The violent enemy, p.13
The Violent Enemy, page 13
‘What’s the kid up to?’ he demanded. ‘I didn’t even see him go in there.’
Paddy Costello joined him at the window. ‘Never mind him. He creeps around like a flaming ghost.’
Brendan pushed the cart out through the main gate and turned up the track towards the mine workings. ‘Where’s he taking that little lot?’ Fletcher said.
‘We’ve got some sheep penned in the enclosure up at the village. The ones I’m supposed to drive in to Millom market tomorrow. He’ll be taking them some feed.’
Rogan came out of the barn, a mailbag over each shoulder. He stood looking after the boy for a moment, then walked across to the house.
‘Let’s take him now on his way in,’ Pope said.
Morgan shook his head, weighing the revolver in one hand. ‘He’s had a lot of shooting experience. I wouldn’t like to be the one to try anything from the front. We’ll bide our time.’ He turned to Pope. ‘You stay here. You two come with me.’
When Rogan came in they were in the living room, Morgan and Fletcher sitting on either side of the fire, Costello at the table.
The Irishman stood in the doorway, a mailbag in each hand, and looked at them calmly. Morgan could feel the revolver in his pocket and fought against the suicidal impulse to pull it out. There was a strange magnetism about Rogan, a sort of invulnerability that seemed to say that no one could ever touch him.
His ascendancy over the three of them was almost tangible as he tossed the two mailbags into a corner by the door and unbuttoned his raincoat.
‘That kid of yours is beginning to give me the creeps,’ he said to Costello. ‘He was playing around in the hayloft back there in the barn. He’ll never know how close he came to getting a bullet in him.’
‘It’s sorry I am to hear it, Mr Rogan,’ Costello said hastily. ‘I’ll boot the behind off him when he gets in.’
Hannah called from the kitchen and Rogan sniffed. ‘Bacon frying or I miss my guess. Nothing like a job of work well done to give you an appetite. We’d better go in.’
‘Not me,’ Fletcher said and reached for the whisky bottle.
Rogan took a single pace forward and pulled the bottle from his hand. He put it down on the sideboard and turned, his face quite calm.
‘I said we eat.’
Fletcher sat there glaring and Morgan slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Jesse.’
Paddy Costello was already on his way and Fletcher followed. In the doorway, Morgan paused and turned. ‘Sometimes you can push people just a little too hard. Ever thought of that?’
‘You’re a good talker,’ Rogan said. ‘Keep it up long enough and you might convince yourself you could do something about me.’
Morgan’s face turned very pale and all light died in his eyes. ‘I did two years in a Chinese prison camp in Korea, Rogan, did you know that? When they released me, I had a double hernia from the number of times the guards had booted me in the crotch and T.B. in one lung.’
‘So?’ Rogan said.
‘When I got home, I found that nobody gave a damn. They didn’t seem to know a war had been going on.’
‘What’s that supposed to prove – that you had an excuse?’
Morgan laughed harshly. ‘I haven’t needed one since the day I was old enough to work out the odds in this lousy world for myself. I’ll tell you one thing, friend. If I could survive those Chinese bastards, I can survive you. Just think about that.’
He went along the passage and Rogan smiled softly. Nothing like an open declaration of war to let you know where you stood. He hung his raincoat behind the door, took the Colt automatic from his pocket and pushed it down into his waistband at the rear so that it was covered by the tail of his jacket, the butt hard against the small of his back. He buttoned his jacket at the front and went along to the kitchen.
It was an uncomfortable meal and eaten in complete silence. Hannah moved from one to the other, refilling cups with fresh tea and bringing more bread from the dresser. On the occasions that she managed to catch Rogan’s eye, her face was strained and anxious.
Finally, he pushed back his chair and said calmly, ‘That’ll do me for now. Let’s go back to the living room.’
Fletcher looked angrily at Morgan who made a slight gesture with his head and stood up. Fletcher followed him out of the door, Costello trailing after them.
