My feet were sending messages, trying to tell me that I had been on them for too long. I flopped into one of the chairs, put my elbows on the table and rested my chin on my hands.
I must have dozed. When something awoke me, a bright sun was entering the eastern windows and splashing half-way down the long room.
The phone behind the bar was ringing. I dragged my feet over, leaned across the bar and picked it up. Janet’s voice came on the line. She sounded as tired as I was and much angrier.
‘Deborah?’ she said. ‘Your irresponsible dimwit of an uncle has cast up here. He’s stotious. Drunk as a fiddler’s bitch. As far as I can make out – because he sounds as if he’s talking through a basket of wet laundry – he went back to his hovel before remembering that he was supposed to be here. The fact that he should be up there with you seems to have gone out of his so-called mind. If I hadn’t heard him drive up, he’d have set the alarms off and we’d have had the police out here and then what would have become of him? If he tried to blow up a breathalyser, I swear that it would dissolve. I’m pushing food and coffee down his throat, but I think he’ll probably sleep until Tuesday. Are you all right?’
‘Perfectly,’ I said. ‘But things have been happening up here. One of the members has been found dead and we think that he was murdered by the man who committed Herbicide.’
The Sergeant’s little joke fell as flat with her as it had with me. ‘Did what?’ she asked.
‘Killed Herbert Tullos,’ I said. ‘It’s too complicated to tell you on the phone. The Sergeant’s gone off to help assemble the evidence and be present at the arrest.’
‘Are you alone up there?’ she asked sharply.
‘For the moment.’
‘I don’t know whether I shouldn’t come and join you,’ she said. ‘But the whole idea was that this place shouldn’t be left empty.’ I thought that she was torn between curiosity and a desire to get back to bed. But, in fairness, she genuinely disliked the idea of my being at the mercy of any passing rapist. Jealous, probably.
‘You could always leave Ronnie propped up in the hall,’ I said. ‘Drunk or sober, he’d scare off any burglar. And he’ll be looking for a fight when he wakes up. But don’t worry about me. By the time you could get dressed and drive up here, the Sergeant might be back. Get some sleep.’
‘You too,’ she said, ‘and preferably alone. Don’t forget that you’re bringing him for a meal tonight.’
‘I’ll try,’ I said. ‘But he isn’t getting any more sleep than we are. Only your lord and master will be even half awake.’
‘He can look your Sergeant over for me,’ Janet snapped and she hung up. She hates it when I refer to Wallace in that way.
I dropped my receiver into place and drooped over the counter. But there was a dark shadow in the doorway and I suddenly snapped awake.
Alistair Wyman was standing, watching me. He had his Browning in his hands and, of the two of them, it would have been difficult to say which had the less friendly expression.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Hullo, Mr Wyman,’ I said brightly. ‘You’re here early.’ Given a moment for thought, I would have realised that it was already far too late for any attempt to pretend a total lack of knowledge.
‘Earlier than you think,’ he said. ‘I was listening to what you said on the phone.’
I thought back over what I had said to Janet. He would only have heard my end of the conversation, but that would have been more than enough. ‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Exactly.’ He walked slowly towards me keeping the barrels of his gun aligned on a spot between my eyes. In the lightheadedness which followed a sudden wakening from inadequate sleep, my mind took off after irrelevancies. I felt threatened, but I also felt somehow degraded. I wondered whether the supposedly phallic imagery of the gun was to blame but, looking back, the indignity stemmed from years of safety indoctrination. To have a gun pointed at me reduced me to the status of a clay pigeon.
He seemed to pick up my thought and he smirked unpleasantly. ‘You’re not going to say anything about guns being open and empty?’
Fear was catching up with me, but I still had my voice. ‘Not just at the moment,’ I said.
‘Good. So we think that Doug Pender was murdered by the man who committed Herbicide do we? And who might that be?’ He paused, but for once I had the sense to hold my tongue. ‘Now you listen to me, my girl. I’ve never done time and I’m not going to start now, so if you value your life don’t get in my way. Empty your pockets onto the counter.’
