The Man Who Couldn't Lose

by Roger Silverwood

  ‘He knows nothing that matters. Now shut up!’ Spitzer said. ‘I’m still running this show.’

  ‘How did he know that then?’ asked Coulson. ‘You’re losing your grip, Mr Spitzer. We are going to be completely out of Bromersley if you don’t keep focused.’

  ‘Shut your mouth.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Coulson said. ‘I don’t want this man in our organization, Mr Spitzer. He’s too smart. Let’s get him to drive under the arches, by the railway.’

  Angel knew the place. It was dark and quiet and out of the way. He didn’t fancy being found stone cold in a bloody heap tomorrow morning by a tramp looking for somewhere to doss.

  ‘No,’ said Spitzer.

  Angel was relieved.

  Then everything went quiet.

  Angel had driven away from the town centre for two miles. He saw a roundabout and drove all the way round it so that they were travelling back towards Bromersley.

  Coulson was playing with his gun like a child with a new toy. Then he started looking over the dashboard in front of him. He looked at the RT fitted under the glove compartment. He suddenly turned the gun round and began to hit the dials with the butt of it, smashing the tuner, volume and wavelength changer and anything else until the red monitor light went out.

  Angel wanted to object but he managed to restrain himself.

  ‘I’ve put the red light out!’ he screamed excitedly, then he gave that high-pitched laugh. ‘Look, Mr Spitzer. The girls will get no punters tonight. The red light’s out.’

  Spitzer suddenly said, ‘Shut up. I’m thinking.’

  Angel began to climb a long steep road on the Doncaster side of the town. There were modern red-brick houses on both sides. It led to Cliff Top Inn, which was the highest point around. At the other side of the peak, the road dropped down steeply for about a mile to the busy Bull Foot roundabout and then a few hundred yards onwards to the lowest point of Bromersley, Town End Bridge.

  He had to change down a gear.

  Coulson was now investigating the rest of the car, hitting things with the butt of the gun. He banged on the catch of the glove compartment. It dropped open. He fished inside and pulled out a duster, a wad of small evidence bags and a pair of handcuffs.

  ‘Hey, look what I’ve got, Mr Spitzer,’ he said, and waved the handcuffs in his direction.

  Angel dreaded to think what bright ideas he might be thinking up.

  Spitzer suddenly said, ‘Luke. Send for our car. We’re dumping this. Tell him to pick us up from the Cliff Top Inn on Doncaster Road now.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Coulson said cheerfully. ‘About time.’ He glanced at Angel with a big toothy smile and reached into his pocket for a mobile phone. He opened it up and tapped in a number; a few moments later he spoke into it. Then he closed the phone. ‘It’s coming, Mr Spitzer.’

  Angel thought this must be the parting of the ways for certain. The fluttering of bats’ wings in his stomach increased in speed and intensity.

  As they reached Cliff Top Inn, the gradient levelled off and Angel changed up to top gear.

  Spitzer said, ‘Stop here.’

  Angel pulled in to the side of the road outside the pub door and glanced ahead at the overview of the town and river below. It might have been a great place for a man with a camera. But that day, it was deserted. There were two cars on the pub car park that he could see, but no pedestrians. The wind was wild and strong and was probably keeping people in their homes.

  Angel shook his head as he wondered what they were about to do to him.

  ‘Switch off the engine and give the key to Mr Coulson,’ Spitzer said.

  Angel turned the key, the engine died. He could then hear the occasional growl of the wind.

  He passed the key over to Coulson.

  Spitzer got out and bounded round to Coulson’s window, his big open coat flapping like the arms of a giant wild bear.

  Coulson lowered the window and Spitzer whispered something in his ear. Coulson grinned and nodded.

  ‘The next time I’ll see you, Inspector Angel, will be in paradise,’ Spitzer hollered, then he turned away and strutted in his black leather boots with two-inch heels straight through the open door into the pub, his coat billowing behind him.

  Angel wondered what he meant. He hoped he wasn’t going to be shot there and then, in cold blood.

  From the front seat, Coulson looked around the outside of the car. There was nobody about.

