The Money Stones

by Ian St. James

  Simultaneously Hallsworth said, 'There's the signal.' He was straining forward in his seat, looking over Pepalasis's shoulder and up the drive. I saw twin pinpricks of light at the far end. Headlights. Switched on and off. And on and off again.

  'Right.' Pepalasis was getting out of the car.

  Hallsworth spoke without looking at me. 'You travel by ambulance the rest of the way.'

  Pepalasis opened my door. I looked at Hallsworth. 'Shouldn't you douse me with petrol first?' He made no reply, not even looking at me, his eyes still fixed on a point at the far end of the drive. I heaved my plastered foot out of the door and on to the ground. The ambulance door opened and even in that poor light there was no mistaking Albert's bulk as it bore down on me.

  'Hurry up,' Pepalasis said to me, then more loudly to Albert. 'Over here, give me a hand.'

  It was now or never and I knew it. Holding the top of the door with my right hand I pivoted quickly, swinging my left arm clear of the sling and crashing the plaster cast across his face. The full weight of my body was behind that blow. Even through the plaster I felt the bridge of his nose crush under the force of it. He staggered backwards, his scream shattering the night air as his hands clawed at his face. Blindly he fell into Albert's path as I scrambled towards the edge of the drive, stumbling on the rutted surface and turning as Albert recovered to come after me. I jabbed the crutch, aiming for his face, missing wildly and swinging it like a sabre. I missed again and staggered off balance. Straight into his fists. His first punch sent me sprawling in the dirt. I rolled to one side as his boot kicked viciously and by the time he kicked again, I was up on one knee. I parried the next blow and rose to a half crouch, my eyes on his face above me. Then the drive blazed suddenly with light and the night came alive with the noise of a high revving engine as the Cadillac rounded the corner at full speed. Albert's hands flew to his eyes to shield them from the glare. For a moment I was forgotten amidst the sounds of wheels skidding and doors slamming and voices shouting. Then the unmistakable sound- of a shot. I didn't look back. Half hopping, half dragging myself around the ambulance to the driver's door, stubbing my toes and cursing the clumsiness caused by the plastered foot. I was behind the wheel a second later, a hand fumbling for the ignition keys while my plastered foot tried to distinguish brake from accelerator. Albert was alongside then, wrenching the door open, a huge hand reaching for my face as the engine sprang to life. Bracing myself against his grip, I slammed the gear lever forward, and the vehicle lurched, throwing him off balance. He recovered for an instant, staying alongside, one hand gripping the door as he staggered backwards, his head turned towards the rear of the ambulance. Then the entire lower half of his face burst open like a ripe melon hit by a baseball bat. And he was gone. I never even heard the shot that killed him. Not with my foot slammed hard down on the accelerator and the door swinging open like a bird's broken wing.

  I'll never forget that drive. The ground so badly pitted that the ambulance bucked wildly in the holes. Or reeled drunkenly from side to side as its wheels caught in the rutted tramlines. It seemed to go on for ever. I prayed it might lead to another exit point. Another way of getting back on the road. But it didn't.

  I saw the car first. The one that had signalled. A red mini - empty now as my headlights washed its windscreen. Another car behind it, both parked beside a house which might have made House and Gardens. A hundred years ago. Now it was a ruin. Ground floor windows boarded up, only the double doors at the entrance swinging wide open. The drive swept past the front of the house and round behind it. And so did the ambulance as I hunted for another way out. But the rear of the house brought bitter disappointment. A dead end. Parking space. Surrounded by the beech hedge which gave way to a crumbling wall ten feet high. And no way out that I could see. I slewed in an arc, every nerve in my body taut, expecting to see the Cadillac in hot pursuit at any second. But nothing happened. I killed the engine and listened. Still nothing. Then I recovered enough to look around the cab and to discover the communicating door to the back of the ambulance. Jean! Her name had already passed my lips as I grabbed the handle and pulled the door back on its runners. Jean! Jean! Oblivious of anything and everything. But then the shouts stifled to a sob, as I looked into an empty interior. No Jean. Just me. Alone on a dark night. Waiting for a man to kill me.