I had very little in the pockets of my Skeet vest except keys. He picked up the car key left-handed. ‘Which does this fit?’
‘The jeep.’
‘That’ll do. They’ll be on the lookout for my car and at this time of a Sunday morning the roads are too damned empty. All I need is a change of car and somewhere to lie up until there’s some traffic on the roads. And possibly a hostage. Sit down.’
The barrels gestured me to a chair. I sat. I realised that I had never really looked at him before. His heavy frame was well muscled despite the small pot bulging over his belt, and he handled the 7½ lb gun one-handed as though it had been a pistol. His head was blunt; without the customary cap I saw that he was almost bald, his scalp wrinkled and speckled with liver spots. Even at that hour of the morning he seemed to crackle with energy. He was overdue for his morning shave and the stubble gave him a seedy look. I had thought his features bland, but there was an underlying forcefulness and when I met his eyes I knew that there was somebody behind them whom I would not like. There was ruthlessness there, or even cruelty. I tried to tell myself that I was allowing knowledge to trigger imagination, and I would have liked to believe it.
He dug into the pocket of the jacket which had replaced his Skeet vest and produced a short length of nylon rope. From the grey state of it I guessed that he had cut up a tow-rope. ‘Tie your own ankles,’ he said. ‘Give yourself a hobble of about a foot.’ When I hesitated, he gave me a poke in the stomach with his barrels. ‘I’m not giving you a chance to run for help. Do as I say or I’ll kill you now.’
Encouraged by another prod from his muzzles, I did as he said. He made sure that I tied a dozen knots and pulled them tight. He drew a second length of nylon from his pocket and, still one-handed, tied a loop in one end.
‘Put one hand out,’ he said. He dropped the loop over my wrist and pulled it tight before laying the gun down beyond my reach. There would have been no point in fighting. I was no match for him in strength. Nor was I a karate expert. And I could not run. He tied my wrists with a few inches between. He jerked the knots tight; and nylon is a difficult rope to untie.
‘Now,’ he said. He picked up his gun again. Alistair Wyman was not a man to take risks, even with a bound girl. ‘You can make me a meal,’ he said. ‘God knows when I’ll have time to eat again.’ I looked down at my hands and feet. ‘You can manage,’ he said. ‘Don’t try to make me think that you’re no use to me. That could be the most serious mistake in your life. And the last.’
I shuffled behind the counter. Hampered though I was, it was not difficult to get supplies out of the freezer; and he was not fussy about the menu. When the browning dish was frying away in the microwave oven, he spoke again.
‘Now money,’ he said. ‘I’ve been milking the cash dispensers, but I’ll have to bribe my way abroad. I’ve still got plenty tucked away in foreign parts, thank God!’
I had locked most of the club’s money away in the office and, despite my growing fears, I was damned if he was getting his hands on it. But because the first shooters would be certain to arrive with nothing smaller than large bank-notes, I had kept back a substantial float. I unlocked the till and dropped the keys back on the counter. ‘There’s only about eighty quid,’ I said. My mouth was dry and my voice came out as a croak.
I could see him doing his sums in his head. ‘There’s got to be more than that.’
‘I cashed a cheque for a member.’ My voice had
gone up to a squeak. I showed him Oliver Gray’s cheque.
‘He was buying a gun.’
‘The gun was less. He wanted a couple of hundred in cash to see him through the weekend. He was taking some friends to a gaming club where they don’t much like cheques. I was glad to get the cash off the premises.’
He grunted but he seemed to accept my story. My breath came more easily. He tucked the money away in a wallet which I saw was already swollen with twenties and English fifties. ‘Now a drink,’ he said. ‘Scotch.’
I lifted a half-full bottle of Glenlivet from among the stock under the counter, the stock which was only dispensed when shooting had finished. He poured himself a glass and drank slowly.
My short sleep had done some good and my mind, aided by a rush of adrenalin, was fizzing again. That, I thought grimly, was just as well. He might, as he said, need a hostage; but once that need was past I would be no more than an inconvenient witness – and what would one more murder be to him? I fought to stay cool and to plan ahead. My ideas were few, but they were all I had.
