Forests of the Night

by David Stuart Davies

  I crossed to Epstein’s office and opened the door. The lights were on but the room was empty. There was a cigar butt in the ashtray on his desk. I examined it. It was still warm. Clearly my friend Leo had not been gone for too long. But gone he was. But where to? And how? I had been waiting outside the premises for over an hour and a half and I’d swear that he had not left.

  I tipped my hat back with the barrel of my pistol as I’d seen John Wayne do in countless westerns and pondered my problem. Then my own words came back to me … ‘he had not left.’ Well, he had not left by the door that I was watching. But he had obviously departed the building … so logically, there must be another means of exit. Elementary, my dear Watson. I gazed around the room. At the rear, in the shadows was a curtained recess.

  I pulled the curtain back and revealed a door. It was built of stout metal, not a candidate for my shoulder this time. The lock was ancient and rusty and it took me a good ten minutes of waggling and cajoling with my wire before I heard the satisfying rasp and click as the aged mechanism conspired with the wire to withdraw the bolt.

  The door opened out on to a fire escape at the back of the building which led down to a small yard. So that’s how my solicitor friend had made his getaway. But why on earth did he feel the need to? What prompted him to ditch our plan – well, my plan, I suppose – and hightail it to heavens knew where? Was he just frightened or did he have a different agenda?

  Gingerly, I descended the decrepit metal stairway, training my torch on the steps to aid me. Eventually I reached terra firma and was no wiser. The yard was empty. A gate led to a back alley which was silent and deserted.

  With my tail between my legs I returned to Epstein’s office. Maybe I could find some indication as to why Leo had flown the nest and where exactly he had flown to. Once inside, after closing the fire escape door, I ran my eye around the room. The first thing it lit upon was the brandy decanter on top of the filing cabinet. Well, I reckoned, the wily old bastard owed me a drink, so I poured myself a large one. The brandy burned my throat and filled my body with a warm glow. I then set about looking around for clues, for some suggestion as to where Epstein could have had gone. I scrutinized his desk. Were there any little scraps of paper bearing an address or a telephone number? There were not. Neither were there any indentations on the blotter that I could shade in with a HB pencil to reveal some telling detail. There was nothing. But then this wasn’t a film – it was real life.

  And then something very surprising happened. Just as I was eyeing up the brandy decanter, considering whether to treat myself to another slug – the telephone rang.

  The shrill noise shattered the strange silence of Epstein’s inner sanctum.

  I stared hypnotized at the black bakelite machine as it vibrated on the desk. It was as though the thing were alive.

  I broke my own trance and grabbed the receiver.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, Mr Epstein, still working late?’ The voice was tinny and strange. Obviously, it was deliberately disguised.

  ‘Yes. Who is this?’ I responded, keeping my own voice a little faint and attempting as much as possible to sound like the absent solicitor.

  ‘A friend, you might say.’

  ‘Does this friend have a name?’

  ‘You will find out soon enough.’

  ‘What do you want?’ I tried to sound angry and on the verge of putting the phone down.

  ‘It’s about your affair with Pammie Palmer.…’

  I remained silent, but the skin at the back of my neck began to tingle.

  ‘I think you need my help,’ the voice came again.

  ‘Oh, yes. Why?’

  The voice chuckled. ‘To save you from the gallows. I have some pretty incriminating evidence that links you with the dead girl.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Maybe not, but the police might think differently. In fact, I’m certain they will.’

  ‘What is this evidence?’

  ‘I think we should meet up to discuss it.’

  ‘What is there to discuss?’

  ‘Money, Mr Epstein. Money.’

  ‘So this is blackmail.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But I don’t have any money on me now.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you have ways and means of securing a thousand pounds.’

  I nearly dropped the receiver at the mention of this amount. How would little old Leo have so much money at his beck and call.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said, playing for time.

  ‘Now don’t try to fool me, Mr Epstein. I know for certain you have your own private store of cash hidden away for a rainy day. Well, it looks like it’s pouring. Let me put it this way: it’s either the money or I go to the police.’

