Hung in the Balance (Simpson & Lowe Detective series Book 1)

by Ormerod, Roger

  ‘I know nothing about…’

  Fellowes grunted and took a pace forward. Maguire dragged at his arm.

  ‘Wait! We want her to be able to talk. I’ve seen what you can do. Can she talk?’ He gestured towards Anna, whose eyes rolled in desperation. There’d been distaste in Maguire’s tone. I wondered whether I could use this, to play one against the other, and at least talk myself into preserving some of my face.

  But my voice wasn’t strong when I went on. I needed to sound confident, and I found I couldn’t drag it forward now that I desperately needed it. ‘I’ve been through the papers, yes. I now know exactly how he disposed of the money — his cut of the loot. But there wasn’t one indication of how it came to him in the first place.’

  ‘You’ve got this briefcase in the car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your hotel room?’

  I hesitated for a fraction of a second. Too long. ‘The police have it.’ I wasn’t sure whether this was a dangerous statement. These two men were on the edge of panic. They had to know, and quickly, and what I’d said might well blow the top from Fellowes’s patience. But I had a reserve that I wanted to fall back on, just a glimmer of an idea. I went on very quickly, because Maguire was finding it difficult to restrain Fellowes.

  ‘Don’t you understand? Lord, you two are slow. I knew the fifty thousand pounds had to be Graham’s share. Then you two came on the scene. But not like company men protecting their investors’ money. More like two financial thugs protecting their own. And all it involved, in the beginning, was a quarter of a million. Four of you in it — five perhaps — but heavens, that’d be peanuts to you two, even if you got the bigger cut. I didn’t get it at first. Damn it all, it was probably less than a year’s salary to you two. And I know. It was my job. So I reckoned there had to be more, hidden away behind the smaller fraud, with that as a cover. Nobody’s noticed it yet. All the attention’s been on Graham and his friend who skipped the country and poor Archer Steele, who killed himself. And somewhere, for you two, secret accounts in Switzerland or Liechtenstein or Luxembourg.’

  I took a breath, trying to assess the effects of this. They were staring at me coldly. But they’d allowed me to go on. It’d been a flash of inspiration, and I hadn’t had time to develop it, give it background. Now I had to make time, and talk myself frantically out of trouble.

  ‘And d’you know what — we needed finance, my partner and I! I’m sure you’ll have realized that. We needed big money.’

  ‘She’s trying to threaten us,’ Maguire said to his partner. ‘Would you believe that!’

  Fellowes grimaced. His hand twitched. I tried for a superior smile. It was necessary to develop this around to a belief, in Maguire’s mind, that I really knew nothing — which was a fact — and that there was nothing to be beaten out of me. The difficulty with this was that, if I succeeded, they might consider I would be safer dead.

  ‘Why d’you think I went to so much trouble to get that briefcase?’ I demanded. ‘I knew there was a briefcase, and I knew Graham had been very secretive about it. So I came here and got it, and nearly landed myself in deep trouble. And when I got the chance, I really dug into those papers. Spent nearly a day on it. You can see what I was after. The same thing you’re after — only I didn’t know exactly what it would turn out to be. I was hoping for something in writing that I could lock away safely — then I could come to you and say: what’s it worth to you? Get it?’

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Maguire, frantically clutching at Fellowes. ‘Not now! We’ve got to know.’

  Fellowes was sizzling with impatience. I had to play the odds against his blowing up altogether.

  ‘And d’you think,’ I claimed, dragging up a sickly smile I knew couldn’t be very convincing, ‘that I’d have said nothing if I’d found what I wanted? You bet your life I’d have been in there as soon as I could get to you. But I found nothing. Absolutely no hint. Why else would I have let the police have it? There’s nothing there. You can both go home and relax.’

  Fat chance of that! They conferred rapidly. That’s to say, Maguire hissed in Fellowes’s ear until he got a reluctant nod. Then he turned to me. His voice was a silken purr, a tiger licking the flesh from my bones.

