The bus dropped me at the corner of Rock Street. I had to walk back, and then down Pool Street, where I could stand on the forecourt again.
One of the streetlights was not working. It gave a bloody red flick every few seconds. The street was quiet. A long way off, a dog was howling. There was no breeze that evening to flap the sheet metal. No rain. A clear and quiet night, ideal for breaking and entering.
I headed for the gap against the neighbouring wall. That gap was my friend; I couldn’t use the gate, open or not. I edged my way round cautiously towards the sliding doors.
17
There was no reason to expect the sliding doors to be open. It was simply a venture, to be followed, if necessary, by more violent action to gain access.
They were two feet apart. I viewed the gap with suspicion. Once before I’d been led into a trap. I put my shoulder to one of them, trying to force it into the closed position. It was wedged by a stone in the track. This provided logic for the opening, so I was comforted. I put a foot inside, edged my shoulders through, and stood in the darkness with all my basic instincts straining.
There was a dead smell in the air, the normal petrol, oil and fume smells now being commonplace to me. Even the dust seemed to be static. Now there was no faint light from the foreman’s office to guide me. I had no torch. Nothing but a patterned darkness faced me, broken only, from a point to my left where I’d previously seen it, by the red spot of light from the battery charger. There was no hum, though, this being overcome by the steady thump, thump of the air-pressure pump, and the whine of its electric motor.
For some moments I stood and thought about that, and whether it meant that somebody was on the premises and had switched on the pump. But there could be no necessity for an air-pressure line at night. No...the answer was simple. The pump fed a cylinder of compressed air, and would therefore require a pressure-controlled switch so that the pressure would be maintained. It would be automatic, on and off.
There, you see, brain working satisfactorily. Everything had a logical solution. But really, what I was doing was taking my mind from that foreman’s office and the jacket I would surely find inside it. I didn’t want to think what that jacket would tell me.
My heartbeat was loud in my ears. Or was it the air pump? I moved forward a yard, panting with the effort. The terror was not of the dark, I told myself. Nobody’s terror is ever of the dark, it is of what might lie beyond it. I wanted to turn and grope back into the slightly less dark night, but Nicola’s face swam in front of me, and I had to go on.
There were dangerous obstacles to be avoided, even to reach the office. But now I’d stood long enough for my eyes to have adapted, and shapes were becoming separate blacks, and my memory supplemented the information. Sweat trickled down my face and into the lines around my chin. My jaw ached. The air pump throbbed at a steady beat.
One hand touched the hydraulic lift. It meant I’d passed the pit, which might still have been open. The frame of the lift guided me. I ran my hands along it, and jumped as I touched something loose that swung and rattled. I looked round. The red spot of light gave me a fix. A quarter turn to my right should line me up with the foreman’s office. I held out both hands in front of me and moved forward again, felt my fingers touch the door, felt it move. I forced myself to take the step inside, and groped across to the bench. My fingers found the bench lamp, and I pressed the switch.
The flood of light was blinding. The shade was turned up directly into my face. Flailing in sudden panic, I twisted it around to face the wall, then I fell panting into the metal chair, my legs jelly and my heart tripping over itself.
When I eventually raised my head again I saw that the light was centred on the row of filthy overalls. They were hung two or three layers thick, some originally white, some brown, some blue. But the oil and grease had layered them to a uniform black. No green of a jacket was visible.
I got to my feet and moved to them, and starting from the left moved along, parting them up. It was the touch that alerted me, the rough, hairy feel of Harris tweed. My jacket. I had to lift off three sets of overalls to free the collar tag, then I had my jacket in my shaking hands. I held it by the collar, away from me. It stank of oil. The desire was to drop it on the floor and turn away. But that would be turning away from Nicola.
Slowly I turned it. The breast pocket swung into view. There was a fountain pen clip showing outside it. Without my intention, my right hand moved forward and clipped it out. I held it in my palm.
