Truth Dare Kill

by Gordon, Ferris,

  I thought I’d connected for a moment, then his smile flickered back into life.

  “Serendipity, old chap. The house belonged to a friend of ours. Used to pop in for drinks and such. But the house was empty when it went up. Our friend spends winter in the South of France. Can’t blame him, can you? Must have been a gas leak or something. Gave us the notion of taking me out the picture, d’you see? Very convenient.”

  “Very.” I couldn’t hide the sarcasm. “And the shoes, the beautiful blue shoes?” I directed this at her, sitting with a smile on her face, or was it a smirk?

  “I quite liked those shoes you know. You should have searched harder, McRae. I’d have liked them both back.”

  I was getting desperate now, angry with them and myself for my inability to break down their smug façade. My questions were coming out more and more shrill. “You turned this into a game, didn’t you? It became something to amuse you! What the hell are you doing in this house anyway, Tony? Why is Kate registered as your next of kin? What’s going on here?”

  His face lost the contrived smile. “Why, nothing, dear chap. Nothing at all. I’m just a house guest, that’s all.”

  They gazed at me, waiting to see if the monkey would jump through another hoop for them. Kate’s face had lost its superiority. She suddenly looked puzzled and anxious. Why?

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t know what you’re covering up, here. But none of this adds up. I won’t rest till I find out the truth, Tony. For starters, I need to know what happened in France. You owe me that!”

  He shook his head. “I owe you nothing, old chap. Can’t be responsible for the actions of a madman, can I? I saw you, Danny. I saw you coming out of the house where that girl was murdered. I found her there. I came to confront you in your safe house and you were cleaning up. There was blood on your clothes. You looked wild. I asked you what you’d done. You began screaming at me. Said she was a whore, and she shouldn’t have been seeing other men. She was yours, yours alone. Terrible stuff. So sorry, old man. I think the pressure got to you. And you flipped.” He shrugged and held my gaze.

  Every word drilled into me like a stiletto. I could feel the heat of the fire on my face, could sense the tumbler slipping in my sweat-filled hand. I could see it all now, except her face; I couldn’t see her face; just the blood around her head. The tension in my temples was beginning to edge towards one of my turns. I couldn’t fall apart here. I had to get out. But I still hadn’t heard enough; didn’t want to believe what I’d heard. For how can you admit to yourself that you’re a monster?

  “I don’t believe it. There has to be some other reason. I’m not letting this go, Tony. I can’t! All these games you’re playing. All you had to do was meet me and tell me what you knew. Or turn me in. I’m not leaving till you to tell me what’s going on!”

  Kate’s lips were pinched and she took a hurried swig of her drink. Tony sighed and took two steps towards the fire. He placed his drink carefully on the mantelpiece and turned back to me. For a second I couldn’t see what he’d done; he was a dark silhouette against the firelight. Then I saw the glint in his hand. The glint from a big Colt service revolver. A gun that could stop a rhino. If you got close enough. Tony was close enough.

  “I was afraid you’d say that. Don’t you see? This is exactly what we were afraid of. I know your type, McRae. You go on and on and on, chipping away. We could have got the police involved. But what could we prove? It was wartime, in France. Lot of things happened in the war that are best forgotten. But you won’t, will you? You won’t let up.”

  “What are you going to do, Tony? Shoot me?” I began edging back and to the side, so that we were both bathed equally in firelight. I could see past him to Kate. She was hunched in her chair like she was freezing.

  “It would be a kindness, McRae. A kindness to us all. Put you out of this pain. Like a mad dog.”

  “Murder, Tony? You’d kill me and think you’d get away with it? How would you react when they started to question Millie, for example? What would she say?”

  He chortled. “She’d say what we tell her to say. It’s quite easy, old chap. You forced your way in, became violent, threatened Kate here… self defence. Inspector Wilson wouldn’t take much persuading.”

  “You bastard! How did Wilson get involved?”

  He smirked, and held the gun level with my chest.

  I cast my eyes past him, in desperation. “Kate! Kate Graveney. Are you going to sit there and watch a man murdered in cold blood?!”

