by John Creasey
He curled the left side of his mouth in the way for which Hunter was famous. He said: ‘Okay, what are we waiting for?’
‘You lead us,’ said Pilaski.
‘I lead you tonight – after what you heard that guy say? What do you think I am?’ demanded Roger. ‘Tired of living? You two lead the way. You two do the checking.’ He put his hand into his right-hand trouser pocket and drew out his keys. He dangled them in front of Pilaski, without speaking, and slowly Pilaski took them.
And he led the way to the lift in the corner. They couldn’t go down – if the lift buttons were a true indication – so they had to go up. Cecil Smith pressed the button marked One: the floor beneath the ground floor. They stepped out of the lift and Smith turned right. Pilaski opened one door with a key from those on Roger’s ring, and switched on a light. It was a small office, with fireproof filing cabinets about three walls, a central door in the fourth wall. Pilaski went to the desk, selected another of the keys and as he twisted, asked: ‘Before, only you and Curly have opened this drawer.’
‘Now you have,’ Roger said.
The drawer opened. Pilaski hesitated and then pressed one side and a secret compartment opened. From this he took a much larger ring of keys. He held these in front of him and said: ‘We go.’
‘We ought to start here,’ Roger said. ‘We ought to check that the records are straight. There was a job in Pimlico last night, a van load of cigarettes was taken. Is it entered?’
Pilaski said: ‘You open the drawer, den, for the files.’
You open the drawer.
There were dozens in here and no way of being absolutely certain that any one contained the records of last night’s thefts. And knowing the records he must be able to go straight to the right drawer.
He could take a chance.
There was a sticker on each drawer but too far away for him to read. He pursed his lips and then moved towards the nearest filing cabinet. He heard Pilaski draw in a sharp, hissing breath. He saw Cecil Smith drop his hand to his pocket and take out a flick knife. He knew that they had realised at last that he was not the real Hunter. This move had given him away, but they were ready for him, and if he showed any fight now he would not have a chance. So he continued on his way to the drawer. The automatic pistol was snug against his waist, and it would take him seconds to get it out. The truth was that from this moment on he did not really stand a chance.
He stopped, a foot from the filing cabinet, and said as if to himself: ‘I told him to move it.’ He ignored the others and the knife was now hidden in Smith’s hand. He saw that Pilaski’s hand was in his pocket, undoubtedly about the handle of a gun. He moved from cabinet to cabinet, and as he began to speak his voice started to squeak: ‘The double-crossing rat! I told him I wanted all of these moved, too many people knew where each cabinet was. I tell you that man is trying to take over.’
‘I’ll tell you something,’ Pilaski said. ‘I do not believe you.’ He drew his hand from his pocket, and in it was a gun, larger than the one in Roger’s waistband, heavy, short-barrelled, pointed uncompromisingly at Roger’s chest. ‘You do not know this place. Always you find some excuse for another to find what you want.’
‘That’s right,’ Cecil Smith said, in a tense voice. He pressed his knife and the blade shot out. ‘Who are you?’
There was no chance. Short of a miracle, they would kill him, whether he told them who he was or not. If he told them he was West they would have to get out of here quickly – but they could not let him live.
Then he saw the door, behind them, opening so slowly that it could only be furtively; by someone who did not want them to know he was there.
Chapter Nineteen
The Long Arm of the Police
Roger saw the door opening but did not let himself dwell on it; saw the gun but knew that it was there, for the moment, as a threat: as a way of making him talk; and Smith’s knife was there, too, for just that purpose.
He said: ‘So I can’t fool you.’
‘No, you cannot fool us any longer,’ said Pilaski. ‘Who are you?’
‘I can throw this knife,’ declared Cecil Smith. ‘I can bury it in just about any part of your body. Who are you? And where is Hunter?’
The door was opening wider; a hand appeared, and in the hand a gun. Who so slowly if it was not someone who had come to help him?
He said very clearly: ‘Rake Hunter is where he should have been for a long time. Under arrest. I am—’
‘You are West!’ cried Pilaski.