Hannah moved across to Rogan quickly. ‘There’s going to be trouble, Sean. I feel it.’
‘Don’t worry.’ He smiled. ‘I know what I’m doing. You stay here.’
When he went into the living room, no one said a word. He picked up the bottle of whisky and a tumbler from the sideboard and sat on the edge of the table.
‘Funny how you remember things. The last time I robbed a train was in France in ’44. We had it all laid on to knock off one that was carrying a month’s pay for a German Panzer Division. It would have been quite a haul.’
‘What went wrong?’ Morgan said.
‘We never really found out. The important thing was that instead of the payroll, the train carried a company of German paratroops armed to the teeth and spoiling for action and let nobody kid you, those boys were good.’
‘Somebody grassed?’ Fletcher said, interested in spite of himself.
‘One of three possibilities,’ Rogan said. ‘The first was a local farmer whose place we’d been using as headquarters for a while. He wet himself every time an ivy leaf tapped on the window.’
Costello flushed and looked away hurriedly and Rogan went on, ‘Then there was a lovely specimen who’d been inside for just about every crime in the book. A big man at beating hell out of the prostitutes on the Marseilles waterfront when they objected to handing over half their takings.’
Fletcher’s hand shook with rage as he raised his glass of whisky to his mouth and drained it and Morgan said calmly, ‘What about the third?’
‘He was the most dangerous of the lot. He’d even done three years in a Jesuit seminary training for the priesthood.’ Rogan tapped his forehead. ‘A hoodlum with brains. The worst kind there is. Pure evil.’
‘Lucifer, Prince of Darkness. The fallen angel,’ Morgan said. ‘Now that, I find interesting. What happened?’
‘We took them out into the forest, what was left of us, and shot them.’
‘All three?’
‘Nothing else to do under the circumstances.’
‘Holy Mother,’ Paddy Costello whispered in horror.
Rogan stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and leaned down to light it with a splinter from the fire. In the brief moment that his back was turned, Morgan seized his chance, pulled out the revolver and extended his arm.
‘I could blow your head off right now. Make a wrong move and I will.’
Rogan turned slowly, hands held well away from his body and Morgan called, ‘Pope, get out here fast!’
There was a quick movement in the passage and Pope appeared in the doorway. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Hello, Jack,’ Rogan said. ‘Fancy meeting you here?’
‘Get a grip on those two mailbags,’ Morgan said, ‘and don’t let them out of your sight. Jesse, get his gun.’
Fletcher came forward slowly, his ugly face splitting into a delighted grin. He stood looking at Rogan for a long moment and then quickly searched him. He frowned and turned.
‘He hasn’t got it on him.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Morgan said, suddenly wary. ‘Look again, but watch him. He’s a foxy bastard.’
‘We can soon take care of that,’ Fletcher said.
He turned back to Rogan and his fist swung in a short arc, catching the Irishman on the right cheek. Rogan rode the punch, allowing himself to stagger back. He went over the armchair, landing on his shoulders and pulled the automatic free at the same moment. He loosed off one quick shot that chipped splinters from the table and Morgan gave a cry of alarm.
‘Get out of it, quick!’
He fired hastily and Rogan rolled for the shelter of the old horsehair sofa that stood against the wall. As he reached it, Morgan pushed Fletcher and Pope into the passage.
Rogan fired through the door, the bullet tearing its way through the flimsy woodwork and ricocheting between the stone walls of the passage.
Costello gave a cry of alarm, ran to the front door and wrenched it open and Pope went after him, the mailbags banging against his knees.
Morgan gave Fletcher a shove. ‘Get after them, Jesse. We’ll have to make a run for it in the truck.’
He fired through the door into the living room, keeping his back flat against the wall, then turned and ran after Fletcher. The big man was halfway across the yard and Pope and Costello were already vanishing through the open double doors into the half darkness.
As Morgan started to run a chair came through the window behind him. He turned and fired a wild shot that chipped stone from the wall ten feet off target, then ran, zigzagging from side to side. A single shot chased him into the barn, ploughing into a bale of hay at the rear.