  ‘But you tell us you found nothing. No, don’t say a word. You’ve already said enough. You’re not an accountant, not a computer expert. You told us you didn’t know what you were looking for, so how can you be so certain there was nothing?’

  ‘I found nothing.’ But I saw it slipping away from me.

  ‘You stupid bitch! Nothing to an amateur like you could be a bleedin’ trumpet blast to a police expert.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ What I did know was that I’d convinced them there was nothing they could hammer out of me. Anna tried to struggle up on to the chair, recovering a little. ‘Know nothing,’ she muttered painfully. She too. She knew nothing.

  Maguire was persistent. ‘A number. A computer code. Something like that?’ he asked, probing.

  And then I made a mistake. I thought I’d detected urgency in his voice, the possible background thought that the police might be looking for himself and Fellowes at that very moment. It therefore seemed a good idea to sharpen the panic a little.

  ‘There was something,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But it didn’t make any sense to me. On the inside of the flap, in ballpoint. A number.’

  ‘What number?’ he snapped, pouncing on it.

  ‘As though I could remember that.’ If there had been, I’d have had to write it myself, because it was my briefcase. But they couldn’t know that.

  In that instant, I saw that I’d gone too far. I could see the thoughts flooding over Maguire. That the police might not notice it there, inside the flap. Might not. It’d been no more than a touch of verisimilitude I’d slipped in, to make it sound good. It looked as though I’d succeeded. Too good. I realized, too late, that they dared not leave me alive now, in case I ran to the police shouting, ‘Have you looked inside the flap?’ Maguire’s expression reflected that thought. They dared not leave one crack in their defences.

  There was a possibility that the gun Fellowes was holding was only a replica, though it was certainly metal. But I decided it wasn’t a good idea to make a sudden movement in order to check if it was real, in case it turned out that it had been.

  They went into rapid and critical conference, which involved Maguire whispering into Fellowes’s ear, and the responding reluctant nods. I gathered that whatever was being said, Fellowes was in favour of violence. I heard the words, ‘…a month to clear the decks…’ Reluctant nod. The words, ‘…leave no blood here…’ Another more reluctant nod. The words, ‘…the farmhouse. Nobody’ll go up there for months, you can bet on that.’ An emphatic nod.

  I glanced at Anna. She was trying to send me messages with her eyes. I bent to her. She mumbled something. It sounded like, ‘Fate.’ Couldn’t have been. She was hardly likely to go all philosophical now. I wiped some of the blood from her face with a handkerchief from my bag, wishing now that I still had that little pistol inside with it. I dropped the handkerchief behind the chair. There would be some, if small, evidence of blood and violence left behind in the cottage.

  They had made up their minds. Maguire said to Anna, ‘On your feet.’ To me, ‘Get her up. Then out to my car.’

  I hadn’t seen his car. He’d probably parked it higher up the lane, just in case they had awkward visitors. Such as me.

  I struggled with Anna. She tried to help. She was stronger now, I thought. It was necessary to put a hand around her waist, and she managed to get her arm round my shoulders, but we were able to get along quite well. I left my shoulder bag on the floor beside the chair. Really, they were the most abject of amateurs, allowing so many traces to be left behind.

  Fellowes ushered us out. Maguire was switching off the lights as we went, his concern perhaps for the electricity bill, which wasn’t going to be paid by either Anna or myself.

  With her
head close to mine, Anna murmured distinctly, ‘Chump.’ This just about described me, if a little dated. I said nothing. She jerked out, ‘Chump.’ Then I got it. She meant: jump. Jump where? I had time to whisper, ‘Where? When?’ Then Fellowes was crowding us from behind.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Maguire said harshly, from behind Fellowes. ‘Into the car. Both of you.’

  The moon was rising. There was now sufficient light to detect the shape of Maguire’s Mercedes, even that it was red. We came up behind it. Then Anna did a strange thing. I’d expected that we would be herded into the rear seats, so that Fellowes could sit in the front passenger’s seat and stare back at us, watching for any signs of reviving opposition. Perhaps that had been Maguire’s intention, but Anna gripped my arm, and for the last few steps became the leader, staggering along the near side of the car. There she waited, leaning against it, while I reached across her and opened the front passenger’s door and helped her inside. She almost fell into the seat, with a weak groan. I opened the rear door and got in behind her. Fellowes made no objection, but slumped beside me in the rear, the springs sagging noticeably that side. It occurred to me that I had not heard him say a word. Ever.