  I had to play along with the game. ‘Very well. I’ll get the money but first I need to know what incriminating evidence you have against me.’

  ‘You must wait. But trust me, it is quite damning.’

  ‘Where shall I see you and when?’

  ‘At Pammie’s flat at midnight. Be there with the money – or it really will be the worse for you.’

  The line went dead.

  thirty

  The blow sent Eve Kendal crashing to the floor. The blood from her cut lip was already dripping from her chin as she shuffled backwards on her haunches, staring up at her attacker. She was shocked but she was not frightened. A faint sense of indignant righteousness began to rise within her.

  ‘You bitch,’ he cried, anger flushing his pale, haunted features. ‘You’re my wife and you’ve behaved like a whore!’

  Eve had been on the verge of tears but this reference to ‘wife’ further fuelled her resistance. ‘The marriage is over, you know that,’ she said with quiet defiance.

  ‘You’re my wife. You married me for better or worse.’ He spat the words out while he stood over her, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  ‘I’m your wife on paper only – not for real, Ray. There’s no love. I told you that long ago. That’s why we sleep in separate beds. That’s why we have separate lives. You can hit me all you want, but it will not change how I feel about you.’

  ‘You’re a married woman and you’ve been seeing other men.’

  ‘For company. What kind of life have you left me? I’m lonely. I need company.’

  ‘There’s me.’

  ‘Yes, there’s you skulking behind the curtains watching and waiting. Expecting a knock at the door at any moment. Expecting they’ve come for you. Come to take you back. That’s what you’re reduced to. Morose, uncommunicative you.’ She wiped the blood off her chin. ‘Well, I suppose you can communicate in one way.’

  Ray ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I never meant to hit you. I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘No,’ she said, pulling herself to her feet, ‘but you did.’

  ‘I’m sorry…’ He made a move to embrace her, but she shrank back.

  ‘Get away,’ she said. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  ‘Please,’ he cried, tears moistening his eyes.

  ‘You’re a coward, Ray. If things don’t go your way, you run away … or you lash out. It’s time you faced up to things. Our marriage was a mistake. Our love affair was just summer lightning. We’re strangers really. I’ve accepted that and I want to move on … get on with the rest of my life. And you should do, too. You can’t go on hiding from the truth … or your responsibilities … for ever.’

  As she talked in a steady, confident tone, she found her own strength returning and the fear of Ray dissipating. She rose to her feet to face him.

  ‘Go back to the army. You’ve broad shoulders – let them bear your responsibility. I don’t – I don’t want to end up hating you.’

  Tears fell down Ray’s face and he seemed to shrink visibly before her. He shook his head gently. ‘You don’t seem to realize: I’ve never, never stopped loving you.’

  A cynical smile touched Eve’s features. ‘Your own selfish ve
rsion of love.’

  ‘It’s the only kind I know.’ Suddenly he sneered at her and the old aggression revived in his moist eyes. She thought for a moment he was going to hit her again but instead, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  For a moment she stared at the door as though in a trance and then she slumped into an armchair, all her courage and resilience spent. Burying her head in her arm she sobbed quietly.

  In a while, she dried her eyes while her mind raced through the limited options she had now.

  Suddenly the door burst open and Ray came back in the room carrying with him an empty suitcase. His expression and his stance told Eve that he had recovered his bluster. His frustration had turned into anger once more.

  He flung the suitcase at Eve.

  ‘Get packed,’ he snarled. ‘We’re leaving.’

  thirty-one

  As I left Epstein’s office, I could already hear the drone of aircraft in the dark skies above me. The Luftwaffe. Another evening raid. Earlier than usual. No doubt they were heading for the docks for rich pickings, but inevitably the bastards dropped bombs anywhere that took their fancy. There was no such thing as a wasted bomb. Low morale was just as effective to our enemy as low supplies and there was nothing guaranteed to lower morale more than having your house flattened by a Nazi bomb.

  That dreaded noise meant more deaths, more damage to the city and more heartache for its inhabitants. Within the hour the public shelters would be crammed with Londoners preparing for another night of unrest, wondering whether they would have a home to go to once the all clear was sounded.

