Taking a deep breath, I got out of the car, but kept the door open as some kind of shield, in case a bullet came winging my way. But the only sound I could hear was that of a crow bemoaning his lot. Thirty seconds later and I was running, crouched as low as my lengthy old frame would allow, through the trees that edged the road. Very soon, I could see the smooth slope of the front of the car through the silhouettes of the tree trunks. A few more paces and I could see the cockpit. It was empty.
As I dropped down on one knee to wait for any sounds that might give away the whereabouts of the driver, I heard a twig snap behind me. I whipped round just in time to see the strobe of an arm as it crashed a pistol butt onto my cranium. For the second time in no time at all, I joined the stars in the sky.
*
My head lolled forward and I tried to support it with my hand. But somehow, I couldn’t move. Then the pain in my skull hit me, like a thousand hammers. My head jerked upright and I tried to open my eyes. Each eyelid seemed as heavy as the Queen Mary in dry dock, but a slice of light did manage to glimmer through one.
I blinked at the shock and it activated the mechanism of the other. Through a kind of mist, I could just make out a mass of grey which I took to be a wall. I cranked my head to the right. Just more grey. Then I cranked to the left. Here the grey seemed to have a soft pink pattern decorating it. I blinked a few more times, then once more tried to move my hands. I was no more successful than the first time, but, at least, now I knew where they were. Behind my back. With something holding them there. And it felt like rope.
As my eyes now felt for focus, the pink decoration on the grey wall opposite seemed to move. And a voice came out of nowhere.
‘Johnny,’ it whispered.
I blinked some more and the pink on the wall started to take on a definite form.
‘Johnny. Thank God, you’ve come round,’ the voice went on. I tried to still the hammers in my head long enough to identify the speaker. I shut my eyes.
‘Oh hell, I’m so sorry, Johnny. It’s all my fault.’
By the time I peered out once more, both brain and power of vision had improved enough to identify both the speaker and pink form.
‘That you, Tracy?’
‘Yes, Johnny.’
I was suddenly aware that I was mostly pink too. All my instincts urged my hands to whip round to cover my groin, but firmly behind my back they remained.
‘Where on earth are we, Tracy? And our ruddy clothes. Where the blazes have they gone?’
Two more blinks and I saw the scene only too clearly. We were in a small stone building of some sort and trussed like chickens to bolts in the walls. But, as if that weren’t enough, we were both stripped down to-well, yours truly to his underpants and the beautiful Tracy to her scanties, for want of a better word. And now my memory had returned with a sickening thump. And I realised how I, at least, had got there.
‘Our clothes have gone for a ride in your Buick,’ she grimaced.
I was still a trifle befuddled.
‘Ride in a Buick. What? What ...?’
‘That’s where they’ve gone, Johnny. You see, they’re faking we had an accident.’
‘Accident?’ I repeated with horror, thinking not only of ourselves, but of the poor owner of the car, Bobby Briggs.
‘’Fraid so, my darling. We were very silly people. We drove too near to the edge of a cliff —’
‘What cliff?’
‘Johnny, does it really matter? I don’t know what cliff, do I?’
I’m afraid I came out with an expletive I wouldn’t say in front of a clothed lady, let alone one dressed, or should I say undressed, like dear old Jane of the Daily Mirror strip.
‘And the clothes?’
‘They’re going to take them right out to sea tomorrow or sometime, so they’re not washed in too soon.’
I tried to get myself more upright and winced as the ropes burned my wrists.
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Oh, Johnny, it was terrible when they brought you in. They’ve been crowing ever since, telling me how clever they were to trap you.’ They didn’t trap me. They tried to kill Dolly Randan and I —’ She shook her head.
‘No, they didn’t Johnny. They intended you to think they were after Dolly, but they weren’t.’
‘But the bullet hit her. In the shoulder, thank God, but it could have killed her.’
‘A mistake, my darling. Seagrave was very cross with Dawlish about that. Apparently, the shot was intended to get close, but not actually hit anyone. Dawlish only fired to get you to follow him, you see. He laughed like a drain that the whole thing worked so easily. He said the most difficult part was not to lose you for too long. He said he even had to wait at the top of one hill for you.’
