1958 - Hit and Run

by James Hadley Chase

  ‘I didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘Yet he must have been there. I think I’ll go down and take a look at the ground in daylight. He must have hidden somewhere there. It beats me where he could have been, though. There’s no cover as far as I can remember.’ I paused, then went on: ‘Has it occurred to you that after you had left the swimsuit in the car, this man might have turned up and taken it.’

  She stared at me.

  ‘No, it hadn’t.’

  ‘If he took it while we were quarrelling, it could mean, of course, that he doesn’t know the car is damaged.’

  ‘But the garage door was forced – that was when he took it.’

  ‘Yes, I was forgetting that. All right, let’s go on: what happened when you returned to the car and drove away?’

  ‘I was upset. I drove up the road. After I had gone about a mile I heard a man shout ...’

  ‘Don’t let’s rush this, Lucille. How fast were you driving?’

  ‘Fast. I don’t exactly know how fast.’

  ‘Seventy – eighty? It’s important.’

  ‘Perhaps seventy. I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t see O’Brien? You had no idea you had passed him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You had driven a mile, then you heard him shouting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must have passed him on the road, then. He must have been waiting there with his headlamp off, and as you went past, he came after you.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  She moved restlessly.

  ‘I told you. I heard him shout and I swerved. I heard a bang against the side of the car.’

  ‘You didn’t hear the motorcycle engine?’

  ‘I think I did.’

  ‘You slackened speed?’

  ‘I lost control of the car. I was startled. I think I must have increased speed.’

  ‘He came up beside you. Did he come up on your on-side or on your offside?’

  She hesitated, frowning.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Did you see him as he came alongside you?’

  ‘I saw the light from his headlamp, that startled me and made me swerve.’

  ‘Now think: was the light on your offside?’

  Again she hesitated, then she said: ‘Yes. He came up and shouted through the window. Yes, I remember now.’

  I stared at her. She sat forward, looking away from me, her hands gripped tightly between her knees.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am.’

  ‘But you weren’t a moment ago.’

  ‘I am now. It was on my offside. I am sure of it.’

  Was she deliberately lying or was she sincerely making a mistake? The damage to the car had been on the on-side. O’Brien couldn’t have come up on her offside.

  ‘You can’t be right, Lucille. The on-side lamp was smashed. He must have been on your on-side, and besides, he just wouldn’t have come up behind you on your offside. It would be inviting an accident.’

  Blood flowed into her face, and then as quickly, went away, leaving her white and taut.

  ‘Then why did you ask me if you knew all the time?’ she said angrily. ‘I don’t remember which side it was.’

  I studied her, then shrugged.

  ‘Okay, let it go. You hit him anyway. What happened after you heard the bang?’

  She looked away, her face sullen.

  ‘I drove on.’

  ‘It was a pretty violent collision?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had no doubt that you had hit him?’

  ‘Of course I knew I had hit him.’

  ‘You lost your head, accelerated and drove on without stopping to see if he was hurt?’

  She lifted her hair off her shoulders with an exasperated movement.

  ‘Do you have to keep on and on like this? I’ve told you what happened.’

  ‘I must get this straight, Lucille. You kept on and reached the main road. Then what did you do?’

  ‘I realized I must have damaged the man’s motorcycle and I had also damaged your car. I was frightened. I thought I’d better tell you. I didn’t want to go back in case I met the policeman, so I decided to go to your place and wait for you.’

  I lit another cigarette while I stared at her. She kept her eyes lowered and I could see she was very tense.

  ‘How did you know where I lived?’ I asked.

  She stiffened.

  ‘I – I had looked you up in the telephone book,’ she said, speaking slowly and deliberately as if to give herself time to think. ‘I – I once passed your place when I was out cycling. I knew where you lived.’

  I had an uneasy feeling she wasn’t telling me the truth.

  ‘You had to drive a mile and a half before you reached the road that leads here. Did you pass any car while you were coming here?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Are you quite sure about that?’

  ‘I don’t remember passing any.’

  ‘I think you must have, Lucille. After all it’s a highway. The time was around half past ten. There must have been a number of cars on the road.’

  ‘I didn’t notice any.’

  ‘I think you must have passed at least one car, Lucille.’

  ‘Suppose I did?’ Her voice shot up. ‘I tell you I didn’t notice any, but suppose I did? What does it matter?’

  ‘You were driving with only one light: the other light was smashed. An approaching motorist, seeing you, would think you were driving a motorcycle until he was close enough to see you were driving a car. He would remember that.’

  She moved impatiently.

  ‘So what does it matter?’

  ‘It does. If the car was seen and remembered, the police will know in which direction you were travelling. It will tell them you weren’t leaving town. That’s the one thing they can’t be sure about: whether the car that killed O’Brien left town before the road blocks were set up. If you were seen, the police will know where to look for the car. Instead of having to search the whole town, they will know the first place to look is on the coast roads - right here!’

  If possible, her face went a shade paler than it was already.

