He came back. “You can see him, Manson. You’ll be subject to a search, and you will not be left alone with him. Ten minutes. The best I could do.”
“Thanks. That’ll do me.” Ten minutes was about all I’d be able to tolerate.
It was the chief warder, Pierce himself, who came for me. Did I rate that honour? Now, I found, I could look him in the eye, though without pleasure. He was a bleak man. He never gave an inch, even if a yard was due.
“Watch your step, Manson. I’ll be there.”
“Suits me.” I found I couldn’t bring myself to give him his expected “sir.” He noted that, and his mouth was grim.
We went to one of the small interview rooms. There was a table and two chairs, and four corners to it. Pierce wedged his shoulders into one of them, I sat in the chair facing him, and we waited. There was silence, until the tramp of feet. Carl Packer entered, the door slammed behind him, and I felt a chill all up my spine as I heard the lock thrown over.
“Sit!” said Pierce, quite unnecessarily.
Packer ignored him and sat opposite to me. His back was to Pierce. “Manson? You’re out now. What’s this, then?”
“Come to see you, to give you some news. Frenchie’s dead.”
I watched the thoughts moving round behind his eyes. Apart from the eyes, which were too light and too fishlike for comfort, there was nothing to indicate that Packer was a violent and devious crook. The rest of his face, cherubic and innocent, gave the impression of a lawyer, a barrister who would sway the jury with specious words in your defence. His eyes would terrify them.
“What a pity,” he said calmly, when he’d absorbed it.
“Got his skull bashed in.”
He shook his head sadly. “A great loss. Where was this?”
“A place called Sumbury.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s in Devon.”
“He must’ve been there on holiday.”
I reminded myself that we were overheard, and that Packer would not dare to admit anything incriminating. We had to play it the way he wanted it.
“That wasn’t what he told me,” I said.
“Really?”
“I got the impression he was doing an errand for you, Packer.”
“For me? I wouldn’t send him to a place I’ve never heard of.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” But I’d seen interest stirring behind his eyes. “He’d gone there because that was where she’d got to.”
“You’ve lost me there, son.” He was, indeed, old enough to be my father.
“A Miss Wise. I got the impression you’d asked him to trace her. Something you owed her, he said.”
“I seem to remember now. It’s coming back.”
“Though money wasn’t mentioned.”
“Wasn’t it?” His eyes held mine. “Oh well, Frenchie always was close. Twenty thou, it was. He was going to offer her that.”
If we were talking double meanings, he’d lost me. But he was giving me almost imperceptible little nods as his eyes remained on mine. He was transmitting, but I wasn’t receiving.
“What’d she done to earn that?” I asked.
“It wasn’t so much what she’d done, as what I wanted her to do.”
“Five minutes,” said Pierce briskly. “Hurry it up.”
We ignored him. I said, “That’d be quite a favour, twenty thousand quid’s worth.”
“There’s no price too high for the truth, son,” said Packer blandly.
“That depends on what truth.”
“Of the job. The job that got me in here. All I want is a new trial, or a pardon.”
All he wanted! I heard Pierce’s shoulders move against the wall. He’d heard it too, unendingly. To every villain, it is a basic principle that a verdict of guilty meant simply that the evidence had not been correctly manipulated. Whether or not you’d done it was irrelevant.
Oh, God! I thought, it’s all been a waste of time. “How could you hope for a new trial, Packer?” I was still trying.
“The little bitch was lying at the first one.”
“Easy to say. She’d have been on oath.”
“She was lying.” His voice had not changed. He was still speaking in a quiet, easy tone. But on the table surface his fingers traced the word: YES.
That he used this as a secret device, where Pierce could not see it, carried more weight than his words. I felt a stir of interest, but kept it from my voice.
“For that money, you expected her to go to the police and change her story?” We might have been chatting at a pub, the casual way I managed to say that. But my heart was beating faster.
“Yes.” This time it was aloud. But I knew that he meant much more. If she’d been telling the truth, Packer would have been annoyed. But if she’d been lying, then Packer would’ve been livid with fury, and from then on she’d have been in constant threat. Not simply had the offer been twenty thousand pounds in cash, but it had also been a promise of the freedom from fear.
“In what way could she change it?” I asked, feeling my way and wondering how far I dared to go. But of course Pierce was no longer listening. He’d never heard of a trial that hadn’t been riddled with lies. Packer could say anything now, and it would seem to be no more than the perpetual gripe, a buzzing in the background.
“She said it was me that had the gun,” he told me, assuming I knew what he was talking about.
“But it wasn’t?”
“No. And perhaps she’d tell them who.”
“You mean you don’t know?” I asked, testing him out.
“I don’t know.”
“But there was a gun?”
“They found a handgun. Nobody carried weapons on my jobs, Manson. I’m not a damned fool.”
“Somebody did that time. Fingerprints?”
“We all wore gloves. Standard procedure.”
“And masks?”
“Ski masks, yes.”
“But all the same she identified you?”
“Why d’you think I’m here, damn you?” He lifted his chin. He’d had a poor shave that day. “And why’re you here, Manson? Want to take over from Frenchie? Two thou in it for you, to make my offer to her, and do a bit of persuading.”