The expletive surfaced again, I’m afraid. If I had been able to move a muscle, I’d have kicked myself.
‘They had got you. So all they needed was me. Correct?’
‘Correct.’
I sighed like a dying whale. ‘And what little ploy did they use to get you, Tracy?’
‘Didn’t need one.’ She wriggled in her bonds. I tried — rather unsuccessfully — to avert my gaze from her slim and beauteous form that a silk brassiere and frilly panties did little to conceal. ‘I ... er ... sort of walked into it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
I’d have waved my hand, if I’d had a hand handy to wave. ‘Forget it, Tracy. Just tell me what happened.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘Well, I was a bit annoyed with you this morning, as you know. Otherwise, perhaps I’d have had more sense —’
She was interrupted by the sudden scream of a seagull that seemed to come from right above us. For the first time, I took a good look at our surroundings. It was plain as a pikestaff where we were, just from the assorted fishing tackle, lifebelts and sou’westers, let alone the drums of what I took to be petrol and oil, and the distant sound of lapping water.
‘Is this part of his boat-house?’ I interrupted.
She nodded. ‘’Fraid so.’ Then she went on, ‘Oh Johnny, I shouldn’t have done it, but ... anyway, I drove over here on the off-chance I might be able to see his housekeeper alone. I left the car some way from the drive,’ she smiled weakly, ‘thinking that’s what a good detective would do, then climbed into the grounds through a hedge and did a quick recce of the premises. I couldn’t believe my luck. There were no cars in the drive and I even went round the back and checked out the coach-houses. No cars there either.’
She eased herself round on the stone flags as far as her bonds would allow. ‘Hell, the floor’s hard and cold,’ she smiled. ‘If I’m not careful, I’ll get piles before I die. What a way to go.’
I closed my eyes to hide my feelings. ‘Wow, Tracy was one hell of a girl. If I had to be tied up, then there was nobody I’d rather be tied up with in the whole wide world.
‘Nobody’s going,’ I said firmly. ‘Least, not that way.’
She blew me a kiss, then went on, ‘So, coast being clear, I went round to the back of the house to try the tradesman’s entrance. Just as I was about to knock, Mrs Sayers — turned out to be her name ‘Like Dorothy L?’
‘The very same. She came out with a wicker basketful of washing to hang on the line.’
‘Seagrave’s old dirty linen,’ I smirked. She ignored me, rightly.
‘I quickly explained who I was and that I wanted to speak to her about Mrs Seagrave’s death. At first, she told me to go away and that there was nothing to tell about the tragedy that the papers hadn’t already covered. But then, as I helped her peg out the washing on the line, I started to take her through our theories with the speed of light. I had just got to the bit about Daphne Phipps and the blackmailing, when I heard a car coming up the drive. Like a fool, instead of running, I tried to rattle on about her actor boyfriend and all that. But I don’t think she was really listening after she’d heard the car. Anyway, by the time I’d decided discretion was the better part of valour, Seagrave was sta
nding at the back door with a gun in his hand. To my amazement, Mrs Sayers didn’t seem to turn a hair. What’s more, as he came towards me, she went up to him and said something like, “She has been trying to pump me, Mr Seagrave, but I didn’t say nothing.”’
She shrugged. ‘So what could yours truly do, but surrender?’
‘So the housekeeper is in it in some way too. That would explain how they’ve been able to get away with —’
‘Murder,’ she smiled. ‘Sorry, Johnny, murders.’
I gave an almighty heave of my bonds, but got nothing for my pains but more pain. A quick glance behind me confirmed that no amount of jerking and heaving was ever going to free me. The ring bolt was mediaeval in its thickness and firmly fixed in the stone of the wall. The ropes were marine-best and strong enough to hold a yacht in a Cape Horn gale.
‘Save your energy,’ Tracy urged. ‘If you’re tied like I am, then all the straining in the world won’t free you. I’ve been trying since they left and all I’ve managed to get is a ladder in my silk stockings.’