The microwave made its beeping noise. I pulled on the oven gloves and opened it quickly. As I took out the browning dish, it was easy for my shaking hands to let the lid slide off and fall to the floor. I let him see that I was unsure what to do next.
‘Leave it,’ he said.
I turned towards the counter, shuffling until the rope between my ankles lay across the inverted lid. Ordinary dishes stay cool in the microwave oven but the browning dish is designed to be heated by the microwaves. I could feel the radiated heat on my ankles as I transferred the sizzling food to a plate. I hoped that the smell of the food would cover up that of the hot nylon and scorching floor tiles.
He laid his gun on the counter and began to eat. ‘I phoned my wife,’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s how I come to be here, in case you were wondering.’ Then he chuckled. ‘At least, she thinks she’s my wife. I’ve a wife in Italy and another in Tangier. I only phoned her to say that I’d be late, but thank God I did! My . . . the woman said that the police had been there. They were asking about my Skeet gun and they took away my spare insulin. She thought that they were still watching the house. I knew then that the jig was up. Well – what the hell? – the local business was doomed from the moment Herbie Tullos recognised Doug. But they didn’t think to keep watch on the shop.’ He patted his side pocket.
The heat seemed to be out of the dish-lid. I bent to pick it up. It had stuck to the nylon but I pulled it away. The nylon rope had melted almost through in two places. ‘If you want coffee,’ I said, ‘one of us will have to go to the machine for it.’
He shot one glance at the machine, which was near the entrance door, and snuffled with amusement. ‘Come round here,’ he said.
He picked up his gun and changed places with me. I hobbled carefully round the end of the counter. For all I knew, the rope at my ankles might still hold a battleship – but it might as easily snap like cotton and betray my feeble preparation for escape. From behind the counter, he leaned over suddenly and grabbed the rope between my wrists, hauling until I was pulled off my feet and half across the counter. There was a beer-tap clamped to the back of the bar and he pulled the rope over it and down until he could hook it under the spout. Then he put a sweaty hand in my face and pushed me back.
He returned to the public side of the bar and passed out of my sight but I could hear him feeding money into the coffee machine.
To my fear was added the most miserable discomfort. My feet just reached the floor but unless I relieved the strain by standing on tiptoe my forearms were cut by the edge of the counter and the rope at my wrists tore at my skin. Almost immediately, my calves began to burn.
He seemed to be slow in coming back. I twisted my neck to look back over my taut arms. He was standing with his coffee in his hand, eyeing my racked body with the satisfaction of an artist who had produced a masterpiece. I tried to pull my bottom in but the counter prevented me.
He returned to the counter and sat down on the stool beside me. But before he resumed his meal he gave me a pat which I would have resented even coming from a doctor or a parent. I knew then that I was due to be raped and I felt a rush of blood to my head – not so much of fear now as of sheer fury. My previous flippant thoughts on the subject suddenly seemed unfunny, because the very idea was anathema. Mentally, I had almost promised the Sergeant that he would be my first and I was damned and double damned if Alistair Wyman was going to end my life before it had fully begun, or prevent me from bestowing my favour wherever I thought it right.
The Sergeant would be coming back. That thought might have given me hope, but in fact it was almost the last straw. I knew that unless I did something my Sergeant would arrive only to be killed.
Wyman finished his meal, drained the paper cup of coffee and refilled it with whisky. ‘They’ll have found my Skeet gun at Doug’s flat by now,’ he added bitterly. ‘That’s why he jumped as if you’d goosed him when you shot your mouth off about the police and cartridges. But I only bought the gun last month, so they’ll have no difficulty tracing it to me.’
He thumped his fist on the counter and nearly spilled his drink. ‘No matter how good the plan,’ he said, ‘it’s luck that counts in the end. I’d have been all right if that moron hadn’t lost his rag. He came to my house, whimpering. I lent him my Skeet gun and told him to go up, get in a little practice and try to bluff it out. If he couldn’t convince Tullos that he was mistaken, he was to offer a cash settlement. Tullos would have seen that a wad of notes in his hand was better than the cost and delay and uncertainty of court action. But no! Doug lost his temper and swatted him with the spade and then rushed back home to phone me up and tell him what he’d done.’
