by John Creasey
“You can call it a squeal or you can call it what you like,” Mannering said. He looked straight into Bristow’s eyes; less than four feet, separated them, beneath a searching light. “It’s about the Mile End Road job, last week. You know, when the kid was croaked. I don’t hold with violence, and I don’t want anything for my trouble, either. You interested?”
The tiredness faded from Bristow’s eyes. The sergeant was no longer bored, but had his notebook out and pencil at the ready.
“Yes, very,” Bristow said. “Let’s have it.”
Mannering said: “You ought to look for a man with red hair, Mr. Bristow. I’ve got a hot tip, that a man with red hair was taking a good dekko at that shop on the afternoon of the burglary. Then when he broke in the kid woke up, and you know what happened. Red hair, that’s the info. You know about that?”
Bristow slid neatly out of that question.
“We’ll check. Where did you get the information from, Mr. Richardson?”
“That’s my business,” Mannering retorted, almost truculently. “The thing is, it’s right. And I don’t hold with violence, especially against a kid of nine years of age. Mind you, they shouldn’t ever have let him stay alone in the house, but you know how it is.” He stood up. “That’s the lot, Mr. Bristow, thanks for listening.”
“Have you got Mr. Richardson’s name and address?” Bristow asked the sergeant.
“They have in the hall, sir.”
“Good.” Bristow put out a hand. “We’ll check this at once, and be in touch with you if anything develops,” he said crisply. “And we’ll treat it as confidential, you can rely on that.”
“Oh, I can trust you,” Mannering said. “Can’t say that about every ruddy rozzer, but even a bad tree has some good apples!” He grinned.
Bristow saw him as far as the hall.
Mannering went off, and the Yard sent no one after him. He took a taxi to Victoria Station and then walked to a lock-up garage where, for years, he had kept a reserve car which not even the police knew about, and some tools and a gun and ammunition. He fitted the tools, in a specially made band, round his waist, checked that the automatic was loaded, and slipped it into his pocket.
He left the car in the garage, locked up, and took a bus along Victoria Street, getting off near the Cathedral. Bristow lived in a big block of flats near by. Mannering waited, went up in the lift, rang the Bristows’ bell. He knew Bristow’s wife, a tall, pleasant woman. She answered the door, and obviously thought that she was looking at a stranger.
“Is Mr. Bristow in, please?”
“No, he’s not, but I’m expecting him any minute,” she said. But she didn’t ask him in. “You aren’t likely to keep him long, are you?” That came anxiously.
“Five minutes, ma’am,” Mannering assured her.
He was waiting in a small room off the lounge when Bristow arrived. Bristow’s footsteps were flagging, he was probably feeling his age. It was well after midnight, and he had almost certainly been at the job since eight o’clock that morning.
“I didn’t know whether I ought to have told him to come back in the morning or not,” Mrs. Bristow said worriedly. “I never do know what’s the right thing to do. He said five minutes, so I suppose it won’t be more than a quarter of an hour.”
“Five minutes is the absolute limit,” Bristow grunted. “Pop a kettle on while I see him. What name did he give?”
“Gregory.”
Bristow came into the small room. At sight of ‘Richardson’, he actually stopped moving. Bewilderment, then sharp annoyance, crossed his face.
“Now, what’s this nonsense about? Are you—”
“No nonsense,” Mannering said in his normal speaking voice. “The red-haired man’s true. Bill, too. Think I’ll do?”
Bristow didn’t answer, just moved to a chair and sat down. He was like that for a long time before he began to smile.
It was nearly ten minutes later, when Mannering was leaving, that Bristow thought belatedly to say: “Before I pass you out, I’d like to see you in daylight.”
“Come to Brook House tomorrow,” Mannering invited. “Meanwhile, tell Aylmer and the police down there that Mr. Richardson has your blessing, and they’re safe to co-operate with him, will you?”
“I suppose I’d better,” Bristow said, almost grudgingly.
Chapter Thirteen
Brook House
Joanna Woburn thought: “I don’t know whether I’m going to like him or not.”
The fact that a representative from Jimmy Garfield’s solicitors was coming had preoccupied her a great deal since the previous afternoon, when Aylmer had told her. From the time she had returned from the encounter on the road, she had been edgy and harassed, but fighting to keep up outward appearances. She was conscious of a sense of strain with everyone, from Aylmer downwards. The fact that the police were seriously worried about the possibility of physical attack didn’t help. When she had heard of the injury to Mannering’s wife, she hadn’t been able to rest until she’d spoken to him.
She wished he was here.
Now, she looked into his brownish eyes, with the pupils enlarged with drops so that the brown colour looked opaque, and didn’t know whether to be pleased or sorry. At least, he wasn’t a policeman. He was older than she expected, but it was easy to believe that he would be useful in an emergency. Aylmer had told her that there would be a policeman on duty, as well as ‘Mr. Richardson, from Hodderburn’s’; the policeman was a youthful, quiet-moving detective named White, who had taken over Gedde’s position.
Everything worked surprisingly smoothly. Mrs. Baddelow and Priscilla went about their work with the usual efficiency. The girl seemed very subdued. The other servants were doing their normal jobs. White was as self-effacing as Gedde had been, and had none of the faint hint of menace that Gedde had carried.