I looked across at her legs. At least they had been kind enough not to take her suspender belt when they stripped her. Suddenly, I wished they hadn’t. She was just too damned seductive to be tied up opposite, for my battered mind to function as sharply as it must if we were to stand any chance of survival.
I looked around the boathouse once more, in case there was anything useful on the wall or floor that I could wriggle myself towards. But Seagrave and his brother had obviously thought of that one. Everything was neatly piled or hung miles out of reach.
I looked out of the window at the end of the boat-house. I could see nothing but a greyish sky and that I wouldn’t be able to see much longer, as it was getting dark.
‘Got any ideas?’ I asked.
‘Not helpful ones,’ she smiled weakly, as her eyes scanned my all but unclothed frame. So she had the same little problem I did. If we were tied up much longer like this, Seagrave and his henchman wouldn’t need to kill us when they got back. We’d be already dead from sheer frustration.
I suddenly had a thought. ‘Where’s your SS? Still down the road from here?’
‘No, more’s the pity,’ Tracy replied. That’s the first thing they did when Dawlish turned up. Take my car keys and drive my SS over to park it at your place.’
‘To make it look as if you called round and we both went for a fatal ride in the Buick.’
‘I guess so.’
I groaned.
‘Head hurting?’ Tracy asked anxiously.
‘Yes, but it’s not that. I’m just regretting that I didn’t tell Babs the whole ruddy story. Then she could have told the police and they might add two and two together and, at least, make a call on Seagrave if nothing else.’
‘So Babs doesn’t know about any blue BMW and who was driving it?’
I shook what was left of my head. ‘No. And what with her fretting over poor wounded Dolly, and not knowing one car from another ...’
‘So we’ll have to rely on Dolly Randan?’
‘She doesn’t know about blue BMW’s either.’
‘But she might come clean about what she knows about Seagrave.’
‘And she might not. She was scared to death before she was shot, remember? Imagine what she feels like now. She may just clam up like a —’
‘Now let me guess.’ Tracy smiled. ‘Would it be another clam?’
‘Tracy, how can you joke at a time like this?’ I pulled again at the bolt in the wall.
‘With difficulty, my darling. With difficulty.’
I relaxed. I was wrong and Tracy was right. We had to keep our spirits up. After all, that was just about all we could shift about.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered. Neither of us spoke for a minute or two. I spent the time staring at the bulb hanging from the ceiling, Tracy appraising her long, silk covered legs.
After a while, I asked, ‘Any idea what they plan for us both? I mean they can hardly leave us tied here for ever — or can they?’
‘Seagrave is capable of anything, Johnny. Anything. I’m glad you didn’t see him when Dawlish stripped me. He seemed to have more hands than a cartoon octopus. And when it came to tying me up, he made a noose with one of the ropes and suggested it might be better just to hang me.’
‘God, Tracy. Don’t say any more. Please.’
‘All right, darling. Don’t worry. I’ve survived. Anyway, rope marks around a neck don’t really go with drowned bodies, do they? Not that we’ll probably be found, unless the concrete blocks rot before we do.’ I looked at her. That’s what you reckon they plan for us? Concrete shoes?’
She nodded reluctantly. ‘That’s what I gather.’
I thought for a minute. ‘How are they going to manage it? Toss us out of old Seagrave’s Chris-Craft or drop us from a seaplane?’
Tracy did not respond. I persisted. ‘Come on, Tracy, tell me. You know, don’t you.’
You tell me first why you were seeing Dolly Randan. It’s been puzzling me ever since Seagrave told me you’d been with her.’
So I told her. And recounted what Dolly Randan had told me. When I’d finished, Tracy leant her head back against the wall and shut her eyes.
‘Hell, Johnny, if only we had known about all that before. Think of all the blind alleys we’ve been up.’
‘I’d rather not,’ I said. ‘But Dolly’s revelation might well explain what hold Daphne Phipps had over Seagrave.’
‘But surely, couldn’t he just deny it all? After all, she had no proof of anything. Just Dolly’s chat.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe he was rattled by a girl down in sleepy old Devon knowing anything about his goings-on in naughty old London.’