There was the moment in which to act, the moment when they were both so thunderstruck that momentarily they could not move. And he went forward like a bullet at Smith, who was nearer, who drew his knife arm back mechanically but did not throw. Roger crashed into him, reaching up for the hand which held the knife, twisting until Smith screeched and it fell. Resisting the impulse to pick it up, he hugged the man tightly to him as a shield between himself and Pilaski. Pilaski fired: once.
Smith gave a little cough of sound as his body moved convulsively in Roger’s arms.
Then the door opened wider and Clara Defoe stepped in and fired at Pilaski before he realised she was there. The bullet caught his gun arm, but he turned towards her, the firearm still in his hand. Roger thrust Smith away from him and moving as fast as he would ever move, knocked Pilaski’s gun to the floor.
But the man wasn’t finished.
There was something in his eyes which warned Roger of that, the way he looked not towards the door but above it. He brought his knee up into Roger’s groin, agonisingly, and as Roger backed helplessly away he moved towards the door. Above the light switch was some kind of push-button, above the door a grille. An alarm system, that was what he was trying to do – raise the alarm. But there was such agony in the whole of Roger’s body that he could not speak, could not warn Clara, who still had the gun raised but looked ashen-faced; and unsteady.
But she fired at Pilaski’s hand – once – twice.
The first bullet missed. The second struck him square in the back of the hand. He gave a cry of pain and let his hand fall to his side. Roger, bent double, still in agony, muttered: ‘Make him—sit down.’
Clara, pretty Clara with her seductive figure and lovely eyes, said: ‘Sit down?’
‘By—by the desk.’
She motioned with the gun to Pilaski, indicating a chair. Sweat was pouring from his forehead, down his cheeks, into his eyes. He moved very slowly and there was something in his manner which alarmed Roger. ‘Watch him!’
Pilaski shot him a glance of sheer venom, but Roger, now able to move, pushed him into the chair and dipped his hand into the other’s pocket; it closed over a gun.
Everything he, Roger did seemed to be in slow motion. The pain was less acute, but spreading everywhere through his body. He pushed Pilaski’s chair close to the desk, making it difficult for him to get up. There was blood all over the back of his hand and over his fingers, soaking his coat. Yet there wasn’t time to help Pilaski.
The girl came over.
‘Can you cut the sleeve off his jacket?’
‘Yes. But—’
‘I’ll apply a tourniquet,’ she said. ‘That way he won’t bleed to death. Are you all right?’
‘Recovering.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Talk later. Bless you.’
She smiled back at him, a little enigmatically.
Roger picked up Cecil Smith’s knife. The bullet meant for Roger had caught Smith low between the shoulders, and was probably lodged in his heart. Roger took the knife and then cut out first the sleeve of Pilaski’s jacket, then the shirt. Clara was pressing above an artery high in the arm. ‘Better let me have his other shirt sleeve,’ she said. With this she made an impromptu tourniquet, inserting a thick ruler from the desk. All this time Pilaski was conscious, but the pain of his wound, or an accumulation of weakness, suddenly made him faint. Clara Defoe moved back from him a pace or two. She was smeared with blood; hands, arms, even her face.
&
nbsp; She began to shiver.
‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Hold me.’
She was trembling from head to foot, her teeth were chattering, and her body was cold. She didn’t speak. In his firm grasp the top of her head hardly came up to his chin. Slowly she quietened down enough for him to move to the desk. Here he found a bottle of brandy, a half-filled decanter of whisky, and glasses.
He poured out a stiff drink for them both. The world seemed to be standing still. He knew with one half of his mind that they must get moving, that there was a long, long way to go, but with the other part of his mind he knew they had to have some rest, that for ten minutes at least the girl would be incapable of action.
She said: ‘I—I didn’t think I could go through with it – not when it came to the crunch.’
‘You were magnificent.’
She laughed shakily. ‘Praise from a superior officer is praise indeed.’
