The Gigantic Shadow

by Julian Symons

‘It is true.’

  Brannigan shrugged. ‘Not that it matters either way, though it was a nuisance at the time. Bond was one of our boys and he’d begun to fiddle, trying to keep a percentage for himself over and above the cut we gave him. I told him he was finished, his supplies would be cut off. He wouldn’t believe it, got on the line to the governor, talked to him. When he learned it was so he jumped out of the window.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about that. I was just firing a shot in the dark.’

  ‘That was your bad luck,’ Brannigan said again. He did not trouble to imply belief or disbelief.

  ‘But he didn’t jump. He was pushed. You pushed him.’

  ‘Can you prove that?’

  ‘You planted a witness in the block of flats opposite, and she said what you told her to say. You talked to her on the telephone when I was in her flat. Tanya Broderick.’

  ‘Did I talk to her? Tanya’s a respectable girl. For that matter I’m respectable too. I don’t think you’re saying anything, Bill.’

  ‘I should have paid more attention when I was told that you worked for Mekles. At the time it didn’t seem important.’ Brannigan nodded in acknowledgement of this remark. ‘Have you been working for him long?’

  ‘Long enough to get used to it.’

  ‘You’ve come a long way from Dublin, Paddy.’

  ‘It’s not only a long way. It’s a long time.’ Brannigan seemed to be waiting for an answer, or perhaps another question. When Hunter said nothing he went on talking in his soft, cold voice. ‘You won’t find Anthea here. Only her spectacles.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s dead, Bill. She’s been dead since Monday. Strangled. Down in the cellar.’

  Although Hunter knew that Brannigan would not hesitate to lie, he felt no doubt that this was the truth. If he had had any doubt it would have been cancelled by Pine’s gasp of terror.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Brannigan said contemptuously to Pine. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about. He killed her.’

  ‘I don’t see –’ Pine said, and broke down in a stutter.

  ‘It’s obvious enough. Anthea had a key to this house, isn’t that right? Sometimes she used to meet Bill O’Brien, or Hunter, or whatever he calls himself here. They arranged this crazy kidnap idea together, but Hunter was double-crossing her, planning to kill her when they had the money. He wouldn’t go shares, you see. He was greedy.’

  ‘You can never make it stick,’ Hunter said.

  ‘Why not? Anthea took drugs. She kept a stock of them here. Pine trusted her too much. He’s a bit of a fool, not too strong in the head, all his sense used to be in his feet when he was a runner. But then, why shouldn’t he trust her? After all, she was the chairman’s stepdaughter. And then there’s the money. You’ve got the money, haven’t you, Bill?’

  ‘Why did I come back here?’

  ‘You were afraid that Pine had found out something that would betray you.’

  ‘It will be my word against his.’

  ‘And which do you think will be believed?’ Pine had recovered his spirits, he was almost jaunty. ‘I don’t think there’s any question about that.’

  ‘It won’t be your word against anybody’s, Bill.’ Brannigan’s voice was flat, disinterested. ‘You’ve come to the end of the line.’

  His mouth was dry. He could see no purpose in talk, yet he felt it necessary to go on talking. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pine found Anthea’s body. You wore gloves when you strangled her by the way. He accused you when you came here, you attacked him, he had to shoot you. Self-defence.’

  ‘You bloody murderer,’ Hunter said. He thought not of himself but of Anthea, the beautiful face blackened in death, the tongue lolling, bitten.

  ‘I had nothing to do with it.’ Pine cried the words as though they were some sort of invocation. Hunter took a step forward.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ Brannigan said. ‘I don’t want to shoot now, but if you make me I will.’

  ‘You say you’re going to shoot anyway. Supposing I take the chance?’

  ‘You know me too well to take that sort of chance,’ Brannigan said in his flat voice. He spoke to Pine. ‘How soon can you get that rabble out of here?’

  ‘In half an hour they’ll be gone. Perhaps less.’

  ‘You’ve got that long, Bill. Something may happen in the next half hour, that’s what you’ll think. It won’t, but you’ll still hope. I know you, Bill.’

