“I mean, you spent hours, days you told me, persuading her to give evidence at Packer’s trial…”
“Even so—”
“…and you’d have had her confidence then. So when it all cropped up once more, I thought she might have confided in you again.”
Her fine, beautifully shaped chin was tucked in, as though to avoid a blow. “There was nothing for her to confide.” She was quietly stubborn.
“There was certainly something she’d got to worry about, and make a decision on. I’ve already told you what Packer wanted her to do, and you’ll have heard Art Torrance admitting that he killed Ted Adamson. Don’t make the mistake of dismissing that as hysteria, because it wasn’t. So Philomena, who must’ve known the truth, would have had some decision-taking on the menu. She would probably need help. You were available. So—who better to turn to than you?”
“Why me?” She was looking down at her empty cup, playing for time.
“Why you? Because you were the one who persuaded her to give evidence in the first place.”
The hand she had rested on the table clenched. “I persuaded her to give evidence…” She shook her head. Then, “Not what evidence she should give.”
I forced on with it. “But now—more recently—she’d have had to decide what evidence to retract. For that she’d need your advice, Dot, as a professional. As an ex-policewoman.”
Her voice caught in her throat. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course you damned-well do. If she’d gone to the police to retract her story…for heaven’s sake, don’t you see! There’s a world of difference between her saying, ‘Carl Packer didn’t do it, but I don’t know who did,’ and her saying, ‘Carl Packer didn’t do it, it was Arthur Torrance.’ Surely you see that!”
She was staring at me as though I’d gone insane. “I don’t see…” she began softly, but she allowed it to tail away, her eyes searching my face.
“And I hoped,” I said gently, “that she might have confided in you. It’d be a great help if you happen to know what she decided.” I was convinced it held the answer to her death.
Her voice was more confident when she saw what I was asking. “She didn’t ask my advice, Paul, and she didn’t say what she’d decided to do. You’ve got to realise, this was an older and much more mature young woman than the one who got mixed up in that warehouse robbery. She wasn’t going to ask anybody—she made up her own mind. All she said was that she was going out to meet Art at the bus stop.”
“No hint?”
She would go no further, but just sat there, shaking her head. I got to my feet and leaned across the table, and put a finger under her chin. When her head came up I kissed her gently on the lips. They were cold.
“Good luck, then,” I said quietly.
Then I walked out quickly and went to dig Art from the bar, and found him laughing with a crowd of oldies at the table. Britain’s great white hope, that was Art, because he’d sent a couple of coppers packing and in disarray. They didn’t consider that he’d made a public admission of despatching one policeman even more finally.
I took him out and stuffed him in the car, and drove him back to Mrs. Druggett’s. A small car fell in behind me and kept station all the way.
“Get inside and stay there,” I told him briskly.
“What you so crabby about?”
“Nothing. Do as I say and don’t argue.”
He got out and slammed the door, nearly hard enough to take it out the other side. The small car remained, tucked in beside the church wall, as I drove back to The George.
Lucy Rice was sitting in the bar, which was almost empty of customers at that time. She rose to her feet.
“Where is he?”
“I left him at Mrs. Druggett’s,” I said, keeping my voice neutral.
“Mr. Greaves put young Geoff Freeman on…”
I plunked down on the bench along the back wall, suddenly realising how exhausted I felt. “He’s there, don’t worry. Art’s shot his last bolt, and now he’s waiting for the attack.”
She came and sat beside me. “You sound as bitter as Filey.”
“Sorry. Just tired.”
“Get you a drink?” George asked, but I shook my head.
“You do realise,” said Lucy, “that it can’t be left as it is. You’re on his side, that’s what it is. You heard what he said—”
I interrupted. “I’m not on his side. Say that he has my sympathy. For some reason, he trusts me.”
“There’s nothing you can do for him,” she told me severely. “Why don’t you let it lie, Paul? Greaves knows what he’s doing.”
“Sure he does.”
