated as much. She’d known she was crossing a Rubicon, hadn’t expected or even wanted the reporter to shirk her obligations in order to protect her, like a child or an imbecile who couldn’t take responsibility for her own actions. Once Liz had decided on her course, the sooner everybody knew the facts, the better.

  She nodded slowly. ‘Thanks for telling me. I’ll call my father – he’s the only person who matters who doesn’t already know.’

  Fisher swivelled quickly in her seat, her body bent forward. ‘Inspector – Liz – I’m so sorry about what happened. The last thing I want to do is make things harder. I’m on your side: you do know that? Most people will be on your side. I don’t think you’ll regret what you did.’

  Liz smiled tightly. ‘Let’s hope not.’ The rape was different: that was a crime. She had no intention of discussing personal business, like the danger that what she’d done had destroyed her marriage.

  As she was leaving, Fisher took her hand and held it a moment. Not a woman to whom casual intimacies came naturally, Liz was about to take it back; but the current of sympathy that travelled across the bridge stayed her a moment. She pressed the other woman’s hand in reply. ‘Thanks for coming. I know what to expect now.’

  ‘Maybe; maybe not,’ murmured Fisher.

  Charlie lashed Donovan’s hands to a pipe under the low roof of the byre. Agitated by the sudden flurry of activity the dogs could be heard whining and scratching at the wall of the adjoining pigsty.

  Donovan didn’t stand peaceably to be hung up like washing: he struggled and swore until Charlie knocked the fight out of him with a single punch under the ribs. He dropped doubled-up on the floor; Charlie lifted him and finished the job. His face close to Donovan’s he murmured, ‘You’re in deep shit now, son.’

  Gates was watching Donovan’s face, waiting for the pain in his belly to be enough for him to worry what came next. When he saw the hurt in his eyes turn to fear, Gates began to speak. ‘You’re a policeman, aren’t you?’

  There was no point lying. He’d known Gates would work it out if he had anything to go on. Donovan nodded, setting off ripples of complaint in his wrists and midriff.

  ‘And that’s your name – Donovan?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Donovan. I’d show you my warrant card but I left it at home.’ The ache under his ribs meant it took him two breaths to get it out.

  Gates gave a tiny smile. ‘I’ll take your word. You work with Mr Shapiro then.’

  Donovan was startled. ‘You know him?’

  ‘My homework includes weighing up the opposition. I’ve been to his house – I left him a souvenir.’

  For an Irishman of Donovan’s generation the words had only one meaning and it wasn’t a pottery castle inscribed ‘A Present From Portrush.’ His racing heart missed a beat. ‘A bomb?’

  Gates laughed, a tinkling laugh merry with natural cruelty, like a child pulling the legs off a spider to see how many it needs to run away. ‘Of course not. It may have been a bit of a bombshell– you don’t expect an anatomy lesson on your path first thing in the morning.’

  ‘The skinned dog – that was you? Why?’

  ‘I was cross with him. I got back from a dog-fight at three in the morning to find I’d no crew left – except for Charlie who was anxiously rehearsing ways of breaking the news! I wanted to hit back. I had Andy collect one of the night’s losers and we took that round to him. I kind of hoped it might give him paws for thought.’ The pun was wasted: no one so much as smiled. Gates gave a martyred little sigh.

  Donovan was trying to think. ‘You know he’s looking for you? When he missed us in town he’d go back and talk to your friends again. He could be here any minute.’

  ‘Yes, he could,’ agreed Gates; ‘if someone talked. But then, perhaps I did them an injustice. Perhaps all Mr Shapiro knows came from you.’ He held his head on one side like an intelligent budgie. ‘In which case, as long as he doesn’t hear from you again we’re safe.’

  ‘He didn’t hear from me this time. I’d no chance – damn it, you know that! It had to be someone else.’ But Gates just smiled.

  Donovan tugged but the belt securing his hands only tightened. He glanced bitterly round the crew. Charlie wouldn’t meet his eyes. In the doorway the girl sniffed and turned away. Andy leered at him with expectancy.

  Gates seemed avuncular by comparison. The all-consuming rage had not returned, for which Donovan was glad: beside himself with fury he could kill as easily as spit. As long as he was in control he would put his long-term interests first.

  But still Donovan didn’t expect Gates to cut him down, help him put Brian Boru in the van and wave him goodbye. He’d thought if it got this far he might take a thumping before they made their escape. Well, no one had thumped him yet, not really. But somehow he wasn’t reassured.

  Gates said, ‘Charlie, take Patsy and the car and get on your way. Head north up the motorway – they won’t expect that.
Me and Andy’ll follow in the 4x4. We’ll meet you at the second services. Get me a Danish and a cappuccino – we’ll be there before it’s cold.’

  The big man looked quickly from Gates to Donovan and then at the floor. ‘Um—’

  Gates gave an understanding smile. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be right behind you. I just want to say goodbye to Sergeant Donovan.’

  ‘He’s getting rid of you, Charlie,’ Donovan said, fast, before Gates could intervene or Charlie could leave and pretend he hadn’t heard. ‘He wants rid of you because you’ve got the wit to keep him off me. You’re a thief, Charlie, that’s all – if you’d been caught today that’s all you’d have been charged with. If they catch you tomorrow the charge’ll be the attempted murder of a police officer.’

  ‘Shut up, Sergeant,’ said Gates pleasantly.

  ‘Or what?’ snorted Donovan. ‘You’ll make me sorry? You’re going to beat the shit out of me! I know that, you know it – Charlie knows it too, don’t you? You don’t like it, you don’t need it, but unless you stop him now you’re going to get a piece of it. When you’re caught it’ll make about four years’ difference to your sentence.’

  The big man raised unhappy eyes to Gates. He wasn’t a fool, just a man who sometimes found it convenient to fool himself. He knew why Gates wanted him to leave. If he’d meant only to rough the policeman up he’d have done it in front of them all, as an example. If he wanted privacy it was because he meant to go further than that. ‘Coach?’

  Gates explained clearly and gently. ‘He’s a spy, Charlie. I can’t let that pass and he knows it. He knows he’s going to get hurt. He thinks he can split us by appealing to your better nature. You can’t blame him: in the same circumstances anyone would lie. I want you to leave because showing him the error of his ways will take a few minutes and it’ll be safest if you and Patsy go now.’

  Charlie didn’t need it to be true, only tolerably convincing. He didn’t want a show-down with Gates: all he needed was a sop to his conscience and, if the worst happened, some ammunition for his brief. So he had every incentive to believe. Head down he shouldered past Gates and out into the yard.