  Angel wondered if he was going to do it now, or drive away somewhere. He licked his dry lips and inhaled and exhaled in small, controlled breaths.

  ‘Get out and wait by the door,’ he snapped, waving the Megastar automatic at him.

  Coulson also got out of the car, dashed round the front of it and opened the back door. ‘Now get in here.’

  Angel stood on the pavement and looked around. If there had been somewhere to run and hide, like a forest, or a complex of streets and houses, he might have thought of attempting to escape, but there wasn’t. If he couldn’t move away and find shelter fast he would have been shot dead, there was no doubt about it. Also, he had earlier noted that Coulson seemed to know exactly how near he could safely venture with the gun without the risk of Angel attempting to wrest it from him. It was a desperate time in Angel’s life. He was resigned to obeying the man with the gun and climbed into the back seat of the car.

  Coulson said: ‘Get hold of the roof handle.’

  Angel couldn’t understand what he was getting at. He looked at him for an explanation.

  ‘Grab hold of the roof handle,’ Coulson bawled. ‘Put your hand on the grip.’

  Angel reached up, turned the handle down and put his fingers through it.

  Coulson, as slick as a magician, whipped the handcuffs from his pocket, snapped one cuff onto Angel’s left wrist and the other onto the handle itself, so that Angel was shackled to the car.

  Angel looked at the handcuffs and realized the mess he was in.

  Coulson grinned, closed the door, stuffed the gun in his pocket, opened the driver’s door, checked that the gearstick was in neutral and looked back at him.

  ‘Pleasant trip, you bastard,’ Coulson sneered. ‘Look out, Paradise, here he comes! I hope I never see you again, anywhere.’

  He released the handbrake, closed the car door, locked it and stood back on the pavement, watching expectantly.

  Angel glared at him, like an animal in a glass cage.

  The road ahead was a steep hill down to the busiest road junction in Bromersley, Bull Foot roundabout, where six important roads from Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley, Wakefield as well as the town centre and B roads to different parts of the outlying districts of Bromersley crossed. If the car kept to the road all the way down the hill, there were vehicles and buses traversing the roundabout all the time. He must hit something or plough into the island.

  Coulson’s plan was horrific.

  However, the car wasn’t moving forward. It rocked slightly in the wind.

  Coulson stood on the pavement, his hands in his pockets, for a few moments, looking at the car, the wind blowing his trousers wildly round his legs. He pulled a face and stepped out to the rear of the car and began to push it.

  Angel reached over the front seat to see how far he could stretch. He couldn’t reach any of the controls. The steering wheel, the horn and the handbrake were out of the question. He could reach the RT but he knew it was dead.

  He pulled hard on the roof handle and then grabbed it with both hands and swung with all his weight, but he could not budge it. He tried again and swung on it for longer. He made no impression on it whatsoever. The steel of the handcuff scoured his flesh. He thought he felt the car roll forward. He looked out of the window for confirmation. He was right. He saw Coulson becoming smaller and grinning like a madman as he stood in the road. Angel turned round and looked ahead through the windscreen. He could see houses each side moving towards him and passing each side … he could feel the rumble of the wheels … the ca
r nose-dropped down … he looked ahead at the steep hill, and swallowed … there was no traffic about … that was a godsend … it was a wide road … he could feel a vibration through his feet … his heart pounded like a sledgehammer as the car gathered speed … it was keeping a straight track … the road he remembered curved near the bottom to go under a railway bridge … the houses were passing at a rapid pace now … he saw a woman on the pavement carrying something … she stared at the car as it sailed past her at a rapid lick … there was nothing he could do … he could do nothing but sit there and stare through the windscreen … the car bounced unevenly as a wheel hit the kerb … it jerked violently and caused the handcuff to bite into his wrist. He reached up for the handle … determined to hold onto it, come what may … the car grazed a wall … it careered off it back into the middle of the road. The gradient of the road steepened … the car nose dropped more … the car accelerated again … it seemed almost in freefall … he gasped for air … he could see the roundabout traffic ahead … travelling to the left … he was right up to it … the side of a red bus was coming up close like film from a zoom lens … it passed … he was going to hit a heavy wagon … it passed … a horn sounded … a green removals van … more horns … squeal of brakes … blue ‘Keep Left’ traffic sign … loud rattle from underneath … silver car … a heavy bang, car juddered, everything shook, something fell on his face … then he was up in the air … blue sky and clouds … sucked his breath away … hell of a bang … crash of glass … something fell across his face … hot liquid on his neck … more blue sky and clouds … hell of a bang … another turn … and again … and again … then nothing.

