Lost in Shadows

by Alex O'Connell

  The door slowly swung open revealing the distinctive form of Don Bellini silhouetted against the glary haze of a street lamp. As soon as he realized that he was safe, Doyle lowered the Tokarev, which had been immediately pushed hard into Bellini’s temple. Bellini walked in, brushing past Doyle as he did so.

  “Christ, Francis, put it away” he commanded. “Have you been asleep? I’ve been knocking for minutes.”

  “No ….. Sorry” was all Doyle could mumble as he shut the door behind Bellini and led him to the sofa as his eyes were not yet accustomed to the gloom. “How’s it been? Did the police give you much grief?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle” he replied truthfully.

  “What about the alibi? The cast iron one. Is that sorted?”

  “No problems. Trust me Francis. We’ve had to stick with the original story though. You and I were with Loader all day. I couldn’t get anything else sorted in time” he lied but he did so convincingly, “the police turned up just after you went. You must have been lucky to miss them at your flat. They’ve turned that over, too, by the way. Did you pick up everything?”

  “Yes. I’ve got all my kit with me. They wouldn’t have found anything at the flat. But what about the night before? What about Tommy and Ashworth?”

  “That’s nothing to do with us. We were both at home. Had early nights.”

  “But I was fucking there. I saw him go in.”

  “But nobodysawyou.” Bellini seem a little annoyed at being cross questioned all over again. “You didn’t bloody do anything. The police might be slow, but they’re not stupid. It won’t take them long to realize that Tommy went A.W.O.L. He’s probably left D.N.A. traces all over her house. All over her too probably, although you can’t really blame him for that. It doesn’t seem like he was in a rational frame of mind last night, does it? No, we’ve got no worries on that score, Francis. We’re home and dry.”

  “So do you want Mr. Loader to take me down to the Yard and make a statement? Get it over and done with?”

  “Yes.” Even to Doyle, Bellini sound non-committal. “But not just yet. We’ll let the dust settle for a while. I want you to hole up for a few days.”

  “Not here?” Doyle hoped for somewhere a bit more comfortable.

  “Oh God, no. I wouldn’t do that to you. Not in this shit hole. I’ve got somewhere a lot better in mind. You’ll be safe there and you can get a bath. Get something to eat, as well.”

  It all sounded attractive to Doyle and he nodded in grateful acceptance.

  “When do I go?”

  “Get your bag. We’ll go there right now.”

  Bellini went out first and he checked that there was still no-one about and the two men walked casually side by side down the road to where the Jaguar was parked as if neither of them had a care in the world.

  “You drive, Francis. I’ll give you directions.” He tossed the keys to Doyle who caught them in his right hand.

  This was strange, Doyle thought, Bellini was normally possessive when it came to his cars. He wasn’t the type to let just anybody drive them. But if that’s what the man wants ... He opened the car electronically, from a distance, with the remote, central locking key. He was answered by a distinctive beep and a flash of the indicators in unison. As the locks clunked heavily open, Doyle tossed his bag, with the Tokarev safely stowed away on Bellini’s instructions, casually onto the back seat. The big engine turned with the powerful, throaty roar that is an appropriate hallmark of all Jaguars and Bellini gave him a quick lesson in how to move the driver’s seat back and to adjust the mirrors. Doyle had been holed up in one of the myriad of tiny streets that run off the Kilburn High Road and as they pulled into it, he asked for directions.

  “Head out east. We want to pick up the A13 eventually.”

  This was simple enough for even Doyle to follow eaily. “Where are we going to?” he inquired.

  “Out Essex way. Towards Dagenham.”

  Suddenly a chill ran down his spine. The only thing that Doyle knew out in that neck of the woods was Daniel Bungay’s South Essex Construction building site, now well into the next phase of its development. More industrial units were being erected and more foundations were being dug. Doyle knew that, and he knew that Bellini knew that he knew. He wracked his brain, trying to come up with another possible explanation. There must be something, he thought but, try as he might, he couldn’t come up with it. There simply wasn’t another explanation. He felt angry, angry at himself for still trusting Bellini, when he was clearly going off the rails. He should have known better. He felt stupid. But most of all he felt betrayed.