  You know me too well, Hunter thought, feeling the gun in his hip pocket, so well that you don’t even bother to search me. If he could distract Brannigan’s attention, get him to turn round, he would have time to profit by this over-confidence. Meanwhile he had to go on talking.

  ‘Supposing I hadn’t come here. What would you have done then?’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t come. There’s always a risk in gunplay. I don’t like it. You’d have been picked up sooner or later, identified as the man mixed up in this plot of Anthea’s, and we’d have taken it from there. That would have been better. But we can’t leave it at that now, you know too much. You were a dead duck, though, as soon as you got mixed up with that crazy plot of Anthea’s.’ With mild reproof Brannigan said, ‘That was a silly thing to do.’

  Hunter said, genuinely puzzled, ‘You knew about the idea from the beginning, then?’

  ‘A girl like Anthea, how could you expect her to keep anything to herself?’

  ‘I didn’t know she was an addict.’

  ‘You didn’t know much.’ Brannigan threw his revolver up in the air, caught it as it came down, laughed at Hunter’s involuntary movement. He’s too quick for me, Hunter thought despairingly, he’s a gunman and I shall need seconds to get my revolver out. ‘You knew she had Pine as her second string boyfriend? No? As I say, you didn’t know much. She told him the idea six months ago, get money from the old man and live happily ever after somewhere out of this world. Pine’s a fool, but he wasn’t stupid enough to buy that one. You were. Even if you’d got away with the money, how long do you suppose she’d have stayed with you?’

  ‘She loved me.’ Even as Hunter spoke the words he knew that they were meaningless to Brannigan. And sure enough he ignored them. ‘Go down and send them home,’ he said to Pine. ‘We can’t wait all night.’

  ‘Rawlinson’s really in charge. It won’t be long now before they’ve gone. I don’t think I’d better –’ His voice died away.

  ‘Rawlinson’s honest, I suppose,’ Hunter said.

  Brannigan laughed contemptuously. ‘He doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going.’

  ‘You’ve no right to talk like that about Rawlinson,’ Pine said hotly. ‘He believes in the Circle. He thinks it’s doing good.’

  ‘You give him a helping hand, I must say.’ The words were ironical, but there was no irony in Brannigan’s way of delivering them. It was as though he were beyond irony, as he was beyond hope, pleasure, sorrow, or anything except the mechanical actions that made up his life. ‘But to hell with Rawlinson. It’s your house, isn’t it? Get them out.’

  The tic in Pine’s face had come back. ‘You’re not going to –’

  ‘Don’t worry. I shan’t do anything until they’ve gone, unless Bill here makes me, and he won’t do that. Afterwards you can stuff cotton wool in your ears.’ Pine went out. Watching Hunter, Brannigan said, ‘You couldn’t get away with the money, because they sprayed some sort of chemical on it.’

  Hunter had thought himself beyond surprise. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Here’s the way it went. First, Pine sees that Anthea’s very excited about something or other. She’s bursting to tell him about it, finally can’t stop herself, says she’s found somebody else with more guts than Pine, who’s going to carry out her wonderful kidnap plan.

  ‘Now, Pine’s fond of Anthea, fonder than he is of anything except coke. Doesn’t want to lose her. He tries to talk her out of it. Doesn’t have any luck. Anthea finally gets angry, tells him she’s sick of
the PFC racket anyway, and when this plan goes through she’s going to have enough money to get her own supplies. All right. If she’s that crazy, let her try it. But Pine’s jealous, threatens to cut off her supplies here and now, unless she gives up the plan and stops seeing you. Then Anthea says something else. She says she doesn’t like the way we’ve been fooling her old man – her old man, mark you, who isn’t really her old man at all, and who’s kept her without money ever since she came out of the bin – and she may decide to sing about the whole PFC racket. When she says that, Pine comes to me.’

  Hunter felt a rush of pity for Anthea, a full realisation of how she had been trapped by her own temperament. In his mind there was an image of a bird with limed wings, struggling to fly. ‘Why to you?’ he said to Anthea’s murderer. ‘Why should Pine come to you?’