It was my black Parker pen with the normal nib. It meant I’d had it with me that day, had it when I visited George Peters. It would be dry now, but could have held ink at that time, and could have – undoubtedly had – written the withdrawal of his claim in George’s hand. I had the pen there in my palm, the proof that George hadn’t written a statement for me, the proof that I would therefore have had no reason for coming here to the garage. And yet I had come. I had heard a story of an accident, which my addled brain had later attributed to George.
But I am not insane, I howled inside my head. I am not. And somewhere within the chaos of my mind another voice was calling out: help me, Cliff.
I had to get out of there. All I had come for had been achieved, but it was destroying me. I reached for the desk lamp switch, and plunged myself into darkness, but darkness now was beyond acceptance. I put it on again, and saw, at the back of the bench, a black rubber battery torch. This I took in my hand. With this I might, I thought, find the main switch outside. I needed light...light. My legs were shaking as I fumbled my way out into the repair bay, my eyesight not reliable. But I found the main switch, and light flooded me. I dropped the torch and stood swaying.
The jacket still hung from my left hand, the pen had disappeared. I must have dropped it, I decided wearily. Still the distress ran round in my brain, but through it was hammering the thud...thud...of the air pump. Did it never stop? I had to make it stop. It seemed that I could not force myself through the barrier of that sound to reach the beckoning night.
I realised I was on my knees. All my energy and will power were required to bring me to my feet again, and now my objective was the pump. I staggered over to it, eyes squinting against the glare, head throbbing from the eternal beat.
The main cylinder was about four feet long and two feet across. On it was mounted the electric motor and its V-pump. Now, close to it, I could hear the hiss of escaping air from the copper pipe running along the wall. The letters on the side of the cylinder read: MWP 200. The pressure gauge showed a needle against its stop. I leaned over, and managed to see the reading: 300+. I decided they meant: Maximum Working Pressure 200, and gauge level well above 300. The hiss now seemed loud. The pump throbbed on. I located a square box on the top of the cylinder, which must have been the automatic cut-out switch. The top of it had been smashed in.
Then the answer swept over me, draining the blood from my face. It was due to explode, had been rigged to explode. But how could anyone have known I’d come there? There was no panic desire to run. My brain hadn’t got to it. In any event, there was a master switch box on the wall above it. I reached for its lever. There was no lever. It had been broken off.
Then the panic hit me. I began to run. Twice, before I reached the sliding doors, my legs gave way, but I sprawled and scrambled and reached the gap, and panted into open air, still not safe, if that thing exploded, but with every second safer. Now, with one hand to support me against the outside steel wall, I could move faster, could reach the gap, the forecourt, the pavement...and it was there that I finally collapsed, sitting on the kerb, cursing my weakness and weeping at my own frustration.
But I had to do something. The police, the fire service, Tony Clayton; somebody had to be told. I had to reach a phone. I saw a car approaching, and forced myself to my feet, managed to move a yard into the roadway and feebly wave my jacket, but they drove past. I stood with legs apart, cursing, and realised that something had fallen from the jacket pocket.
; It lay at my feet. I stared down at it. In the orange light it was difficult to be sure, but it seemed to be brown. An envelope. I stooped and picked it up. Written on it was the number: 259287. In blue felt tip.
Again I collapsed on the kerb, the envelope in my hand. Somewhere in the back of my mind there was a whisper of hope. So she had given me the number. Again I saw her hand, holding it towards me, slipping it inside the wages book. So it was true. True! I must have taken it out of the wages book and put it in my inside pocket. Before the fight with Graham...
