by Adam Carter
Along the way he asked me questions about what I had seen, what I had discovered, what my thoughts were on things. It made a refreshing change from Carl, who was always so aloof about my ideas, and I found myself chatting away various theories, bouncing things off Lewis and only strengthening them. I hardly noticed as we approached a strange-looking lift and Lewis summoned it.
“It’s a goods’ lift,” he explained to my bemused expression. “You know, to bring in goods? It’s a little off the beaten track so Redthorne doesn’t have anyone guarding it. Once we get to the street we’ll be fine. We’ll leave the area and let the police move in.”
I nodded my consent and as the lift arrived we climbed in, and descended in the large clunky contraption. It moved more slowly than an ordinary lift, but as I counted down the floors I felt lighter in spirit and knew at last things were going right for me.
The doors opened and we emerged into some grubby corridors for such a pristine hotel. There were a few people around at this point, although they were all hotel staff and none of them in the employ of Mrs Redthorne. With Lewis taking the lead, we simply strolled right out of the hotel through one of the rear entrances. I could not help but feel that people really did pay no attention to servants, even in this day and age.
If anyone thought it odd that a maid was climbing into a car with a respectably-dressed man, no one commented, and as we pulled away from the hotel I allowed myself to sink into the passenger’s seat with a smile lighting my face. Things had become pretty hairy back there for a while, but it was all worth it. I had uncovered a nest of gangsters, had shown Carl how the whole detective thing was done and escaped with my life and almost all of my dignity. And to top it all off I had solved the murder of Anthony Polinski.
“What a day,” I exhaled.
“It’s not over yet,” Lewis said as he drove. “I’m sorry, Lauren, but you’ve been too good at this. Meeting you at the shop was bad enough, but I had to know what you’d found out. You’ve amassed quite the file on this case.”
I frowned, opening my eyes. That was when I saw the gun he was holding upon me so casually, one hand still upon the wheel. I looked up to him, but he was paying me no attention at all, his face a blank expression.
Perhaps the case was not as sewn up as I had thought.
CHAPTER TEN
The Loose Ends
I was back to sitting in a chair, although at least this time I wasn’t tied up. Alexander Lewis had driven very carefully at a steady pace until we arrived at our destination. It surprised me that I knew the place, for I had spent enough of my life there. Carl’s house was far from big and there was nothing expensive about it. There couldn’t be, considering the lack of money in Carl’s life. When I lived with him I helped with the mortgage and since I had left I’d honestly expected for him to have not been able to keep making the payments. As we pulled up, Lewis motioned me out of the car with the gun he was taking pains to conceal from casual observers. I felt I could not perhaps be any more conspicuous dressed as a maid as I was, and hoped enough curtains would twitch that someone might think to call Carl. That Carl was in on this was something I could not even contemplate. We may have had our differences, but Carl and I had never wanted one another dead.
Lewis opened the door with a key and I had a sudden fear of what had happened to Carl. I was frantically trying to piece everything together but none of it made any sense. As I walked into the living room, however, all thoughts of Lewis fled me, for the house was precisely as I remembered it. The furniture was all in the same place, the watercolour print still hung over the fireplace. All the ornaments were there, and I noticed with a small smile that there were still pictures of us on the mantelpiece. Carl and I during happier times. About the only thing missing from the room were the carnations I always bought to give the room a little colour.
I slid into what had always been my favourite side of the settee, eyeing Lewis as he stood purposefully away from me, his gun still levelled upon me. I expected an explanation, or at least I wanted one anyway. To be callously shot after everything I had been through did not seem at all fair to me.
“So what’s going on then?” I asked, my voice not cracking.
“You’re the faux detective; you tell me.”
I wondered whether he was challenging me, whether he actually wanted for me to tell him precisely what he was up to. I had reached a few conclusions already but needed to hear it all from his lips. “You’re not a detective,” I said, to give him something to be getting on with.
“Of course I’m not a detective.”
“And you’ve never met Carl, have you?”
“No.”
That meant he had not killed him, which was more of a relief than I could say. “Carl told me I’d meet a Detective Lewis at the shop.”
“That was me. Don’t worry, I haven’t killed any cops or anything. I called your Detective Carl Robbins and told him I was being assigned to his case.”
“And he believed that?”
“The name’s legit. There is a Detective Lewis, but he and Carl wouldn’t be able to recognise one another by voice. He had no reason to doubt me and welcomed the help.”
“I don’t get it,” I said truthfully. “What were you doing hanging around the shop for anyway? What possible reason could you have had to ...?” My eyes widened. “You killed Mr Polinski.”
“Asking or telling?”
“Why’d you do it?”
“You tell me.”
“I’m not playing these games!” I realised shouting at him was not the best way for me to get out of the situation alive, so I forced myself to calm down. Fine, I decided. If he had challenged me to work things out for myself then that was precisely what I was going to do. “You killed Mr Polinski,” I began, “and then stood back and watched, to find out whether anyone could link you to the murder. You somehow found out I was investigating ...”