  Maguire slid in beside Anna, and got behind the wheel. ‘Seatbelt,’ he said, snapping his own into place. A respecter of the law, that was Maguire.

  Anna made a weak gesture with her right hand, unable to handle the belt. He laughed. ‘We’ll have to risk your pretty face, if we hit anything.’

  Then we were off. Maguire was a purposeful driver. He set the car to its task, and it responded. The Mercedes was a powerful car. Heavy too. It had zip and it had grip. Maguire pointed it, and trod down on the throttle, and we went, occupying about all the available traction surface and plunging upwards towards Corry’s Head. He was driving on dipped headlights. At first I thought he was taking foolish chances, but then I realized he was a careful man, afraid that the main beams would flare up into the night and attract attention on that deserted hillside. We bounced and skidded and ploughed upwards. Maguire was anxious to get it over with, then back to the bar and a reviving brandy.

  For some moments, these precious now, I wondered whether to try a forward pounce on to Maguire’s back, deliberately wrecking the car. Somebody might come out of it alive. But I could see that Fellowes was alert, and I could sense that pistol at the ready. In any event, if the car rolled in my direction his weight falling on me would surely put me out of the running. I sat back. There was nothing. Perhaps when we got to the farm…

  There wasn’t going to be much time in which to make decisions. Already we were nearing the gate above Corry’s Head quarry. Maguire was throwing the car into the bends, which were becoming closer together now. I stared ahead in desperation and saw, by the weak light from the dashboard and flickered reflections from the hedges racing past, that Anna’s fingers were slowly reaching out towards the door catch. Her left hand, this was, which was why she had led me towards the near side of the car. It put us both on that side, so she had anticipated concerted action. ‘Chump,’ she had said, and jump she had meant. I tensed, trying to look casual, as my own hand sneaked towards the door catch.

  It would be hopeless, of course. We would fall together in a tangle at the roadside, and even if Fellowes managed to miss both of us at that range, we’d have seconds only to find cover — and Anna was almost incapable of movement.

  In the lights I saw the bend ahead, where the lane veered right and the open gateway faced us at an angle to the left. I tensed. We were two hundred yards short of the gateway, and to Maguire this would be unknown territory. Suddenly — and with a flash of fear — I realized what Anna had planned to do. Fate, she had told me. Gate, she had meant.

  Did she really intend that we should plunge sideways into that gap where the gate stood open? On to that slope! Didn’t she know! I almost screamed at her, ‘No, Anna, no!’ But I felt choked with the tension.

  The gateway was twenty yards ahead. Maguire reached his right hand higher, preparing to swing the Mercedes to the right. Anna, in a miracle of resolution, cried out in a loud and very clear voice, ‘Left, you fool, left!’

  And Maguire, his reactions working at top speed, spun the wheel to the left.

  Anna’s door flew open. The abrupt slewing of the car had flung Fellowes sideways against the door. In that moment the pistol was pointing upwards. My own door flew open a blink behind Anna’s.

  But Maguire’s reactions had been a shade too fast. He had cut the angle too sharply, so that the nearside of the car missed the gatepost by less than two feet. The tail was sliding outwards. I felt the car lurch as I dived out and down.

  Images flashed into my eyes, too many to unravel together. The shape of Anna diving free, and her door slamming into the gatepost. It came back at her and trapped her left ankle, then she spun away from me into the darkness. My own door, being three feet behind the front one, hit the gatepost one second later. The tail of the car had swung round, so that there was a little more clearance for me. A little more time, if you’re thinking in split seconds. The rebounding door touched my heel as I plunged downwards and outwards, and I was aware of the mud-spraying rear wheel spinning past my face, and the double smash of the two doors as they rebounded with the spin of the car. I thought there was a shot. Glass shattered. Then, face down but lying twisted beside the gatepost, I saw the tail-lights swinging away, down the slope from which it was impossible to return.