  There was nowhere to go but the house. The yard offered no cover and Drachman was likely to round the corner any second. But I hesitated. Remembering the front doors as I passed. Swinging open on their hinges. Whoever had signalled from the top of the drive had seen the commotion and gone somewhere. And they certainly hadn't passed me. Which left only one place to go.

  The sound of a car's engine had me out of the ambulance and hobbling towards the house. The first two windows were boarded up like the ones at the front. Inch thick timbers too close together to prise apart. But the old-fashioned french windows offered a chance. Some of the planks had fallen away, and those remaining were held in place by rusty nails loose in the rotted wood. I tore two away and climbed through to an empty room, as big as the yard outside with about as much protection. Thin white fingers of moonlight reached across the dusty boards to. a door in the far wall. I shuffled over, bumping the plaster cast on the uneven floorboards with enough noise to waken the dead. The door opened into total darkness and for a moment I just stood there, frightened to turn back and fearful of what lay ahead, as my eyes adjusted to the heavy gloom. I was in a corridor. About six feet wide and maybe twice as long. Tall double doors to my right, a single door opposite, and another to my left on the other side of the passageway. I tried one of the curved handles on the double doors until it loosened in my hand, and with the pressure of my shoulder I inched the door open enough to see into the room beyond. A big square entrance hall, menacing with shadow and threatening in silence. The big front doors almost opposite, still open. A curved staircase sweeping gracefully up from the left hand side. It seemed important to get upstairs. But not that way. Whoever had reached the house ahead of me had used the front door. And almost certainly the staircase. To repeat the journey now would offer a certain target to anyone hidden in the gallery. I closed the door with my fingertips and edged back down the corridor. The door at the bottom led to a scullery, two chipped enamel sinks and some wooden cupboards hanging uncertainly from the window wall. I passed through to another room, and yet another beyond that, cursing the noise made by my plastered foot. Then I found what I was looking for. A back staircase. Not as grand as the one at the front and these stairs were narrow and enclosed on both sides by walls scruffy with flaking plaster. But the treads looked sound and the light was good, a gutted window at the top showing itself as an oblong patch of night sky. So I went up.

  One stair at a time. As quietly as possible. Taking care to lift my plastered foot well clear of each riser I climbed. Fearful that any sound would be carried upwards by the funnel of the stair well. And I was half way up when all hell broke loose. A shout. A shout of warning followed by a shot, then two more shots in rapid succession. A scream of agony, interrupted by yet another shot and another scream. And from above the sound of running feet. Heavy feet, too solid to be a woman's. I braced myself against the wall - caught midway on the staircase - unable to hurry, unsure of which way to go. The footsteps grew louder. Sliding and stumbling, scrambling to a halt, panic stricken, right above me. A shadow fell between me and the open window, and I looked up to see the bulk of a man on the landing, his left hand clasped to his right shoulder as if he had been hit. Gasping for breath, he shifted his weight, backing himself against the window wall, his right hand lifting slowly and pointing back in the direction he had come from.

  Then he saw me. And in the same second I recognised him. The light from the window fell full on his face as he turned towards me. It was Vince Pickard! Vice President of U.S Steel!

  'You?' he croaked, his right arm turning towards me, moonlight catching the metallic glint of the gun in his hand. 'You? For Chrissakes, if you're
here who the hell's back there?'

  He was no more than five yards away and his gun arm had almost reached the level of his eyes when I threw myself down the stairs. The shot sounded in the same instant as my head collided with the bottom step and my mouth filled with blood. I was convinced I was dying. But I was still conscious. Conscious enough to feel pain in my body and terror in my heart. I looked back up the stairs expecting to look into the grinning face of death itself. And I did in a way. Pickard was already past the point on the stairs I had climbed to. And coming down fast. And very dead. His body stopped short of me, spread-eagled across the bottom three stairs, his gun clattering to a rest behind him on the fourth stair up. My brain cleared enough to register the blood streaming from my nose, and instinct had me reaching for the gun.

  'Leave it!'