  “Keep calm, Francis. We have an appointment with Mr. Bungay, you and I. I’m sorry but it’s the only way. If you think about it, you must know that, too. You’ve become a liability. Things have got out of hand. Killing a police officer. They’re not going to let you get away with that.”

  Doyle looked across. He saw that Bellini had slid a gun, un-noticed, from his jacket pocket and it was now laid across his lap, finger poised on its trigger, the barrel angled up and pointing at his chest.

  Doyle’s voice remained calm. This wasn’t the first time he had stared down the barrel of a gun. “I killed who you told me to kill, when you told me kill them. And that’s all I did. No more. No less.”

  “I know, Francis. I know. I’m not saying it’s your fault. Your not to blame. Not really. But youarethe only one who can put things right now.” At that moment Doyle knew that his fate was sealed. Bellini had sold him out. There was going to be no alibi from Loader. There was no comfortable safe house to lie low in. He was going to take the fall for it all, for everything. He had become the sacrificial victim on the altar of Bellini’s madness and there were no prizes for guessing who was going to be the high priest.

  “You bastard.” His words conveyed only a tiny fraction of the emotion they warranted. “After all these years. You’re shafting me after everything that I’ve done for you. How many people have I killed for you? For Christ’s sake, I saved you when Kurtis Robinson was about to blow your fucking head off. Without me, you’d be dead. Does it all count for nothing?”

  “No, Frankie, not at all. It counts for a great deal. You have my undying gratitude. I want you to believe that. But this is business, Francis. Just business. You know about business better than anyone.”

  “You fucking Judas” This time he spat the words out. Doyle was seething now and it was finally starting to show. His face glowed red with rage and a vein in his temple throbbed metronomically, visibly. Bellini remained as impassive ever as Doyle continued, “I would never have betrayedyou. I couldn’t have done it.”

  “I know that, Francis. That’s why I love you so much. That’s why I’m doing this myself and not leaving it to Nate or one of the other boys. I owe you that much. I need to say goodbye to you.”

  “You owe me a damn sight more than that, you mad fucking junkie bastard.” With the adrenaline reaching fever pitch, Doyle was, perhaps unconsciously, accelerating. He was now well over the speed limit, driving far too fast.

  “Slow down, Francis. We don’t want to attract any attention to ourselves” Bellini, was beginning to get caught up in Doyle’s excitement and he didn’t want that to happen. It could compromise things. Doyle acted decisively. Instantly, instinctively. He accelerated harder and harder, his right foot pressed hard down to the floor. The Jaguar responded instantly and, as it did so, he swerved violently to his left. At the same time, he dropped his left hand from the steering wheel and pressed the red release button on his passenger’s seat belt fitting, freeing the clasp. It all happened far too quickly for Bellini to react, or for Doyle to even think about what he was doing. He was in a life or death situation and a sub-conscious survival instinct made all the decisions for him. He had decided to live.

  As the Jaguar veered off to the left it hit the kerb and Doyle fought to straighten it up. He didn’t want to take any impact head on, he wanted it only on Bellini’s side. The car crashed into the b
ack of a stationery Volvo estate. It was ideal, like crashing into an immovable Swedish mountain. Doyle felt his chest constrict as the inertia reel of his safety belt bit tightly into it. All he saw was a swathe of white appear instantly before his eyes and then he felt his face bury itself deep within it. A shot rang out from Bellini’s gun as Doyle recoiled from the airbag. He felt the bullet burn as it grazed across the skin of his forehead before it exited through the side window of the car. Blood was streaming from his nose as a result of his impact with the airbag. It felt that it was broken, he thought, as he turned to look at his passenger. It was. He had expected to see that Bellini had been thrown clear through the windscreen. He expected him to be lying dead or dying on the bonnet, or buried in the back window of the Volvo. But he wasn’t. The Jaguar was fitted with a passenger side airbag, as well as a driver’s. Bellini was moaning but seemed to be returning gradually to his senses. “Fucking car” Doyle said out loud. Bellini’s shot had not been deliberate. The shock of it all had been too great for Don Bellini to make any conscious decisions whatsoever, let alone to discharge his gun. It had simply gone off, not with the initial impact but as the gun was thrown from his hand as he rebounded from the airbag. He felt the sharp sting of whiplash run up his back and spasmed into his neck but there wasn’t a scar on him.