  ‘The governor – Mekles – put me in charge of things over here when we found out that there was trouble with Bond. He doesn’t like people who cause trouble. He doesn’t like them in or near the organisation. He was really upset about that television business. So Pine came to me because it was trouble. And I decided that we couldn’t afford that sort of trouble. Anthea had to go.’

  Anthea had to go. It was as simple as that. For Brannigan it had always been as simple as that.

  ‘Anthea had told Pine what she was planning. That meant she was already working with somebody, so I put a tail on her to find out who it was. And what did we turn up but you. That really was a joke.’ Brannigan did not laugh. Downstairs voices could be heard in the street. People were saying good-bye. There was not much time left. ‘The perfect setup. A previous murder conviction, not much money. You must have been crazy.’

  Brannigan strolled across the room to a table on which a record player stood. He lifted the lid, put it on, listened for a moment to a recording of ‘The Double You Blues’:

  ‘I’ve got those double you blues.

  One of you is kind and one of you is not.

  One of you’s cold and one of you’s hot.

  Those double you blues–’

  He nodded, took it off again.

  ‘You killed her.’

  ‘That’s right. She went to the office to get some stuff from Pine. She was on tea, and wanted to stock up before starting out on her little adventure with you. Pine said he hadn’t got any stuff at the office, and told her to come here. She had a key to the place already, of course.’

  ‘And when she got here she found you.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Brannigan took out a packet of cigarettes, put one between his lips, lighted it, all with one hand. The other hand still held the revolver. He threw the packet over to Hunter. ‘Smoke?’

  ‘Pine can’t like the idea of her being found here.’

  ‘No.’ Brannigan blew a smoke ring. ‘But he has to take it. He’s too frightened to do anything else. And anyway, the PFC is expendable. It’s clumsy. We’ve got to reorganise, as I told the governor. Hairdressers, manicurists, that’s the thing.’

  The voices downstairs had died away. Hunter moved in the chair so that he could more readily reach the revolver at his hip, but he knew that it was hopeless, that Brannigan would be too fast for him. ‘How did you know about the money?’

  ‘You were going abroad, it was a cinch you’d try to get rid of it. I got in touch with the two or three boys who run currency fiddles, Morgan, Westmark, Dawes. I told them to let me know as soon as anything came through, and to make it good when they dealt with you. They know Mekles, they like to oblige him.’ Brannigan looked at Hunter as if he were an insect. ‘You never had a chance. You must see it.’

  From below Rawlinson’s voice could be heard faintly, saying goodbye. Brannigan stubbed out his cigarette. The door opened and Pine stood there, his face the colour of cream cheese.

  ‘They’ve gone.’ His voice was high.

  Brannigan lifted the lid of the record player, then closed it again.

  There were footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Brannigan asked.

  Pine was stammering again. ‘I don’t know. I felt sure everyone had gone.’ He turned the handle of the door and said with relief, ‘It’s only Tanya.’

  Tanya Broderick was smoking a cigarette in a jewelled blue holder. She stood in the doorway looking at the revolver in Brannigan’s hand.

  ‘You’d better get out of here.’ The Irishman’s voice was conversational, even.

  She took out the cigarette, stubbed it in an ashtray, put away the holder. ‘You’re going to kill him. Who is he?’

  ‘His name’s Hunter, and he’s mixed up with Anthea Moorhouse.’

  ‘He was one of those two who came to see me.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Where is she, Paddy? Where is Anthea Moorhouse?’

  Pine said in his high voice, ‘You read the papers, you know as much as we do. She’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘That’s not what he thinks. I believe she’s dead.’

  ‘Really now, Tanya, you’re being silly.’

  ‘Let’s cut out the nonsense,’ Brannigan said. ‘Yes, kid, she’s dead. What are you going to do about it?’ The revolver in his hand was still pointed at Hunter.

  ‘Oh, my God. I wish I’d never started this.’ She looked unseeingly at Hunter, her doll-face crumpled. Out of the eyes rolled two round tears.

  ‘I like you, kid. Don’t tell me you’re going soft.’