  I didn't need telling twice. All I moved was my head. Even that very slowly. I knelt at the bottom of the stairs and forced my gaze upwards until it rested on the man on the landing.

  'Townsend, I think you owe me,' Drachman said. 'And I've come to collect.'

  I thought he had as much chance of doing that as I had of leaving the place alive, but it seemed inopportune to tell him. So I said, 'Do we talk like this? Or do I come up there?'

  I went up and together we went to find Miss Pamela Johnstone. And a friend of mine.

  Two

  Pamela Johnstone lay as limp as a rag in the corridor, less than twelve feet from the head of the stairs.

  'Is she dead?'

  'Doubt it,' Drachman's indifference was chilling. 'I belted her on the way to that guy at the foot of the stairs.'

  Desperately, and without knowing if I was right or wrong, I said, 'There's someone else in the house.'

  'Not alive there ain't.'

  'A girl. She must be here.' I had another idea. 'Or perhaps in one of those cars in the drive.' I turned and seeing him behind me realised how good a target Pickard had presented against the gutted window at the head of the stairs.

  'Quit stalling, Townsend. I checked the cars before we hit the house. There's no one, and anyway -'

  'Listen!'

  In the same split second he heard it. 'On the floor!'

  'But it must have been Jean.' I took a quick step forward. Too quick for his liking. A bullet smacked into the floorboards a yard ahead of me.

  'Get down.'

  I dropped clumsily. Dreading the next bullet. The one to shatter my spine.

  'Whoever it is ain't one of mine,' he hissed. 'The room on your left - ease it up a bit and push the door open. Slowly. And Townsend - move wrong and the next slug gets you behind the left kneecap.'

  I covered the two yards on my belly, reached for the bottom of the door, and pushed. It creaked slowly back against the inside wall, the sound suddenly obliterated by the rush of feet as Drachman closed the gap and stood above me, his gun already describing an arc around the room. Moonlight flooded in from a broken window and from a hole in the roof high above. Jean sat propped against the far wall, her hands bound behind her back and her mouth taped with sticking plaster. Her eyes were wide with fright as Drachman levelled the gun at her.

  'No!' I half threw myself across the room to reach her, shielding her body with mine, expecting all the time that Drachman would shoot me. My hands reached for the thin rope at her wrists and I attacked the knots in a cold sweat of panic, my fingers numb and clumsy with fear, my movements awkward from the plaster cast on my wrist. I risked a glance over my shoulder at Drachman. And felt an overwhelming sense of relief as he sat down just inside the door, the gun for the moment not pointing at us but resting in his lap.

  I removed the sticking plaster. Even the best way was a brutal business. Two quick tugs to rip it clean away. She was already crying, 'Oh Mike, what have they done to you?' as she reached for my face. I realised I was streaked with blood from my fall down the stairs. 'And your hand?' she said, but I pulled her close to me, my right hand stroking her hair as I whispered reassurances. Not that she took much in. She was in a state of shock and the sight of Drachman's gun wasn't helping. But I held her trembling body in my arms until Drachman interrupted us. 'That's enough, Townsend. Now talk.'

  I sat oh the floor next to Jean and talked. And in the talking made a discovery. The identity of Bruno Frascari. Bruno Frascari was Vince Pickard. Vince Pickard was Bruno Frascari. I was stunned. That a man called Vince Pickard was Vice President of U.S Steel was a fact. Emanuel had checked it from the company's records. And Poignton had verified it from another source. Checked and verified? Strong words for the scant attention we had paid the matter. We had been mesmerised by Marlborough House.

  And all those people. The teleprinters and the satellite link with Pittsburgh. The computers and the non-stop flow of telex messages. I wondered what had happened to the real Vince Pickard and how Frascari had substituted for the Vice President of one of the largest corporations in the world. And my muzzy head tumbled over another thought. That Smithers and Emanuel would be in for quite a shock. If they ever got to Pittsburgh.

  'So where's the money now?' Drachman persisted.

  I swallowed hard, anticipating his reaction and wishing that he'd put the gun away. 'It's been spent.'

