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by Brian Freemantle

  Durham looked towards the whiskey decanter. ‘I don’t know that he’s the killer. I think he is involved.’

  ‘And by association with him, you fear you could be considered an accomplice?’ said Hordle.

  Durham shook his head, although in refusal, not denial. ‘Do I have a deal?’

  ‘How many other victims do you think you might know?’ asked Powell.

  ‘Possibly three.’

  Any one of whom Harold Taylor or an accomplice could be stalking as they talked. ‘You’ve got your deal,’ announced Powell.

  Hordle began: ‘From a legal point of view I really do think—’ but Powell said: ‘And from a commonsense point of view I think we need to prevent more killings, if it’s at all possible. So we will.’

  Durham swallowed, smiling uncertainly, looking at the other lawyer and then at the man’s briefcase. ‘You have an exculpation agreement?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the younger lawyer, reluctantly.

  Durham insisted it should be Powell who witnessed the signatures. He finally poured another whiskey before settling back in his seat. ‘It’s probably best to start at the very beginning,’ he said. ‘In late 1949 I was engaged to act for an inmate of a military prison in Alabama jailed for life by a military tribunal in Germany. His name was Myron Nolan …’

  As they let Durham talk Powell recognized how good a courtroom advocate the man must have been. Durham’s confidence – condescension, even – returned with the non-prosecution agreement and he talked with a lawyer’s precision, every fact ready, the chronology in timed and dated order. And he’d been extremely clever, Powell further acknowledged. Durham had been more worried about a long-ago embezzlement than about more easily defensible inveiglement in a murder conspiracy. But if the man was right – and Powell didn’t have the slightest doubt that he was – Durham had a different cause for concern about that, one that he didn’t yet appear to have considered.

  The moment Durham stopped, Powell said, ‘An address! You must know how to contact this man Taylor. Have a phone number? Something?’

  ‘No,’ said Durham. ‘He would just arrive, from nowhere. It was …’ He stopped, uncertainly. ‘His way of humiliating me, I suppose.’

  ‘The first time was eighteen months ago?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Literally rang on the door. Said at once it was about Myron Nolan: about his estate.’

  ‘Money from which you’d appropriated?’ intruded Brett Hordle, brutally, annoyed at how easily the man had got his immunity.

  ‘I went through every legal formality after Myron Nolan’s death,’ insisted Durham, his defence prepared. ‘I advertised for living relatives and had inquiry agents search all available records.’

  ‘Before which, having been feloniously gained, that estate should have been surrendered to the court that originally sentenced him,’ suggested Hordle.

  ‘Let’s concentrate upon the present,’ said Powell firmly. ‘Who did Taylor say he was, when he came to you? Did he claim to be a relative of Nolan’s?’

  Durham shook his head. ‘He refused to say who he was. Just that he knew all about Myron Nolan’s affairs – which he did, he knew everything – and that there was an undeclared estate of around $1 million.’

  ‘Which he blackmailed you into giving him with the threat of exposing you for having kept it?’ persisted Hordle.

  Durham swallowed and nodded.

  ‘Tell us about the other people you think are in danger,’ said Powell.

  ‘That was what he also wanted,’ Durham hurried on, glad of the escape. ‘He said he needed the names and addresses of everyone who’d been involved in his trial, in Germany: that he expected me to have the original depositions from which to start.’

  ‘Did you have them?’ came in John Price.

  Durham shook his head. ‘Not all. Only some. He made me hire inquiry agents again: give them what I had, to make searches. Legally I am the person who had them all located. Now three are dead.’

  ‘Who are the others, apart from Gene Johnson, Jethro Morrison and General Carr?’ demanded Powell.

  Instead of answering immediately, Durham went to the bureau in the corner of the room and returned with a single sheet of paper. ‘The man who unsuccessfully defended Nolan is named John Tibbett. He lives in Tucson. The prosecutor, Alan Onslow, is dying of cancer in a vets’ hospital in Little Rock. The widow of another member of the court-martial panel, David Arnoldson, lives just outside Chicago.’

  ‘What reason did Taylor give, for wanting them?’ asked Powell.

