“Shouldn’t have,” he agreed in a fading voice.
I took an island carefully and silently, working on his nerves. “But it was Packer’s own rule—have you thought of this, Art?—if it was his own rule, it’s unlikely he’d have been carrying a gun himself.”
He brooded over that, then muttered, “He made ’em, he could break ’em.”
“I don’t believe that. It was unlikely. Don’t you accept that?”
“I suppose.”
I nodded. “So it was you who ran out of that door, and it was you who got in the car alone. And drove away. The fired pistol…where was it found?”
He said nothing. P, the sign read, indicating another lay-by. I headed for it.
“Where, Art?”
“On the pavement,” he mumbled.
I pulled in, and rammed on the hand brake. I shot the seat-belt clear so that I could turn and face him. It was so obvious—yet the police hadn’t prised it from him.
“And that was what Phillie saw, you dropping the gun and you diving into the car. And don’t tell me it was too dark, because there’d be some light from somewhere. And it was Packer she identified, when she knew it was you.”
He had the door open in one movement, was outside, and running. I banged open my door and bellowed after him, “It was you shot that copper, you lying bastard!”
Then I sat back and watched his retreat, feeling drained of emotion. There was nowhere he could go. At first it was a blind sprint, which eased down to a trot, then to a walk. I allowed him to get two hundred yards away, then I drifted after him and hugged his heels. He was making little bursts of speed, then falling back to a walk, and with not one glance behind him. Art had used up all the places he could hide. Including inside his head.
Eventually he stopped, and stood panting and limp as I drew the car alongside. He got in, but wouldn’t look at me. I drove on, steadily and without haste, realising it hadn’t been all that difficult to drag it from him. Did the young fool trust me? When I picked it up again I didn’t need to watch his expression in order to judge his reactions.
“The gun,” I asked. “Where did you get it?”
There was silence.
“The gun, Art.”
“Under the car seat,” he mumbled. He cleared his throat, then it came through with more confidence. “Wasn’t my car. Our getaway character’d nicked it. The gun must’ve been his. When I took the gloves off and put ’em down by the seat, there it was. Revolver. Not big. So I stuck it in my pocket.”
“Thought you’d need it?”
“No,” he said. “No!” More violently.
“Then what?”
“The car could’ve got picked up, with a gun in it…it just wasn’t on.”
“Right.” There was a kind of validity to this. “But why use the thing?”
I could just detect his silent shake of the head on the edge of my vision. I glanced sideways, and he was staring ahead, face white and stubborn, patches of red on his cheeks. This was his sticking point.
“Remember what I said, Art? About domestic and impersonal killing? You must do. I’m going to tell you something, and I don’t usually talk about it. Mine was personal. It didn’t make me antisocial, and didn’t turn me into somebody looking on the rest of the world as a trash bin to be looted. You get what I mean? Killing a copper—that gets you top marks for loutish brutality. Don’t assume because I’ve been in Gartree that I’m not going to the police and tell them about you. Oh yes, I’m still a social animal. Don’t let the Gartree image fool you, laddie. So you can tell me how it all was, and you can try to convince me that I shouldn’t go to Filey and shop you.”
No sound.
“Art!” I snapped.
“All right!” he shouted, leaning forward to slap the dashboard. “You should’ve seen him. Like a mad thing—runnin’ straight at me. I hadda stop him, didn’t I!” he appealed miserably.
It was not good enough. “I don’t think so.”
“You would’ve. Go on, say you wouldn’t, you an’ your bleedin’ social conscience. Go on, say it, you rotten liar.”
“I might have stopped him. But not like that. Not with a gun…”
“For Chrissake! What else’d I got? A bloody mountain, he was. A bear, chargin’ at me.”
I kept my voice steady. “Sure. A grizzly, say.” Then I had to look away from his distorted face. I’d let the car wander across the road again. Association of idea with place, that was. “But not shoot him, for heaven’s sake.”
