Battle for Inspector West

by John Creasey

  There was a file on the desk, with papers in it, a file he could easily reach. The temptation was almost overwhelming, but he fought it back.

  When Carosi came in, he was smiling.

  ‘It is well, that was good news,’ he said. ‘It will not be very long, and I think that all I wish will come about.’ He was fingering a small disc, red on one side and with some lettering on the other. He put it on the desk, and soon afterwards a man whom Roger had not seen before came in and said: ‘Did you keep my pass, sir?’

  Carosi said: ‘You dropped it from your wallet. That was very careless.’

  He looked steadily at the man, and Roger saw fear draining the colour from the other’s face. The man did not move, just stared into Carosi’s eyes.

  ‘Do not do that again,’ Carosi said, and held up the disc. The man came forward for it, as if he were afraid of what would happen if he got too near.

  Nothing happened.

  Carosi let the man take the disc.

  But when he left he was badly frightened.

  A disc, red on one side, with lettering on the other, was a ‘pass’. About the size of half a crown, quite ordinary-looking, it was rather like the badge that members of a conference pinned to their coat lapel for easy identification.

  That was one thing learned.

  It seemed the only thing, until Carosi said on that same evening: ‘It will not be long before I have furnished this work in England, West, and after that perhaps we shall come to understand each other. Yes?’

  ‘We might,’ Roger said, as if he meant it, and Julieta murmured her approval.

  But from that moment on, all he could think of was getting out of here; of warning the Yard that the climax was near. He did not think that Carosi was lying, because Carosi did not lie. He had no more idea what lay behind in the man’s mind than he had before. That was the bitter truth.

  He had to get out now, although the effort to work from within had failed.

  Yet the armed men and the dogs guarded the grounds day and night, unceasingly.

  For the rest of that day, in his bedroom, Roger brooded over the position. Sooner or later he would have to make a break. If he could find out for certain where this house was, it might help.

  Supposing he couldn’t get out.

  He thrust that out of his mind, but from then on another factor nagged at his mind.

  Was there any chance of the Yard finding him?

  Did they know that Grant was free? Could Fingleton help?

  The sense of being forgotten, left to fend for himself, was very sharp.

  He awakened late, feeling tired and jaded; the sleep had done him little good. Maisie, the middle-aged, forlorn-looking maid, came into his room.

  ‘Hallo, dearie,’ she said, mechanically. ‘Time to get up! Going to be all right for today, anyhow.’

  ‘Why?’ snapped Roger.

  ‘Why, me old cock-sparrow? The boss ’as gone out for the day. Taken that female piece of flint with him, too. I don’t mind Carosi so much, but that girl, I’d like to—’

  Words seldom failed Maisie.

  Roger said: ‘Maisie, have you ever tried to get out of this place?’

  ‘They don’t keep me locked up all the time,’ said Maisie, ‘they trust me. I have a look at the lakes sometimes, and have a day in Dub—’

  She broke off, biting her tongue.

  Roger covered his surge of hope with a yawn.

  ‘So there are some lakes near here, are there? Westmorland, I suppose?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Maisie. ‘I never ought to have said so much. Just you keep your mouth shut, Mr West. I don’t mind telling you that the guards have got orders to kill you if you try to get away. And they’d do it.’

  She flounced out of the room.

  Roger sat up, forgetful of everything she had said, except the significant sentence she hadn’t quite completed: Where had she meant but Dublin?

  And the lakes of Killarney!

  He was thinking of that, and feeling fierce excitement, when he heard several of the dogs barking. He went to the window, and saw five of them, leaping about, and saw two armed men with them.

  He needed no telling: this was an alarm.

  Were the police here?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kinara

  Roger stood at the window of his room, tense and rigid, watching the men and the dogs in the grounds, the dogs barking and snarling, the men carrying guns. This had been going on for an hour now. His door was locked, and a man stood outside his window; and he still did not know what was happening.

  Then he saw one of the dogs break free and go like a flash towards some bushes.

  A small, dark-haired man ran desperately from the bushes, but in a moment he was surrounded by leaping dogs.

  Roger saw what was nearly a miracle. The man flung one dog back, and it yelped and ran away. Another fell back, yapping, snarling. But there were too many of them.

  It was impossible to watch any longer. Roger turned away, teeth clenched so hard that his jaws ached, nails biting into his palms. He did not know how long it was before he heard two shots, sounding a long way off because of the thick toughened glass of the window. He looked round again. The dark-haired man was being carried off, on a stretcher. The bodies of two dogs lay sprawled on the ground; and a man with a gun was turning away from them.

  Carosi was there, now.

  Then Julieta appeared.

  Roger saw her running, hair streaming behind her, racing across the smooth grass towards the trees and the scene of the savage mauling. She looked as if she was berserk. Carosi tried to stop her, but she fended him off, then flung herself at the body of the first dog as a woman might fling herself at the body of a dead lover.

  So Julieta was not empty of affection.