“Paul!” she said sharply. “He made an admission. He said it was he who shot the policeman. We’ll have to have him in and make the admission into a confession, and the whole case will have to be reopened.”
I sighed. “I’m quite aware of the situation. Art knows how he stands. To tell you the truth, I reckon he’ll almost welcome it. The whole thing’s been too heavy for him to carry around.”
“Hmm!” Then she grinned, and the lightning flashed from her eyes. “You moved fast. I couldn’t have got to him in time.” The normal solemnity took over again.
“He’s a grand lad, is Art.” I shrugged. “Even his wall-scrambling was a fake. He didn’t try very hard.”
“You’re a cynic.”
“I reckon so. They train you in it, at Gartree.”
She got to her feet, smoothing her slacks as though she’d forgotten she wasn’t wearing a skirt. Seeing me struggling up, she made a little gesture. I subsided. I liked the way she could convey so much with a gesture, in the flicker of a smile, in the movement of her eyes, the lift of her chin. It was masterful—mistressful?—understatement. The impression was that there was so much left un-deployed, which it would be interesting to explore.
“And you?” she asked. “What now?”
“I’m going to get some rest.”
“And after that?”
“There’s something that’s got to be settled, and then—”
“I told you—Greaves has got it in hand.”
“Something personal.”
“Oh!” She looked round. “I’ll leave you to get on with your resting, then.”
She went out, pausing to whisper something to her brother. I waited until she was well clear, then followed, meeting George in the passageway. He said he’d give me a shout when they had an evening meal ready for me, but I told him not to trouble. It didn’t matter, I told him. I was having difficulty deciding what really did matter.
Even now I couldn’t understand what Dorothy was doing. If she was leaving, there could no longer be any need to hide anything from me. Yet this, I was convinced, was what she was doing. She knew something, or she suspected something, but it was not to be shared with me. Yet she was terrified, of that I was certain. That was why she dared not speak. If she’d allowed me to share the knowledge, I could have shared the danger.
I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the bed. Not to sleep. I was waiting, my brain chasing its tail and denying me any relaxation. I waited as the room darkened, and when the setting sun blushed on the ceiling I slipped down and left by the rear door, quietly and unobtrusively. Nothing would happen until after dark I reckoned.
I got the car started and drifted it out on to the street, then headed for the Port Sumbury road. The whole frontage of Seagulls was a rank of lighted windows, but I drove on past. She wasn’t there any more. The road was quiet, and I saw no other traffic. Without making a show of it, I swung into the car-park and drew to a halt in the deeper shade of the shed. Two other vehicles were parked on the far side. They appeared to be empty.
Hugging what cover there was, I went first to check that her Fiat was still in the recess beside the hotel. It was. There was a side door that I hadn’t previously noticed, but on returning to the car-park I discovered that from the shed I could see part of it in the light from a low-power wall
light. I could also see all the hotel’s frontage, and there could be no way out at the back because the building was cut into the hill behind. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see her car from the shed. When I perched on the wall, my back was just too far from the shed to be able to lean against it. I sat with my legs hanging free. Then I was still, and I waited, and became part of the same shadowed mass.
Gradually the cold from the rock surface penetrated through my slacks. The top of the wall was uneven, and I began to ache. I thought that one of my feet had died and dropped off. The sun had now sunk behind the lowering hill, and I waited. Another car drew in, and the owner walked past behind me. I was motionless, and he didn’t see me. Yes, I decided, Dorothy had been afraid of something. Everything was moving too fast, now. The momentum could engulf her. And I waited.
Cars were beginning to come into the park, and their occupants to walk away towards the Stormy Petrel. Lights were on in most of the rooms fronting the hotel, but as I didn’t know which was her room it didn’t help me. The tide was apparently going out. What had been a boom was becoming a shish and a gurgle. I found myself nodding and jerked myself awake.
