“You first Rothwell; on your knees,” bellowed Douglas suddenly.
“Certainly not,” said the Rothwell with not a trace of fear in his pompous voice, “if I’m to be shot what difference does it make? I’m certainly not doing to do anything to give a second-rate copper, and cowardly killer any satisfaction. Just get on with it.”
Shaking with rage, Hood scanned the floor for Darrington’s gun while waving his own wildly in the air. “Where’s the other gun?” he yelled. “Where’s the bloody gun. Tell me Max or you’ll get this one.”
“I don’t know,” said Darrington, “it’s on the floor somewhere, you saw me drop it.”
He looked down at the floor pretending to search and stepped forward slightly as if to help but Hood aimed his gun straight at his face and screamed, “Where’s the gun?”
“It’s here,” Alice Bevis spoke calmly and as Douglas Hood turned a shot was fired. He fell backwards his head crashing onto the floor propelled by the bullet that left a hole exactly between his eyes. Mouth open, Darrington turned to stare at her through the red veil of blood running into his eyes as she stood motionless between the shelves, her face set in stone, feet apart and holding the pistol in outstretched hands.
Rothwell moved to the body and made sure Hood was actually dead. “Great shot as always my darling Alice,” he said walking toward her and taking the gun from her hand then holding her to him he kissed her long and hard on the mouth.
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Harry,” said the blushing Miss Bevis when he released her. “I do like these old guns so much better than the modern ones. You don’t see many of them around these days.” She looked quizzically at Darrington, “I wonder where you got it from Chief Inspector?”
Darrington had passed into slow motion, his head pounded and he felt sick, he closed his eyes against the blood running into them and felt himself sinking to his knees. Someone was calling his name and he woke momentarily. He was laid on the floor, his shirt was open and a doctor held a stethoscope to his chest. Fiona’s pretty face looked over the top of his head and he realised he was resting on her lap.
“He seems to be all right,” the doctor was saying. “He’s not having another heart attack or anything and the bleeding has stopped but I want him in hospital to check out the bang on the head.”
Protest was useless as he couldn’t even manage to form the words. Fiona put her arms forward and he felt her ample breasts push against him. “Max are you all right?” she asked anxiously through her tears.
“Fiona, please stop that,” Rothwell’s sarcastic voice echoed in the background. “We’re hoping to prevent poor the man from having another heart attack.” There was a ripple of laughter and Darrington tried but failed to focus on the surroundings. He was lifted onto a stretcher and in the haze around him saw Alice Bevis standing close to Rothwell, who ran his hand seductively across her buttocks.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In hospital for observation, Max slept around the clock and when he opened his eyes Alice Bevis sat at his bedside. “Are you feeling better?” she enquired in her familiar scratchy voice.
“Yes thanks, Miss Bevis.” He nodded and felt a dull throb in the back of his head.
“Don’t you think you should call me Alice after all we’ve been through together?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“Of course and you should call me Max, after all, you saved my life. What about Matt and Fiona, are they all right?”
“Yes, Fiona got a nasty shock but she’s quite recovered and Matt’s fine. He was discharged earlier this morning, it was only a flesh wound and a nasty bump on the head when he fell. It would take more than that to put a big chap like him out of action for long.” “That is good news, I’m quite sure that madman would’ve killed us all if you hadn’t intervened. Where on earth did you learn to shoot like that?”
She smiled smugly. “Well it was an old gun, the sort I’m familiar with so I suppose you could say it was a lucky shot. I could hear what was going on when you took the phone off the hook and I’d picked up the gun and put it in the first-aid box. So while Douglas Hood was ranting and raving, I slipped out of the safe room and waited behind the shelves until I had him properly lined up. People aren’t always what they seem Max, but you’re owed an explanation and Harry, Superintendent Rothwell, will fill in the gaps in this sorry business, but I wanted to speak to you alone first. Are you feeling up to hearing some good advice?”
“How can I refuse?”