Fletcher and Pope had already got the mailbags into the back of the cattle truck and Morgan shoved Costello up behind the wheel. He followed him into the cab, pushed in the ignition key and switched on.
‘Get this bloody thing moving.’
The old man’s face was grey with fear and spittle dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Morgan slapped him heavily across the face. ‘Get moving,’ he cried.
Rogan was halfway across the yard and he dropped to one knee behind the water trough, aimed carefully and fired. As Morgan and Costello ducked, the bullet drilled a neat hole through the windscreen. Costello gave a cry of fear. He pressed the starter and slammed the stick into first gear.
The old cattle truck roared through the entrance, knocking one of the half-open doors off its hinges and they bounced over the potholes towards the gateway. Morgan fired in the general direction of the water trough to keep Rogan’s head down and then they were through with a crunch of metal as the right wing crumpled against one of the stone gateposts.
Costello changed into top gear and rammed his foot hard against the boards, his hands tight on the wheel and Morgan looked back and laughed harshly as Rogan came through the gateway and started to run down the road after them.
‘A fat lot of bloody good that’ll do you.’
As he turned, putting the revolver into his pocket, the truck swung round the shoulder of the mountain and his throat went dry. A police car was moving towards them, at least half a dozen other vehicles strung out behind it.
Costello gave a hoarse cry and the police car slowed to a halt, turning broadside to block the narrow road. ‘Brake, you stupid sod! Brake!’ Morgan cried.
Costello seemed to lose all control. When he rammed down his foot, it caught the accelerator instead of the brake pedal and the truck shot forward. Its offside wheels ploughed into the rain-soaked grass shoulder and the wheel spun in his hands. Morgan had one quick glimpse of the steep slope dropping a hundred and fifty feet to the boulders in the stream below and his hand grabbed for the door handle. He jumped as the truck started to go over and the door swung back behind him, smashing Costello in the face as the old man tried to follow.
Morgan somersaulted twenty feet down the slope, coming to rest against a gorse bush. As he picked himself up the cattle truck bounced against a rock shelf fifty feet below. It soared into space, turning over almost in slow motion and Fletcher was tossed out, arms and legs flailing wildly.
The truck landed upside down in the stream bed with a terrible, grating crunch, and Fletcher landed on top of it. The petrol tank exploded immediately like a bomb, and orange and yellow flames lifted into the rain.
Morgan scrambled up the slope. He was badly shaken and blood poured down his face from a gash above his right eye, but the instinct for survival was strong. As he crossed the road he heard voices and turned to see several uniformed policemen running towards him. He fired and one of them seemed to trip and fall headlong. The others immediately scattered and Morgan ran for the shelter of a shallow ravine and followed its course up the side of the mountain.
Rogan had stopped running and was on his way back to the farm when he heard the first terrible crunch of metal as the truck went over the edge. He started to run back as the petrol tank exploded, and reached the point where the road curved round the shoulder of the mountain as Morgan fired at the police and staggered across.
A police car roared along the road and slewed broadside to protect the constable who had been shot. A large, heavily built man in a fawn trenchcoat jumped out and ran, crouching, to drop to one knee beside him.
Rogan recognized Dick Vanbrugh at once. The strange thing was his own lack of surprise, but he didn’t stop to analyse that. He turned and ran back towards the farm. Hannah was standing in the gateway as he entered the yard.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘No time for questions. Grab your coat and get back out of here fast. We’re leaving. I’ve still got a key for the shooting brake, remember?’
When he drove out of the barn, she was pulling on her sheepskin coat by the water trough. He opened the door and she scrambled in and slammed it as they drove away.
When they moved through the gate and turned left towards the head of the valley, she touched his arm. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Through the Long Cut, Brendan’s waiting up there now with the mailbags. The two I brought into the house were the dummies.’
‘What about the others? What happened back there?’