“Didn’t Frenchie let you know?” I asked in assumed surprise.
“Let me know what?” There was, at last, an edge to his voice.
“Philomena Wise is dead, too, Packer. She’s not going to be able to give you any help at all.”
He stared at me. “She couldn’t be,” he whispered.
“Time’s up,” said Pierce. “Say your goodbyes.”
“Wait!” said Packer. “Manson, isn’t there anything—”
“On your feet, man. You heard me.”
Now plainly distraught, but willing to give Pierce no edge, Packer scrambled to his feet and went to the door. Pierce tapped and said something. The door opened.
“March.”
Packer threw me one desperate glance, then he was gone.
I walked after them out of the open door, taking my own time. I was a free man. Nobody followed me back the way I’d come, nobody barked at me. I was free to come and go, yet strangely I felt a reluctance. Inside, I had at least lived with a solidarity, a backing against authority, and a barrier between me and the pressures of society. But now, outside, I was very much on my own.
Though not alone. I had forgotten that Art was waiting in the car.
“Get what you wanted?” he asked with eagerness, and before I had my seat-belt fastened.
“More,” I told him. “Much more.”
I drove away. Once again, not a backward glance did I give to the gaunt sprawl of masonry, and for two miles there was silence between us. I was allowing myself time to consider the visit, and it did no harm to allow Art to simmer for a while. There were clearly one or two things I wanted to hear from Art, and he wasn’t going to be eager to reveal them.
At last he broke the silence. “You can take the mot
orway, direct to Devon.”
“I just want to call in at Killingham again for a few minutes.”
“Dashin’ around everywhere, ain’t we!” he grumbled.
“There was no contract out for your Phillie, Art. Carl Packer told me he sent Frenchie along, but to do no more than talk to her.”
“Talk? Frenchie? The only words he ever knew were ‘slit’ and ‘throat.’ Talk! Gerraway.” He’d certainly known Frenchie.
He was so confident in his interpretation of the facts that I answered him with irritation. “He said it in such a way that I believed him.”
He dismissed that with disgust. “Yah!”
I settled into a steady fifty along the open road. There was little traffic, and I needed only part of my mind to miss what there was. “He said he sent Frenchie to make her an offer—”
“He sent him to Sumbury?” he cut in. “How’d Frenchie know she was there?” His wits were right in there, turning over at full revs. He’d been quick on that, and Packer had said something similar. I hadn’t given that point very much thought.
“No, he couldn’t have known that,” I agreed.
“There y’are then.”
“The same objection applies if you assume he went to kill her. All he’d know was…” I’d started this angrily, but it tapered off in sick despair. “…Killingham,” I whispered.
“Go on, then,” said Art after a moment or two.
But I couldn’t say anything. I’d just realised how Frenchie had managed to trace the Wises.
“Cat got your tongue?” he demanded brightly. He was jaunty again. I’d been by-passed from my previous subject.
I couldn’t speak. It had all begun in Killingham. The warehouse job had been there, and that was where the Wise family had lived. Immediately after the trial they had gone to live in Sumbury. But all Packer could have known was the town of Killingham. There I had gone when I’d got out, and there I’d met his Philomena Wise, as I’d thought, and become more deeply involved than I’d bargained for.
But Frenchie, too, must have started in Killingham, a month after I did, and he too must have traced the same woman—my Phil. Perhaps he’d had a better description of the real one, or even a photograph, but he had certainly not made my mistake. He had watched and waited until Phil, who was really Dorothy June Mann, had gone to Sumbury. And she had led him there.
It was I who’d initiated the trip to Sumbury, forced it on her, I who had activated the circumstances leading to the death of Philomena Wise.
“It was me!” I shouted in abrupt self-disgust, and I skidded the car to a halt because I could no longer see the road.
Tyres screamed behind me, and car horns blared. A trailer wagon and a build-up of cars, which had been waiting to pull past me, came to a similar abrupt halt. As they moved past me, comments on my parentage and driving ability were made. I could not raise my head to respond.
Art opened his door and got out. I heard him shouting obscene abuse on my behalf. Then he got back inside.
“Want me to drive?” He was always ready to help, almost too eager.
“No.”
“You ain’t safe on the road.”
I started the stalled engine and drifted along until we came to a lay-by, where I parked and got out and walked around for a while.
It was ridiculous, I told myself, to take the blame. This I assured myself over and over, until I realised my anger at myself was based on my acceptance of failure. My naïve enthusiasm had led me into believing I was more important in the scheme of life than I really was. I’d wanted to be a knight, not a pawn, someone who was looking for a way to salve an uneasy conscience. But even this had proved to be invalid. I’d done nothing towards saving a life, because there had been no threat to Philomena. It was to have been nothing more dangerous than an offer of twenty thousand pounds. What a right balls-up I’d made of it!