The news from the hospital could have been much worse. Jimmy Garfield was alive, and had had odd moments of consciousness, while George Merrow’s leg was on the mend. It would be a long time before it would be out of the plaster, but the risk of complications seemed to have gone.
Now, there was Richardson.
The newcomer arrived in the middle of the afternoon, in a pre-war Austin, which somehow seemed right for him. He drove himself. His luggage consisted of one suitcase and a handcase, and his clothes were anything but smart; good, but not smart. He looked rather as if he had been stored away in the solicitors’ offices until such an emergency as this, and had been given a good dusting and shaking out, and delivered safely. His rather dry voice wasn’t unpleasant, and he had a way of smiling with a touch of drollness. It was almost a mannerism. She wasn’t likely to make a friend, but he brought a welcome sense of security; while he was here from Hodderburn’s, she felt that someone represented Jimmy.
“I’ll get White to show you round,” she said; “I know you’ll forgive me, but I have to go into Orme for an hour.”
“Orme,” said Mannering, and pursed his lips. “May I ask why?”
If he were going to question all her movements, he would be as bad as Aylmer; at least the police just accepted whatever she said, didn’t question it.
“I want to see Mr. Merrow.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mannering. “Mr. Garfield’s nephew. I understand that the police guard you wherever you go, Miss Woburn.” The little smile came. “Do they do that satisfactorily?”
“Very,” she said dryly.
“Excellent! Some are expendable, but you—” In a man fifteen years younger, she would have thought that almost fresh. In him, it was gallant. “May I make an alternative suggestion? I would like to get to know Orme. I will go ahead of you, and we can both be afforded police—ah—protection, and when you have finished with Mr. Merrow, I will be able to spend a few minutes with him.” He shrugged deprecatingly. “As one o
f my tasks.”
“It should work out very well,” said Joanna. She told White, who made it easy. At half-past four, when she left, Mr. Richardson’s car led the way, she followed in the runabout, which had been repaired, and a police officer followed not far behind. She was not as nervous as she had been; the other two men gave her a sense of security which she knew was probably false, but which helped.
At heart, she didn’t quite believe that the danger was as acute as the others said. Even the attack on Mannering and its consequences had affected her only at the time. To be driving along the quiet country road, through the young trees, past the fields of late hay, or grass or the ploughed fields which had already yielded their harvest, and to think that death might strike, was unbelievable.
Only at quiet moments, usually in the darkness of the night, did fear attack her. Now, the sun shone.
She saw the square back of the old Austin as well as the nose of the modern police car in the driving-mirror. There had been rain during the night, and the countryside was as fresh as it could be, and sweetly smelling. She drove fast.
A man outside the parking place of the ‘Grey Mare’ was hosing down a small blue car, and Jeff Liddicombe, in his shirt sleeves, was talking to him. A huge Alsatian dog stood looking on, ears cocked. Jeff raised a hand in greeting, and Joanna smiled back. It was hard to believe that Liddicombe was Priscilla’s father; he was a big man, running to fat, and without any hint of daintiness; the only similarity was the fair hair.
It was Priscilla’s afternoon off, and she would probably be in Orme. With a boyfriend? Joanna felt a sharp twinge of an emotion she didn’t then recognise, because that made her think of the girl’s story.
She hadn’t seen George Merrow since the accident.
She had sent a message and some flowers; how could she have done less? She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to see him again. What had happened would leave its mark for a long time. One moment, slapping his face for a gratuitous insult; the next freeing him from that ugly trap.
She forgot the danger, forgot the police, even noticed Mr. Richardson only vaguely. She knew the hospital, and pulled up in the main approach. The police car swung off the road and stopped just behind her; the man wouldn’t leave her alone anywhere.
She felt a twinge of annoyance.
Richardson had driven on, and she knew that he was due to come here at half-past five; it was now five. George Merrow was in a private ward where visiting hours were elastic. She was still thinking mostly of Merrow. She wasn’t going to enjoy the first few minutes of the encounter, and if he appeared to feel any embarrassment, she wouldn’t stay more than a few minutes.
The porter directed her to the third floor.
A nurse directed her to Ward 23.
She tapped, and George Merrow called out: “Come in.”
Her fingers tightened on the handle, and she hesitated before pushing the door open; she did that more sharply than she intended, and it banged back against the wall. That made her go red, and couldn’t have been a worse start. Vexedly, she closed the door and then approached him. She knew that whatever else, she wasn’t going to be embarrassed for long. He wasn’t going to allow her to, either. He looked pale, but not really ill. There was a cage over his leg, covered by the bedclothes He was grinning at her, and had both arms stretched out, as if to clutch and to hold her to him. For a moment, she hesitated and drew back; then she laughed.
Merrow dropped his arms and chuckled.
“Thanks, Joanna! For that and for coming. But what have I done? No more flowers?”
“I’m having some fruit sent in.”
“Cold-hearted wench,” said Merrow, while his eyes laughed at her. Her heart beat, very fast. “What good to me is Joanna at second-hand? Sit down, relax, and say anything you like except order me to open my mouth. I do not like nurses.”