He leaned close and bellowed into my ear. “Ya wanta know! He scared the shit outa me, that’s what. I didn’t know what I was doin’…” He caught his voice on a choked, indrawn breath. “I didn’t even aim the soddin’ thing,” he whispered in bitter admission.
I allowed it to rest at that, giving the emotion time to clear away. After a while I said quietly, gently, “And Phillie? Was she parked where she could see all this, across the corner?” I took his lack of response as agreement. “You must’ve known she recognised you. Damn it all, she saw you dive into the car.”
“I suppose,” he muttered.
“You knew. Admit it.”
“Well…yeah…I knew.” The fight had gone out of him.
“But nothing was said between you?”
“Nar!” I caught the jerk as his head came round. “Didn’t get much of a chance. I was inside, and her people kept her at home.”
I sighed. Even now it was like squeezing juice from a prune. “But at least it gave you some idea of what she thought about you—that she’d do that for you. I’m talking about this perjury of hers.”
“All right!”
It was a measure of his distress that he could raise no breath of pride in the fact. Perhaps he was already aware that he’d come to the end of his leash, and soon it was going to be hauled in. Art Torrance was in a trap. I wondered whether he understood the full implications. He seemed blissfully unaware of them.
I knew him to be an unprincipled petty thief, in for anything without thought for the consequences or consideration for the victims. He would claim he only robbed the rich, but that was because, Robin Hood fashion, it wasn’t worth robbing the poor. But now he’d shot a man. In terror, perhaps. Nevertheless, he’d taken a life. Were we so much different?
“What’re we going to do with you, Art!” I said at last. It was a plea.
“Can’t we talk about somethin’ else?”
I laughed at his naïveté. Did he think it would sneak away if unmentioned? “You’re unique, Art, d’you know that? Do we chat about football all the way to Sumbury? Or girls…or you?”
“Heh! I can’t go back—”
“Don’t be a fool. Of course you’ve got to go back. Me too. You know how it is, you’d be considered as having made a break for it, guilt sticking out all over you. There’d be a nationwide search…have you seen this man? Your mug on the telly.”
“So what else is there?” he jerked out. “You take me there and you hand me in? Is that the idea?”
“Hand you in! Oh, they’d be pleased about that. From me it’d sound great. All I’ve done is worked out that you killed the copper, and it wasn’t Carl Packer. With a bit of help from you and from him. And I couldn’t expect either of you to repeat it to the police. They’d laugh in my face. Anyway…” Facetiousness crept in. “…I bet they’d rather have Packer inside than you. Who’s going to trouble with small-fry when they’ve got a top-rate villain already?”
I looked sideways. He was pugging again, like a sulky child. Perhaps he thought the murder of a policeman should’ve raised him several notches in my estimation. I resented that. He couldn’t claim his had been in the family, as could I.
“Don’t sit there feeling sorry for yourself,” I said sharply, angry with him. “You’re a lying, crawling, creeping crook. You’d sell a black stick to a blind man. You disgust me. I’ve a good mind to dump you—”
“Then why don’t you!” he demanded. It was in no way a request for me t
o do so.
“Because I want to keep my eyes on you. You’re like a walking time bomb, and I want to know when to jump clear. Don’t you see how you’re fixed, you cretin! And I do mean fixed.”
“Who the hell d’you think you are, the beak or somethin’?”
“You’re in a trap, Art. Two traps. Just think about it. Think how this leaves you with the killing of Philomena, for a start.”
“I told y’ what happened. I didn’t do it.”
“Now listen. Frenchie went to Sumbury to see her and make her an offer. Money was the offer, but more than that there was the freedom from fear of Packer’s reprisals. All she had to do was tell the truth about the warehouse job. Is that too difficult for you, Art? Is it sinking in?”
He gave a deep, weary sigh. “I’m with you.”
“Good. We don’t know whether or not Frenchie got round to making the offer, but assume for now that he did. She’d need time to think about it. If she agreed, it’d mean she wouldn’t have to go on looking over her shoulder, and on top of that there’d be twenty thou as spending money. But where would that leave you?”