“Put this matter behind you,” she said as her small eyes peered into his. “Douglas Hood was a madman who slaughtered at least six girls, including Claudine Duvall, and now he is dead.” She held up her hand at his protest, “I don’t want to hear. What I don’t know can’t hurt you or me. Whatever happened, happened a lifetime ago so leave it there and get on with your own worthwhile life. We all did things at that time that we wouldn’t even contemplate in the normal course of events. Harry Rothwell and I served together during the war and God knows I have some blood on my hands, but we have to move on, or at least try. I know your sort, you spend your life doing the right thing, owning up, keeping your integrity but there comes a time to give yourself a break. Taking these things any further can do nothing but harm to yourself and your family and actually helps no-one.”
Max put his head down, “Douglas Hood admitted to killing any number of girls, many more than the ones we know about, so why would he lie about my wife? Since getting involved in all this, I’ve remembered bits and pieces from that time and those bits and pieces could well add up to the fact that I killed Claudine.”
Alice shook her head, “You can’t complete a puzzle without all the bits and pieces and you’re never going to have them all now; it’s dangerous to speculate about what really happened. As a policeman you know that to be true so forget about it now, get on with your life, catch a few more villains, there are plenty of them still out there.” She patted his hand, “I’m a great fatalist, I believe if you are meant to know what really happened, fate will see to it that you are told.”
Rothwell came through the door smiling his largest, smarmy smile and sat down on the bed. “Max, great to see you sitting up and taking notice. I popped in earlier but you were sound asleep so I thought it best to leave you but now, unfortunately, I need to be all official and get on with a debrief then all being well with the medical folks, you can go home.”
Alice Bevis got to her feet. “I’ll see if I can rustle up some coffee.” As she passed Rothwell she put her hand on his shoulder, he covered it with his own and looked up adoringly at her.
Hiding a small smile, Darrington looked away. They obviously had a past, even a present and he wondered if Rothwell’s wife knew of the intense sensuality between the old comrades in arms.
Rothwell grilled him about Douglas and taking the advice of Alice Bevis, Darrington made no reference to Claudine’s file. Blaming his behaviour on a desire to prove himself worthy again overcoming his judgment, he admitted making a terrible mistake in asking his friend Douglas Hood to help investigate something that was just a hunch.
In turn Rothwell expanded on the brief account he had given when confronted by the gun-wielding Hood, and Darrington felt a touch smug when he learned his paranoia was not entirely groundless. Fiona, Matt and Alice were all working for Rothwell and while the Minister had asked for a report, the Chief Superintendent had, of his own volition, set a trap with a vague hope it might net the culprit. “It seemed to me,” said Rothwell, “that we would never again have an opportunity to catch this bastard who would be happily congratulating himself on his abilities to commit such horrors and get away with it. Alice and I went through the records again and came up with one more name — Douglas Hood. I knew he was a colleague and a friend of yours but what I said to him was true, I really didn’t think he was clever enough to get away with a crime like this. Perhaps he was right, perhaps I did underestimate him.”
Max looked a bit guilty, “And then I
nearly ruined the whole set up, going off and spilling the beans to the very person you were hunting!”
Rothwell nodded and grumbled, “Yes, you did! It never occurred to me that you would go off on a tangent and do some investigating of your own. You were supposed to be recuperating. We had no idea you’d been married to Claudine Duvall or if she really was one of Hood’s victims, which of course she was.” He went on speaking quickly not giving Max a chance to dispute the fact, “but you do understand Max, because of your friendship with Hood, I was unable to warn you. We managed to have someone drop a hint about you working on the case to Hood and to the other chap, then moved our team and you into the archives and waited. They were a good team, young Fiona is a new recruit to our department but I think she acquitted herself well in view of her inexperience. I’m taking for granted there’s nothing in the outrageous suggestions made by Hood about you and her.”
“Absolutely not,” said Darrington realising Alice Bevis must have told him and wondering what else he knew. “I’m old enough to be her father.”