He looked at her in utter astonishment. ‘Police Officer Defoe?’
‘Deroy, actually. And Dee will do—’
‘But you don’t look—’
‘Spare me that. I am twenty-four, Superintendent, and know exactly what I am doing. Sometimes. Shall I tell you something funny?’
‘There never was a time when I needed to hear a good joke more.’
She laughed. ‘You may not be able to tell it to your wife and family and I may keep it a deep dark secret myself, but—I wasn’t really frightened of Rake Hunter. Or of the job. They all gave me solemn warnings and tried to scare me off before I took it on, but I thought I could handle this part all right. There was risk, but there always is, a drunk I once arrested in Wardour Street nearly broke my neck, but none of this scared me – until tonight, that is.’
‘Well, Clara Dee, what did scare you?’ Roger demanded.
‘Sleeping with you.’ she said. ‘I hope that’s not too much of a blow to masculine vanity.’
‘Look what I’ve missed,’ said Roger, gallantly.
‘What we’ve missed.’ She laughed again. ‘Tell you something else.’
‘Just one thing: we have to get out of here.’
‘Yes,’ she said, soberly. ‘Yes. Well, do you know something? You would never have played the part of Rake Hunter for long. Oh, you look alike, there’s something similar even in your eyes, but—well, you’re different.’
‘Different?’
‘What a man is, is as important as what he looks like. And, in time, it shows. You may have got into Hunter’s clothes, but you couldn’t get into his skin. Everyone would have seen that before long.’ She spun round towards an inner door. ‘I think this is a cloakroom.’
Running water soon proved that she was right.
Now, for a few moments, Roger was alone.
It was surprising what a long time it had been since he had been alone; really on his own as he was now. A long time since he had to make swift decisions. He had needed the rest and the brandy. Though he still felt the effects of the kick, he found he could move with complete freedom. Everything depended on the situation upstairs.
And—on whether Curly had been found.
Somehow it did not seem likely that a man like Curly could be shut up in a cloakroom and left there without making an escape: without presenting a threat which could lead to disaster.
What were his, Roger’s, assets?
The keys to this office – and no doubt the keys to the strong rooms and safes on this floor.
Two—no, three—guns, and perhaps a dozen bullets.
Clara.
Clara, Detective Officer Deroy.
She came out of the cloakroom, looking as near to his original sight of her as was possible.
Really, women were incomprehensible. He would never understand them if he lived to be a hundred. He noted that his look of astonishment and pleasure had been accepted as a compliment, before saying: ‘And now we have to make up our minds how to get out of here.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that, too,’ Clara said, soberly. ‘And it isn’t going to be easy, because the doors down here and below have electronic control and I don’t know the magic trick to unlock them.’ And then, as an afterthought, she added: ‘Of course, if Curly gets free, he can unlock them.’
She smiled but her lips were trembling, and Roger felt the icy touch of fear.
He gave a little shiver, and said: ‘Good for Curly.’ He felt tempted to draw the brandy bottle towards him, but he resisted it. He thought, we are caught in between the ground floor and a lower basement. There are no windows, and there’s only the one way into this room. He took out the cigarettes he had filched from Hunter’s room and proffered them, and she said: ‘Rakey could never understand why I preferred to smoke my own.” She took a packet of Senior Service from her handbag and he took one. They lit up.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Another man knows the way out.’
She didn’t look round but said: ‘Akka Pilaski?’
‘Yes.’
‘He would never tell us.’
‘Clara,’ Roger said, ‘I may have to make him.’
‘By some form of torture?’ She shook her head slowly but quite positively. ‘I don’t think he has the blood and nerves of ordinary people.’
‘We’ve seen that he has.’
Her eyes were sharp and clear and unwavering.
‘He won’t talk. I’ve heard him tell stories of how he and his friends were tortured during the war. Do you know why he became a plastic surgeon?’
Did it, could it, matter?
‘No,’ he said.
‘To help to make some of the victims look human again after the war. Do you know they cut some of his flesh off – with pincers?’