Oh dear Lord! I thought. The screaming in my mind faded to the background, and lurked there. It was uncertain whether to launch another attack. Frantically, buoyed on by the hope, I fumbled through the jacket. In the inside breast pocket there were other things. I found my driving licence, and a sheet of white paper, now discoloured by oil. With my fingers trembling I opened it up. It had been folded twice, and was a sheet of A4 official minute paper. On it was written, spikily, with the splutters of a right-hand oblique nib used in the left hand:
I, George Peters, state that:
My accident happened on the 6th November 1984 in the repair shop at Pool Street Motors. I got my arm crushed when I was lying under this car I’d got on its pair of jacks, and the front wheels off, trying to change one of the steering ball joints. I’d been warned I ought to have it on a hydraulic lift, but Charlie Graham was using it, and I couldn’t wait. While I was looking up I saw the underside of the car moving, and I knew it was running off the jacks. I looked back, and saw what had happened. I saw some oaf backing up a car. I yelled, but he didn’t hear. I’d got the back wheels against a couple of bricks, but he nudged my car and it was sliding the breeze blocks. Then the car fell on my arm, crushing it. I saw part of the registration number. It was CWS–P.
George Peters 16/11/84
I wanted to run about the street, shouting my joy. This had to mean it was all true. My mind had produced the correct pictures. I was sane...sane...
Then I stopped. My mind stopped. I started it again, forcibly. What I was holding was more than proof of my sanity. It provided reason for the death of George Peters. He had seen the genuine accident, and noticed the car’s registration number. My car’s registration number. He had been so foolish as to put it into a statement. Charlie Graham had seen the car, but perhaps he was now safe. Arthur Pitt was not safe. He had dived from a window. LSD? Perhaps. Hadn’t Charlie said that Arthur Pitt, too, had seen the car? And Tessa? Tessa probably had not seen the car, but she’d seen George Peters’ statement – probably I’d shown it to her – and she had phoned Michael Orton to tell him that I had that statement. Tessa, good friend of Michael Orton, who’d allowed her to continue to live, until I began to ask awkward questions and came too close to the truth. Originally, I had no doubt, I’d not been intended to live. But I had, and more recently there had been the chance that although I was alive, I might not remember. I had remembered too much.
It hadn’t been for the money that I’d been attacked, but for the statement. By that time there’d been a withdrawal form to substitute for it, signed by George, and extracted from him by force before he died. But the statement hadn’t been conveniently in my briefcase, it’d been in my jacket in the foreman’s office.
I saw all this in a second. Now, released from its terror, my brain was clear. I understood, and I saw what Nicola – so clever Nicola – had seen. If the car, CWS 73 P, had been collected on the 10th November, when had it been brought in? So she’d wanted to see something she called the Day Work Book. Work in, work out, by the day.
And that...my God, I thought, such a record was not an account book. Orton had collected the account books from his office to check that nothing in them linked the BMW with the day Colin Rampton had died. He had seen nothing, so he’d felt safe in letting Nicola have them. But he’d forgotten about the Day Work Book. The old one could well be in use, still, and would be...where? Why, in the main office in the garage behind me.
With a howl I sprang to my feet and turned. She was there...I knew it. I began to run for my friendly gap, the way in, was easing through it, running round, and stopped at the sliding doors.
The air pump throbbed on. It seemed to throw its steady beat to the night. The lights from inside dazzled me. I took a step inside. The hiss of escaping air now dominated. From all sides it seemed that the pressure was seeking release. I could not walk past it. I could not.
But there was another way. I turned and ran round the building to the outside staircase. Here there was no hiss, but as I put my hand to the rail I could feel the continuing thump, thump, thump through my palm. I clattered up, stumbling, my shoulder to the door in case it was locked. It wasn’t. I was in the darkened office, reaching for the switch.
Nicola was sitting behind the desk, her head down on it, hands spread each side, one arm through the strap of her handbag. Her face lay on an open book. I ran to her. The pump and its cylinder were almost directly beneath us. It pressed its throb into the soles of my shoes. I groaned, and reached for her, lifting her head. There was an abrasion behind one ear. With the movement, she muttered something. Her fingers were clenched on the book. I tried to release them, but could not.