“It wasn’t hard. You were far from discreet.”
“And you wanted to know what I would find out about you. I must have been getting too close for you to meet me at the shop. Why were you there anyway?”
“To scare you off. Believe me, I didn’t want you to die, Lauren. I arranged for that kid to jump you in the back room. He was supposed to knock you to the ground, but he got scared, thought he’d be done for assault, so he just spooked you instead before making a run for it. The rest went fine. We chased him, we lost him, and you were scared. Just not scared enough to leave the case be.”
“So I carried on investigating,” I continued, “and wound up talking to Nathan and uncovered the whole bank robbery thing.” I paused. “You don’t have anything to do with Nathan, do you? Killing Mr Polinski wasn’t a mistaken identity thing?”
Lewis made a face which suggested I was an imbecile. “There’s a slight age difference.”
“So when I was nabbed by Redthorne, you realised I would tell them everything to save my life. I might mention your name, describe you to them. They might think you were connected to Nathan’s escape ... Actually you were. If you hadn’t killed Mr Polinski, Nathan would never have gone on the run and Redthorne would have found him. You were afraid Redthorne would blame you for Nathan’s disappearance and come after you for it.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “People like Mrs Redthorne are unpredictable. It’s always better for them not to even know I exist.”
“So you went to the hotel looking for me. Took care of the guards, stole their keys and got me out of there.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And you’re a psycho.”
“But a clever one.”
I had to give him that much at least.
“Go on,” he urged, leaning against the wall to get comfortable, his gun never wavering. “This is becoming interesting.”
I thought perhaps if I could get him as relaxed as possible, I might have a chance. And the more I talked, the more time I had to live. “There’s not much more to tell,” I said. “You need to get rid
of me because I’ve seen your face.”
“And why have I brought you here?”
That was a good question, and I was not at all certain I liked to think about the answer. “Because you’ve killed Carl and taken his house?”
“Your Carl’s alive and well, and I hope he stays that way. Like I said, I’ve never met him, which means he can’t identify me. Even if he knew I existed, that was. No, you’re here because when your body is found here, in Carl’s house, the investigation will discover that Carl murdered you. He never got over your break up, you know. So sad. You agreed to talk to him to make amends or something, after having met again over this whole Polinski affair, and he brought you back here and killed you. It’s all so very tidy for me, you see. I don’t like loose ends.”
“I still have one.”
“One what?”
“A loose end.”
He sighed, making a grand show of being bored when I could tell he was still incredibly intrigued. “Go on then.”
“Why did you kill Mr Polinski?”
“Why do you think?”
“It wasn’t for money because you didn’t take any. It had nothing to do with Nathan. But there was nothing else to him. He was just a kind old man who never did anyone any harm.”
“And what else do you know about this kind old man?”
“Nothing. Except he always sent money home to support his family.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Tell me what he thought of his family.”
“He doted on them.”
“So why wasn’t he living in the same country as them?”
“Because he had to work.”
“Other countries have work, Lauren. Polinski’s wife is something of a harpy. Bitter and twisted and very, very powerful.”
I remembered Rowena Silvers then. So concerned for Mr Polinski, so anxious to find out who killed him.
“Mrs Polinski,” Lewis continued, “didn’t like it when she found out her husband was having an affair. To be honest, when she contacted me I figured she’d ask me to kill the other woman. But like I said, Mrs Polinski is bitter and twisted.”
“She paid you to kill her own husband?”
“And if this whole mess with Nathan Wentworth hadn’t’ve come up, it probably would have all blown over too.”
It’s difficult to explain what I felt in that moment. On the one hand I was glad it was all out in the open, but the main thing I was feeling was disappointment. Huge disappointment that the very thing which gave Mr Polinski any meaning in life – his family – had been that which had destroyed him. I found myself hoping he had not discovered the truth before he died, otherwise he would have died a broken man.
“This,” I said, “hasn’t been a good couple of days.”
Lewis laughed, but was cut off by the sound of a key turning in the front door. He cursed softly, dropping down and covering me with his gun. “One sound,” he whispered, “and I blow your head off.”
I very much doubted a bullet could actually blow my head off, but it certainly would have made an untidy mess. I sat silently as we both listened to the steady footfalls through the hallway. They stopped as Carl removed his shoes, for he would never walk through the house with them on, even if it wasn’t raining outside. He began to whistle and I could hear him approach the door to the living room. I glanced to Lewis, who stared back at me in warning. His plan had not been to kill Carl, yet if Carl walked in on this scene he would see Lewis’s face and the plan would have to change. Lewis fully intended to kill us both now, and there was no way I was going to let him shoot Carl.
