by Timlin, Mark
‘The yellow haired one is called Lynch,’ he went on. ‘The negro is known as Winston and the other's name is Michael Grant. You may need these names, so I suggest you remember them.’
I hoped I didn't look as confused as I felt.
‘Lynch was sleeping with Jane Lewis,’ David continued. ‘If the euphemism is acceptable. From what I understand, very little sleeping actually occurred. Lynch was introduced to Lewis by Patricia. Sometimes Lynch accompanied Patsy when she visited clubs to listen to the music, and he obviously met her friends. To be blunt, he was paying the Lewis girl for her favours with drugs he had stolen from Bright and Company.’
‘It seems that everyone who works there, rips off drugs,’ I commented.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it's the nature of the beast.’
He stopped and thought for a moment. ‘The one thing I'm not sure of,’ he went on, ‘is if he murdered her for reasons of his own, or if he did not realise the quality of heroin in that particular batch.’
I was glad to hear that he wasn't infallible.
‘In any case,’ he continued, ‘he used the body to try and convince you that Patricia was dead. When you saw through that, he decided to incriminate you by leaving you with it. Not very clever, I'm afraid. Lynch is not the most intelligent of human beings.’ David shook his head sadly. ‘He should remain what he is, an efficient strong arm man.’
‘Who was the other man in the house?’ I asked.
‘What other man?’ he asked back.
‘I thought you knew everything.’
‘Some things I know, but prefer not to divulge. You must do some work for your income.’
My income, that was a joke.
‘Why do you think they just didn't kill me like they did Terry?’
‘Ask the elusive fourth man.’
‘Was it you?’ I was stabbing in the dark.
He smiled his cold, hard smile again. ‘I can assure you that if it were,’ he said, ‘they would certainly kill me out of hand. I am no friend of Bright and his cohorts.’
So there I stood, with my mouth open, none the wiser. I felt I had to keep probing, asking questions. ‘What about Terry? Who killed him?’
‘Surely, even you must have worked that one out.’
‘My friends from the squat?’
He nodded. ‘Well two of them anyway. The blonde man Lynch, with the help of Winston.’
‘Why haven't I heard any more about it?’
Once more the smile flashed as warmly as a refrigerator door opening. ‘No one has,’ he said. ‘The investigation is making very little progress. I wonder why?’
That smile again.
‘But why did they have to kill him?’
‘I think that Southall was probably a better detective than you are. I know that he was trusted by the young drug users in the neighbourhood where he worked. Obviously someone talked to him that night. Someone else must have contacted Lynch. Drugs can buy much. Sex, information, power,’ he shrugged again. ‘Lynch and Winston went to the club that Southall was visiting. I assume they followed him home and killed him.’
‘How do you know so much?’
‘I told you drugs can buy information. What I'm not told, I deduce. Why don't you try it some time?’
I felt just like the fool I'd proved to be, unless he was lying. But why should he bother? For that matter, why should he bother to tell me so much right then. I knew he wanted to use me to clean out the Bright firm. He obviously had me well sussed. Stupid I might be, but I was tenacious. If he knew half as much about me as he pretended, he knew nothing short of killing me was going to stop me getting to the bottom of the matter. He was going to aim like a gun and walk away from the mess, clean and green. What was worse was that he was right. We both knew it would work.
‘What about the threats to my family?’ I asked.
‘Not guilty again,’ he replied. ‘I think Bright has started to panic. The organisation is beginning to fall apart since you began poking around.’
‘So I've done some good in my own blundering way?’
‘You have unwittingly helped me up to a point, I must admit. But that point is past. The Bright organisation had been tainted by it's own corruption. Soon I will be able to pick up their business. You are of no further use to me, and besides, people are apt to die when they come into contact with you. That is why I am telling you all this. I do not want you meddling further with things that concern me. Do you think I'd waste my time otherwise?’
Liar, I thought. Of course you would. Especially if the pay-off was me getting George out of your hair for good.
‘What happens now?’ I asked.
As I spoke, with the corner of my eye, I saw a dark coloured car pulled up and join the others outside the crematorium.