I lifted her on to my shoulder, head and arms dangling behind me. The throb in the floor seemed to mislead my feet, and I had difficulty finding the door. The staircase was a monstrous obstacle. I tended to fall forwards but dared not, nor dared to lean backwards in case I banged her head on the stairs behind. I reached the concrete surface and turned, heading round, now, for the gate.
There, just inside, was her Volkswagen Golf. If I’d used this gate earlier...if...if. I pushed it open and almost sprawled face down, but staggered across the forecourt and to the pavement, laying her down with her head on my greasy jacket. She still held the book in her fingers, desperately.
It was then, as I bent over her, that the cylinder blew. I heard it first, and crouched low, looking back. The roof of the rear building lifted, then flew apart, and as I watched, the front of the self-service shop blew out, and a wave of solid air and glass splinters hit me and threw me sprawling across Nicola’s still body. There was a clattering sound as parts fell all round me, a crash as a corrugated sheet of iron whirled past me into the road, then it all tinkled down into silence.
I lay still. Everything that mattered to me lay beneath me on the pavement.
18
I did nothing, apart from gradually raising myself to a sitting position, and making Nicola more comfortable. The explosion did it all, brought the Fire Service, ambulance, police. Brought Bill Porter.
By that time Nicola was conscious. She smiled at me. I kissed her, and said we’d never be parted again, which was a bit stupid because they were just about to rush her into hospital, but she knew what I meant. Seeing it was me, she released her precious Day Work Book.
I showed it to Bill. There it was, BMW 525 – No. CWS 73 P – due for intake 5.30 on 6/11/84. My car, at that time Val’s, being brought in by Michael Orton.
‘Proof?’ he said. ‘Never. It means nothing. Besides...look at that.’ He prodded a finger. ‘It was actually brought in the day after.’
‘Put it all together...’
‘We’ll question him, of course.’
I seized him angrily by the arm. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You know I hate him, so you believe I’ve made all this up.’
‘Get some rest, Cliff, you look terrible.’ He gently detached my fingers. ‘I’ll run you home.’
I was disgusted with him, bent and gathered my jacket, for what good it might be, the statement, the empty envelope...except that it wasn’t empty.
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Look at this.’
He’d been standing back, looking at the wrecked garage. His glance at me lacked interest. ‘You’ve told me all about the statement.’
‘This,’ I said, waving the envelope under his nose. ‘Tessa’s writing on it – the phone number. But it’s sealed, Bill. I think you’d bette
r open it, it feels bulky.’
He took it from me, weighed it in his hand, raised his eyebrows, then produced his penknife. He slit it open with care, giving the action weight and importance, and slipped his fingers inside.
‘Money,’ he said. He flipped through them. ‘Sixty notes, in fifties. Cliff, there’s three thousand pounds here.’
I took a deep breath. ‘You did say six hundred didn’t seem much for a consignment of heroin, Bill. There’s your answer. That was what I was supposed to hand over to George. There were two envelopes all the time. And...’ I whistled at the thought. ‘...Tessa told me she’d been able to replace it. Well now...fancy that.’
Tessa had been milking the firm for cash to maintain George’s habit, and for the rent of the room at 17C Rock Street. But she’d also managed to raise £3,000 to cover George’s loss of the consignment, and then, when that disappeared, a further £3,000. And yet, over the past year, the garage had had a face-lift, and was showing a profit. No wonder Tony had been concerned. He had known of her affair with Michael Orton, and had almost dismissed it with contempt. That contempt must have covered a greater worry, though he could only have guessed at the truth.
Tessa had known too much about the death of Colin Rampton. Had she, then, been handling a continuing affair with a man she was at the same time blackmailing? Perhaps she had even claimed she had George’s statement about the accident. That would have been a dangerous business. It is always risky to blackmail a murderer. I wondered how she had been prepared to lie beside him, with his hands so close to her throat.
The sudden thought that he must have been genuinely in love with her shot through my mind. In that case, what would it have cost him to blast her to death with a shotgun?
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