‘And even naughtier Marseilles and downright degenerate North Africa,’ Tracy muttered and then suddenly looked up at me. ‘Hey, it’s all starting to fit.’
‘Fit what?’
‘Well, I heard Seagrave say to Dawlish, as they were leaving after tying me up, something about, “It will soon all be over,’’ and that he — that’s Dawlish — would be back sunning himself on the best beaches in the world in no time.’
‘South of France?’
‘Could be, couldn’t it?’ She smiled, ‘Devon beaches are good, but not that good.’
‘So, maybe old Massey-mouth has chucked in his job hauling advertising signs across the sky and is going back to his old game — hauling young girls across continents.’
‘Sounds more than a bit like it. Dawlish wouldn’t want his brother to be the only one up to his shifty eyes in money, would he?’
I looked up at the window again. The light was fading fast now and the little bulb hanging from the rafters was having a hard job substituting for the sun.
Out of the gloom, Tracy asked, ‘Which do you think it’ll be, Johnny?’
‘Which what?’ I retorted dumbly.
‘By boat or seaplane?’ She went on, almost as if talking to herself: ‘If it has to be one or the other, I would prefer an aircraft. At least, for a short while, you and I would be together in the fresh clean air, kind of lord and lady of all we survey ... like when we first met.’
I wasn’t so unkind as to interrupt. As for me, I had no preference for either. After all, corpses don’t actually care what hearse they ride in, do they?
Seventeen
We had our answer about an hour later. It was just after our fourth concerted effort to draw attention to our plight by frantically shouting for help. However, only seagulls seemed to hear us, by the way their shrill cries and mewing receded into the distance, away from the now decibel filled building.
We heard it circling long before it landed. We didn’t need to see it to know precisely what it was — a bright red and yellow Fox Moth. The noise of the Gypsy Major engine, as the seaplane taxied over to tie up at the jetty, would have been sweet music at any other time but this. Now it just sounded like the Death March from Saul.
‘So now we know,’ Tracy sighed.
I didn’t comment. My bludgeoned head was too busy trying to remember every feature of the one and only Fox Moth I had ever flown — a landplane version, registration G-ABT.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
‘Probably the same as you, old girl. How the hell we can out-fox them in the Fox Moth. It’ll be our only chance.’
She was about to respond, when the engine was cut and I heard the clunk of the floats hitting the wooden jetty. A moment later, we heard footsteps which proved to be Seagrave’s, as he came down to greet his brother-in-crime.
More clunking and footfalls ensued, which were obviously the pilot climbing down from the cockpit onto the floats and Seagrave tethering the aircraft to the jetty. Then a muffled, indecipherable conversation, more footfalls, followed by the dull scrape of bolts, as the wooden door of our section of the boat-house was opened.
The pilot came in first, doffing his flying helmet. His Raymond Massey mouth slanted a smile in our direction.
‘My, my,’ he leered. ‘I hope you two love-birds haven’t been getting up to anything naughty-naughty whilst we’ve been away.’
Seagrave followed and rather brusquely brushed past his brother. I saw his eyes follow every contour of Tracy’s exposed body and I pulled savagely away from the wall to distract his attention.
Seagrave chuckled. ‘You never give up, do you, Mr Black? Still, I’m not surprised. It’s always the mark of the unintelligent man — not to know when it’s time to call it a day.’
I didn’t give him the pleasure of a reply. He turned to his brother, and pointed at Tracy.
‘You know something, Tom, we may be making a hell of a mistake getting rid of her.’
The ginger moustache quivered with incomprehension. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. Just look at her sitting there. Isn’t she delectable?’ He grinned. ‘Can you imagine what she would fetch over in Morocco or Tunisia? They love long, lithe white bodies over there. Such a change from their usual diet of short, stumpy, hairy women, I suppose. You could make a fortune out of her before she —’
‘Shut up, Seagrave,’ I shouted, my one good eye blazing. ‘You’re finished. Don’t you know that? You and your brother will never make another buck out of your loathsome trade.’
Black Eye (A Johnny Black Mystery) Page 23