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Durham. ‘Just that he wanted to find them and I could help—’ Seeing the look on Brett Hordle’s face, Durham added, ‘I didn’t have a choice! I made a mistake, a long time ago when I was too young and too hungry. I was being made to pay for it!’

  ‘You believe this is the full list?’ asked John Price.

  ‘He said there were more, that he was finding himself.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely positive you haven’t any idea where Taylor lives?’

  ‘None.’

  Finally, almost reluctantly, Powell took the freeze frame pictures from his briefcase. He offered the print of the younger man first. Durham looked briefly at it, frowning. ‘That’s Taylor. So you knew about him all along?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Powell, handing the second photograph to the elderly man.

  ‘That’s …’ started Durham, then looked up, bewildered. ‘When was this taken?’

  ‘Fifteen days ago,’ said Powell.

  Durham looked between the FBI agent and the photograph, vaguely smiling, his head shaking slowly. ‘No,’ he said, brittle voiced. ‘No, that can’t be. That’s Myron Nolan. And Myron Nolan’s dead. Murdered, in prison.’

  ‘You sure about that: sure beyond any doubt?’ pressed Powell, wanting an answer that would make sense of it all.

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ insisted the retired lawyer, indignantly. ‘I was the person who had to identify the body. I saw him lying dead, in the prison mortuary. You’re mistaken about the photograph. You’ve got to be.’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Powell, just as insistent.

  ‘How …’ said Durham uncertainly, his voice trailing.

  ‘We don’t know,’ admitted Powell.

  Durham looked back yet again at the photograph, then at the list that John Price had taken from him. ‘Are you going to put them under protection?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Powell. ‘And you, too.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Durham. ‘I want that. That’s essential.’

  ‘I think so too,’ agreed Powell.

  ‘You can’t be right, you know,’ said the old man. ‘It’s a mistake … there’s an explanation.’

  ‘We can’t find one,’ said Powell.

  None of them spoke going down in the elevator with James Durham. At the lobby the lawyer identified the Maurice Barkworth signature in the visitors’ log Taylor had used for his most recent blackmail visit and Powell seized the entire book as an FBI exhibit from the startled desk clerk. Durham remained by the entry desk, watching them leave. Outside, on Park Avenue, John Price smiled expectantly and said, ‘What’s the story about someone who’s supposed to have been dead for fifty years?’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ said Powell. ‘Not one that I yet know, anyway.’

  At that moment, three and a half thousand miles away, Taylor smiled at Janet Hibbs in the bedroom to which she’d shown him and said, ‘This is very nice. I’m glad I changed.’

  ‘Good,’ said Janet. ‘Now let me show you the rest of the house. You don’t mind meeting Mother, do you?’

  ‘I’d like that,’ he said. The transformation in Janet Hibbs was almost as surprising as anything he could manage himself. She wore tweeds and a sweater and was positively beautiful. Best of all she was clean, wonderfully perfumed and clean. This was going to be so good.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Edith Hibbs had a scrawny neck he could scarcely
wait to cut into and the left side of her face had collapsed, pulling her mouth slightly open. She tilted vaguely to the left in the wheelchair that had been positioned in the window bay so that she could look out over the garden without being directly in the sun, which was flooding the room with brightness. Her eyes were closed when they entered but opened at once when Janet coughed, a pre-arranged signal. Awake and in conscious control the facial effect of the stroke was less obvious and she straightened in the chair, embarrassed by her frailty.

  ‘Our guest, Mother,’ announced Janet.

  ‘It’s good that you could come,’ said the old lady.

  There was only the suggestion of a slur from the twisted mouth. She’d hate having to surrender her house to strangers for money, Taylor guessed: prefer the charade that they really were guests. He briefly accepted the bony hand, glad that close that she didn’t smell of piss, as he’d expected, and went into a charade of his own, saying how lucky he felt that they could take him into such a delightful house where he was sure he was going to be very comfortable. He didn’t know how long he was staying but he hoped as long as possible in such a beautiful part of the country, far prettier than his father had made it sound recounting his time here, during the war. That prompted her reminiscences, which it was intended to do, and he dutifully studied the photographs the old woman insisted her daughter take from the piano top and side table of the man he remembered so well, actually dressed then as he was in the pictures in stiff, bemedalled uniform and cross-strapped leather, snapping high-voiced remarks across a courtroom table. Despicable … charge should have been murder … inadequate penalty … despicable …

  He instantly recognized Janet’s cue to leave, following her out into the deceptively wide and long corridor that bisected the house from front to back. It was a delightful house, better and cleaner than the hotel he’d just left.