  ‘I hate you,’ she said to Brannigan. ‘You’ve tricked me. When you put me in that flat you said you were taking it for me.’

  ‘So I was, kid. So I was taking it for you.’

  ‘You took it so that I could swear I saw him jump. I didn’t know what I was doing. You told me it was just to avoid awkward questions over a business deal. I never knew you killed him.’

  ‘Who’s saying I killed him, kid?’ Brannigan’s voice was low and level, but Hunter could feel the tension behind it.

  Her own voice had been changing slowly as she spoke, a little of the artificial precision and pseudo-refinement chipping away with each sentence to reveal more of the east end Cockney beneath. Now the veneer was almost completely off as she cried, ‘I don’t want anything to do with murder. I don’t want to go to jail. I think I’d die if I went to jail.’

  ‘If you do what I tell you, none of us will go to jail.’

  ‘You killed Bond. And you killed that girl, Anthea Moorhouse, I know you did. Now you’re going to kill him. It’s got to stop, Paddy, it’s got to stop.’ She advanced across the room. Hunter waited for the moment when she would obscure Brannigan’s view of him. That would be the moment.

  But the moment never came. Lightly and gracefully, on his toes like a boxer, the Irishman moved towards her. There was never an instant when the revolver was not pointed in Hunter’s direction. When the girl was within a foot of him Brannigan’s left hand, clenched into a fist, struck her in the stomach. Then as she doubled over and forward with pain, it came up to strike her under the chin. She gave a moaning cry and fell to the floor.

  Pine said something incoherent. Hunter half rose from his chair, then sank back again as he saw the look in Brannigan’s eyes. Yet the voice in which the Irishman spoke was soft and calm as ever.

  ‘I’m sorry, kid. But you’ve got to learn. You can’t tell me what I should do or shouldn’t do. This is serious. You might be thinking about going to the police. Were you thinking of that, kid?’

  The girl lay on the floor sobbing. A trickle of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Because if you are, forget it. The Bond affair is finished. There was a suicide verdict, you heard it yourself. The police are happy, nobody’s going to stir it up again. As for Anthea Moorhouse, this red-headed moron here is the one who killed her. Then he came back here tonight, Arthur became suspicious of him, he attacked Arthur, Arthur shot him in self-defence. You see, I always told you there was some use for Arthur.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do it,’ Pine said. ‘Talk to the police, I mean. Afterw
ards.’

  ‘If you take a shot beforehand you can talk to anybody.’ He spoke again to the girl. ‘So you see you’ve got nothing to be afraid of if you go home and keep your mouth shut. If you don’t, you’ll be the first one to suffer. Accessory after the fact is what they call it. And when it comes to the point, can you do anything to me, have you got any proof of your story? If you’re lucky the police will think you’re hysterical. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be the first one they put away.’

  She got up from the floor and wiped away the blood with a tiny handkerchief. ‘You’ve got it all taped, haven’t you?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Where do you think? Home. Back to the love nest you took for me and never came to.’

  ‘I’ve told you why I can’t come there for a couple of weeks,’ Brannigan said patiently. ‘It wouldn’t be wise. You go home and put something on that face of yours. It’s swelling.’

  She stood in the doorway looking at Hunter. The blue had come off two of her fingernails. She said nothing.

  ‘And, kid –’ Brannigan said gently.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you’ve got ideas about going to the police and asking them for protection, forget those too. You know me. If you do that, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘I know you,’ she said dully. One hand was pressed to her stomach. ‘I know you now. Don’t worry. I’m going home.’

  When the outer door closed, the sound seemed decisive. The silence in the room was awe-inspiring, terrible. This is where I am to die, Hunter thought, this is where the world ends, in the room of a drug-addicted athlete I am to be murdered by a ghost from the past I’ve been running away from. We can never run far enough or fast enough, he said to himself. There’s no such thing as a clean break.

  There was a slight click as Brannigan again lifted the lid of the record player.

  Pine said, in a voice that fluted uncertainly, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Jesus, you know what I’m going to do. Get out of the way. Go downstairs. You’re more nervous than he is.’ He put on the record.

  ‘I’ve got those double you blues.