Full Fury

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘I’m so glad you could find time to help me, Mr Mallin,’ she said.

  I liked the voice. It was deep and attractive. I wasn’t keen on what it said, though, because there had been nothing in my brief about helping her.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she asked.

  I nearly said something about drinking on an empty stomach but managed to iron it down to a neutral smile. Let her play it her way, I thought.

  She brought me a dry martini. I waited while she made something very elegant about lowering herself into one of the huge easy chairs, then I allowed its companion to accept me and conform to my eccentric shape. I was really living.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll explain in what way I can be of help,’ I said very carefully.

  ‘By finding an answer to this ridiculous business. It’s really so worrying.’

  Living as she did, in the very vortex of club life, she’d spent a lot of time looking at people over the edge of a glass. She did it to me quite expertly.

  ‘If it’s been worrying, I’m surprised you haven’t done something before.’ I looked at her over the edge of my glass, but I haven’t got the eyes for it.

  ‘Poor Neville,’ she said. She paused, making a decision. ‘Shall I tell you something, Mr Mallin?’

  ‘I’m here to listen,’ I assured her gravely.

  ‘Then… you wouldn’t believe… but in the past year or two I’ve hardly given a thought to Neville. Now, isn’t that a terrible thing to say?’

  Was it? I don’t know. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘You went through a harrowing experience. Your husband was hanged.’ Her eyes did not even flicker. ‘It’d be nonsense to suggest you ought to spend the rest of your life brooding.’

  ‘How very understanding you are.’

  ‘It would have driven you insane.’

  ‘It would. I’m sure it would.’

  ‘So you’d hardly welcome its intrusion into your life at this stage,’ I suggested.

  She carefully put down her glass and followed the movement with her eyes. ‘Welcome it?’ She inclined her head sideways, considering it, being fair to the idea. ‘One doesn’t use such a word as welcome when it’s a matter of duty—don’t you think?’ Then at last her eyes came back to me. ‘I’d never done anything but assumed he was guilty, but of course if there’s any ghost of a chance that fresh evidence could bring any new light to bear…’ She made a little gesture of annoyance at her confusion.

  ‘And is there?’ Her eyes were blank. I prompted: ‘Fresh evidence.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ Her eyes moved. ‘It’s all so vague. You must ask Paul.’

  I’d ask Paul, right enough. I’d ask him what the hell he was playing at, tossing me in without all the facts.

  ‘But he must have told you.’

  ‘Oh… something most confusing about the second gun.’

  ‘What about the second gun?’

  ‘Where it was found.’

  I sipped my drink delicately. The dryness curled my tongue, and perhaps prevented me from blurting out something angry. What were they talking about? What could it possibly matter to Neville Gaines where the second gun was found? Paul Hutchinson had dug out a widow who had let the whole thing drift into the blissful past, and now we’d got a widow who felt she ought to make a gesture and launch a campaign. The ‘should Neville Gaines have hanged’ brigade. With Dave Mallin at the head, probing inconsequential little details that weren’t going to do anything but raise a snarl here and there. But I supposed it’d be useful to have Dave Mallin around to be snarled at.

  ‘So he came to you,’ I said. ‘This Paul Hutchinson. He came with some nonsense about where the second gun was found, and all of a sudden you’re running round in little circles wondering whether the trial was fair…’

  ‘One has to do something.’

  Did one? ‘You could leave it alone.’

  She got up then. I’d been prodding at her in a tone as near to contempt as I dared to go, hoping for some reaction. She got up, and managed to translate the movement into a simple and unforced journey to the compact bar in the corner. She was a very controlled woman.

  ‘Perhaps I’ve left it long enough.’

  She had her back to me, probably prickling with anticipation of what I would say. So I said nothing. I waited while she brought the drinks. She was wearing a patient smile, but with her eyes blank. I took the glass.

  ‘So what’s new about the second gun?’