‘The whole place is crawling with peelers. The truck went over the edge of the road.’
Her face was very white. ‘And my uncle?’
‘It went up like a torch.’
She turned away, crossing herself automatically. He reached out and took her hand and she held it tightly as they went over the brow of the hill and down into the village.
17
Thrown clear by the force of the explosion, Jesse Fletcher floated face down in a pool of water three feet deep. Most of his clothing had been burned away and several ribs showed through the charred flesh of his back.
Gregory and Vanbrugh waded forward and turned him over. The strange thing was that his face was unmarked except for the bruises left by his clash with Rogan and his eyes stared vacantly into eternity, fixed for all time.
‘Do you know him?’ Gregory asked.
Vanbrugh shook his head. ‘He’s a new one on me.’
The truck was still burning furiously and as they approached, they became aware at once of the sickly sweet stench of burning flesh.
A constable turned, his face wrinkling in disgust. ‘One of them’s still in the cab, sir. You can just see him if you bend down.’
In the intense heat, things seemed to shimmer, to lose definition and the figure which lay doubled up, one arm reaching out through the crumpled window, no longer seemed human.
‘A nasty way to go,’ Gregory said.
Vanbrugh nodded and they stumbled across the stream, knee-deep in ice-cold water to where another constable knelt beside a body in the wet grass.
As they approached, he stood up and turned. ‘Nothing doing here, sir. His neck’s broke. Must have been thrown out of the back when the truck first landed.’
Jack Pope lay on his back, one arm bent, fingers curling slightly. His eyes had retracted slightly and his head lolled unnaturally to one side.
‘What about this one?’ Gregory said.
‘Jack Pope. He’s the one who shared a cell with Rogan.’
‘The ex-policeman?’
‘That’s him.’
They turned and Vanbrugh shielded his eyes from the rain with one hand and watched half a dozen men move up the mountainside above the road in a thin line. Gregory gave a sudden grunt and pointed.
‘There he is, just below the ridge.’
Vanbrugh caught a brief glimpse of Morgan moving fast, several hundred feet above his pursuers. A moment later he went over the ridge and disappeared.
‘Red hair,’ Gregory said. ‘At least we know that much about the bastard.’
So it wasn’t Sean Rogan – Vanbrugh moved back across the stream and picked up a piece of red mailbag canvas that shredded in his hands, still smouldering.
‘Just about settles it,’ Gregory said.
‘Looks like it.’
They climbed the steep slope and arrived back on the road in time to see the wounded constable being lifted into the rear of the Land-Rover. His face was twisted with pain, but he managed a grin when Gregory lit a cigarette for him and stuck it in his mouth.
‘How is it?’
The constable gingerly touched the blood-soaked bandage that encircled his right thigh above the knee. ‘Bloody awful, but I’ll survive, sir.’
‘Good man,’ Gregory said. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll lay him by the heels.’
As the Land-Rover moved away, a police car came down the road from the direction of the farm and braked to a halt. Sergeant Dwyer jumped out.
‘Any luck?’ Vanbrugh said.
‘Not a soul to be seen, sir, but they’ve certainly been having themselves a high old time. Someone’s been shooting the place up.’
‘Now what in the hell is that supposed to mean?’ Vanbrugh said, frowning.
‘A hundred and forty thousand is a hell of a lot of money,’ Gregory said. ‘Maybe somebody wanted a bigger slice of the cake.’ He turned to Dwyer. ‘What about the car we heard driving away?’
‘We found it a mile or so further on where the road peters out in the ruins of an old mining village. A green Morris Oxford shooting brake.’
‘No sign of the occupants?’
‘Not a smell. There’s a sergeant and two men up there now, but they’re going to need help.’
Vanbrugh turned to Gregory. ‘Didn’t you say there was no other way out of the valley?’
Gregory nodded. ‘Not by road, but any reasonably active person could cross the mountain on foot.’ He took a map from his pocket and opened it. ‘You can see the village here and the old workings on the other side.’
