Nurse Kerry, whose rosy red features had been peering around the screen, gave me an old-fashioned look.
‘I suppose so,’ said Ivana.
Breathing deeply, I stepped forward and took her arm. I needed it for my legs were still weak and unsure of themselves. We left the first aid room with me clinging to Ivana like some over attentive boyfriend. She seemed to take this strange perambulation in her own confident stride. Once outside the confines of the station, I began to breathe in the cool night air. It filled my lungs and began to clear away the cobwebs in my brain. Like some magic rejuvenating elixir, it coursed through my body giving me strength. After we had gone a hundred yards or so, I was walking normally again and my vision was clear, but I was reluctant to release my grip on Ivana’s arm. It was good to be close to a woman again.
‘I don’t suppose you’d allow me to buy you a drink?’ I said as casually as I could.
‘Now why do you suppose that? I’d love a drink.’
I grinned back sheepishly. ‘I know just the place.’
* * *
It was around seven o’clock by the time we arrived at The Velvet Cage, my favourite watering hole. We had walked part of the way and then taken a taxi. It was quiet in the club, with very few customers and the musicians were only just setting up for their first set that evening.
We sat in a booth. Ivana asked for a sweet sherry – I grimaced at this but ordered the drink all the same while I settled for a whisky. For some time we sat in awkward silence. We seemed to have run out of conversation. We had chatted merrily on our journey, she telling me that she shared a small flat in Earl’s Court with another nurse called Mildred and how she liked to read in her spare time ‘the great British writers like Charles Dickens and Emily Bronté.’ I had told her about my accident when I lost an eye and why I was a detective. ‘So you get beaten up a lot,’ she had observed wryly.
‘I try not to be,’ I said.
But now we seemed to have run out of steam. My supply of small talk was very limited at the best of times but now it seemed as though it had disappeared altogether.
Suddenly she turned to me and placed her hand on mine. ‘You seem sad. I know you joke and smile, but I think you are a sad man. Why is that?’
I gave a non-committal smile.
‘You perhaps have lost someone?’
‘In this war, hasn’t everyone? You, your parents.’
‘Yes, that’s true. But I hide my pain. I see yours in your face.’
‘Look lady, I’ve just been bopped very hard on the head. No wonder you see pain in my face. Ouch!’
She grinned. ‘Yes, you cover it up with a joke. Let me see your hands – your right hand.’
I held it up and wiggled my fingers. She took it gently and laid it palm upwards on the table and stared intently at it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you will be pleased to know that you have a very healthy life line. You should live into an old age.’
‘Goodness, you’re not going to read my palm?’
‘Of course. All my family have the gift. The God-given lines on your hands tell many secrets about your character and your life. See, your heart line is strong and straight.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You are idealistic and sometimes you let your heart rule your head.’
I took a drink of whisky. Can’t argue with that, I thought, but said nothing.
‘You are complex man, Johnny. Some of your lines do the oddest things.’
‘Do they tell you whether I’m going to capture the fellow who tried to break my skull?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not.’
I was about to make some flippant remark when I was conscious of a shadow falling over us and the heavy wheezing breathing of its owner.
I looked up and saw Benny, his face shiny with sweat and his eyes bulging from the exertions he had obviously just undergone. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief before he spoke. ‘Johnny, thank heavens I’ve found you.’
‘What is it, Benny? You look done in.’
‘That’s because I am. I ran most of the way. I’m so relieved you’re here. Peter said you might be.’
‘Peter? What about him?’
Benny shook his head. ‘Such a foolish boy. Apparently, he’s been trailing one of your villains – the bank robber.’
‘Horsefield!’
Benny nodded. ‘I think that was his name. Well, Peter’s traced him to an address in Houndsditch’. He paused to drag a scrap of paper from his pocket. ‘23 Commercial Street. He said he’d wait for you there, somewhere outside in the street.’
‘The idiot. How long ago was this?’
‘About twenty minute… half an hour ago.’