  Kate’s eyes were wide. She edged forward in her seat. The leather creaked. It was enough. Tony half turned to see her reaction and I threw my glass of whisky into the fire. The smash of the crystal and the burst of flames made him reel back. The gun lifted and I hit him with everything I had in a desperate shoulder charge. He went over backwards into Kate’s lap. The gun exploded in a huge roar that started Kate screaming. The shot hit the ceiling. Before Caldwell could right himself, I had gripped his wrist and was battering it on the tiled hearth.

  He was punching at my face with his free left hand but I kept smashing his wrist and knuckles on the stone till the revolver rolled free.

  I grabbed it and tumbled clear. I got to my feet shaking with emotion. Caldwell disentangled himself from Kate’s legs and they both dragged themselves upright. I had at least wiped the smiles off their faces. Tony nursed his bruised hand. I could feel blood running from an eye. He’d opened up one of Wilson’s cuts. But I had the gun.

  “I wasn’t going to shoot you, Danny. Just hold you till the police got here. You know that.”

  He kept his face calm but I could hear the pleading note; I liked that.

  “Do I? The only thing you’re sure of when you’re looking down one of these…” I waved the gun. “… is that it would make a very big hole in you. Why shouldn’t I use it on you, Tony? You tell me I’ve killed once. It’s probably easier the second time, don’t you think?” I brought my left hand round to steady the heavy weapon. The thought went through my mind that I could do it. It would be easy, and what did it matter anyway?

  Some of my thoughts must have registered on my face. Panic flooded his eyes. “For god’s sake man! The police are probably already on their way. You wouldn’t get a hundred yards. You’d be mad to do this! You’d hang!”

  I smiled. “But, Tony, I thought you’d already decided I was mad. Shooting you would be the work of a madman. They’d send me to the hospital, not the gallows.”

  Kate broke her silence. “Danny, don’t. It was all a stupid game. This won’t help you. It won’t solve anything.” Her lovely face was creased in fear. Maybe it was the use of my first name; I stopped enjoying having Caldwell at the end of my gun. She pressed her advantage. “Go now, Danny. Before they catch you. The servants are probably on the phone, right now.”

  Just as she said this the library door burst open and an anxious face showed round the door.

  “Are you all right, ma’am, sir…?”

  I cut off any reply. “They’re all right. So far! Get in here. Now!”

  The servant edged in, face white. He raised his hands. He’d seen too many gangster films.

  “Stand over there! And you two.” I indicated with my gun that all three should get over behind the table, away from the main door. I held the Colt on them. The firm grip and heavy barrel felt good, familiar. Gave a man confidence. I walked over to the rear door where Tony had entered, locked it and pocketed the key. Then I headed for the main door, grabbing my coat and hat as I went, all the while covering the little group.

  I could feel the fury draining from me, along with my energy. The headache was starting. My vision was beginning to go. I fumbled for the key on the main door and walked outside. I closed it and rammed the key home and locked them in. I could hear their voices rushing towards the door. Kate and Tony were furious. Good.

  “Is everything all right, sir?” Millie’s anxious little face met me halfway across the floor. She shrieked and held her hands to h
er mouth when she saw the gun in my hand. “You haven’t killed them, sir, have you? You didn’t…?”

  “No, Millie. They’re all right. Just get the front door will you?”

  She fled in front of me, darting her eyes round a couple of times in case I was going to shoot her in the back. Her chest was heaving and she was snivelling with fear. I wondered how it had been for the French girl. I shook my bursting head, pulled on my coat and stuffed the revolver into its big pocket. I jammed the hat on and stepped into the night past Millie’s terrified face. I paused.

  “Show me your hands, Millie.”

  Her mouth gaped and gulped, but her gloved hands came up in supplication, palms up. The white cotton was immaculate.

  I took the gun out of my pocket and laid it across her stiff fingers. She held it like a dead fish.

  “Don’t pull the trigger, Millie, There’s a good girl.”

  She just nodded, tears streaming down her round face, her round lips pursed with terror. I almost kissed them.

  I stumbled down the stairs and off into the night, wondering where I could go and how long before they caught me. For I had no doubt that Caldwell would unleash the hounds on me, and Wilson would be coming after me with glee in his vicious little heart.