Talk about being late to someone else's funeral.
I looked back to David as he spoke again.
‘Now, Mr. Sharman. You forget everything you know about Patricia and me. You return to your seedy little life and pick up the pieces that remain. I go onwards and upwards.’
‘I meant to Patsy.’ I said.
‘She will be very rich,’ said David. ‘Travel the world, have loves and adventures. She is a very privileged young woman.’
‘Bollocks!’ I cut in. ‘She'll be dead within a year. Just look at her. You have to keep her as high as a kite, or else she'll blow it. I bet she can hardly function now. What happens when she gets so high the only way is down?’
I grabbed her by the wrists, and pushed the bangles up her arm. She didn't resist. I guessed she was used to being pulled about by men. David moved slowly towards me and the barrel of the Ingram dug painfully into my side. I didn't stop. I checked both arms. They were clear of tracks.
‘Where are you injecting her?’ I demanded. ‘Between her toes or under her tongue, to keep the meat fresh for the punters?’
Patsy looked from one of us to the other.
‘I spoke to Steve, Patsy,’ I said, addressing her now. ‘Your friend the punk from Brixton. You used to go to gigs with him, remember?’
‘Steve,’ Patsy said dreamily. ‘He's nice. He never tried to touch me.’
In her world that probably was her definition of nice.
‘Yes, Steve,’ I said. ‘He told me you never took heroin. Come with me Patsy. I'll get you clean and you can start again.’
The machine gun twitched in David's hand against my body and I could feel the presence of the chauffeur behind me.
‘Sharman,’ David hissed. ‘You've been lucky so far, but don't push your luck beyond its endurance. We're going to leave now, Patricia and I. Your argument now is with George Bright. Leave us out of it.’
He bundled Patsy into the car. I could feel the Colt hard against my back in the waistband of blue jeans, but I knew I had no chance against the M10 in a gun-fight. Let alone the back-up gun the driver held.
‘Move away from the car,’ David ordered.
I backed away slowly.
He began to get into the car himself. Then he turned and looked at me. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘the machine always demands a sacrifice.’
Then he climbed into the Rolls-Royce and sat next to Patsy. I saw him tuck the Ingram neatly under the passenger seat. Then the rear window hummed up, hiding the pair from my view. The chauffeur was still eye-balling me. He ducked in behind the wheel, started the car, put it into gear and let it glide silently away from me. I stood in the driveway and watched it go.
As I stood, the left hand passenger window slid down again and I saw Patsy's hand emerge. She threw the red rose back towards me. The driver kept his window open and the barrel of his pistol rested on the frame of the door as he drove one handed. That's the only problem with bullet proof glass. It works both ways.
On one side of the narrow tarmac, just before it turned into the main road, stood an old chestnut tree. Its branches swept low towards the ground, and its trunk was thick and covered with gnarled bark. On the other side, set slightly back on
a grassy knoll, stood a family mausoleum. It had once been white but was now weather-stained and falling into disrepair.
As the Roller slowed to make the turn, all hell broke loose.
From behind the tree stepped the blonde man, Lynch, who had knocked me unconscious in the Brixton squat. He tossed something heavy and hard through the driver's window. From where I stood it looked like a cricket ball. Then I heard a muffled explosion, and smoke and flame billowed from the front of the car. I realised with true horror that it had been a hand grenade.
I estimated that the car weighed nearly two tons, and it only shook slightly on its heavy suspension from the blast. It rolled across the road and stalled against a gravestone depicting a heavenly host of angels, Victorian style, heavy and ornate. The gravestone was pushed out of the earth, but held the weight of the car.
The other white man from the squat, Flared Trousers, or Grant or what the hell his real name was, ran from behind the mausoleum. He was carrying what I assumed to be the sawn-off that had raised a scar on my head. I decided that they really did take turns with the weapons. He poked the shot-gun through the open rear window of the car, from where Patsy had thrown the flower, and fired twice in quick succession. The sound of the shots echoed through the cemetery and a murder of crows flapped from the trees where they had been roosting. I had frozen in the act of picking up the rose from the ground. Grant reloaded the sawn-off, carefully picking up the spent cartridges that ejected. Lynch drew a pistol from his jacket pocket and fired at me. I heard the bullet zip through the air close to my left hand side. I stood paralysed with horror. I wanted to turn and run but couldn't move. Lynch fired again and the bullet dug a groove in the roadway behind me. I couldn't let him keep shooting at me without retaliating. I pulled my .38 from the belt of my jeans and fired back three times, snap shots, double action, hardly taking aim.