  The car was rotating. With no grip, now, on that slimy surface, it was spinning as it slid, in a grotesque and horribly inevitable waltz onwards. For one moment the headlights blinded me, then they were past.

  But in that second I’d seen how I was situated. I had hit the ground just beyond the gatepost, otherwise, I supposed, I would already be dead. But though this section was relatively level, it was nevertheless slippy, and I had not fallen on to it vertically but had hit it at an angle. I had, in fact, been sliding oozily away from the gatepost during those two or three seconds which I’d spared to watch the progress of the Mercedes. In abrupt panic, I reached out for the gatepost, but my fingers brushed it, no more, then, in my stately progress, I’d already moved that one deadly inch too far.

  It was at this moment that once again the car spun its headlights over me. I was face down, my face sideways for air and sight. The light illuminated the gate itself, almost over my head.

  It was a very old five-barred gate, sagging above me, opened almost until it rested against the hedge behind it. Its lowest bar was above me, but it was, with the top one, the stoutest. I grabbed for it, but my hand was too small and it slipped free. With a frantic jerk, which involved every muscle in my body, I thrust myself upwards. But force opposes force. I also, of necessity, thrust against the slippy slope on which I now lay, this force only serving to accelerate my slide. My hand flew upwards as my body slid away. My palm slapped wood, my fingers hooking over it as my body swung, undeterred by the scrabble of my toes, until my feet pointed down the slope. Two-thirds of me now lay beyond the point where the slope became impossible to deny.

  As I stared down hopelessly, the car made its last whooping spin. A bulky shadow fell out on the off-side, and the light fell briefly on Anna, face down and spread like a starfish, and moving, moving towards the edge. I heard no screams. The car engine was racing, itself screaming. Then it was all gone and there was darkness and silence.

  The gate above me creaked. My grip was insecure, that lower bar having acquired the green algae that wet wood always does. Slowly, gently, I began to transfer my weight. The pain in my wrist and fingers was a fire. I knew I had to supplement that single grip, and my other shoulder was too low. As I brought it up, so the load on my fingers increased. My mouth was wide open, but I dared not cry out in case the very sound tore my hand away. Shoulder higher, other hand there — but not enough, not enough. I eased my forearm through the space above the lower bar, then my elbow, my upper arm.

  Then I could hook on and breathe, and wonder what I migh
t do next, as my efforts dislodged the gate from the enclutching hedge, and it slowly swung me out to hang above the slope, no more than my feet reaching the surface.

  I could do no more.

  16

  There came, eventually, the realization that I must move sideways along the lower bar towards the gatepost. This I could see, my objective, as a dark but uncertain shadow that blanked out a few of the stars. By that time I had both elbows hooked over the bottom bar, but I wasn’t certain how long I could withstand the pain in my back. My forearms, too, were beginning to feel dead, and very soon, I suspected, I wouldn’t be able to do anything with my hands, even if I came within reach of the post.

  I began to edge sideways. But I was suspended from the outer portion of the gate, and almost at once I came across an obstruction. It took me a while to work out that problem, but the answer brought only black despair. The cross braces of the gate met in the middle of the bottom bar. It was going to be impossible to lift myself past them. I stared with fury and frustration at the black shape of the gatepost, and it was some seconds before I realized I’d actually seen it, if only for a fleeting moment. Then it came again. A car’s headlights had brushed it.

  I lifted my head. There was the thrum of an approaching engine. Yes, it was. A car…and it would sweep past the blank and black opening of the gateway without a sideways glance. The light came again, and held the post in its beam. It had just taken the final bend. I had to time this, time it to the second. I had only one chance. I drew in breath. Once, twice, and then as it swept past I screamed until I felt my chest would burst.

  It drew to a halt. It backed so that its lights swept the gateway. A car door opened, and someone stood there. ‘Help me!’ I whispered. ‘Please.’

  Jennie Lyons called out, ‘She’s here. Come and see. Quick!’