  Carosi left her there for a few minutes, then gave an order, and two men pulled her off and led her away. She went submissively. But Roger saw the wildness in her eyes, and wondered if the paroxysm of grief had turned her mind. Then she was thrust out of his mind, for he saw the body of the man being carried towards a corner of the house. The light fell upon the dead man’s face and lacerated throat, so that Roger could see clearly.

  He recognised the dark-haired victim as one who had been jailed for a Carosi crime: a blackmailer named Dempster.

  It looked as if Dempster had come to try to avenge himself.

  But that wasn’t all; that hardly mattered. If he knew Dempster as a Carosi man, so did everyone who mattered at the Yard. Gill, especially. If Dempster had been released from jail and come straight here, surely the Yard had arranged to follow him.

  Roger looked towards the trees, as if he would see Gill and others coming through if he prayed hard enough.

  The grounds emptied, and there was quiet again.

  But his door was not unlocked, and he was kept in his room. He knew it was impossible to force it, he had tried too often; but he tried again, using a pick-lock fashioned out of a piece of wire from a lampshade which did not look damaged.

  Poor raddled Maisie, with her gaudy make-up and lined face, her ducks and her dearies, brought him his meals, served as attractively as if this were a first-class hotel. She said very little today, and there was a scared look about her, as if the incident of the morning had frightened her.

  Roger had no radio. The few books and magazines here bored him. He kept looking towards the trees, and knew that to set store by such hope was a sign of desperation. He had swallowed Carosi’s bait, he had come just as he had planned, but now he was here he seemed helpless, could not even think and plan.

  It was as if Carosi had sucked the vitality out of his mind.

  This was a long, weary day.

  The sky was beautiful in the evening, as darkness fell. Maisie came in with hi
s dinner, drew the curtains, said: ‘Oo, that woman’s terrible today,’ and went out. The door was locked behind her. Roger ate slowly, for the sake of something to do, then tried to read, but instead found his mind filled with wild ideas of escape, reaction against the sense of futility. By eleven o’clock, all the main lights were out, as far as he could tell. But for the guards the household was asleep. He went to the door, but gave up; he had no chance at all.

  He needed one of those discs …

  But what good would it be to him if he had a hundred of them, and couldn’t get away?

  He went back to the window, caged and helpless, his nerves quivering and raw. Yet while he was here and alive there must be a chance; if he was alert every moment, one might come when he least expected it. If one came and he let it go, that would be the true failure.

  He was awake and restless in the early hours when he heard a sound at the door. He was always locked in at night, but had never heard this before. He lay still, face turned to the door, eyes narrowed. He could see nothing, but there was a slight creaking sound, of the door opening. He expected to see a bright light beyond, but there was only a faint glow.

  He saw a pale, ghostly figure.

  He heard the door close, shutting out the light.

  There was a rustling sound, but that was not all; he could smell a scent which Julieta used. Still he did not move, but he could imagine her face as she had flung herself at the dog, the hideous tension in it; and he remembered what Maisie had said about her.

  She was very near.

  ‘Roger,’ she whispered, and he could only just hear the sound. ‘Roger, wake up.’

  No one here had ever called him Roger.

  Why did she?

  ‘Wake up,’ Julieta repeated, and Roger felt her cold hand on his shoulder, then her fingers gripping his arm tightly; her nails dug into him. ‘Wake up!’

  He started, as if suddenly awake.

  ‘Who is it? What—’ He jumped up, and thrust her hand away as if in swift alarm. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Make no noise,’ she whispered fiercely, and suddenly she thrust herself against him, forcing him back, putting the weight of her whole body on him. The softness of her breast smothered him; unless he threw her off bodily he would choke.

  She drew back …

  ‘If he finds me here he will kill me,’ she said, and he was sure that she believed that to be true. ‘Be very quiet.’

  He heard a different sound, the bedside light went on, and he saw her.

  She wore a flimsy, almost transparent white robe, lacy and billowy and making her look quite beautiful. She had made up, as if for her lover. She was smiling at him, too, and her lips were taut, as if she was making herself smile.

  Her eyes were burning.

  ‘Look at me,’ she ordered in that passionate whisper. ‘Look at me! Am I different from other women? Tell me that, now. Has he destroyed me? Can I attract a man? Can I?’

  She flung the robe back from her body.

  She was the most beautiful thing he was ever likely to see: and there was madness in her eyes.

  He knew that the chance he had prayed for had come, that the easiest thing would be to let it slip away. Give her reason to think that she had been rebuffed, and she would turn into a raging term agent. He must not take the risk, must soothe and delight her, must do anything to make sure that she did not turn on him. For about her neck hung a slim, golden chain, and attached to the chain, a red disc like the one he had seen before.

  ‘Well, am I so different?’ She thrust her head forward, he could see the quivering at her lips. ‘Go on, tell me, am I so different from other women?’

  Roger said in an unsteady voice: ‘Different? You are as different from other women as gold is from brass.’

  There was a moment of terrible silence.