  Janet said, ‘That was extremely kind of you, sparing the time. She misses people.’

  ‘I enjoyed meeting her.’ He had, he decided. Actually enjoyed acting out a part with the stupid old fool, like he was acting out a part now, making daughter as well as mother like him. Not a problem. Never had been: always a way with people, ingratiating himself and all the time laughing at their gullibility. Could he make Janet really like him before he killed them both? Impress her sufficiently to trust him, absolutely and totally: seduce her, even? He’d never done that: wasn’t sure he knew how. He’d always paid for women, not needing them in any other way. Not needing – not himself trusting – anybody. He didn’t need Janet, of course. What he wanted was the experience – something else new – of behaving like an ordinary, mundane person. He’d try: genuinely try. Test her. Her choice, without her knowing it. If she responded, she’d live a little longer. If she didn’t, he’d kill her that much quicker. Her chance to live or die. Life’s lottery.

  ‘It’s her busy day. Hospital physiotherapy.’

  ‘You taking her?’ he asked, seeing the opening.

  The woman shook her head. ‘She gets collected. A special vehicle, to accommodate the wheelchair.’

  ‘More gardening?’

  She smiled at his question. ‘I really don’t know what I’m doing. I just go along with the shears cutting off bits that stick out and make the hedges look untidy.’

  ‘Take the afternoon off, then. Show me one of the walks across the downs.’ As he spoke Taylor felt the oddest sensation, one he didn’t recognise. Surely it wasn’t uncertainty: the thought of being rejected! Her fault if he was. Careful, Big Tits Janet.

  For a moment she stood in the hallway regarding him curiously. Then she said, ‘It would be good to get out for a while. I’ve hardly left the house since Mother became ill.’

  ‘It’s fixed, then?’

  ‘Yes. And thank you.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Mother leaves at two.’

  ‘And so shall we.’

  He half considered transferring the satchel from the car boot to his upstairs room but decided against it. Safer where it was. A local woman came in to clean, Janet had said. Didn’t want her looking at things she shouldn’t see: an evil eye for an evil eye. Janet had nice eyes. Blue. Have one soon.

  At the gate he hesitated, undecided. The village was very quiet, asleep in the sun. She’d expect him to look at the church; might even be watching. Norman, he remembered. He’d have some fun inside. Amuse himself.

  He walked easily, unhurriedly. As he passed the Bold Forester he was aware of a man at the window, watching him. He smiled and the man smiled in return. The lych-gate was stiff, creaking open, and so was the church door, which groaned in protest. Inside it was unexpectedly cold and smelt of damp and dust: motes swirled in the sun shafts, coming through the stained glass. Flowers were dying around the altar, casting their petals, making a mess. He scattered them even more, tempted to desecrate the place further, pissing on it perhaps or heaping it with the dog shit he’d seen on the churchyard path. But that would mean handling it, which was unthinkable. And there was the man in the pub window who’d watched him going into the church. He wouldn’t do anything, he decided. Tantalizing though it was – he ached to do something – he would vandalize nothing. Better – more satisfying in the long run – to go on performing his own private charade, the charming-to-everyone tourist. Then he saw the commemorative plaque to Major Walter Hibbs, MC, DSO. He spat on it, watching the spittle dribble down across the marble.

  ‘They’re going to suffer,’ he said aloud. ‘Suffer a lot.’ He knew how he’d do it. Like he’d killed Johnson and the hooker, only much better. Tie the old bitch in her wheelchair and make her watch while he fucked the daughter: make Janet do everything to him – things they probably didn’t know about – and then kill her and do the cutting. Tell the old woman while he was doing that why it was happening – what her husband had done to him, to deserve the revenge – and how he was going to do the same to her. Do the face change, too. Mustn’t forget that. Do that to Janet, while she was still alive. While he was raping her.