I got back in the car and sat staring straight ahead. Art again offered to drive. Again I refused. It would’ve been a concession to weakness, the thin end of a great fat wedge that was facing me. So far I’d been inadequate, and the pitfalls ahead were greater than those behind. All I wanted to do was go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it was away from it all. But I’d been the one who’d pitched myself into it, and there was now no way to withdraw.
Fleetingly, I remembered the grizzly I’d met in Montana. I’d been told what to do if this happened: face him. On no account turn and run, because he’d be faster and I’d stand no chance. That was easy enough to say, but when he was facing me fifty yards away, I stood, mouth dry, legs weak, and stared at him, praying he wouldn’t smell the sweat of fear that poured down me. And then, after an eternity, he’d grunted, turned about, and ambled away. Then my knees had given way and I’d fallen to the ground with my hands over my face, sobbing.
This time I knew I had to advance. Swamped by a sick emptiness, my will dormant, I started the engine and pulled out of the lay-by.
Ten
With a diplomacy I’d not expected, Art remained silent for fifteen minutes. When I had recovered sufficiently to glance at him, he was eyeing me with anxious concern. In the end, when I was certain of being able to control my voice, I broke the silence.
“Packer spoke about the warehouse job.”
“Oh yes?”
“He said he didn’t shoot the policeman.”
There was a hesitation, then he summoned up his usual aplomb. “Well, he would, wouldn’t he.” His shrug was a nervous reaction.
“They always do,” I agreed. “You never find any guilty parties in prisons. But Carl told me your girl lied at his trial. Yes, I know…he would say that too. But I had a good reason for believing he was telling the truth.”
“Phillie lie? That’d be perjury.”
“Shall we try to rephrase it? We’ll say that she could have given an inexact testimony.”
He seemed pleased at the juggling with words.
“But if we assume that,” I went on, warming to the problem, “then we have to ask ourselves how she could’ve made any identification at all, exact or otherwise.”
“Don’t get you.”
“Packer said you were all wearing ski masks.”
“Tha’s right.” He was distant, hesitant.
“Well then, you’d all look the same, scurrying around in the shadows.”
“Not to her. She knew us all.”
“Even so…were you wearing one? A ski mask, I mean.”
“Sure was.” He flashed a look at me. “They don’t half make y’ hot.” This was a touch of colour, to add veracity to his statement.
“But I’m sure you told me you were the getaway driver. Don’t tell me you were sitting in a car in the street and waiting, with a mask on! Anybody walking past, they’d see you. You could hardly claim you were heading for the ski slopes.”
He went sullen on me, muttering his answer. “It wasn’t like that.”
“How was it then?” I went after him. “I’m only trying to make some sort of sense out of it.”
“The street down the side. Parked down there—”
“Not good enough, Art,” I said, borrowing from Filey’s technique.
“Dark along there.”
“I expect it was. And where was your Phillie waiting in her car?”
He took a long while answering. I knew it wasn’t that his brain was going slow. What he was doing was planning his tactics. He was on the defensive, but I didn’t feel any elation.
“On the opposite corner,” he conceded.
“Not wearing a mask?”
“You crazy or somethin’!” he said savagely. “Of course not.”
“So you sat there—”
“No!” The rejection was explosive.
“You didn’t sit in the getaway car?”
“I was picked as driver at the last minute. The regular guy was in hospital. Turned a car over. So I was kinda doublin’ on the job—helping inside—loadin’, you know. There was only five of us on that job.”
“Loading? Oh, I forgot. This was a warehouse. What was it, whisky?”
“Yes. Glenmorangie. Posh stuff, that is.”
“You weren’t expected to drive that load, surely.”
“Only the car, when the wagon got moving. Him one way, us the other.”
It was flowing along more steadily now. “Ah, so you’d got an experienced wagon driver?”
“Sure. He was the regular with that trailer-wagon. Off on sick leave. If the buggers hadn’t unloaded it, we could’ve driven it straight out.”
I found myself smiling. “This was certainly a well-planned job. So there you were, inside and loading like mad things, and up popped the law. Everybody running this way and that. Something like that, was it?”
“You’ve got it.” He sounded proud of my ability but distrustful of my intentions. “For what good it’ll do y’.”
“But you…you ran for the car. But didn’t wait for the others, it seems.”
“Lay off, will ya.”
“You told me the police cut you off in the car,” I went on easily, not pushing it. “That sounds to me as though you were alone.”
“They went in all directions,” he said, his voice thin. “The cops were all round us. I was tryin’ to lead the cop’s car away from Phillie, but they picked her up on the way back.”
It had a convincing ring to it. “All right. So you drove off, still wearing your mask and your gloves.”
“No gloves.”
“Packer said: gloves and no weapons. His two rules.”
“Well, yeah. But I’d dumped the gloves. Can’t drive in gloves. I like to feel the wheel. You know.”
I knew, because I did too. “So tell me how the policeman got shot.”
It burst from him as though he wanted to get rid of it. “Come runnin’ in the side door, didn’t he. A great bull elephant of fuzz, wavin’ something long and heavy, an’ roaring at the top of his voice…” His graphic ability seemed to run out.
“And one of you characters shot him?”
“Yeah.”
“Who shouldn’t have been carrying a gun?”
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