I turned abruptly to Ivana. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’
‘Of course.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘Be careful.’
‘I’ll try,’ I said giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
Without another word, I left the two of them staring after me as I dashed for the exit.
* * *
After a rather hectic and bumpy taxi ride, I arrived in Houndsditch. I asked the cabbie to drop me a few blocks away from Commercial Street. On the journey my mind had been trying to work out how Peter had ended up trailing Horsefield. He’d studied those bloody newspaper reports he’d shown me, hadn’t he? No doubt on a hunch he’d gone down to Houndsditch and somehow by some fluke found where the fellow was hiding. I doubted if he realised how dangerous Horsefield was – especially now he was wounded and had managed to retrieve the cash from the bank robbery.
I suppose it was my fault that Peter fancied himself as a super sleuth, trying to impress me, and if he got hurt or worse, it would be on my conscience for life and possibly longer.
It was now quite dark as I turned into Commercial Street. The place was quiet and empty. There were no pedestrians and no traffic. An eerie silence seemed to inhabit the place. Casually, I lit a cigarette and strolled along the pavement noting the house numbers as I did so. Eventually I came to number 23. It was cloaked in total darkness which, of course, was not unusual in these days of the blackout. I looked around for Peter. There was no sign of the scamp.
Where the hell was he? What was he up to now? I called out his name, hoping that he would emerge from the shadows and greet me. But he didn’t.
My heart sank.
What was I going to do now?
TWENTY-FIVE
David Llewellyn was cleaning his teeth prior to donning his pyjamas for an early night when the telephone rang.
‘You’d better get that,’ his wife Sylvia called from the bedroom. ‘It’s bound to be for you.’
She was right of course. He knew as he lifted the receiver that he could wave goodbye to the early appointment with his pillow.
‘Sunderland, here, sir,’ announced the tinny voice at the other end. ‘There’s been another murder. A young woman. Cut about something shocking. Looks like it’s Northcote’s work all right. She was found on Copenhagen Street, just off the Caledonian Road down by King’s Cross. One of the local tarts stumbled over the body.’
Llewellyn gave a little groan as he felt the chill hand of fear grip him. It was happening all over again. The same nightmare, but this time somehow it was worse. The killer had turned into a phantom of the night. He had no idea where he was or where and when he would strike next.
‘Give me the exact details and I’ll be down there within the hour,’ he said sourly.
* * *
The remains of Sally Hopkins were covered with a large grey blanket and part of the road had been cordoned off. Llewellyn stepped forward and raised the blanket, allowing the thin beam of his torch travel over the grisly corpse.
‘Very nasty, eh, sir?’ said Sunderland, standing close to him.
Llewellyn grunted a reply. ‘Do we know what’s been taken? The organs?’
‘The pathologist says that her heart and liver have gone and part of the thigh. He says he’ll have a b
etter idea when he examines the body back at the Yard.’
Llewellyn dropped the blanket. ‘Well, get her back there, then. There’s little use her being here.’
‘Right, sir.’
Llewellyn was about to turn away when something caught his attention. The beam of his torch fell on something that glittered in the gloom at the far side of the blanket, in the shadows over by the wall. He stepped forward, bent down and picked it up. Holding it close to his face, he saw that it was a silver cigarette case.’
‘Very interesting,’ he said slowly, his eyes widening with surprise.
‘Do you think it was dropped by the killer, sir?’ asked Sunderland.
‘I’m not sure, but what makes it interesting – fascinating even – is that it has a name engraved on it.’
‘Not Northcote?’
‘No. Not Northcote. The name is Francis Sexton.’
* * *
While Inspector David Llewellyn was examining the cigarette case of Dr Francis Sexton, the man himself was preparing for his great vanishing act. After wallowing sometime in despair, following the discovery that his prisoner Northcote had escaped, the section in his brain that dealt with self preservation and survival had suddenly kicked in. He realised that his only course of action now was to disappear. Go somewhere in the country – maybe Devon where he had spent many childhood holidays. He had to become someone else in an out-of-the-way place, where neither the authorities nor Northcote could find him. With this vague and desperate plan in mind, he was quickly packing a bag with essentials, including a few small valuable items which he could sell to help him get by, along with the fifty pounds he had taken from his wall safe.