  Doyle tried to reach down for the gun but he was constricted by his seat belt and, in any case, in the dark around Bellini’s feet where it had fallen, it would have been a miracle for him to have picked it up. Bellini seemed to be coming round now, he could see that and he knew he must act quickly to save himself. His right hand dropped down to his boot and from inside, between leather and sock he pulled a long, narrow lock bladed knife. His fingers fumbled as they opened it and it seemed to take an eternity before he felt the blade click securely into position. Bellini looked around at him and saw, with eyes just beginning to focus again, Doyle’s knife heading straight towards his throat. He instinctively looked away and raised his hands to try and shield himself. But it was too late. His pact with Mephistopheles had finally drawn to its preordained conclusion and, as with Faustus, Bellini’s clock had finally run its time.

  The knife’s blade was narrow and long, five inches long. Doyle drove it through Bellini’s fingers and into his neck. It severed the carotid artery and blood spewed from it instantaneously like a geyser. Doyle felt its sanguine warmth full in the face and it mingled with his own blood, still flowing from his broken nose in a steady, profuse stream. Bellini let out a scream of terror and pain. It was a scream that came from deep inside and should have curdled Doyle’s blood. The knife was still in Bellini’s neck and Doyle twisted it through a full one hundred and eighty degrees semi arc, so that its cutting blade faced to the front. He ripped it forward with all his might, feeling it slice through sinew and muscle. It slit through Don Bellini’s trachea and burst free of the confines of his throat, embedding itself loosely in the airbag, which started slowly to deflate. That should shut the fucker up, thought Doyle. Donald Bellini had now fallen silent. He slumped forward once more, gently this time, into the now flaccid remains of the airbag. His blood flowed thickly, but peacefully at last, staining it a dark crimson red.

  Doyle turned suddenly and was confronted by the startled face of a young man. His door had been opened and the visage that looked in at him was a ghostly white, as if all the blood had been drained from it as surely as had Don Bellini’s. The police couldn’t have got there. Not yet, thought Doyle. In fact, the man had arrived so quickly that he must have been following right behind them and stopped to help.

  He tried to push aside the panic he felt and sound confident for the sake of the ‘victim’. “It’s alright, mate” he said. “I’ve called an ambulance on my mobile. They’ll be here in a minute.” And with the ambulance, the police too, Doyle thought. For the first time, the good Samaritan saw the knife in Doyle’s hand, dripping red with the gore of fresh blood. He wondered what in God’s name he stumbled upon. Suddenly, his face became whiter and yet still whiter when the knife was turned towards him. Doyle held it only an inch or two from his face.

  “You got a car?” The question was spat at him with such insidious venom that he dared not ignore it. He nodded. “Where?”

  “Just behind you.”

  “Come on, then.” Doyle pushed him backwards forcefully as he freed his seat belt and got out of the now dead Jaguar. He stumbled and felt his legs almost go from beneath him. They felt leaden, devoid of all energy. He supposed that it was the shock from the crash. For a second the stranger thought about running but he was too fearful to try and quickly abandoned the idea. Doyle had, by this time regained his composure and pulled his holdall from the rear seat of the Jag.

  “Keys?” he demanded of the man.

  “They’re still in there. I left the engine on” he spluttered.

  “Right. Get in the boot.” Doyle raised the hatchback of the man’s small Peugeot and, as the man was climbing in, Doyle produced the Tokarev from the bag and executed him clinically with a single bullet through the base of his skull. At least he never saw it coming. In Doyle’s twisted world, this almost amounted to compassion. The man fell into the car’s boot and Doyle bundled his feet in carelessly after him and he slammed the hatch back down. The night was quiet. There were few other cars on the road, just one or two passing anonymously by, slowing to look interestedly at the site of the accident but never thinking for one moment to stop, and despite the howling of the alarm of the Volvo, anyone who had looked out with concern from the houses that were set well back from the road, had looked back in again, keen not to get involved. Such is the way of the world. But there is a wisdom, occasionally born of bitter experience, in such a policy of non-interference. Doyle himself had testimony to that in the boot of his new car.