  FIFTEEN

  Nothing.

  The screaming sound of a siren and the revving and clunking of a gear change suddenly came to him out of nothingness. He was on his back, rocking about from side to side. His head was stationary; he felt a solid pad at each side of his neck. The rest of him seemed as tightly bound as an Egyptian mummy. Something covered his nose and mouth, and he could hear a persistent hissing.

  He opened one eye and then the other and blinked. He could see a red fire extinguisher fastened to a shiny white roof, and to his right a window with the letters ‘ECNALUBMA’ stuck on frosted glass.

  ‘He’s conscious,’ a voice said.

  A man in spectacles and a green hat peered over him.

  ‘Two seventy over eighty-four,’ somebody said.

  Angel’s ankle hurt. He tried to change its position. He wriggled it. It hurt. It hurt a lot. He thought he had something heavy on his chest. It was tight. He tried to investigate it, but for some inexplicable reason he couldn’t lift his hands. They didn’t respond. He wasn’t even sure he had any hands.

  Another voice he didn’t know spoke to him: ‘Keep still, Michael. Just breathe deeply … That’s it … You’re going to be all right.’

  He wasn’t sure he believed him. He was too tired to care.

  He licked his lips and ran his tongue round his dry mouth; it was like licking inside a bag of feathers.

  Another man in blue and green floated into his field of vision. He stared into his eyes. He had a hypodermic syringe in his hand. He drifted away.

  Angel felt a bee sting on the back of his hand.

  His eyes closed.

  Back to nothingness.

  It was two o’clock on Sunday afternoon and Angel was sitting out in a chair at the side of the bed, in a single-bed ward at Bromersley General Hospital. His neck was bandaged, his right leg and left wrist were in pots, and he had a few, small, bright red marks on his face.

  Two days had passed since he had been cut out of his car among a pile-up of other damaged vehicles at the busy Bull Foot roundabout. He was wrinkling his nose, rubbing his chin and wondering how on earth he could organize his rapid discharge from this sterilized torture camp so that he could return to the civilized world of solving murders.

  Mary Angel arrived at the open door. She made a pretty picture. She looked at him, surprised and delighted.

  ‘You’re awake? You’re out of bed?’

  His face lit up. Here was the epitome of civilization, love and comfort.

  ‘You look a lot better,’ she said, leaning over to give him a kiss.

  He smiled.

  ‘Are you managing all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, pulling up an upright chair next to him. ‘I’ve been very worried about you, Michael. Everybody has. I am glad to see that you’re out of bed, and that they’ve taken that thing off your neck. And, at last, you seem properly awake.’

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured.

  ‘Good. That’s great news. Now what did the doctor say?’

  He wrinkled his nose and pulled a disagreeable face.

  ‘The usual stuff they push you off with. I think I’ve got a broken ankle, broken wrist, and a cut wound to the neck. That’s all.’

  She sighed.

  ‘Tell me. Was anybody else hurt in the … crash?’ asked Angel.

  ‘Not seriously. A man and a woman were treated for cuts. That’s all. Only you had to stay in hospital.’

  He grunted, then said, ‘Find out who they are, will you? Send the woman some flowers and I’ll write to them both when I get out of here.’

  She touched his hand, smiled and said, ‘You were very lucky. I understand that your car somersaulted three times.’

  He sighed. His hand reached out to hold hers.

  ‘Don’t let’s talk about it.’

  She gripped his hand tight and shook it.

  ‘We’ll go away on holiday when you get out of here,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, we will,’ he said, smiling. ‘The Isle of Wight. I’ve always fancied the Isle of Wight.’