With a great strength of will, he was not allowing his mind to dwell on his old life which he now had to leave behind. If he was to survive – and indeed it was a matter of survival – he realised that he must forget all that and accept the new and unpleasant, drastic circumstances in which he found himself.
Clutching his case, he headed for the hallway and retrieved his hat and coat. Once he had donned these, he couldn’t resist stepping back into the living room to cast a final eye over his home.
It was then that it struck him. He just couldn’t depart like this. Walk out and leave all this behind intact. It wasn’t just the fact that he was turning his back on the comfort and security of his home but, in a more practical sense, he couldn’t leave the house like the Marie Celeste, like a ghost home, still keeping the signs of recent habitation: discarded newspapers, crumpled sheets, half empty gin bottles. And more importantly he couldn’t leave the cellar: the room where Northcote had been kept prisoner for prying eyes and expert analysts. That would really give the game away. That canny Welsh policeman would very quickly put two and two together and make a sparkling four.
Although he was aware that he was tired, his brain frayed at the edges and his thinking processes ragged and shaky, he also knew that the idea that came to him now was the right one.
He would torch the house.
Burn it to the ground.
The flames would expunge, purge any evidence useful to the police. With a smile he realised that the added bonus of this idea would be that they might think that he had perished in the flames. It would be a sound assumption to make. Then he really would be off the hook. They might search for a body, but he knew that the war had taught the police to cut corners. There were too many burnt out buildings and missing corpses to cope with efficiently. Whatever, setting fire to the place would certainly buy him time.
Inspired by this notion, he dropped his case and headed outside to the garage where he kept a spare can of petrol. That would ensure the flames would be all-devouring.
He chuckled to himself as he unlocked the garage door and swung it open. So focussed was he in his task, that he failed to see a bulky shadow by the gate. Dragging a metal canister from a shelf at the rear of the garage, Sexton returned to the house, followed at a distance by the shadow.
Once back inside the house, Sexton went down into the cellar, unscrewed the top of the canister and began sloshing the petrol around in a liberal fashion before returning to the sitting room. Here he repeated the process, dousing the carpet, the sofa and the curtains. He smiled broadly. He felt there was something satisfying about being an agent of destruction.
Soon the canister was empty and he flung it down and then stood for a moment breathing in the fumes. The aroma was intoxicating and pleasing. Then he heard a slight movement behind him and turning swiftly he saw a figure standing in the doorway. His heart juddered with shock.
It was Ralph Northcote.
‘Trying to destroy the evidence?’ he said quietly.
The sight of Northcote immediately ignited Sexton’s anger. He gave no thought as to how or why the devil came to be standing in his sitting room. Rage exploded within him. He roared with fury and like an automaton moved stiffly towards him, his arms outstretched.
Northcote stayed put. He simply lifted his right arm which held a long sharp knife.
‘Stay,’ he snapped, as one would to a dog. ‘Stay, or I will gouge your eyes out.’
Sexton faltered and then did as he was told.
‘I know it is melodramatic,’ Northcote said quietly, without any emotion, ‘but I have returned for my revenge.’ He gazed about him. ‘And it seems as though you have helped me in my preparations.’
Sexton took a step forward, but Northcote thrust the knife towards him. ‘It would be foolish to come any closer. I cannot tell you how much pleasure it would be for me to cut you up, to hear you cry in agony – the man that tried to deceive me. The man that imprisoned me and treated me like an animal.’
Sexton’s mind sought in vain for some course of action. He knew he could not reason with Northcote. He knew he could not tackle him: one false move and he would feel the blade of that vicious knife on his face. Could he perhaps run? But where to? Northcote was blocking the only viable exit to the outside. If he turned and ran into the kitchen, he knew that the exterior door was locked. By the time he had retrieved the key, the fiend would be upon him. The situation seemed hopeless.