Lewis must have seen the resolve in my eyes because he glowered at me, silently giving me one final chance to do the sensible thing. But I was done being sensible. The door began to open as Carl came in, and it was at that moment that I leapt. The room exploded in light and sound as I collided with Lewis, although he threw me from him. I remember barely feeling it, however, for my body had petrified into a strangely numb state. I could see Carl by this point, and he reacted quickly, struggling with the gunman, the two men pushing and slamming each other into walls as they fought for the weapon. I watched all of this from the floor, however, the numbness spreading across my entire body. I raised my hand and felt only a mild curiosity as to why it was stained with sticky crimson fluid.
I don’t remember much more of that, only that I found it quite funny for some reason. Carl was by my side, that’s something I’ll never forget. I reckoned he must have given Lewis a good pounding, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to kneel beside me as he did. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but was aware he had phoned someone frantically. He held my hand, which was nice, and was saying even more things I couldn’t hear. And he was crying. I remember that distinctly. He was crying and I felt so sorry for him even as his face faded from my sight. I remember thinking he was far too nice a man to be crying and I hoped that whatever was upsetting him would go away soon.
*
I opened my eyes to stare at a flaky ceiling. There was a curtain around me, and my first thought was that I had fallen asleep in the shower. Then I realised I was lying on a bed, and remembered one or two details. At this point the pain surged through my body and I longed for that earlier numbness. I must have groaned or wailed or sworn very loudly or something, because a hand was suddenly clasping mine and I realised there was something else enclosed in the curtains with me.
“How you feeling?” Carl asked, trying to smile but failing miserably.
“Feeling like I cracked the case,” I said, my voice breaking as though in sympathy. “I got shot, didn’t I?”
“Bullet went straight through. Missed your lung, so you were lucky.”
Lewis was a professional killer. I knew I was somewhat beyond lucky.
“What happened to Lewis?”
“I arrested him,” Carl said.
“So you got your man after all.”
“Only after you solved the case for me.”
“Is that a thank you?”
“It’s an admission that I need you.”
That sounded rehearsed, but it was sweet of him to mention, so I didn’t pull him up over it. “Is everything settled then?” I asked. “With the murder, I mean. You know what happened?”
Carl nodded. “Pretty much everything. Now that we have him, Lewis is being surprisingly open. Even supplied us with his real name. You can fill in some blanks for us when you’re up and about, but we have all we need.”
“Any word on Nathan?”
“No. Maybe he got away.”
“I’m sure you’ll find him.”
“Not my case. If they want help with their bank robbery they can ask, but I’m sure I’ll be too busy.”
“I know it was gangster-related, but Nathan still killed a man, Carl.”
“And if we catch Nathan, Redthorne will get to him. The only way Nathan Wentworth is going to survive this is if he never stops running.”
It was a strange thing for Carl to have said. He had always been so odiously stringent with the rules that it never would have occurred to him to let a criminal go. For any reason.
He seemed to sense what I was thinking because he said, “Maybe there’s a lot about me you don’t realise has changed.”
“Oh?”
“Lauren.” He glanced away, and when he looked back it was with strength to his eyes, and at the same time an almost childlike vulnerability. “I thought I’d lost you back there, and suddenly none of this mattered. All my rules, all my laws, all my obsession about control. None of it mattered, Lauren, and I realised ...”
“Are you admitting you were wrong about something?”
“What? No.”
“Because that would mean I was right, which is kind of a given whenever we argue.”
“Just because I might be wrong, doesn’t mean you’re necessarily right.”
“You sound almost indignant.”
“Then maybe there are parts of me t
hat haven’t changed at all,” he all but huffed.
I managed a weak smile as I found myself drifting back off to sleep. “Yeah, I hope so. I always kind of liked you the way you were.”
Mr Polinski had only ever been trying to make a living. It was sad what had happened to him, and no one else could ever quite replace him, but I sure hoped Carl had been right all along. He had said that Mr Polinski was beyond caring about any of this, and that was all I wanted. Because if he was looking down on this world, he would have found out just who had ordered his death; and there’s nothing worse than losing faith in the person you love.
THE MURDER OF SNOWMAN JOE
CHAPTER ONE
“Billy! Go wide, go wide!”
Billy Plum had no idea what ‘go wide’ meant, but assumed he was being told to run as far back as he could. He did not understand why he would want to do that, considering how bad a shot Sally was. They were nine years old and every nine-year-old boy knows how bad girls are at throwing balls, so Billy figured if he did ‘go wide’ he would only have to come back and retrieve the ball from where he was already standing. He didn’t even know why Sally had come along, but that was Brian’s fault. Brian was a year older. He had told Billy Sally was coming with them and that was that. Billy did not mind half as much as he made out he did, but she still couldn’t throw to save her life.
“Billy!”
“Just throw it.”
Billy and Sally were standing about fifteen metres apart, with Brian between them, jumping as though to put off her throw. Sally was looking for an opening and Billy was beginning to wonder whether she would ever get around to throwing the thing. Then, finally, the ball was sailing through the air, over Brian’s outstretched hands, and smacked Billy straight in the face.