Hell Is Always Today

by Jack Higgins

  The flesh seemed to shrink visibly on Harold’s bones. “What the hell are you trying to prove?”

  Mallory picked up the phone and rang through to the C.I.D. general office. “Mallory here,” he told the Duty Inspector. “I want you to get in touch with the manager of the buffet at the Central Station right away. Find out if anyone changed a ten-pound note last night. Yes, that’s right—a ten-pound note.”

  Harold’s eyes burned in a face that was as white as paper. “You’re wasting your time.” He was suddenly belligerent again. “They could have had half a dozen ten-pound notes through their hands on a Saturday night for all you know, so what does it prove?”

  “We’ll wait and see shall we?”

  Harold seemed to pull himself together. He sat straighter in his chair and took a deep breath. “All right, I’ve had enough. If you’re charging me, I want a lawyer. If you’re not, then I’m not staying here another minute.”

  “If you’ll extend that to five I’ll be more than satisfied,” Mallory said.

  Harold stared at him blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m expecting a chap from the lab to arrive any second. We just want to give you a simple blood test.”

  “Blood test? What for?”

  Mallory nodded to Wade who laid the trousers on the table. “The tests the lab ran on these trousers proved you were with a woman last night.”

  “All right—I admitted that.”

  “And the post-mortem on Grace Packard indicated she’d had intercourse with someone just before she died.”

  “It wasn’t with me, that’s all I know.”

  “We can prove that one way or the other with the simplest of tests.” It was from that point on that Mallory started to bend the facts. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but it’s possible to test a man’s semen for his blood group factor.”

  “So what?”

  “During the post-mortem on Grace Packard a semen smear was obtained. It’s since been tested in the lab and indicates a certain blood group. When the technician gets here from the lab he’ll be able to take a small sample of your blood and tell us what your group is within a couple of minutes—or perhaps you know already?”

  Harold stared wildly at him and the silence which enveloped them all was so heavy that suddenly it seemed almost impossible to breathe. His head moved slightly from side to side faster and faster. He tried to get up and then collapsed completely, falling across the table.

  He hammered his fist up and down like a hysterical child. “The bitch, the rotten stinking bitch. She shouldn’t have laughed at me! She shouldn’t have laughed at me!”

  He started to cry and Mallory stood there, hands braced against the table, staring down at him. There was a time when this particular moment would have meant something, but not now. In fact, not for some considerable time now.

  Quite suddenly the whole thing seemed desperately unreal—a stupid charade that had no substance. It didn’t seem to be important any longer and that didn’t make sense. Too much in too short a time. Perhaps what he needed was a spot of leave.

  He straightened and there was a knock at the door. Brady opened it and a constable handed him a slip of paper. He passed it to Mallory who read it, face impassive. He crumpled it up in one hand and tossed it into the waste bin.

  “A message from Dr. Das. Mrs. Phillips died peacefully in her sleep fifteen minutes ago. Thank God for that anyway.”

  “It would be easy to say I told you so, Miller, but there it is,” Mallory said.

  Miller took a deep breath. “No possibility of error, sir?”

  “None at all. He’s given us a full statement. It seems he waited outside Faulkner’s flat, saw Faulkner and the girl go in and followed her when she came out. He pulled her into Dob Court where they had some kind of reconciliation because she allowed him to have intercourse with her and she gave him the ten-pound note.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “God alone knows—I doubt if we’ll ever get a clear picture. Apparently there was some sort of argument to do with Faulkner and the money. I get the impression that after the way he had treated him, Phillips objected to the idea that Faulkner might have had his way with the girl. The money seemed to indicate that he had.”

  “So he killed her?”

  “Apparently she taunted him, there was an argument and he started to hit her. Lost his temper completely. Didn’t mean to kill her of course. They never do.”

  “Do you think a jury might believe that?”

  “With his background? Not in a month of Sundays.” The telephone rang. Mallory picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, then put it down. “Another nail in the coffin. It seems the manager of the station buffet has turned up the assistant who changed that ten-pound note last night. Seems she can identify Phillips. He was a regular customer. She says he was in there about a quarter to eleven.”

  “The bloody fool,” Miller said.

  “They usually are, Miller, and a good thing for us, I might add.”

  “But what on earth is Faulkner playing at? I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s have him in and find out shall we?”

  Mallory sat back and started to fill his pipe. Miller opened the door and called and Faulkner came in followed by Jack Morgan.

  Faulkner looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He stood in front of the desk, trenchcoat draped from his shoulders like a cloak, hands pushed negligently into his pockets.

  Mallory busied himself with his pipe. When it was going to his satisfaction, he blew out the match and looked up. “Mr. Faulkner, I have here a full and complete confession to the murder of Grace Packard signed by Harold Phillips. What have you got to say to that?”

  “Only that it would appear that I must now add a gift for prophecy to the list of my virtues,” Faulkner said calmly.

  Morgan came forward quickly. “Is this true, Superintendent?”

  “It certainly is. We’ve even managed to turn up the ten-pound note your client gave the girl. Young Phillips changed it at the station buffet before going home.”