‘Not only will you die tonight,’ Northcote was saying, ‘but your secret will be exposed. The police will know all about you.’
Sexton shook his head. He didn’t know what the fellow was talking about and besides he was only half listening while his eyes darted around the room in search of something he could snatch up and use as a weapon against Northcote. His eyes lit upon a large glass ashtray on the coffee table to his left, just a few feet beyond his reach. He knew he would have to risk it. It was his only chance.
Slowly he stepped backwards and then in a desperate sideways motion he reached out for the ashtray, but Northcote had sensed what was happening and attacked. He lunged forward thrusting the knife at Sexton, who had moved so quickly that the blade only caught him in the arm. With a cry of pain, Sexton stumbled sideways on to the edge of the sofa, where he lost his balance and crashed to the floor.
Northcote stood over him, legs astride like a maniacal colossus and raised the knife, ready for the fatal blow. In wild desperation, Sexton lashed out with his legs, catching Northcote violently in the crotch. With a moan, Northcote doubled up, the knife spinning from his hand. Scrabbling across the floor from his assailant, Sexton reached out for the ashtray once more and brought it crashing down on Northcote’s head. With a muted grunt, Northcote slithered forward onto his face in an apparent faint.
The light of unstable triumph illuminated Sexton’s eyes as he rose unsteadily to his feet and stood panting over the inert frame of his enemy, the throbbing pain in his shoulder almost forgotten. He was inclined to bring the ashtray down once more on the man’s skull, but he resisted the temptation. The flames would finish the job off more satisfactorily.
He felt in his jacket pocket for his cigarette lighter, wincing as he did so, the pain of his wounded arm reasserting itself. Taking an old newspaper from the magazine rack, he twisted it round into a make
shift torch and lit one end with the lighter. It blossomed into a bright yellow flame. With a satisfied grin, he flung the burning paper onto the petrol soaked hearth rug. It spluttered awhile and for a moment Sexton thought that it would go out, but then with a gentle woomf, tendrils of flame shot across the rug and rose upwards. Within seconds, the hungry fire, with the help of the petrol, reached out beyond the rug to touch the carpet and other items of furniture with its fiery contagion.
Sexton was surprised and pleased at the speed with which the fire was spreading. Already he could feel the searing heat on his face and he knew that he had little time to lose before he left the building. But as he turned to go, he stumbled. Something had caught hold of his ankle.
Someone.
Northcote.
The fiend had roused himself. Sexton tried to wrench himself free of his firm grip but failed. He dropped to the floor, kicking his leg as violently as he could in an attempt to shake his assailant off. All the while the flames were multiplying, growing hungrier and more fierce.
‘Let go, or we’ll both be killed,’ screamed Sexton.
Surprisingly Northcote released his hold, while at the same time, jumping to his feet and scooping up the knife which lay inches away from the devouring flames. Sexton could only see him now as a dark silhouette against the yellow wall of fire.
For a second time Northcote loured over him but Sexton was too slow to react on this occasion. With a snarl of anger, Northcote brought the knife down, straight into Sexton’s right eye and piercing his brain. Sexton opened his mouth to cry out but no sound emerged. His body jiggled for a few seconds like a man on a gibbet and then lay still, a trickle of blood smearing his cheek.
Fixing that pleasing image in his mind, Northcote ran from the burning building out into the enveloping darkness.
TWENTY-SIX
I made my way up the overgrown path of number 23 Commercial Street. It seemed to me that the house had not been occupied for some time. The door was boarded up as were the downstairs windows. However, on closer inspection, I noticed that one of the boards across the window at the left-hand side of the door seemed to be hanging loose. So it proved to be. With just a gentle movement I was able to swing the board to one side, creating a gap big enough for me to gain entry to the house, a feat managed easily as the window pane behind the planking was missing. It lay in shattered shards on the floor inside.
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