  'Thirty million pounds! Which they had for a few hours? Come on, Townsend, what are you giving me?'

  I told him about the export deal.

  'So, okay, when do they get paid? And where?' he asked, convinced that I had all the answers, despite all I had told him about Jean being held hostage. I repeated my ignorance and the gun loomed large in his hand. 'So who does know?' he asked.

  'Hallsworth,' my mouth went dry. 'And Pepalasis.' I jerked my head at the window. 'The men out there.'

  'Huh, you wanna know what's out there? My driver and the three clowns, you were with. All dead. And in here there's me and you and her.' He jerked his gun at Jean. 'An' Larry Baines just inside the front door. As cold as that creep on the back stairs. An' that's all, Townsend. Understand?'

  'And the girl in the corridor,' I said desperately.

  'She would know?'

  Oh God, I hoped so. I nodded.

  'Get her.' His voice rasped like a file on steel. 'And you're going to die, Townsend. You got me into this and you're going to get me out of it. Then you're going to die.'

  I nodded again and rose slowly to my feet to walk carefully past him and out of the door. Into an empty corridor.

  I couldn't believe it. She had been on the floor a few yards away. Not fifteen minutes before when we had gone into the room. Disorientated, I swung my gaze in the opposite direction. But the corridor was quite, quite deserted. There was no sign of Pamela Johnstone anywhere.

  Three

  It didn't take us long to find her. Drachman used Jean and me as human shields and marched us ahead of him down the corridor towards the front of the house. Down the corridor and along the gallery and down the grand staircase I had glimpsed earlier. Except earlier a body hadn't lain at the foot of the stairs in a pool of blood like black oil in the moonlight.

  Pamela Johnstone was standing a few yards from the front of the house. She must have heard us. My plastered foot had banged its way down the stairs and scraped on the gravel behind her. But she neither turned nor looked up as we came and stood alongside her. The car door was open and Hallsworth was sprawled in the back, his head falling drunkenly over-the edge of the seat. Blood from a chest wound covered the whole of his trunk so that only his face remained unmarked. And his open staring eyes accused all of us as we formed a semi-circle around the car.

  'I told you once that he was a genius, didn't I?' she said to me, while still looking at him. Her voice was as soft and as gentle as I had ever heard it. 'He planned the whole thing. It was his game, don't you see? The others really only cared about the money. But not him. To him the excitement was pulling it off. And he did, didn't he? He pulled it off beautifully.'

  She leant forward and closed his eyes, and for the hundredth time I wondered about the strange relationship which ha
d existed between her and Hallsworth. She was a ghost from my past. Someone I had made love to, lovers without love. But there had been something once. I had felt for her. I had enjoyed her companionship, been grateful for the pleasures of her body. Now, seeing her alone, small and vulnerable, a bruise darkening her cheekbone where Drachman had hit her, I felt a moment's pity. Until I remembered her standing by while I was beaten and Jean was humiliated and terrified to the edge of hysteria.

  'He brought Jean and me to this place to die,' I said harshly.

  'No! You're wrong. We only needed another few hours. He wanted to leave you here - both of you, tied up and drugged.'

  'He wanted to?' I detected the inference. 'But you didn't?'

  'It was a split vote.' Her eyes flickered. 'Does it matter now? Who was for and who against?'

  Drachman had been quiet long enough. 'Nothing matters,' he snapped. 'Except the money. Townsend reckons you know where it is?'

  'I know where there's a great deal of money,' she said coolly. 'And the irony is I can't touch a penny of it. Without your help.'

  We waited for an explanation, but instead she turned and walked to the Cadillac parked ten yards away. I remained where I was. Even from there I could see the bodies piled in the back like carcasses on the butcher's truck. Pepalasis, Albert, and another man. Jean shuddered and turned her head away from the carnage. But I couldn't tear my eyes from Pamela Johnstone as she stood looking down into the bruised, dead face of Pepalasis. Nor could I repress the long hiss of surprise a moment later. When she pressed her mouth to his lifeless lips in a lingering kiss of goodbye. Then she walked back to join us, ignoring the question in my eyes.