  Where it had been found hadn’t been the important point. That there’d been a second gun at all was what had mattered.

  I’d managed to coax an edge into her voice. ‘I don’t know. You must see Paul. I’m so vague about this sort of thing.’

  Vague? But she’d been in the middle of it. The damned murder had circulated round her; she had been the motivating force.

  ‘What can you hope for?’ I demanded. ‘After this time any number of small points could arise. It’d be easy to say this should have been done, or that should’ve been said. Then where would you be? Neville Gaines shot Andy Paterson, and there’s not any doubt about that. You can’t alter the fact that he was hanged. The best you could hope for would be to show he might have been found not guilty. How would that suit you? Would it make you rest any sweeter at night, to think he might have got away with it?’

  Her eyes hadn’t left me for one second, large, wide, surprised. When I stopped she glanced down at her glass. ‘But I’d still need to know.’

  ‘You don’t need anything of the sort.’

  ‘Still have to.’ She glanced up angrily, then managed a smile. ‘So you’ll look very carefully, please, Mr Mallin.’

  ‘And report to you?’

  ‘You must report to your client, of course.’

  And how was that going to help her? It wouldn’t, as far as I could see. It seemed to be time I left.

  ‘I can let myself out,’ I told her.

  Her eyes agreed, so I did. He was hovering in the corridor, baldy, making sure I didn’t leave with any of the silver.

  They were no longer in the conservatory. The exercise they had been conducting would have had to be concluded, one way or the other, long before. I thought maybe I’d ring Elsa there and then, and have done with it, but I decided to give him one more chance. They were in the ballroom, dancing to a sleazy tango. Neither of them was smiling. Paul looked a little flushed. Oh well—no time to lose. I went in and tapped him on the shoulder.

  It wasn’t what I meant. He flashed me a look almost of gratitude, and handed her over. The tango is not one of my greater accomplishments.

  She was, as Paul had said, willowy. She wore her blonde hair short, and her eyes were definitely smoky, somewhere between grey and blue, and deep. She had not been smiling at Paul, but she found one for me.

  ‘You’re Karen,’ I said, because I’m very quick.

  ‘And you’re David.’

  So there we were, my hand stuck in the cleavage at her back, and she moving beautifully against it.

  ‘He’s told you, then?’ I asked. It was getting around.

  ‘Silly boy.’ I was not sure which she meant.

  ‘I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding,’ I said.

  ‘You’re a private eye, aren’t you?’

  ‘I need to have something to look at.’

  She smiled again. There were signals in the smoke. ‘But as long as you’re paid...’

  She was very close. Her hair smelt of heaven. ‘I keep making the necessary movements,’ I agreed.

  ‘To and from the bank?’

  I don’t know what it was about me; I seemed to be attracting aggression from the most unexpected quarters.

  ‘If I get paid. So far I’m doing nothing but make polite noises.’

  She didn’t like that. There was a fractional tightening of the hand on my shoulder. ‘You went out of step.’

  ‘I’m always out of step.’

  ‘Then you should try harder.’

 
‘I need the practice, that’s what it is.’

  The moment had passed; we’d touched swords. She withdrew, smiling, her little nose quivering. ‘You must come again. I’ll give you lessons.’

  ‘Free membership,’ I said. ‘Now free lessons.’

  ‘Everybody wants you to be happy.’

  ‘Everybody,’ I agreed.

  Except the band, which switched to a bosa nova that left me completely wrong-footed. So I took her back to Paul, who was seated at a corner table looking morose and impatient.

  Carter Finn was sitting with him. He stood as we approached. He never even glanced at Karen.

  ‘Want a word with you,’ he said.

  The tables were nearly all occupied by now, and I saw that Myra was circulating dutifully. She seemed to know everybody. Her personality was crackling clear across the floor. As I watched, a man at one of the tables touched her arm. She turned to him with a brilliant smile, and her laughter beat through the bosa and gave something new to the nova.