I saw no sign that I had hit anyone. I expect that my hands were trembling too much. The doors to the crematorium burst open and three men in dark suits and black ties burst through, then stood teetering on the steps. Lynch and Grant looked at each other, and made a beeline in tandem to the car that I had seen draw up to the building whilst I had been talking to David. One of them had obviously ducked through the building, out through the rear exit, then round to lay deadly ambush with the other, who must have been dropped off in the road.
I should have taken more notice, they must have followed me from my office. So much for Leicester, George. That was another one I owed him.
The three men from the crematorium remained standing on the step as Lynch and Grant made their tyre-squealing escape.
I raced towards the Rolls. As I ran I gestured for the three to stay where they were. I used the hand with the gun in it. I think they got the message, because they backed through the doors again.
I checked the front of the car first. I didn't want to know what had happened to Patsy, not right away. I could guess only too well.
The driver's compartment was carnage. The grenade had exploded in the chauffeur's lap. Through the smoke, I could see that it had ripped out of most of his stomach, and all of his groin. I could also see his thigh bones poking whitely through his shredded uniform trousers. He was sitting in a pool of blood and guts. I had to turn my head aside to stop myself vomitting at the sight and smell. I cursed the murderers and myself, and George Bright.
Reluctantly I opened the rear passenger door. I knew what I was going to find, but it didn't make it any easier. The bodies of Patsy and her companion were huddled together on the wide leather seat. I placed the rose I had picked up off the ground onto the roof of the Rolls, and put my gun in my jacket pocket. I gently separated the bodies. I assumed that David had been hit first, because Patsy's corpse covered the massive chest wound he'd sustained from the point blank blast of the shot-gun. Patsy had been hit in the head and most of her face had been blown away. Blood, brains and blonde hair were coated over the back window. The rear compartment stank of cordite and the coppery odour of freshly spilled blood. There was nothing I could do for any one of them.
I suddenly remembered the Ingram. It was still under the seat where David had placed it. I checked that the safety was on as I picked it up and slung it over my shoulder by its leather strap. I looked towards the crematorium, a priest was standing on the steps now, staring at me.
When they realised that the shooting had stopped, someone was going to be brave enough to come and see what had happened I didn't want to be around to answer any questions. I retrieved the rose, then ran away across the graves in the direction of my car.
Chapter Thirty
I was limping by the time I reached the car. My foot had started to play me up. I scrambled behind the wheel and prayed that the car would start right away. It fired up at the first turn of the key in the ignition, and I screeched back down to the main gates. I sped past visitors and mourners staring up the hill towards the crematorium, from where the explosion and gunfire had come. I sent the car into a power slide onto the main road and accelerated into the one-way system. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel and I could feel the dampness of my palms against the slick leather. I was down to the wire with fear and tension, mixed with an elated relief that I had escaped unharmed. The killer's car was long gone. As I drove away from the carnage. I guessed that they had lost themselves in the maze of backstreets that crisscrossed the area. I drove as fast as I dared southwards, away from central London, down into the outer suburbs.
I wasn't thinking too clearly, I just needed to get away from the horror that I had witnessed and put together the information that had been disclosed by Patsy and the tall man named David.
When I thought of the girl and what had happened to her, I literally felt a stab of pain inside. I should have stuck to my commitment of non-involvement. Falling in love with a photograph was stupid. I might have guessed that when the image became flesh, she would let me down and do something dumb like getting killed. Ultimately people always disappoint you. It must be something to do with being human. I looked at the rose that Patsy had thrown to me, where I had tossed it on top of the dashboard and tears stung my eyes.