  Morgan turned on Faulkner, his face white and strained. “What in the hell have you been playing at, for God’s sake? You told us that you killed Grace Packard.”

  “Did I?” Faulkner shrugged. “The other way about as I remember it. You told me.” He turned to Mallory. “Mr. Morgan, like all lawyers, Superintendent, has a tendency to believe his own arguments. Once he’d made up his mind I was the nigger in the woodpile, he couldn’t help but find proof everywhere he looked.”

  “Are you trying to say you’ve just been playing the bloody fool as usual?” Morgan pulled him round angrily. “Don’t you realise what you’ve done to Joanna?”

  “She had a choice. She could have believed in me. She took your road.” Faulkner seemed completely unconcerned. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy together. Can I go now, Superintendent?”

  “I think that might be advisable,” Mallory said.

  Faulkner turned in the doorway, the old sneer lifting the corner of his mouth as he glanced at Miller. “Sorry about that promotion—better luck next time.”

  After he had gone there was something of a silence. Morgan just stood there, staring wildly into space. Quite suddenly he turned and rushed out without a word.

  Miller stood at the window for a long moment, staring down into the rain. He saw Faulkner come out of the main entrance and go down the steps. He paused at the bottom to button his trenchcoat, face lifted to the rain, then walked rapidly away. Morgan appeared a moment later. He watched Faulkner go then hailed a taxi from the rank across the street.

  Miller took out his wallet, produced a pound note and laid it on Mallory’s desk. “I was wrong,” he said simply.

  Mallory nodded. “You were, but I won’t hold that against you. In my opinion Faulkner’s probably just about as unbalanced as it’s possible to be and still walk free. He’d impair anyone’s judgement.”

  “Nice of you to put
it that way, but I was still wrong.”

  “Never mind.” Mallory stood up and reached for his coat. “If you can think of anywhere decent that will still be open on a Sunday afternoon I’ll buy you a late lunch out of my ill-gotten gains.”

  “Okay, sir. Just give me ten minutes to clear my desk and I’m your man.”

  The rain was falling heavier than ever as they went down the steps of the Town Hall to the Mini-Cooper. Miller knew a restaurant that might fit the bill, an Italian place that had recently opened in one of the northern suburbs of the city and he drove past the infirmary and took the car through the maze of slum streets behind it towards the new Inner Ring Road.

  The streets were deserted, washed clean by the heavy rain and the wipers had difficulty in keeping the screen clear. They didn’t speak and Miller drove on mechanically so stunned by what had happened that he was unable to think straight.

  They turned a corner and Mallory gripped his arm. “For God’s sake, what’s that?”

  Miller braked instinctively. About half-way along the street, two men struggled beside a parked motorcycle. One of them was a police patrolman in heavy belted stormcoat and black crash helmet. The other wore only shirt and pants and seemed to be barefooted.

  The policeman went down, the other man jumped for the motorcycle and kicked it into life. It roared away from the kerb as the patrolman scrambled to his feet, and came straight down the middle of the street. Miller swung the wheel, taking the Mini-Cooper across in an attempt to cut him off. The machine skidded wildly as the rider wrenched the wheel, and shaved the bonnet of the Mini-Cooper with a foot to spare, giving Miller a clear view of his wild, determined face. Gunner Doyle. Well this was something he could handle. He took the Mini-Cooper round in a full circle across the footpath, narrowly missing an old gas lamp, and went after him.

  It was at that precise moment that Jack Morgan arrived back at Faulkner’s flat. He knocked on the door and it was opened almost at once by Joanna Hartmann. She was very pale, her eyes swollen from weeping, but seemed well in control of herself. She had a couple of dresses over one arm.

  “Hello, Jack, I’m just getting a few of my things together.”

  That she had lived with Faulkner on occasions was no surprise to him. She moved away and he said quickly, “He didn’t kill Grace Packard, Joanna.”

  She turned slowly. “What did you say?”

  “The police had already charged the girl’s boy friend when we got there. They have a full confession and corroborating evidence.”

  “But Bruno said…”

  Her voice trailed away and Morgan put a hand on her arm gently. “I know what he said, Joanna, but it wasn’t true. He was trying to teach us some sort of lesson. He seemed to find the whole thing rather funny.”

  “He doesn’t change, does he?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He went out ahead of me. Last I saw he was going for a walk in the rain.”

  She nodded briefly. “Let’s get out of here then—just give me a moment to get the rest of my things.”

  “You don’t want to see him?”

  “Never again.”

  There was a hard finality in her voice and she turned and went into the bedroom. Morgan followed and stood in the entrance watching. She laid her clothes across the bed and added one or two items which she took from a drawer in one of the dressing tables.

  There was a fitted wardrobe against the wall, several suitcases piled on top. She went across and reached up in vain.

  “Let me,” Morgan said.

  He grabbed the handle of the case which was bottom of the pile and eased it out. He frowned suddenly. “Feels as if there’s something in it.”

  He put the case on the bed, flicked the catches and opened the lid. Inside there was a black plastic handbag, a silk headscarf, a nylon stocking and a high-heeled shoe.

  Joanna Hartmann started to scream.