  ‘Oh! I hadn’t thought of that’

  ‘That’s the main reason why I’m asking all these questions. Will you please try to concentrate? It’s more than important. Can’t you remember if you passed any cars?’

  She shook her head helplessly.

  ‘I can’t remember. All I was thinking about was getting to your place.’

  ‘At least you must remember if you met any cars on this road.’

  ‘I’m sure I didn’t.’

  Thinking about it, it seemed to me the situation was pretty bad. She must have passed a number of cars on the highway. Someone must have noticed she was driving with only one headlamp. Sooner or later this someone would remember and report to the police, and then the search would concentrate on the district where I lived.

  ‘Well, all right, I think that’s about all,’ I said. ‘You’d better go home. There’s nothing you can do now you must leave me to handle it.’

  She got hesitantly to her feet.

  ‘But what are you going to do, Ches?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know for the moment. I’ve got to think about it. You have my promise to keep you out of it if I possibly can. If things look as if they are going wrong, I’ll let you know. That’s as far as I can go for the moment.’

  She studied me, her face tense.

  ‘What are you going to do about your car?’

  ‘That’s something else I’ll have to think about. I don’t know.’

  ‘And this man who telephoned?’

  ‘I’ll wait until he contacts me again. If you hear from him, let me know.’

  ‘But suppose he asks me for money? I’m sure that is what he plans to do.’

  ‘Let’s wait until he does,’ I said impat
iently. ‘If he does want money, tell him you must talk to me first.’

  ‘Can I promise him some money?’ she asked, staring at me.

  I looked at her and her eyes shifted from mine.

  ‘No, you can’t promise him anything. If he asks for money, tell him to contact me. I’ll deal with him. You know, Lucille, you seem most anxious for him to have money either from you or me.’

  ‘I’m not! I just want to know where I am!’ Her voice went shrill. ‘I know he is going to blackmail me! I haven’t any money! How would you like to be in my place? How would you like to know someone is going to blackmail you, and you can’t pay and everything that means anything to you will be taken away? How would you like that?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ I exclaimed impatiently. ‘He hasn’t even asked you for anything yet. Will you stop working yourself up? If he does ask for money, let me know. I’ll deal with him. Now go home. I have a lot to think about, and I can’t begin to think until you have gone.’

  She got to her feet. She looked suddenly very young and unhappy and desirable.

  ‘Then I just have to wait, Ches?’

  ‘Call me around ten o’clock tonight. I may have something to tell you.’

  Then suddenly she was in my arms, her mouth soft and trembling against mine, her arms clinging to me, her body pressing against mine.

  ‘Oh, Ches ...’ she whispered, her hands moving up the nape of my neck. ‘I’m so frightened. You will look after me? You will make this come right?’

  I made the effort and pushed her away from me, then I turned and walked over to the window while I got myself in hand. The feel of her lips against mine had really got me going.

  ‘I’m relying on you, Ches,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you tonight.’

  ‘Do that,’ I said, not looking around.

  I heard her move across the lounge, away from me, and again I had to make an effort not to turn around and stop her going.

  I stood there, staring out of the window, long after I heard the front door click shut, telling me she had gone.

  II

  The time was now twenty minutes to eleven.

  I sat in the easy chair and my thoughts were busy.

  There was something phoney about this whole business. I had no doubt that Lucille had hit and killed a policeman, but the way it had happened as she told it and the way it must have happened from the evidence just didn’t coincide. For some reason she had lied to me. Why had she insisted on saying that O’Brien had overtaken her on her offside? Why had she insisted that she hadn’t met any cars on the busy highway? I had a growing feeling that the story wasn’t to be trusted. She was frightened out of her wits and, like a trapped animal, she thought only of escape and she would stop at nothing to save herself.

  I had an uneasy feeling that time was running out. Someone must have seen her on the highway, and for all I knew the police might be already concentrating on my district.

  Then I suddenly remembered the bloodstains on the Cadillac’s wheel. That brought me out in a hot sweat. If the police found those bloodstains, I really would be fixed.

  Locking up the bungalow, I went to the garage and collected a bucket and sponge. Amongst the junk I kept with my tools, I found a strong padlock and a hasp. I then got in the Pontiac and drove fast to Seaborne’s house.

  In the hard light of the sun, I examined the damage to the Cadillac. The on-side headlamp was completely smashed and the metal work surrounding it was buckled beyond an amateur’s attempt to repair. The two deep scores along the side of the car would have to be handled by a coachbuilder. There was nothing I could do about them.

  I went around to look at the bloodstains, and there I had a shock. There were no bloodstains. For a long moment I stood and stared, scarcely believing my eyes. I knelt down by the rear wheel and examined it closely, but there were no bloodstains. I straightened and, walking stiff-legged, I went to the other side of the car and examined the offside rear wheel. There, I found the bloodstains.

  For a full ten seconds I knelt there while I stared at the red sticky mess on the white rim of the tyre. Here was something that set my mind crawling with suspicion.