“She wouldn’t. Not Phillie.”
“I’m saying she’d shop you, Art. Like that!” It’s difficult to snap your fingers when they’re round a steering wheel, but he got the point.
“It’s a bleedin’ lie. She wouldn’t.”
“You said yourself she wasn’t encouraging on the phone. She’d gone off you, Art. Or is that impossible for you to imagine?”
He sneered, but he said, “If you want Killingham, you’ve just missed the turn-off.”
“I’ll take the next. Keep to the point. She wouldn’t be able to convince the police it wasn’t Packer without telling them who it really was.”
“Well all right!” he shouted. “All bloody right.”
“But it could’ve been best in the end if she had,” I told him placidly.
“Now what the hell’re you goin’ on about?” he demanded, his voice breaking.
“I want you to appreciate all the facets of this. And don’t you pout at me, Art. You’ve got to face it. Right…assume, then, that she hadn’t died, and she’d dropped you in it. What would’ve happened would be that you’d enter Gartree at the same time as Carl Packer moved out. Now you must admit that could be the best arrangement. It’s the only place you’d be safe from his revenge. Reasonably safe, anyway.”
“You’re tryin’ to put the wind up me,” he complained, already scared.
“Too right, sport, as our Aussie friend would say. I’m trying to get you to understand that this isn’t something you can laugh away. You see, that’s the best thing that could happen to you. But what would’ve happened if she’d got Carl Packer off in the end—a pardon, say—and managed to do it without even mentioning you? Packer would come out and there you’d be, waiting, and owing him two or more years of his life. Art, he’d age you twenty years in a day, unless he decided to stretch it out. And make no mistake, he’d be after you, my friend.”
He wriggled in his seat. “Talk of somethin’ else.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m going through the options. What if Packer has to do his full time…think how many years you’d owe him then. You could start running right now, and you couldn’t get far enough. Nowhere in the world. Just a thought, Art.”
“I ain’t listenin’ to any more of this.”
“No? Is it all right if I change the subject? Right. Then I’ll mention Philomena’s death. But I assume you’d rather I didn’t.”
“Don’t be a prat!” he shouted. “Say it, and get it done with.”
“All right. Just suppose, Art, that you did what I suggested earlier, which was go to meet her along the Port Sumbury road. And you met her by the woodland. But now we know a bit more. Now it’s not just the old brush-off she’s going to give you—it’s something very special. She’s going to tell you that she’s intending to come clean with the police.”
“I didn’t meet her,” he snapped.
“But look what a lovely motive she’d have given you if you had. She’d come to tell you that the police were going to pick you up for murder, and she was sorry, Art, but twenty thou isn’t to be sneezed at—”
“It’s a lie! It’s a bloody lie!” he screamed, thumping the padding on the dash over and over.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But I hope you see, now, what you’re into. Whichever way you look, you’re caught—and the trap’s got nasty big teeth.”
“You rotten bugger.”
“The flat’s just along here.”
I had no intention of handing him in, because I had no evidence worth a toss. I also felt I’d scraped no more than the surface of the truth, and at the moment I had information to which the police had no access. In the probably short time I had left to me, I was determined to use it.
“You’re a masochist, that’s what you are,” he yelped.
“Big words, Art. Like the situation, too big for you. It’s sadist you mean.”
I stopped the car out in the street instead of pulling on to the small patch of gravel in front of Phil’s block of flats. She was still Phil to me. I stopped out there because her two-seater Fiat was already occupying the patch. The sun was going down, and casting heavy shadows beneath the chestnuts that lined the street. I didn’t think the Fiesta would be noticed.
I got out and slammed the door. There was the sound of Art’s door opening, then his head popped up, and he was staring at me over the car.
“What’re you goin’ to do?”
“If it’s any of your business, I’m going to see the woman who owns the office we broke into, and the flat we slept in. I’m going to ask her some questions, and hopefully—”
He cut in impatiently. “I was thinking about me.”