  ‘In my office,’ went on Finn, seeing my eyes were occupied. His voice had gone very thin. I turned and saw Karen flash a glance at him. No smoke now—fire rather.

  His office was just beyond the phone cubicle I was aching to get to. We were alone. There was a desk, and a combination safe in the wall making no attempt to look like anything else. I slumped into the one easy chair. Finn went to his desk, but only to get a cigar. He clipped it and lit it and looked down at me.

  ‘You’ve seen her? What do you think?’ I said nothing. After a moment his teeth showed. ‘You didn’t think anything?’

  ‘I may report to my client.’

  He rolled the cigar between his fingers. There hadn’t been any suggestion that I should try one.

  ‘Mallin, I want you to go carefully,’ he said at last. ‘She’s my wife. She’s not Myra Gaines any more. I don’t want her upset. You understand?’

  ‘It was Gaines who was upset.’

  ‘Look it over,’ he suggested. ‘But make it easy.’

  How many clients was I working for? ‘I’m paid by the day, until I can tell my client the job’s done.’

  ‘Keep it short, and I’ll see you don’t lose by it.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about me.’

  He thought about it. His face was no longer affable.

  ‘This where they sit?’ I asked. ‘All the mugs who can’t pay their gambling debts and have to come and ask for time.’

  ‘You asking for time?’

  ‘And then you send for Troy, just for them to see?’

  ‘You haven’t got any time, Mallin. So don’t try double-talking with me.’

  I crossed my legs and reached for my cigarette case. ‘Then send for Troy.’

  His voice grated. ‘I thought we understood each other.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the trouble.’

  I got up to use his table lighter, just to get the feel of it in case I needed something lethal in my hand. As I reached for it I felt him close behind me.

  ‘Why not have a cigar?’ he said softly.

  I took a cigar. He had himself in control.

  ‘I think we’d better start again,’ he said. ‘I wanted to keep everything friendly.’

  But I’d had enough. ‘You said it. Keep it short, you said. Maybe I will. I don’t know. I’ll follow my nose. At this particular moment, something smells.’

  I stood in the bar for a moment, savouring the havana. There was no sign of Troy. So I went to the ballroom, where Myra was no longer circulating. Paul and Karen I could not see. I looked in the conservatory, in case they were retrieving something they regretted losing. They weren’t. Nor were they losing anything else in the gaming room, though I did notice that Smoking Jacket had recouped a little.

  Just my luck. When I needed Paul, he had to go missing. And I certainly needed him just at that moment.

  I went out into the parking lot. His Mini was no longer there. I cursed him and climbed into the Porsche, and wondered what were my chances of overtaking him.

  What I should have done was drive straight back to Elsa’s, and to hell with the lot of them. But as I say, I made the mistake of chasing after Paul Hutchinson.

  CHAPTER THREE

  He lived in Bridgnorth, he had said, and he’d mentioned a factory involved in electronics, where he was engaged on research. He didn’t sound like a writer.

  Because I didn’t want to have to hunt out the address I drove fast in the hope of overtaking him. I had twenty-seven miles to do it in. The Porsche loves this sort of thing.

  As I swung out on to the main road the first spatters of rain clattered against the windscreen. It was cold. I put the heater on. The visibility was poor, and the road was strange to me. To Paul it would be known. I began pushing things a bit, trying to make up on him.

  There was a long, winding climb between near-vertical banks of glistening sandstone. The exhaust blatted back at me as I took it fast in third. Headlights ahead led me on. I was closing in. At the top I burst out into the open. Orange and blue streetlamps sparkled in the distance, uneasy through the lashings of rain. The headlights of two cars were plunging down the long and protracted hill in front of me. I rammed my foot hard down and the tachometer gave me an uneasy look.

  We were diving down in sweeps and curves between rising fields and wooded slopes. For one second I would lose touch with them, then the lights would be there again. There was something disconcerting about the two cars—their lights were too close together. I caught blanketed glimpses of them as the rain curtain caught in the wind. Then I was close enough to be sure.