I was the only person left who knew everything, or nearly everything. The only person on the side of the angels that is. It was up to me to expose the whole story mess to the light, and identify the killers to the authorities. As such I was a marked man. Too many people had been killed with me in close proximity. I'd been an eye witness once too often now. Someone at the cemetery must have spotted the registration number of the Trans-Am. If the police traced the car, through Charlie, back to me, I was the prime suspect in a bunch of brutal slayings. It didn't matter that I'd been shot at myself. There were no witnesses to that fact as far as I knew, except for the killers themselves. I had been there, and that was that. Tie those latest killings in with the decapitation of Terry Southall, and of course the death of Jane Lewis, accidental or not, and I was public enemy number one. David had told me that the machine demands a sacrifice. He was right, and it could be me.
There was every reason to bang me up in Brixton nick, to await trial at the Bailey. A bent ex-copper, drugs, and now five deaths in as many days. I couldn't see anyone buying coincidence on that. I had to find one of the gang who would talk, tell the truth and let me off the hook. It would be easier said than done. There were at least four of them still at large, possibly more, and all with blood on their hands. The weak link had to be George Bright. David had told me George was beginning to panic. I'd seen it myself for that matter. I had to get him to the police alive. As for the rest of the villains, they'd be well pissed off that they hadn't topped me already. They'd had enough chances, God knows. Only being armed and the intervention of the mourners had saved me in the cemetery. I'd bet that the bad guys were kicking themselves that they hadn't finished me off at the house in Brixton, or when they were chasing me through Waterloo. I was living on dumb luck and that wasn't good enough.
So there I was, in a car that was getting ho
tter by the moment, fleeing from a mass murder, wanted by both the law and the lawless. It was a classic ‘B’ movie scenario, only it was real and scaring the shit out of me. Whichever way I turned was a dead end, and it looked like being me that ended up dead.
I found that I had driven mechanically as far as Croydon. I checked my watch and discovered it was ten to two. I needed a drink badly. My mouth was dry and tasted bitterly of fear and defeat. I had to stop soon. If I didn't, I knew that I'd pile the car up and I didn't need that on top of everything else.
I drove around to the market, and even though the town was as busy as ever, I found a parking meter straight away. I stashed the Ingram under the driver's seat, hoping that no juvenile delinquent would bust into the car and lift it. But I could hardly carry it around the shopping centre at port arms. I ducked out of the car and into the first pub I saw. It was crowded with shoppers and market workers, but I welcomed the noise. I bought a beer and fought my way into the back bar where I found a seat. I took stock of my assets. I had my driver's license, banker's card and about thirty quid in cash on me. I could get more money from a dispensing machine using my bank card. But from here on in, I had to assume the worst about my immediate future. Eventually I was bound to be tied into the cemetery murders. That would put me amongst the most wanted in London. It figured that I had to get further out of town. I couldn't chance going home for the shotgun or a change of clothes, but I did have the sub-machine gun and a full magazine of ammunition, and a pistol, and where I was going, I didn't think anyone would be worried if my undershorts were a bit grubby.
At that point I didn't know if the police had the details of the Pontiac or not. Assuming the worst, I had to believe they did. I didn't want to hire a car, as the personal details from my license would go on file and the law could get the number of any new car I was driving within a very short time. Once again, and until the whole business was cleared up one way or another, I had to keep taking a paranoid, pessimistic view. That way, I might come out of my first case all in one piece. I considered stealing a car, but ignored the idea. Firstly I was no great shakes at vehicular larceny, and secondly it would be just my luck to get picked up for taking and driving away, and find myself explaining the situation to some uniform who would eventually put two and two together and end up getting a bit of promotion out of nicking me. Even if I did get away with it, the registration could be on the air within a couple of hours and I'd be fucked up again. So I was stuck with the Pontiac. Not exactly the most discreet car on the road, but that was tough. Next I decided I needed somewhere to get some rest. My nerves were shot. I needed some peace, if only for a few hours, but preferably for the night. I'd frozen with panic at the cemetery when the fire fight had started. I needed some time to psych myself up for whatever was to come. I knew exactly what kind of place I wanted.