  The streets would soon be empty and buses and taxis would be non existent. It looked like I’d have to make my way to Pammie’s flat on foot. I checked my watch. It was nearing eight o’clock. That gave me four hours to cross London to make my rendezvous with the mystery caller and, hopefully, come face to face with the killer. My geography of London was fairly sound and I knew that it would take me all my time to make it from Bermondsey to Regent’s Park by midnight. I set off with a will, striding out along the empty street.

  It had stopped raining and the air was still carrying with it the wail of sirens. The wavering silver shafts of the searchlights scanned the darkness for the enemy aircraft. When they were spotted, like bats flying across the beam of a torch, there came the boom boom of the ack ack guns. In the distance I could see the skyline aglow with an orange hue. There had been a hit – a palpable hit.

  As I tramped along, I felt a kind of futility in my own mission. Here I was after the murderer of a few tainted individuals, while overhead, way out of reach, were killers of hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people. By the end of the night, there would be many corpses and casualties littering the rubble of bombed buildings – lives blighted by the German Air Force – by the war. It made the murder of a high-class prostitute and her lovers seem so insignificant.

  For a moment I thought back to those halcyon days before the war, when I was a raw constable, a raw constable with two eyes and a naïve faith in the shining future. It was a time of endless summers, an ease of living, certainty of values and relaxed happy-go-lucky communities. It all seemed like a dream now – like a fantasy movie. A sort of British Lost Horizon. Once again we had been dragged beyond the confines of our own particular Shangri La, as we had been before in 1914, to face the bleakness and hardship of conflict.

  As I walked on, a solitary figure in the darkness, heading towards that false dawn of flames and destruction on the rim of the horizon, it was as though I were the last Londoner left alive. It was only the moan of sirens and the angry chatter of the ack ack guns that told me otherwise.

  Suddenly the air was filled with a fierce screeching sound, followed by the growling roar of an explosion. The ground shook beneath my feet and buildings around me seemed to shimmer and melt as in a mirage. Thunder assailed my ears and I threw myself on to the pavement and covered my head as a shower of masonry cascaded down upon me. The Hun had made a direct hit on a large building at the corner of the street some hundred yards ahead of me. An office block, I thought. Flames now shot up from its innards spiralling skywards through the shattered roof. Some of the walls caved in, throwing up clouds of powdery dust to mingle with the conflagration. I lay still for a while hoping it was all over. Hoping that another brute of a bomb didn’t land on me. I waited and nothing happened. There was just the roar of the flames and the crack of timbers resonating in my ears. Eventually, I pulled myself to my feet. I was still in one piece. With a silent prayer I shook off the light debris that clung to my coat and gazed around me. The building that had been hit was now standing like a single ragged black tooth against the flames that were intent on consuming it. Nobody would be working in that office again. Drawing nearer through the dust and flames, I could see a dark tableau of filing cabinets, desks and other office equipment mangled and scorched amid mounds of grey and red rubble and charred documents. Flakes of soot floated in the air like funereal snow.

  In the distance I could hear the clanging bell of an ancient fire engine. What help that was possible was on its way. The emergency services would be stretched to their limits for yet another night. And when they arrived, what could one do but put the flames out to stop them spreading, and then weep.

  One thing was certain, I could be of no help. And the last thing the brigade men needed at this time was a watcher in the shadows. As this phrase came into my mind – ‘watcher in the shadows’ – it reverberated in my brain like an electric shock. Some bright light fizzed and arched across from one pole to another like the equipment in The Bride of Frankenstein or the Flash Gordon serials and an enlightening connection was made. Watcher in the shadows. That phrase unlocked something. Veils were lifted.

  Of course.