  20

  Strange, but it was so narrowly avoiding Miller in the park which finally made the Gunner’s mind up for him, though not straight away. He waited until the detective had disappeared before emerging from the rhododendron bushes, damp and uncomfortable, his stomach hollow and empty.

  He moved away in the opposite direction and finally came to another entrance to the park. Beyond the wrought-iron gate he noticed some cigarette machines. He found the necessary coins from the money Jenny had given him, extracted a packet of ten cigarettes and a book of matches and went back into the park.

  He started to walk again, smoking continuously, one cigarette after the other, thinking about everything that had happened since his dash from the infirmary, but particularly about Jenny. He remembered the first time he had seen her from the loft, looking just about as good as a woman could. And the other things. Her ironic humour, her courage in a difficult situation, even the rough edge of her tongue. And when they had made love she had given every part of herself, holding nothing back—something he had never experienced in his life before. And never likely to again…

  The thought pulled him up short and he stood there in the rain contemplating an eternity of being on his own for the first time in his life. Always to be running, always to be afraid because that was the cold fact of it. Scratching for a living, bedding with tarts, sinking fast all the time until someone turned him in for whatever it was worth.

  The coppers never let go, never closed a case, that was the trouble. He thought of Miller. It was more than an hour since the detective had walked past the shelter and yet at the memory, the Gunner felt the same panic clutching at his guts, the same instinct to run and keep on running. Well, to hell with that for a game of soldiers. Better to face what there was to face and get it over than live like this. There was one cigarette left in the packet. He lit it, tossed the packet away and started to walk briskly towards the other side of the park.

  A psychologist would have told him that making a definite decision, choosing a course of action, had resolved his conflict situation. The Gunner would have wondered what in the hell he was talking about. All he knew was that for some unaccountable reason he was cheerful again. One thing was certain—he’d give the bastards something to think about.

  On the other side of the park he plunged into the maze of back streets in which he had been hunted during the previous night and worked his way towards the infirmary. It occurred to him that it might be fun to turn up in the very room from which he had disappeared. But there were certain precautions to take first, just to make certain that the police could never link him with Jenny and her grandmother.

  A few streets away from the infirmary he stopped in a back alley at a spot where houses were being demolished as fast as the bulldozers could knock them down. On the other side of a low wall, a beck that was little more than a fast-flowing stream of filth rushed past and plunged into a dark tunnel that took it down into the darkness of the city’s sewage system.

  He took off the raincoat, sweater, boots and socks and dropped them in. They disappeared into the tunnel and he emptied his pockets. Three pound notes and a handful of change. The notes went fluttering down followed by the coins—all but a sixpenny piece. There was a telephone box at the end of the street…

  He stood in the box and waited as the bell rang at the other end, shivering slightly as the cold struck into his bare feet and rain dripped down across his face. When she answered he could hardly get the coin into the slot for excitement.

  “Jenny? It’s the Gunner. Is anyone there?”

  “Thank God,” she said, relief in her voice. “Where are you?”

  “A few hundred yards from the infirmary. I’m turning myself in, Jenny. I thought you might like to know that.”

  “Oh, Gunner.” He could have sworn she was crying, but that was impossible. She wasn’t the type.

  “What about the police?” he asked.

  “No one turned up.”

  “No one turned up?” he said blankly.

  A sudden c
oldness touched his heart, something elemental, but before he could add anything Jenny said, “Just a minute, Gunner, there’s someone outside in the yard now.”

  A moment later the line went dead.

  “You fool,” the Gunner said aloud. “You stupid bloody fool.”

  Why on earth hadn’t he seen it before? Only one person could possibly have known he was at the house and it certainly wasn’t Ogden who hadn’t even seen his face. But the other man had, the one who had attacked Jenny outside the door in the yard.

  The Gunner left the phone box like a greyhound erupting from the trap and went down the street on the run. He turned the corner and was already some yards along the pavement when he saw the motorcycle parked at the kerb half-way along. The policeman who was standing beside it was making an entry in his book.

  The policeman glanced up just before the Gunner arrived and they met breast-to-breast. There was the briefest of struggles before the policeman went down and the Gunner swung a leg over the motorcycle and kicked the starter.

  He let out the throttle too fast so that the machine skidded away from the kerb, front wheel lifting. It was only then that he became aware of the Mini-Cooper at the other end of the street. As he roared towards it, the little car swung broadside on to block his exit. The Gunner threw the bike over so far that the footrest brought sparks from the cobbles, and shaved the bonnet of the Mini-Cooper. For a brief, timeless moment he looked into Miller’s face, then he was away.

  In the grey afternoon and the heavy rain it was impossible to distinguish the features of the man in the yard at any distance and at first Jenny thought it must be Ogden. Even when the telephone went dead she felt no panic. It was only when she pressed her face to the window and saw Faulkner turn from the wall no more than a yard away, a piece of the telephone line still in his right hand that fear seized her by the throat. She recognised him instantly as her attacker of the previous night and in that moment everything fell neatly into place. The mysterious telephone call, the threat of the police who had never come—all to get rid of the only man who could have protected her.