“That never stopped any man,” Rothwell retorted bluntly, “but I’m glad to hear it. She is far too young for you, we don’t want you having another heart attack,” he smirked. “Matt Houseman was there in case of any rough stuff but, of course, he was out of the picture very quickly. Hood got in through the security door when Fiona arrived for work. He must have been hiding somewhere and when Alice activated the door, he rushed her and shot Matt when he tried to stop him. Thank God for Alice otherwise we would have ended up in a pile of bodies on the floor, you labelled a homicidal suicide and the real culprit still on the loose.”
“Well, they had me fooled.” Darrington decided not to admit he had sensed a conspiracy from the beginning, “Particularly Alice, I gather you two are old friends.”
Rothwell’s face took on an unusual softness, “Yes. They don’t come any braver than Alice. We worked together in intelligence during the war when we were undercover in Europe for months. Of course, no-one remembers it now, but that’s when you discover what people are really made of and you become uncommonly close. It’s a most terrifying ordeal, apart from other agents, whom you must trust with your life, you are completely alone in a violently hostile environment where the consequences of failure are worse than death. Not many of us survived.”
Darrington watched him as he stared into space and sat perfectly still in a thoughtful almost painful silence. In Rothwell today the untrained eye might see only the archetypical soft product of easy living with a predictably successful career nurtured by the old boy network, but in fact he had high intelligence, animal cunning and a steel hard character. Darrington tried to imagine him as a lean, fit young agent nervous and frightened, on the run perhaps hungry and shabby, clinging desperately to the equally young and frightened Alice Bevis. It was a difficult picture to conjure up in a man renowned for expensive clothes, perfect haircuts and manicured fingernails, and whose whole demeanour smacked of taste, authority and money.
“We all carry something from those days, Sir.”
Rothwell bounced back, ‘Yes, indeed we do, but meeting Alice more than made up for the bad times. Her fiancé was one of the first agents sent out into the field. A fine man, he was captured and died in rather horrifying circumstances and I’m afraid her mission was one of calm and calculated revenge but it served the cause well. She has a chest full of medals and stayed on with the department in peacetime. In fact, it was Alice who wrote the first report on the murders. She always argued the killer was very close to the authorities, she used to say she could almost hear him breathing nearby, but I’m afraid no-one wanted to know and her report never saw the light of day and it was replaced by a whitewashed version. That’s why I roped her in when this disastrous affair raised its head again. We might be getting older and, of course, we don’t see so much of each other these days, but neither of us has lost our wits yet so it seemed appropriate.”
“So what happens now?” asked Darrington. “The press will have a field day when they get on to this.”
“No, they won’t,” Rothwell snapped, “because they’re not going to hear about it. You’ll finish your report, I’ll submit it to the Minister and inform him that during the course of your investigation you came up with a suspect who when faced with his crimes committed suicide, after which no doubt, the Minister’s office will issue a press statement.” He grinned his nastiest grin, “In a way it was suicide, anyone who points a gun at Alice Bevis must have a death wish, but that’s the end of it. Nothing further is to be made public and after a couple of weeks leave, which presumably you’ll spend trying to put your marriage back together, we want you back at your old job. We need to keep you occupied and not tempted to go off on any more unauthorised ventures.”
Max squirmed inside, Rothwell would be surreptitiously referring to this matter whenever he needed a lever against him in the future, but he supposed he deserved it.
Rothwell stood up to leave, “You have my permission to tell Sarah the whole story if it will help. I think she can be trusted don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’d better convince her that you can be.”
“And Norman Gordon?” asked Max, sadly.
“Ah yes, the only witness to see Douglas Hood. Well, the poor lady had a heart attack when she fell down the stairs and there’s no evidence implicating Hood with the incident. Apparently she lost her husband recently and had been drinking on the night of the accident.”