  How would my homicidal friend who called me at Epstein’s office know that anyone would be there at the late hour when he rang? He knew, I answered myself with some excitement, because he had been watching … in the shadows. Keeping an eye on the building. Checking on the movements of their victim. And if that were the case – and I was convinced that it was – then the caller would know it was me and not Epstein who had answered the phone. He would have seen me break in and deduce that dear old Leo had flown the coop. All that stuff about incriminating evidence and the rendezvous at Pammie’s flat was a load of guff concocted for my benefit. My homicidal friend was misdirecting me. Getting me out of the way, sending me on a wild goose chase while he could deal with Leo Epstein without my interference.

  I had been as dim as a blackout curtain!

  I was convinced there would be only one place where Epstein would be: his flat. Where he had wanted to go in the first place. Unfortunately the murderer would have guessed that too. Here was a Tiger Blake situation all right. Could I reach the endangered solicitor in time? I glanced at my watch. I had lost about half an hour. Pulling out my wallet, I extracted Epstein’s private card which I’d picked up in his office. His address was Flat 14, Cedar Court, Holborn. I really would have to get my skates on.

  It was nearing ten o’clock when the skies appeared to be clear again. The Germans had done their dirty on us and returned to base for a late supper. There would be a lot of clanking steins that night I had no doubt.

  It was about this time that my luck turned. There ahead of me, lying on the pavement I saw a bicycle. I supposed that it had been abandoned by its owner when the bombing started. Technically, I knew it was stealing and I could easily find myself in prison for looting, but in ‘borrowing’ the bike, I could ensure that I reached my destination on time. I took no time to hesitate or discuss the moral dilemma with myself; I snatched up the bike and jumped board. Moments later I was pedalling away, in a rather unsteady fashion.

  I had not ridden a bike for about ten years but after five minutes of acclimatization, man and machine were one. I pedalled on, instinct and good luck guiding me. Soon I was in Southwark catching glimpses of the river, and then riding acros
s a deserted Blackfriars Bridge towards the city, which appeared like a silhouetted frieze before me, illuminated at irregular intervals with flames, marking the direct hits of the Luftwaffe.

  A clock was chiming eleven as I headed up Farringdon Street. I was now making good time. I’d be at Cedar Court within half an hour.

  thirty-two

  Peter treated it like a game. He was Tiger Blake trapped in a Nazi prison for British spies. It was his job to escape without being spotted. Sneak out right under the noses of those devilish Germans. If he didn’t he would be shot at dawn. His tummy churned with pleasurable excitement at the thought of his mission. He was now fully dressed in his own clothes; he had stuffed the faded pyjamas he’d been wearing under the covers of the hospital bed with a couple of pillows so that anyone casually putting their head round the door would think he was still there and fast asleep. He’d seen Tiger do that in Tiger Blake and the Devil’s Gate.

  Holding his breath, he opened the door of his room a fraction, just enough for him to see if the coast was clear. It was. With a deep breath, he slipped out of the room and headed down the corridor. He had no idea which was the best direction to take, the one that would lead him to the exit, but he reckoned his first priority was to get away as far as possible from his room and the people in the vicinity who would know who he was. He reasoned that no one would know him in other parts of the building – after all he wasn’t dressed like a patient any more – and if he couldn’t see a sign to tell him how to reach the way out, he could, if necessary, ask. If he were really Tiger Blake and this was a German prison, he would have to adopt a German accent and say Heil Hitler a lot, but as he sped down the apparently endless corridor, the reality of his situation was overtaking his fantasy. This really was about him, Peter, escaping from a life in an orphanage.

  At last he came upon a staircase. A sign indicated ward numbers with various arrows. That’s all. He reckoned it would be best to go down rather than up. As he reached the floor below, he encountered two young nurses coming up. They were engaged in a deep, hushed conversation and did not give the young boy a second glance. Peter grinned. See, he was as clever as Tiger Blake. He went down a further floor and then spotted a sign – a painted hand on the wall pointing and below it the word ‘Outpatients’. Peter was unsure what this meant, but was cheered by the ‘out’ bit. He headed in the direction indicated by the painted pointing hand. Now the corridors were getting cluttered, with wheelchairs, trolleys and occasionally large tanks like those that deep sea divers wore when they were seeking lost treasure at the bottom of the ocean.