  Taylor found the Hibbs tomb in the graveyard, a large rectangular mausoleum with a metal gated entrance to steps leading down to a vault sealed by an aged wooden door. The memorial plaque to Hibbs was the same as that inside the church but alongside was another recording the death eight years earlier of Dr Timothy John Hibbs, aged twenty-five. Taylor spat on both and said, aloud again, ‘Soon going to be quite crowded in there’, and laughed.

  There were three men in farm overalls at the bar of the Bold Forester and another man drinking alone at a table. The man who’d earlier watched him through the window was behind the bar. The farm workers stopped talking at Taylor’s entry. The landlord, a red-faced, easily smiling man, nodded and beamed. You’re looking at the man who’s going to create the biggest sensation of your lives, thought Taylor. He said ‘Good morning’ generally, and got a chorus of replies.

  Again he asked for the strongest beer and carried it to a table facing the other solitary drinker. The man was reading the Daily Mirror, holding it so that Taylor could see the artist’s impression of the man supposed to be him occupying half the front page. Before leaving Midhurst Taylor had gone through all the morning newspapers, studying the drawing and reading Paul Stanswell’s version of their encounter.

  There were also several photographs of the taxi driver talking to the media outside New Scotland Yard. Taylor didn’t recognize Stanswell from his journey in the man’s cab and decided Stanswell wouldn’t recognize him again, either. In the drawing both the eyes and the ears were too prominent and the hair had been made to appear receding, which it wasn’t. The height was also miscalculated, making him a good two inches too tall. As Taylor watched, the man finished what he was reading, closed the newspaper and put it face up on the table, so the sketch was directly in front of him. Suddenly conscious of Taylor’s attention, he stared back. There was no identification. Taylor smiled. So did the man.

  Taylor lunched on excellent home-cooked ham and salad and drank two mor
e beers, the last at the bar after the farm workers left. The landlord introduced himself as George Potter and Taylor agreed he was an American visiting the village for a few days.

  ‘Staying at the Hibbses house,’ said the man, without having to be told. ‘My missus helps out there.’

  ‘I’ll try not to make too much mess.’

  ‘Our Vera’s used to mess, keeping this place clean as well.’

  ‘She does it well.’ And was going to have to do a lot more than usual in a few days’ time.

  Edith Hibbs’s wheelchair was being hydraulically lifted into the specially adapted hospital van as Taylor walked back up the drive. He stood aside, for it to pass. Janet was at the door of the house. She’d changed into jeans and walking shoes.

  He looked down at himself and said, ‘Am I all right like this?’

  ‘You’re fine. It’s a designated public footpath. Not rough. I just thought jeans were better for me.’

  Wouldn’t stop me screwing you if I felt like it, he thought. Would he be able to get her to do it willingly? That would be different, making her like him that much. Probably too much to expect. Didn’t want to frighten her. Be ordered out of the house. He said, ‘I’ve been to the church. It’s very pretty.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ She fell into step with him walking down the drive.

  ‘Who was Timothy?’

  ‘My elder brother. After he qualified he went to Africa with Medicins sans Frontières. Picked up a disease they said had something to do with monkeys. There wasn’t any treatment.’ She went through it quickly, wanting to get it out of the way.

  ‘I’m sorry if it hurt, my asking.’

  ‘We were very close. I miss him.’ At the church she hesitated. ‘We could have brought flowers from the garden.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ She’d be putting flowers on her own grave!

  She smiled. ‘All right. Tomorrow.’

  The path was signposted. At a stile she accepted his hand unhesitatingly. The jeans showed how tight her ass was. Have that, before he killed her. Have all of her. He liked her soft-fingered touch. Make her use those fingers and that full mouth, thinking there was a chance for her mother to live if she did everything he told her. She’d expect some personal history from him, he supposed. He had five previous existences to choose from, one himself as a doctor in early nineteenth-century London. How would she react to his attempts on that particular return to prove that the retina of murder victims retained the image of their attacker, which was why they always had to be destroyed? Better to invent. Or rather, half invent. There was still more money to come from Durham and when the retribution was over he’d thought of playing the stock markets, use it all as risk capital. That was the sort of thing that might impress her. Which was, after all, the game he was playing.