  EIGHTEEN

  I headed north – homing instinct? – home to mother? It was starting to rain, that steady drizzle that soaks right through. Some Ayrshire clouds must have strayed south. I half-ran, half-stumbled, clinging to the park railings for support as I broke clear of Onslow Gardens, and came to the lit area round the underground at South Kensington. Two policemen were watching the crowds pouring into the station hall. Were they on to me already? I couldn’t risk it. I pulled my brim down further and detoured round the corner and away, still heading north. It was getting harder to walk straight; I saw splintered images, fractured lights through the downpour. A car blasted its horn at me.

  “You drunken fool!” he shouted.

  And that’s how it looked; this clown in a drenched coat and hat, crashing off railings and holding on to walls, lurching across roads, one foot forward, two to the side, in a drunken dance. Like the famous parties with the boys back home. Big Tam and Archie and me – fu’ as monkeys. The three musketeers. Here’s tae us, wha’s like us, damn few, and they’re a’ deid!

  A’ deid. They’re a’ deid. And I might as well be. Valerie, Valerie, where are you? I need you.

  I floundered into another set of railings. They forced me to turn off my course, pushed me to the right. Where was I? The map in my head wasn’t working. Then I saw the tall memorial, and the seated man, the golden man, shining in the moonlight. Albert. The love of Vickie’s life. It was Hyde Park. The railings were high, and I was dissolving. But I was also desperate. I found the gate which gave me easier footholds and hauled myself up and over, crashing in a heap on the other side.

  I smelled grass and horse-shit, and crawled and staggered across the riding track. There were trees and shrubs, blessed camouflage but no place to spend a filthy night. I flopped across the soaking grass like a landed fish. Moonlight on water ahead. The Serpentine. The boathouse. Where Val and I walked the other day, the other life.

  I felt my feet hitting boards, and clung to the wooden walls looking for a door or a window. Couldn’t be conspicuous. The park police would check later, on their rounds. Had to do it quietly and carefully. Nothing to show. There was a door. With a big padlock and a chain. I didn’t have my burglar’s kit and even if I did I didn’t have fingers that worked anymore. I kept searching. Nothing.

  I smashed my shins on something, a wood bench. Cursing I sat down and nursed my pain till it ebbed. I leaned over feeling sick. When it passed I straightened up and patted the rough slats. At least I was under the shelter of the porch roof. I had no choice. The band was tightening and the bad taste thickened my tongue. I collapsed on the bench, pulled my wet coat around me and sank into hopeless dreams.

  I wasn’t sure whether it was the cold in my bones, or the daylight or the sound of voices that woke me. I lay under a coarse tarpaulin. I flung it off in panic and peered round in the gloom. I was inside, in a shed of some sort, shivering in a filthy shroud and wanting to be sick. Though I lay on the ground I was surrounded by piles of folded deck chairs. I hadn’t been able to set one up and sit in it. I’d become a seaside joke. My coat was still soaking, as was my suit. I could have fallen in the lake and come out drier. On my hands and knees I edged into the farthest recesses, and threw up. Sorry, mate, whoever you are. I don’t like your job this morning.

  When some strength returned I knew I had to get out of there and dry off. If I didn’t, I’d get pneumonia. My head was pounding but I could see again. I’d live. Just. I was desperately tired, as though I’d been on a night march. I rubbed my eyes and longed for a bath. I had a nagging sense of guilt, a sense that there was something important, something I had to remember, but there was no faithless jotter this morning. No revelations of my bloody past to wrestle with, or none I could recall. I shook my head. I had no idea how I’d got here, or where I’d been since collapsing on the boathouse bench. But I didn’t have the patience or the courage to sit and sift my dreams.

  I wiped down my clothes as best I could, but even in the gloom of the shed I still looked like a tramp. My hands were sticky. I inspected them in the shaft of light. Blood. I looked down and there was blood on my trousers. Christ, what had I been up to? Then a thin memory popped up. I pulled up my left trouser leg and saw the deep cut and remembered whacking the bench last night. Harder than I thought. But at least it was my own blood.