  He got into the Peugeot, pushed the seat back, for the driver had been a small man while he lived, and then he sped off, into the night. He headed in the same general direction as before. For the moment he didn’t know what to do or where to go. His safety net had been removed and he felt suddenly more alone than ever. For the first time in many years, Doyle had left the security of the Bellini’s employment and had now involuntarily branched out on his own. He was self employed; his own boss. He hated the feeling and he was scared by it.

  His first thought was to put as much distance between himself and Bellini as he could. And to do it as quickly as possible. He didn’t even notice the red light at the pelican crossing. He didn’t even notice the young man until he had hit him and sent him hurtling over the bonnet, bouncing off the roof and landing heavily on the tarmac, his head grotesquely twisted to one side, his neck obviously broken. Why should he care? He didn’t think there had been any witnesses. Not that that really mattered. Not any more. Doyle knew that he was a broken man. He was finished. He had never been able to see much of a future but now he couldn’t even see the present. All he wanted now was some sort of resolution. Closure.

  The old Citroen car that pulled up to the body lying prostrate beyond the pedestrian crossing found that the young man was already dead. A hit and run, a terrible accident the papers were to say. It was such a shame, he had inherited his mother’s looks and everyone agreed that he had a glorious future ahead of him. You had to have a real talent, a rare talent to get a scholarship like his. It was only happenstance that brought him to this part of London that night. He had never been there before. He was just going to a party at a friend of a friend’s place. It was such a shame. There weren’t many people at his funeral a week later. No parents. There were few people left to mourn poor, tragic Frankie Wheeler.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chief Superintendent Goodwin came to the scene of the ‘accident’ himself. He brought Dave Morris. He wanted to see it for himself, to get his own impression of what may have happened. But more than that, most of all he wanted to make sure that Don Bellini was really dead.

  His luxurious black Ford, with Morris at the wheel, pulled up to the barrier, h
astily erected across the road. The two men flashed their warrant cards at the uniformed officer who was stationed there. He hadn’t recognized them – he had never even been to New Scotland Yard himself – but that didn’t stop them from both feeling a bit put out. Morris pulled up a little way behind the Jaguar and they were greeted by the local C.I.D. chief, Inspector Phil Penncott, who had secured the scene. Scene of crimes officers, looking strangely out of place in their disposable white overalls, were going over the car and its solitary remaining occupant, with their fine toothed combs. By now, confident that they could voyeuristically watch the spectacle without getting personally involved, a crowd had developed and two or three young coppers were trying to persuade them to disperse. They told them that there was nothing to see, although it was patently obvious that there was plenty.

  Goodwin knew Penncott vaguely and smiled warmly at him. After all, this was turning into a much better day than he had dreamed of.

  “Thanks for coming out, Sir” Penncott said. “We thought you’d be interested as soon as we found out who it was in there.”

  “You’re damned right I’m interested. What have we got here, Phil?”

  Penncott was a professional; observant and succinct. “It’s a bit of a mess all round, sir. The Jaguar is registered to one Donald Bellini, or rather, to one of his companies, and the driving licence and credit cards on the man in the passenger seat indicate that he’s our man.”

  “I can confirm that for you” Goodwin interjected, looking beyond the S.O.C.O. men at the corpse of Bellini. “You probably heard that I was interviewing him just this afternoon. Not so smug now, are we Mr. Bellini?”

  Penncott knew of Bellini’s reputation but, even so, he gave an involuntary shudder at Goodwin’s obvious delight at his death. “There was a pistol at Bellini’s feet. A 7.62 mm Tokarev. Not uncommon, the Russians have got a good foothold in London nowadays, as you know. Its got finger prints all over it. I expect them to be Bellini’s because it’s been discharged – there’s a bullet hole in the driver’s side window. It looks as though he missed whoever he was shooting at. Possibly because he was having his throat cut at the time. It would have taken a good deal of force to do it. It must have been a strong man. Someone who knew what he was doing.”