  The Mini was being hounded by a larger car. You could tell by the erratic sweeps of the headlights, not entirely accounted for by the curves in the road, that the Mini was weaving frantically, beating off the other’s approach.

  I was on the limits of adhesion on corners, flicking into drifts. The wipers lashed away the streaming water angrily. The larger car was attempting to edge alongside, and the Mini was fighting it away. I could not see clearly. A large and dark car—but there could be no certainty. My tyres were screaming, the engine howl deafening me.

  There was a half mile of open road, still sloping downwards, at the end of it a sweep under heavy trees. The cars touched, touched again. The Mini veered. It recovered, scraping the nearside bank, then plunged out of sight beneath the trees. I felt the tunnel of gloom pound back to engulf me.

  Visibility was abruptly short. It was going to be tricky. 1 veered into the winding tunnel, touched the off-side bank with a steep drop beyond it, then howled round a corner in third—and rammed on the brakes.

  Headlights were tumbling through the trees on my right.

  The Porsche was still skidding when I fell out and ran back. Rain blinded me. The Mini had stopped plunging, and one light was still on, way below me through the shattered trees to where I could hear the roar of a small river. The bank was nearly vertical. Way ahead on the road was the distant whine of a high-powered engine disappearing into the distance.

  Then everything was silent. I plunged down the bank with only the reflected light of that canted headlight to go on, slipping and sliding and reaching for tree trunks. It was on its side, one rear wheel still spinning. When I was twenty feet away the first flicker of flame trickled from underneath. I let myself go, pitching forward so that in the end the car stopped me. There was a heavy smell of petrol. I scrabbled at the door I could reach. It was jammed. The windscreen had crazed, but there was no hole in it. I put my fist through as the flames grew round my feet.

  He was forward over the wheel, his head down and sideways on, twisted at an awkward angle. There was blood flowing from his mouth and his eyes were open, turned up, blind. I think he was dead. I tell myself he was dead.

  There was nothing I could do. Heat lapped around me. I pounded at the door, but it would not budge. Then there was a surge of igniting fuel and the heat flung me back, rolling. I twisted round, sliding on my side with the left sleeve of my jacket smouldering.
I came to a halt and dragged myself around. Slowly I crawled up past the car. The flames were licking sparks from the pine needles above. I went on past, awkwardly and painfully back to the road, crawling.

  The Porsche was side-on in the middle of the road. headlights still blaring. Nobody had come along. I got in and drove on. There was a phone box just over the bridge. I dialled 999. The lot: police, ambulance, fire. Then I went back and watched Paul Hutchinson’s funeral pyre, gradually dying to a ball of concentrated heat. I dug out the roll of nylon raincoat from my glove compartment, but the suit was already ruined. My cigarette case had fallen out, somewhere down there.

  The police car arrived first. They parked the white Zodiac on the bank, and got out to have a look, pounding their black leather fists into their palms.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was behind,’ I said. ‘There was a big car seemed to be trying to get past. I didn’t see how it happened. The bend.’

  I pointed back. ‘When I got here he was down the bank.’ This one was very big and probably amiable, but he looked grim just at that time. ‘You got to him?’

  ‘I got to the car. No good.’

  ‘Mmm!’ They looked at each other. ‘Was he dead?’

  ‘Certainly unconscious.’

  ‘Lucky.’

  I agreed. Lucky. He gave me a cigarette.

  The ambulance and fire engine arrived together, racing each other for it. They got foam going and rigged up some lights for when the flames would be out. Then they cooled it down with water. They forced the door open with a crowbar. What they dragged out was not recognisable. It was not a job I’d like.

  I was down there while the lights were still on, looking for my cigarette case. I found it in the mud at the edge of the river, but I didn’t pick it up until they doused the lights and I could reach inside the car on my way back and dig the keys from the ignition. They were still hot.