Behind the obscured glass in the top half of the side door a light came on. It opened. It closed. I slid from the wall and tried to run silently across the street, but I’d been right about my foot. I nearly staggered on to my face and pain shot up my right thigh. Forcing myself, I slowed to a limp, and reached the opening to the hotel’s car-park.
She was just unlocking the door to her car, and I was forming her name on my lips (my hesitation caused by the fact that I couldn’t remember what name I was now calling her) when a shape moved ahead of me, and then was between us.
“Dorothy!”
It was Filey’s voice, but it was not the tone I knew. It was softer, quiet and calm, but all the same she jerked round sharply, and her response was tense and explosive.
“What the hell d’you want?”
“You know what.” I’d never heard him so smoothly confident. “Don’t be a fool, Dorothy, you know I’ve got to be certain.” He moved closer to her. I now had difficulty in hearing, and edged inside the entrance. “She would’ve told you. What did she intend to do?”
She lifted her head. “She?” Her voice held contempt. “I suppose you mean Philomena. What does it matter now, anyway?”
“It matters. Torrance has admitted he killed Ted Adamson. You must have heard.”
“Will you stand away from my car, please.”
I thought I saw his left hand shoot out and take her arm. There was a hiss of indrawn breath. I slid closer.
“What did she intend?” His voice whipped the air.
“She wouldn’t say.”
“What did she tell you, Dorothy?” he insisted. “It matters.”
“Perhaps she was going to tell the truth, Filey.” I could detect that she now had difficulty in maintaining the contempt. Her voice was uneven with pain. “You know damn well I persuaded her to give evidence at the trial, but it was you who told her what evidence to give.”
“That’s a damned lie.” He shook her angrily. “You of all people.”
“You’re hurting me!” With her free left hand she was fumbling for her shoulder-bag. I thought she intended to hit him with it. “I’m warning you—”
Then he struck her. I saw his right hand go over and catch her on the side of the jaw. At the same time he released her arm. She fell across the bonnet sideways, and he stood back. Slowly she slid down to the hard concrete surface, where she lay, her face in the square of light cast from the side door, lying on her side with her mouth open and bleeding, eyes open, and her whole body twitching in an enormous effort to reach her shoulder-bag, which was lying beside her head.
He looked down at her, then he drew back his foot. She was staring at it.
I had been moving from the moment his fist was raised, but time had become distorted. I seemed to be moving slowly, but the blow, her slide from the bonnet, her fall to the ground, all these had been so fast. I was roaring in mad fury as I charged, but he was not distracted. His foot was still moving when I took him with my shoulder down into his side, took him and swept him forward, over the low bonnet of the car, over the squat roof, and over the short tail. We landed together between the car and the vertical rock wall.
I was on top of him, he gasping for breath, legs working, arms flying in an attempt to slow me, head butting into my face. But I was possessed by an uncontrollable fury that I knew and recognised. No pain or blow was going to distract me. It was the same fury with which I’d dragged my father from my mother, and clamped my fingers on his throat. As I did now, snarling and spitting, and digging in the fingers that had killed before.
There was a pounding of blood in my head and a roaring in my ears. Nothing existed but Filey’s choking face beneath me. There was a veil between me and reality, behind that veil there were shouts, through it reaching hands, though all this was tangled in the web. Until a voice cut through it.
“Paul! That’s enough. Stop it at once.” It was Lucy’s voice, her lips close to my ear, her face against mine.
Slowly the pressure in my head retreated. I watched, rather than willed, as my fingers relaxed. Then they were free of him and I lifted my hands, fouled by contact with his skin. Pressure was now on my shoulders. I was rolled free, tumbled beside the car, and lifted so that I was sitting on the ground with my back against the rear wheel, and wondering who was sobbing into those same hands.
Lucy crouched beside me. “It’s all right, Paul,” she whispered. “It’s over.”
My hands, soothed by the tears, now seemed soft.