Before she could stop it, the retort was out: “That’s hardly in character, is it?”
He started, the smile vanishing; but it came back quickly, and was in his eyes as well as at his lips.
“Never have I asked for anything more than I asked for that. It isn’t their sex I object to, it’s their horrid efficiency and the unrelenting starched white uniforms. Not that I’m complaining, mine is a very nice girl. Outsize, in fact, and motherly!”
Joanna sat at a chair pulled up by the side of the bed, and he took her hand.
They were silent for a long time, and then: “How is it, Jo? Bad?”
She was frank. “Sometimes, very,” she said.
“What a hell of a thing to have walked into!”
“I don’t suppose either of us expected it.” She freed her hand.
“No, I suppose not,” agreed Merrow. “Well, no use talking about it now. I’ve just had a word with the Cutter-Upper-in-Chief, and he says that my venerated Uncle is showing a resistance to Demon Death which would shame a man half his age. He had a conscious and also lucid interval half an hour ago. Like to know what he said?”
She could picture Jimmy, with his battered head.
“I—well, yes, what did he say?”
“‘Before this is over,’ said he, ‘I’ll show ’em!’”
Joanna’s laugh came spontaneously again.
“He’s rather wonderful,” she said; “I think I’ve thought that from the beginning.”
“Everything in the garden would have been lovely but for his snake-in-the-grass of a nephew,” observed George Merrow. He squeezed her hand again, but didn’t hold it too long. “I always believe in talking about the inescapable, it might hurt a bit but the risk of putrefaction gets less. Aylmer has asked me seven hundred and thirty-nine questions, plus the one about what was I doing with that pretty maid when someone took a pot shot at me in the copse.”
Joanna said: “There’s no need—”
“There’s every need. I told him that there was such a thing as a normal man’s reaction, and I was caught between an ice box and a fiery furnace, so to speak. I say it in no mood of reproach, Joanna, but do you know how persistently unfriendly you were to me? Almost as if you suspected from the word ‘go’ that I was a revolting young man with unwholesome notions, and—”
“George,” Joanna said, very quietly and steadily, “Priscilla put it very clearly when she asked: ‘What harm is there in a cuddle?’” That actually made Merrow wince. “Apart from that, why should I criticise you? I’ve no right—”
“That’s enough of that one,” George said, more roughly. His grip was tight, and almost painful; he wouldn’t look away from her, so she couldn’t avoid his eyes. “From the moment you walked into the library, and Jimmy told me who you were, I scented trouble,” he declared. “It isn’t over yet. You know as well as I do that it’s been damned uncomfortable living together on terms of frigid politeness melted only by Jimmy’s garrulous chatter. No doubt you thought that I looked at you with thoughts which were not proper. And so I did. I liked your face, your figure, your voice and the way you did your hair. If you’d like it in words of four letters, I fell in love with you. I am still in love with you. And—I resent it.”
He didn’t smile at that, but uttered the words fiercely. She felt as if her heart had almost stopped beating. With the glitter in his eyes, and fierceness in his manner, he was magnificent-looking.
“I don’t want to be in love,” he said. “I don’t want it to matter a tinker’s damn what you think about me. But it did, does and will. Understand?”
She was flaming red. “But, George—”
“I don’t want any ‘but, Georges’, either,” he said, and suddenly his fingers were tight about her wrists and he was drawing her forward with surprising strength, although he couldn’t move his body freely; the force came from his shoulders. “This is what I want.”
He kissed her.
The door opened.
“Oh, dear,” said ‘Mr. Richardson’, in a tone of dry embarrassment. “Apparently I am a little ahead of my time. Never mind, never mind, I can wait.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mr. Richardson
“And who the hell is that?” Demanded George Merrow, as the door closed.
Mannering heard him clearly, for he did not quite close the door. It appeared to be closed, but he stood near it, and heard not only Merrow’s question but his heavy breathing; and also the almost agitated breathing of the girl.
“Know him?”Merrow demanded.
“I—he’s staying at the house,” Joanna said.
“At Brook House?”
“Yes.”
“Sling him out!”
“He’s from the solicitors,” Joanna said. A chair scraped. “You can’t behave with everyone like that, he happened to look in at an awkward moment, that’s all.”
Mannering waited –
There was roughness in Merrow’s voice: “Awkward for you?” he demanded.
The breathing seemed to get more agitated; the chair scraped again. Silence was almost painful before the woman said quietly and cuttingly.
“There are times when I think you’re the rudest man I’ve ever met. I’m sorry it’s turned out like this, but—”
Quick footsteps –
“Jo!” exclaimed Merrow.
Mannering wished he could see inside, but listening had to be enough. He did not think that either of the others realised that he could hear so clearly. He thought that he had interrupted an intensely personal scene, and the little he had heard before he had opened the door made him feel quite sure. Now, he believed that whatever else might be true of George Merrow, he put his heart into that cry of: “Jo!”
Would the girl ignore or heed him?
There was a pause, as of uncertainty; then she spoke in a different, rather tired voice.
“I think we’re both overwrought, George. Can’t we just talk about ordinary things, and forget—”