Darrington looked down, his fingers playing with the edge of the bedsheet. Norma Gordon weighed heavily on his conscience but apart from a whispered accusation from a sick and sedated woman, he also had no proof against Douglas Hood regarding her death.
Alice Bevis returned with coffees for them all and a doctor who gave Darrington the all-clear. It was time to go home — to an empty house.
Rothwell volunteered to drive him but as they left the hospital Matt and Fiona came rushing toward them. Matt’s right arm was strapped in heavy bandages against his chest but he offered his left hand to Darrington and Fiona, who carried a large bunch of flowers laughed her loud laugh, “We were coming to visit, we didn’t know they’d discharged you.” She handed him the flowers, put her arms around his neck and kissed and hugged him, “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Over her shoulder, Max caught sight of Sarah watching him from the car park. She stood with her back resting against the bonnet of his car, arms folded across her chest and he groaned.
“I think you have yourself a bit of explaining to do,” Rothwell chuckled.
Matt and Fiona went off hand in hand and Max handed the flowers to Alice, “I think you’d better have these.”
Rothwell gallantly kissed Sarah’s hand and introduced her to Alice then left Max standing awkwardly beside his sad looking wife.
“Are you all right?” Sarah asked quietly.
“Yes, it was only a bang on the head. How did you know where I was?”
Sarah reached up and wiped Fiona’s lipstick from his cheek then nodded at Rothwell who was getting into his Mercedes with Alice Bevis. “He tracked me down in London to tell me you’d been injured so I got the first train down this morning. I picked up the car in Winchester and drove down, I was about to come in when I saw you all leaving. I suppose the young blonde is Catherine.”
“No. That’s Fiona, she works for Rothwell, Catherine doesn’t exist.”
“Well for someone who doesn’t exist she does remarkably well on the telephone.”
“That was Norma.” He put a hand to his bandaged head, “Sarah, it’s a long story and I’ll have to start at the beginning but when we get home, please.”
Rothwell tooted the car horn. He and Alice waved and smiled as they drove out of the car park. “They look cheerful,” said Sarah as she started the car. “I wonder where they’re off to.”
“Probably somewhere quiet where they can get into the back seat of the car.”
“Ma
x!” Sarah exclaimed, “What the hell’s happened to you? I know you turned fifty and had a heart attack on the same day, but this is not like you. You are normally such a steady, uncomplicated man, but so far you seem to be involved with Catherine, who apparently doesn’t exist, Norma and Fiona who looks young enough to be your daughter and now you’re having sexual fantasies about Rothwell and some old dear in the back of his car.”
Head in his hands Max couldn’t tell if he were laughing or crying, it was just somewhere in between. “Please, Sarah take me home.”
Closing the front door behind them they stood looking at one another, Max pulled Sarah into his arms and smothered her sobs into his chest, “Come on my darling it’s over. Let’s have a cup of tea and get back to normal — whatever that is in this house.”
Sarah insisted he go to bed and when she brought up a tray of tea he pulled her in with him. They made love with a desperation that sought to bring each of them back from their recent, lonely isolation.
Afterwards they drank the lukewarm tea and lay locked in each other’s arms while Max, omitting any reference to Claudine, tried to explain the events of the last few weeks. Sarah was appalled at the things Douglas Hood had done during the war and was prepared to do just a few days ago, had not the courageous Alice stopped him. Max begged her to believe he was not involved with anyone else and his secretive behaviour was all connected with the case.
“But why go to Douglas Hood? It’s not like you to break the rules. You had orders from Rothwell to go to him if you needed help or wanted to interview anyone else. I just don’t understand, if you had to confide in someone couldn’t it have been me?” she asked sounding a little hurt.
Max resisted the temptation to tell her about Claudine. He wanted to. He needed to unburden to someone, but his misjudgement of Douglas had left him unsure of everyone, even Sarah. Having almost lost her he was not prepared to take any chances. “I don’t know,” he said at last.
The Lazarus Secrets Page 19