I heard Greaves snapping out orders. “Get back to the car. An ambulance, and quickly. Lucy, see to Miss Mann. Is he alive, Parkes?”
“Alive, sir. In a bad way, though.”
I couldn’t see her, the other side of the car, but I recognised Dorothy’s voice. “I’m all right. Leave me. What about him?”
“Which him?” Greaves asked.
“D’you think I care for Filey,” she snapped, viciously enough to indicate he hadn’t inflicted too much damage.
Greaves told her I was fine, and there was no more sound from her. Then it was a period of waiting, while everything set itself into official routine. The ambulance came. Filey, who was now croaking obscenities, was helped in, with a laconic, “He’ll live,” from one of the men. They examined Dorothy’s face. We still had not looked at each other, not eye to eye. She was said to have a split lip and a loose tooth. Filey had paid his debt—a tooth for a tooth. She asked if she could go back to her room, and Greaves gave his permission.
Then they got me to my feet. The shakes had gone. There was nothing wrong with me except that my hands ached, from fingertips to elbows.
They walked me across to the car-park, to one of the two cars I’d noticed on my arrival. The other car had chased off, following the ambulance. All I had to contend with was Greaves, with Lucy’s support. At that time Lucy was supporting me physically. I didn’t really need her hand to my arm, but the comfort was welcome.
They put me in the car, on the back seat, with Greaves beside me. Lucy sat behind the wheel, twisted round so that she could watch us.
“Now,” said Greaves. “Kindly explain what happened. And you’d better make it good, otherwise I’m taking you in for criminal assault on a police officer.”
In the pursuit of his official duties? Hardly. I sighed wearily. It was as though I’d reached the end of a long journey, but it wasn’t just the journey that’d finished. I had set out hopefully to save the life of Philomena Wise. This I had now done. Not, perhaps, the real one, but my Phil’s. And in doing so I was left with nothing. There was an emptiness in my life, and future vistas were not yet taking shape.
Seeing Greaves produce his pipe, I wound down a window, then I told him what he needed to know.
Sixteen
“I don’t think you could call it criminal assault,” I said. “Something more li
ke self-defence or justifiable, I’d have thought.” I met blank lack of belief. “When you’re defending somebody else,” I explained. That fact had helped me with my trial.
“Suppose you leave me to sort out the law,” Greaves said placidly. “Just explain.”
“He’d raised his foot, she was helpless, and it was aimed at her head. He intended to kill her.”
He grimaced. “You made that split-second decision?”
“It was all the time I had.”
“You seem to make a lot of these abrupt decisions. Explain why he would want to harm her.” He wasn’t giving an inch. Calm and decisive.
“Because she knew too much about his past activities, and when Art Torrance stuck his neck out and admitted he’d killed the copper, it put Filey dead in trouble.”
There was a pause. Greaves glanced at Lucy. I did too. There was nothing encouraging in her expression.
“How did it do that?” demanded Greaves at last. “And”—he pointed the pipe stem at me, right between the eyes—“try to talk sense this time.”
“I’ve always—”
“Say it!” he barked.
“I suppose you know about the warehouse raid…”
“Of course.”
“Art was the only one of that lot—five of ’em I think—who wasn’t wearing gloves. He’s admitted he fired the gun. So why weren’t his fingerprints on it? Answer me that one.”
“I don’t answer your questions, you answer mine. Get that straight, right now. If you think you know the reason, say it.”
Lucy, twisted in the driver’s seat, pouted at me. I took a breath. “Filey wiped the gun clean. He knew Art’d fired it, but he wanted Carl Packer for that. He wanted to put him away for a long time. So Filey cleaned the gun, then he got at Philomena Wise—once Dorothy had persuaded her to give evidence—and told her to point out Packer as the gunman. Because of this Dorothy hated Filey for landing Philomena in danger from Packer. And Filey knew Dorothy realised he’d done it.”
Said like that, stripped of all motivation and down to the bare details, it sounded very empty. I’d have liked more time…
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