“You usually are. If you want to know, I’m not much interested in you any more. This is your home town, and you can disappear into it if you like. You’ll have to assume there’ll be a net out for you any time, but that’s your affair.”
“You’re just sayin’ that.”
“Of course I’m saying it. D’you think I’m going to chip it out in rock? I’m intending to go back to Sumbury afterwards. If they take me in for interrogation, and ask me about you, then you can count on the fact that I’ll tell ’em everything I know, including my ideas on it, because I don’t care one blind bit what happens to you, Art. Do you get what I mean? I’m going to look after my own skin. You look after yours. Right?” It was an attitude he would understand and appreciate.
He stared mutely at me, then he nodded reluctantly.
I turned on my heel and walked to the front door, not looking back to see what he did about it.
The hall still smelt of furniture polish, but somebody had changed the make. A touch of violets. It was quiet. The only light was from the door behind me and a similar stained-glass panel above me in the wall, where the landing curved. When I cleared my throat the walls whispered back. I mounted the stairs, aware that I didn’t know what to say, how to face her. I would have to take it as it came.
I didn’t use the bell-push. After all, I was a part-resident, and I had the keys to prove it. The latch turned with the key. I opened the door and walked in.
She was standing by the window, but I didn’t think she’d been admiring the lake. Her face was flushed with anger and her hair disarrayed. At the small sound of the key she’d turned, but from the emptiness in her eyes I could tell she hadn’t brought her mind to it. Beside her was the Aussie, Grant Felton. He was turning slowly. They had been arguing fiercely.
“Why didn’t you ring?” she asked tightly. She shook her head to settle her hair.
Trying to smile past them, I held up her keys. “I’ve still got these. Do I call you Phil? Or is it Dorothy? I mean, I’m starting from scratch again.”
“You’ve been to the office.” It wasn’t a question, so she’d been there herself.
“Yes.” I felt I could not move from that spot. The tone in her voice held me a
t a distance. I placed the keys down on the table beside her phone. “You’re Dorothy June Mann. You are not Philomena Wise. She’s dead.”
Dorothy—hell, it sounded strange, even in my mind—moved at last. Noticing that Felton had turned to face me, and that he was tense as a towing rope, she made a small gesture to silence him, then moved a couple of tentative paces towards me. It seemed that her purpose was to hide her expression from him, but I couldn’t detect any expression worth the trouble.
“So she’s dead, and I failed,” she said in an empty voice. “And you know it all now. So why are you here, Paul?”
“To return your keys. Perhaps to leave you a little note.”
“Saying what?”
“I hadn’t decided. Probably to say we ought to meet…”
“Which we’ve now done.”
“…and discuss how things stand.”
Felton stirred. Remaining static for too long apparently did not fit his nature. He was impatient and aggressive. The room crackled with it. Whatever he had against me wasn’t going away.
“Let me bounce him outa here,” he said impatiently.
She whirled on him. “Keep out of this!” she snapped.
He stared at her with his eyebrows high, his jaw jutting, and his eyes glazed in surprise. “Now see here—”
“Be silent, or get out!” she told him briskly. “I mean it, Grant.”
He didn’t like it. Women did not give orders to Grant Felton. His shoulders firmed, then he shrugged. He turned his back again, and the view from the window captured him, dark as it was.
To me, her voice was more persuasive. “The way things stand, nothing’s clear at all, and you know it, Paul.”
“Seems clear enough to me. The police could charge me with the murder of Philomena, and they could make a good case against me for the death of Frenchie.” I paused. Felton’s head had jerked round at this. His lips had drawn back and his eyes were startled. “When the situation’s like that,” I went on, “I can assure you, Phil…oh hell, do I call you Dorothy or Dot?”
“I’m Dot to my friends,” she offered shortly.
“Thank you. Still a friend then, Dot? I was saying…there’re things I need to know, such as how you come into it, and what you’ve been doing. This is self-defence I’m talking about. I need facts in case I have to use them. You understand?”
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