  He did not know what she would do, did not know whether he had said the thing she wanted. Then he saw fierce delight spread in her eyes. She flung herself forward, and hugged him fiercely. He held her tightly while she uttered wild, unintelligible things. He was reminded of Richard, his younger son, when very young and frightened, behaving like this, and pouring out all the causes of his fears.

  He soothed and encouraged her.

  ‘He is a devil, twists me, makes me indifferent to men; he won’t let me live my own life—’

  ‘It’s all right, Julieta, you will live your own life soon.’

  ‘I hate him, I hate him, I’ll hate him for ever.’

  ‘He won’t worry you much longer, Julieta.’

  ‘He made them kill my dogs, my beautiful dogs; he ordered them to be shot.’

  ‘It’s all right, Julieta, he won’t do that again.’

  ‘He’s a devil, he makes men do his devilry; if they won’t he kills them, or he takes away their wives. He always gets what he wants, he removes anyone who tries to stop him.’

  ‘That will soon stop, Julieta.’

  ‘Why don’t you kill him?’

  As she said that she drew back, seemed oblivious of her near nakedness. Then she thrust her face close to his, and spat the question out again.

  ‘Why don’t you kill him?’

  Was this the moment of revelation? Was he to learn everything he needed to learn now? Did she know what Carosi was planning to do?

  Roger said, gently: ‘He mustn’t be killed until we know what he is doing, Julieta. Then we can save a lot of people from great hurt.’

  The fire faded from her eyes, she backed away a little, she looked puzzled as she asked: ‘Why should I save others? Are they so important?’

  ‘They will help you to become more normal, and—’

  That was his undoing.

  ‘Normal!’ she cried, and leapt at him and struck him across the face time and time again, then drew back and hissed words at him, in a low-pitched voice which seemed to be the voice of evil itself. The madness flared up in her eyes.

  ‘You say I am not normal, you dare insult me, insult me, Carosi’s perfect woman. Wait until I tell him this! Wait until he knows the truth! I have tried to save you, I have persuaded him to let you live, but now I will tell him I found you in my room. I shall tell him you came into my room, and you tried to—’

  Her voice was rising, and was nearly a screech; it would soon be heard outside. She stood there shaking clenched fists at him, her body quivering, the filmy, lacy robe shaking like a cascade of water; and the red disc danced and quivered against her lovely skin.

  He had to silence her.

  He snatched at her wrist and pulled her down, clasped his left hand over her mouth to stifle the scream, and gripped her throat tightly. He pressed his thumb against the windpipe. At first she kicked and struggled, but gradually the struggle ceased, and she went limp. He took his hands away, and waited, but she made no sound or movement. He pushed her away, towards the foot of the bed, got up, and then felt for her pulse; it was hard to be sure about it, for he himself was breathing so heavily.

  She was alive; of course she was.

  He twisted the little gold chain round so that he could get at the fastener, undid it, and slipped it, together with the disc, into the pocket of his jacket which hung on the back of a chair. Then he flung his clothes on. Julieta was stirring when he was dressed, but not awake. He tore a strip off the diaphanous gown, and wound it round and round her face, gagging her, and then went to the door. If she could open it, then surely he could.

  He opened it.

  There was a faint light from the hall.

  He knew Julieta’s room, and stepped towards it, making no sound on the thick carpet. He could see a man sitting near the great front door; a guard, to make doubly sure that there was no escape. He ignored this man and went back to Julieta’s room, went in, and switched on the light. Her bed had been slept in; she must ha
ve tossed and turned before coming in to him. He went back for her, laid her on her own bed, and drew back.

  She was still unconscious.

  If he killed her, she would not be found until the morning, when he might be far away.

  Should he kill her?

  When she came round, would she be demented enough to tell Carosi what had happened? Or would her cunning make her fear the consequences of that too much? If she told part she must tell all, and Carosi would know that Roger could not have got out of his room and into hers.

  She had lost that pass.

  Roger felt her pulse again, and judged that she would be unconscious for some time yet; and for a long time after that would not know where she was, or what she was doing.

  Should he kill?

  Could he kill?

  He turned away abruptly, and went out, closing her door very softly. Then he went down to the head of the stairs. The man was reading a book, and sitting so that he could see the foot of the stairs and the door; but until he looked up, he would see nothing.

  Roger crept back to his room for a pillow, and then came back. For half the distance he could keep out of the guard’s sight. He went down, step by step. The moment when he would be seen if the other glanced up, but the guard kept reading, as if enthralled. Roger went down, down, down, until he reached floor level. He moved to one side, now, so as to approach from behind.

  He was out of sight when the man looked up, as if suspicious; and he was close enough to jump on the man and grip him round the throat, discarding the pillow as he went. He felt a convulsive heave of the man’s body, but he choked the wild cry, and gripped with all his strength.

  He heard a sharp crack of sound, and knew that he had broken this man’s neck.

  He let him go, then took the gun from his pocket and put it in his own. He made sure that the red disc was safe, then stepped to the door, and began to unfasten the chains, the bolts and the locks. One of them would have the electric switch built in; every moment was one of screaming tension, in case an alarm bell clanged.