  The rain had stopped and some sun was filtering through the sickly clouds. Maybe if I walked fast I’d dry out, then I could brush off the mud. I peered through the crack in the door and saw one or two folk walking past on the opposite shore. To my left about fifty yards away was the boathouse. Some early bird was opening it up. Just in case there were any idiots wanting to sit outside on a deckchair in January, I decided it was time I was gone. I had a thought. I stepped back and picked up the tarpaulin. I folded it carefully, stuck it under my arm and pushed the door open.

  Part blinded by the daylight I walked out fast and away from the shed, expecting any minute to hear cries behind me. Nothing. One piece of luck. Now what? I could hardly go home; the police would be waiting for me. Home to Scotland? The stations would be guarded. I didn’t know where Val lived or how to get in touch. My thoughts turned to Liza. Liza Caldwell. Through my headache, nausea and shivering, came the distant pulse of anger. I was damned if I’d let Tony Caldwell and his female accomplices do this to me. I was going to find out the truth if it killed me… or them.

  I crossed the bridge to the north side of the Serpentine and began hacking my way over the grass towards Bayswater. I checked my funds; I had two pounds three and sixpence on me. It would do for a couple of days. Just over one hundred pounds lay in an account at the Westminster Bank, but my savings book was in my office.

  The walk was warming me up and the breeze was drying my clothes. Now I felt hungry. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday teatime. Just before I left the park at Marble Arch I found a gents toilet. I cleaned myself up as best I could. My hankie ran red time after time as I dabbed at the trousers and congealed blood on my hands and legs. I combed my hair, but my face looked like I’d drowned in the lake and been brought back to life. Almost. I needed some hot tea and grub.

  There were no coppers at the gates. I was surprised, but then I hardly qualified for a full blown manhunt, did I? Or if I did, they might well have assumed I was miles away, having got on the underground last night. Abandoning the gun had been the smart thing to do: searching for a man who’d threatened you is one thing; searching for an armed intruder is another.

  Paradise! A Lyons corner tea house. I pulled myself as erect as I could, tucked the tarp under my arm as if it were something all normal folk carried, and smiled my way to a corner seat. My clothes steamed gently as I slurped at two pots of tea and a full breakfast, b
ut the girl was too polite to mention it.

  Refuelled, I hopped on a bus to Oxford Circus and dived down the tube. A change at Tottenham Court Road and I was on the Northern Line to Hampstead. I was steadily drying out. It was just after nine o’clock, and I was filled with tea, toast and resolve.

  Hampstead was its sunny best for me, and I felt the now familiar air of being on holiday, which in the circumstances was pretty daft. As I neared Liza’s house, I curbed my instinct to walk up to her door and demand answers. Instead I plunged into the woodland paths I’d grown to know and let the air and sun dry me. I took a circuitous route round to the copse above her street. Just as well; the big grey Riley was parked outside her door. I made a hide behind a tight mass of broom, spread my tarpaulin out on the leaves and grass, and settled down to wait.

  I waited throughout the long day, falling in and out of exhausted sleep. I was awake enough to see Liza come and go twice, both times with Kate, arm in arm. It became clear Kate was guarding her. From me. But where was Tony? I slipped down into the village and bought some grub – marge, bread, corned beef – enough for another day. Outside the store was a crate for empty screw-necks. I nicked a couple and filled them with water at the horse trough. I caught sight of myself in a shop window. My growing dishevelment was making me stand out in this otherwise genteel corner of London. In the city proper, men like me – unshaven and unkempt – were commonplace, jettisoned by the war’s end on to the streets, wandering around in army greatcoats begging for help from the people they fought for, and not always getting it.

  I returned to my hide, in time to see a police car draw up and figures get out. I wished I’d had my binocs with me but they weren’t needed to identify Wilson’s black bulk. Liza let him in and he was there for some time. When he came out, he stopped before getting into the car and spoke to a uniformed policeman. Then Wilson’s eyes swept the street and up into the woods; I froze, feeling his gaze brush over me like a searchlight. He got in the car and it eased off in a cloud of smoke leaving the copper on guard. I had no doubt that all this was my doing.