He flinched.
‘He said he only helped those who gave nothing away. He gave nothing away. Anyone who did was a coward. That’s his rule and nothing can change him.’
‘A bribe?’ Roger said.
‘His freedom?’ She laughed. ‘You wouldn’t promise what you couldn’t guarantee, even if he would let us go,’ she said. ‘No. I hate to say it, but there really isn’t a chance.’
Roger said: ‘There is always a chance.’
‘You know,’ she said reflectively, ‘there is a likeness betweeen you and Rake Hunter, after all. He didn’t believe that he could ever lose, either. I’ll give half my salary for a year to any charity you name if you get us out of here alive. And I mean—’
She stopped, with a catch in her breath.
Roger swung round from her and stared at the grille above the door. Crackling noises were coming from it. Not voices, not breathing, something much more like atmospherics on a radio.
Then suddenly, Curly’s voice sounded, coming from the grille, pitched low, but unmistakably the man who had first realised there was something wrong about this ‘Rake Hunter.’
‘Now who would believe it,’ he said, ‘who would believe we’ve got the great Superintendent West as a guest in our establishment. I congratulate you, Handsome, I don’t believe any other man would have got inside the house, let alone fool me part of the time. Let me tell you a little secret, Handsome. I didn’t know there had been a switch until I was tipped off. I thought you were Hunter, getting worried about me. He had plenty of reason to worry, he was on his way out. But he didn’t have anything like as much to worry about as you have, Handsome. You would never believe the things that are going to happen to you.’
Chapter Twenty
Things That Happen
Roger was aware of the girl watching him intently; was aware of every word the man said; aware even of the hint of laughter when he finished. Roger himself was moving towards the door, and the pushbutton which Pilaski had tried to reach; there were smears of blood from his wounded hand and little dried streaks of blood which had fallen from it. He pressed the bell push and there was a sharp click. He stood back and spoke towards the grille.
‘You could have some surprises coming, too, Curly.’
He thought he heard a gasp; he did hear
a chuckle.
‘You’re not bad, Handsome,’ Curly said. ‘You know the two-way system. But that won’t do you any good.’
‘Curly,’ Roger said, ‘I’ve got Clara Dee here.’
‘You have?’
‘I brought her along thinking she would give me a little moral support,’ West said, and when Curly did not answer, he went on: ‘I thought they were beginning to doubt me, and if anybody ought to be able to vouch for me, she should.’
‘Like I said,’ said Curly, ‘I congratulate you, you’re quite a guy. So why don’t you spend your last hours on earth in her arms. You wouldn’t say no, Clara Dee, would you?’
‘I also have three guns and a dozen bullets,’ Roger went on, ‘with assorted knives. Cecil Smith is dead, and Pilaski is out of action with a shattered right hand and a bullet-hole in his left hand.’
‘You’re quite a cop,’ Curly said. ‘Now cut the cackle, and—’
‘Let Clara come out, before the shooting starts,’ West said.
‘Let her out?’
‘It’s not her fault she got tangled up in this. She tried to help Pilaski. Let her out.’
‘And leave the door open for you to follow her, I suppose.’
‘You can cover the door with a dozen guns,’ Roger said. ‘It’s her I’m worried about.’
There was a pause before Curly said: ‘I’ll make a deal.’
‘Name it,’
‘If we let her out you give yourself up,’ Curly said.
‘You know I can’t do that. After what you’ve told me will happen to me.’
‘Listen, West,’ said Curly in a different, almost pleading voice, ‘you’ve got a mind. Yes, sir, you’ve got a good mind and you’ve got a lot of guts. Let’s talk business. With Smith gone and Hunter away for a while we need someone else, and a man inside the Yard, a highly-placed officer like you – boy, you could be just what we need! We’ve had all the killing we want. If we let Clara out and let her go free, will you talk?’
Roger hesitated, cupped his hands and whispered to Clara: ‘Plead with me. Beg him to let you go.’