  ‘We will,’ she replied.

  Angel’s face suddenly changed. ‘But before that, I have some things I must do.’

  Mary looked at him. She knew that look of determination. She smiled wryly and shook her head.

  He released the hold on her hand and said, ‘Have you a pen and paper?’

  ‘I have a pen, love, but nothing to write on.’

  ‘There’s something I must write down before I forget it. It’s desperately important. It’s to do with Spitzer and Coulson.’

  She had no idea who they were, but was pleased to do anything to keep him happy.

  ‘I can nip down to the hospital shop,’ she said, standing. ‘They’ll sell writing pads.’

  ‘That would be great. Thank you, love,’ he said, his eyes brightening.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she said, dashing off.

  He reverted to pulling a face, rubbing his chin and wondering how on earth he could break out of this prison and get home in a dignified fashion when another civilized face showed round the door jamb.

  Angel’s eyes brightened.

  It was Ron Gawber.

  ‘Ah! Come in, Ron. Come in,’ he said enthusiastically.

  ‘How are you, sir? Are they looking after you?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m ready to come home, and back to work. I can easily get round the office with a stick, until they take these pots off.’

  Gawber smiled.

  ‘You’re not expected back at the station for a month or two, sir.’

  Angel raised his head. His eyes nearly burned holes through Gawber’s coat.

  ‘A month or two?!’ he bawled. ‘A month or two?! Don’t you worry. I’ll be back next week. I’ve got things to see to.’

  Gawber nodded patiently.

  ‘There’s no hurry, sir. The super’s taken over your cases personally. He said that it was only right—’

  ‘He’s done what?’ he exploded.

  Gawber just looked at him. He realized too late that what he had said was like waving a red rag to a bull.

  ‘He needn’t bother. I can see to them,’ Angel said through tight lips. ‘Besides, I have got them pretty well solved.’

  Gawber’s eyes brightened.

  ‘Have you, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ he sa
id quickly and moved on. ‘Now, I want you to do something for me, Ron. You don’t have to tell anybody about it, either. Just do it. First thing tomorrow morning. I won’t get out tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday.’

  ‘Might be a week or two, sir.’

  ‘I can’t stay here a week or two!’ he yelled.

  Gawber nodded, but he wasn’t convinced.

  Angel quickly continued: ‘I want to tell you this before I forget it. Now, you know the only reason why Alexander Spitzer and that lunatic, Luke Coulson, are not locked up is because we don’t know … nobody knows … where they actually live. We can never catch them in the act of committing a crime either. They use hotels occasionally, but only while incognito, like Spitzer in that Roman Catholic Father disguise. But I think he’s shot that now. They don’t use a car, possibly they don’t own one, so we can never set up a trace. Spitzer stole a plane recently to bring a cargo of heroin over here, but we don’t know what happened to either the cargo or the plane. I reckon they must have a house, a flat, a caravan or accommodation of some sort somewhere in South Yorkshire, because most of the crimes they’ve committed are round here, and in Lancashire and in Lincolnshire. They don’t employ people as such. They set up small-time dealers who work for themselves and buy the heroin from them. Like Galbraith. They like small fry because they can push them around and keep them scared so that they themselves are not betrayed. They are credited with importing more than ten million pounds sterling of Afghanistan heroin through Spain this year alone, so they must have an enormous stash of money or powder somewhere.’

  Gawber nodded. He wondered where all this was leading.

  ‘Now then, last Friday,’ Angel continued, ‘when Vincent Galbraith was accused of possession and dealing, he asked to be able to phone his solicitor. That was fine, and all according to the book. I was present in the super’s room when he made the call, and you’ll not be surprised to learn that he rang that oily little rag, Carl Messenger.’

  Gawber nodded.

  ‘Well, he represents most of the crooks in the area, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Aye, well, that was at about 11.25 a.m. He told Messenger the nature of the charge and he gave my name as the arresting officer. Now Ron, at that moment, it was entirely an internal police matter; the only person outside the station who knew about the arrest of Galbraith and my involvement with him was Carl Messenger. Right?’