Any faint pleasure that I might have had in the knowledge that I had been right and the Sergeant wrong was swamped by the confirmation of my worst fears. Mr Wyman would not be talking so freely if he had any intention of leaving me alive.
He sighed, took another pull at his drink and then patted me again. ‘I told him to go out straight away and find somebody who knew him, to establish at least a partial alibi, but I knew it was too late. It was worth hanging around for a few days to see if we couldn’t ride it out, but when Doug began to go to pieces I knew that was it.’ He gave a sudden bark of mirthless laughter. ‘I fancy that my own effort at tidying up showed a little more finesse than his. I thought I could get to his house and recover my gun before the police got there, but they beat me to it. I’d kept reminding him to bring it back to me, but the sod was too full of his woes to bother himself. It was my bad luck – and yours – that you’d seen me taking my insulin. And now I’ll have to be out of the country before the insulin I’ve got with me runs out.’
He looked at his watch. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Don’t go away. If you make a sound I’ll hear you and I’ll come back.’ He slipped off his stool and headed for the toilet, taking his gun with him.
This might be my one, slim chance.
I kicked out with one foot and the rope at my ankles parted at one of the burns. Now I was committed.
I reached out a foot and hooked the stool closer, slowly, careful to avoid a sound. Men could relieve themselves more quickly than women. Pray God that he was conscious of hygiene and stayed to wash his hands. The foot-rail of the stool helped me to gain the height I needed but that damned rope was firmly hooked on the spout of the beer-tap and would not come free. I struggled. Seconds passed. I must be running out of time. I jerked and it came away but the fancy cover over the tap was dislodged and clattered on the floor. I heard a sudden sound from the toilet.
No time now for finesse. I bolted for the door. As I went through it, I heard him erupting from the lavatory. Sam was barking his head off inside the jeep, but like a fool I had locked him in and I no longer had the key. Even if I had had it, I don’t think that I would have let him out. There was no sense in both of us getting shot.
I ran. And as I ran, with the loose ends of nylo
n rope flicking from my ankles and threatening to trip me, each pace seemed to take an age and I had time to think. I thought that I hoped he still only had No. 9½ Skeet cartridges with him. If he had BB, I was as good as dead.
I had no destination in mind, just a blind impulse to get as far away as possible and to find people. But in the early hours of Sunday morning the entire landscape was deserted. There would be people at the Leisure Centre, early riders, people setting off for distant golf dates, perhaps even a few who were going to church. The Leisure Centre was a long way off, but it seemed my only hope.
No shot yet, but I could hear his feet on the gravel. My running was hindered by my inability to swing my arms. He sounded as though he could catch me in fifty yards.
I almost ran past the Skeet layouts before I remembered that I had never got round to locking up the trap-houses after my contest with Douglas Pender. Without conscious decision, I ran for the first steel door. It was ajar. I dived inside, pulled it to and pushed down the catch of the Yale-type lock. I heard it snap into the locked position. Remembering that he might have brought my keys, I pushed the catch up again.
He arrived on the other side of the door, tried to drag it open, fitted a key into the lock and found that it would not turn and finally wasted his energy hammering on it. ‘Come out of there!’ he shouted.
My first attempt to utter came out as a terrified yelp. I waited until I had control of my vocal cords. ‘If you think I’m coming out, you’re living in a dream world,’ I told him.
We breathed heavily at each other through the steel door.
The trap-house was the first in the row, the one, aptly enough, beside which Herbert Tullos’s body had lain. Space inside was limited. I was in a chamber about four feet square with the large automatic trap occupying much of the space and the remainder partly filled with stacked cartons of clay pigeons. The squat trap was raised on a small pedestal and surmounted by a turret or magazine to take 720 birds in 6 columns. One of the police cadets must have refilled the magazine at the end of the afternoon, because only one of the columns was less than full.
A Brace of Skeet Page 18