  I stood up and went to the front of the car and again looked at the headlamp. Then I realized something else. Lucille’s story that the cop had come up behind her and she had been startled and had hit him with the side of the car couldn’t possibly be true. I was surprised I hadn’t realized this before. For the lamp to have been damaged in the way it was damaged, she must have hit the cop head-on, and that meant he wasn’t overtaking her when the accident had happened. He must have been coming down the road towards her. It meant I had caught her out in yet one more lie and a much more serious one. She had said she hadn’t seta the cop, but had only heard him shout at her, and she had been so startled she had swerved and that was how the accident happened. It was obvious to me now that it hadn’t happened like that at all. She must have seen the light from his headlamp as it came down the road. She had admitted driving fast. The road was narrow. She had lost control, and before he could get out of the way, she had hit him head-on. Her story that he had come up beside her and had startled her had been invented to make me believe the crash hadn’t been her fault.

  Did she imagine any jury would believe such a story once they had examined the car? Then I remembered my promise to take the blame. If I admitted I had been driving the Cadillac at the time of the accident, a jury would immediately jump to the conclusion that I had been drunk to have had such an accident. The road was straight. I could have seen the approaching headlight. I would have had plenty of warning to slow down. My mouth turned dry as I realized what I had let myself in for.

  Then there was this puzzle of the bloodstains on the offside rear wheel. How could they have got there? She had hit the motorcycle on her on-side. It wouldn’t have been possible for her to run the cop over with her rear offside wheel.

  I went back to the rear of the car and again examined the dull, sticky red marks on the tyre. They had to be bloodstains: they couldn’t be anything else.

  This was a baffler, and on the spur of the moment, I decided to leave the bloodstains. They offered the kind of evidence that could confuse a jury if handled by a clever counsellor, and I felt in my bones I would be asking for trouble to remove such evidence.

  I turned my attention to the garage doors. With the aid of the tools I had brought with me, I straightened the lock and got the doors to shut properly. Then I screwed on the hasp and fixed the padlock. I felt fairly confident the police wouldn’t attempt to break into the garage. They would contact Seaborne first and ask for the key. That at least would gain me a little time.

  I decided to go now down to the beach where Lucille and had bathed and examine the ground in daylight. I returned to the Pontiac.

  By now it was a little after twelve o’clock, and I found the highway crowded with weekend motorists. I had to drive slowly, and it took me twenty minutes to reach the dirt track leading down to the beach.

  As I drove down the narrow road with its low, undulating sand hills on either side, I examined the terrain carefully.

  Again it struck me how odd it was that O’Brien should have been on this road. There was no cover on either side of the road, no trees or shrubs behind which he could have hidden.

  I drove slowly on until I came to a disturbance in the sand dunes on my right. A large patch of ground had been trampled flat, and I decided this must have been the scene of the accident. I stopped the car and got out.

  From where I stood I could see the sea and the beach some two miles ahead of me. The ground was flat with only slight sandhills, and no cover except the distant clump of palms where Lucille and I had been.

  For some moments I continued to look around, but there was nothing to tell me more than I had seen at first glance, so I got back into the Pontiac. I drove down to the beach and pulled up within twenty yards of where we had parked last night.

  The first thing I noticed was the tyre ma
rks of the Cadillac, imprinted in the sand, and that gave me a shock. I saw also Lucille’s and my footprints leading down to the palm trees. This was something I hadn’t reckoned on, and I wondered if the police had been down here and if they had seen the tracks.

  If we had left prints in the sand, then the man who had telephoned us, if he had really seen us on the beach, must also have left prints.

  I started to hunt around for them, and although I covered the ground for a three-hundred yard radius there were no other footprints except mine and Lucille’s to be seen.

  That told me two things: the police hadn’t been down here, and therefore they couldn’t have seen the tyre marks of the Cadillac and the man who had telephoned us couldn’t have been on the scene either. That set me another puzzle. If he hadn’t been down here, how had he known Lucille and I had swam together and then had quarrelled? After thinking about this for some moments, I decided the only possible way in which he could have seen us would have been from some distance away, and he must have watched us with the aid of powerful night glasses. That would explain why Lucille hadn’t seen him.

  I spent several minutes wiping out the tyre marks in the sand. Then, walking down to the palm trees, taking care to walk in the prints I had made the previous night, I started back to the road, wiping out each print and also Lucille’s as I went until I once more reached the road.

  I was sweating by the time I had completed the task, but it gave me a sense of security to see there were no telltale prints to be discovered if the police did decide to extend their search down here for clues.

  Feeling at least I had taken every reasonable precaution not to be traced, I walked over to the Pontiac. As I opened the car door, I heard a car coming and looking around, I saw a yellow and red Oldsmobile turning the bend in the road and coming slowly towards me.

  My heart gave a little kick against my ribs, and I waited, watching the car come, thinking if it had arrived three minutes sooner, the driver would have seen me wiping out the prints in the sand.

  When the car was within a hundred yards of me, I saw the driver was a woman. She pulled up within ten yards of where I stood and she stared at me through the open window of the car. Then she got out.