Graveyard to hell, p.42
Graveyard to Hell, page 42
‘Depends who you’re doing it with,’ she suggested.
‘You’ve got a point there. Could put an entirely different complexion on the morning in the kip for a start.’
She put down her cup and leaned forward. ‘Why not go back, Gunner? There’s nowhere to run to. The longer you leave it, the worse it will be.’
‘I could lose all my remission,’ he said. ‘That would mean another two and a half years.’
‘Are you certain you’d lose all of it?’
‘I don’t know. You have to take your chance on that sort of thing.’ He grinned. ‘Could have been back now if things had turned out differently last night.’
‘What do you mean?’ He told her about Doreen and what had happened at her flat. When he finished, Jenny shook her head. ‘What am I going to do with you?’
‘I could make a suggestion. Two and a half years is a hell of a long time.’
She examined him critically and frowned. ‘You know I hadn’t realized it before, but you could do with a damned good scrub. You’ll find a bathroom at the head of the stairs and there’s plenty of hot water. Go on. I’ll make you some breakfast while you’re in the tub.’
‘All right then, all right,’ he said good-humouredly as she pulled him to his feet and pushed him through the door.
But he wasn’t smiling when he went upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom. Two and a half years. The thought of it sent a wave of coldness through him, of sudden, abject despair. If only that stupid screw hadn’t decided to sneak off to the canteen. If only he hadn’t tried to touch up the staff nurse. But that was the trouble with life, wasn’t it? Just one big series of ifs.
He was just finishing dressing when she knocked on the door and said softly, ‘Come into my room when you’ve finished Gunner – it’s the next door. I’ve got clean clothes for you.’
When he went into her room she was standing at the end of the bed bending over a suit which she had laid out. ‘My father’s,’ she said. ‘Just about the right fit I should say.’
‘I can’t take that, darlin’,’ the Gunner told her. ‘If the coppers catch me in gear like that they’ll want to know where it came from.’
She stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘If I go back it’s got to be just the way I looked when I turned up here last night otherwise they’ll want to know where I’ve been and who’s been helping me.’
The room was strangely familiar and he looked around him and grinned. ‘You want to get a curtain for that window, darlin’. When I was in the loft last night I could see right in. Quite a view. One I’m not likely to forget in a hurry.’ He sighed and said in a whisper, ‘I wonder how many times I’ll think of that during the next two and a half years.’
‘Look at me, Gunner,’ she said softly.
When he turned she was standing at the end of the bed. She was quite naked, her bathrobe on the floor at her feet. The Gunner was turned to stone. She was so lovely it hurt. She just stood there looking at him calmly, waiting for him to make a move, the hair like a dark curtain sweeping down until it gently brushed against the tips of the firm breasts.
He went towards her slowly, reaching out to touch like a blind man. Her perfume filled his nostrils and a kind of hoarse sob welled up in his throat.
He held her tightly in his arms, his head buried against her shoulder and she smoothed his hair and kissed him gently as a mother might a child. ‘It’s all right, Gunner. Everything’s going to be all right.’
Gunner Doyle, the great lover. He was like some kid presented with the real thing for the first time. His hands were shaking so much that she had to unbutton his shirt and trousers for him. But afterwards it was fine, better than he had ever known it before. He melted into her flesh as she pulled him close and carried him away into warm, aching darkness.
Afterwards – a long time afterwards, or so it seemed – the telephone started to ring. ‘I’d better see who it is.’ She slipped from beneath the sheets, and reached for her bathrobe.
The door closed softly behind her and the Gunner got up and started to dress. He was fastening his belt when the door opened again and she stood there staring at him looking white and for the first time since he had known her, frightened.
He took her by the shoulders. ‘What’s up?’
‘It was a man,’ she said in a strained voice. ‘A man on the phone. He said to tell you to get out fast. That the police would be here any time.’
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘who was it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said and cracked suddenly. ‘Oh, Gunner, what are we going to do?’
‘You stay put, darlin’, and carry on as normal,’ he said, going to the bed and pulling on the boots she had given him. ‘I’m the only one who has to do anything.’
He yanked the sweater over his head and she grabbed his arm. ‘Give yourself up, Gunner.’
‘First things first, darlin’. I’ve got to get out of here and so far away that the coppers don’t have a hope of connecting me with you and the old girl.’
She looked up into his face for a moment then turned to the dressing-table and opened her handbag. She took out a handful of loose coins and three pound notes.
When she held the money out to him he tried to protest, but she shook her head. ‘Better take it, just in case you decide to keep on running. I’m not holding you to anything.’ She went to the wardrobe and produced an old single-breasted raincoat. ‘And this. It was my father’s. No use to him now.’
Suddenly she was the tough Yorkshire lass again, rough, competent, completely unsentimental. ‘Now you’d better get out of here.’
He pulled on the coat and she led the way into the passageway. The Gunner started towards the stairs and she jerked his sleeve.
‘I’ve got a better way.’
He followed her up another flight of stairs, passing several doors which obviously led to upper rooms. At the top, they were confronted by a heavier door bolted on the inside and protected by a sheet of iron against burglars.
She eased back the bolts and the door swung open in the wind giving him a view of a flat roof between two high gables. There was a rail at one end and on the other side of it the roof sloped to the yard below.
‘If you scramble over the gable end,’ she said, pointing to the left, ‘you can slide down the other side to the flat roof of a metalworks next door. Nothing to it for you – I’ve done it myself when I was a kid. You’ll find a fire escape that’ll take you all the way down into the next alley.’
He stared at her dumbly, rain blowing in through the open doorway, unable to think of anything to say. She gave him a sudden fierce push that sent him out into the open.
‘Go on – get moving, you bloody fool,’ she said and slammed the door.
He had never felt so utterly desolate, so completely cut-off from everything in his life. It was as if he had left everything worth having back there behind that iron door and there was nothing he could do about it. Not a damned thing.
He followed her instructions to the letter and a minute or so later hurried along the alley on the far side and turned into the street at the end.
He kept on walking in a kind of daze, his mind elsewhere, turning from one street into the other in the heavy rain. About ten minutes later he found himself on the edge of Jubilee Park. He went in through a corner entrance, past the enigmatic statue of good Queen Victoria, orb in one hand and sceptre in the other, and walked aimlessly into the heart of the park.
He didn’t see a living soul which was hardly surprising considering the weather. Finally he came to an old folks’ pavilion, the kind of place where pensioners congregated on calmer days to gossip and play dominoes. The door was locked, but a bench beside it was partially sheltered from the rain by an overhanging roof. He slumped down, hands thrust deep into the pockets of the old raincoat and stared into the grey curtain. He was alone in a dead world. Completely and finally alone.
16
When Faulkner got out of the taxi there was no sign of Nick Miller. Faulkner was surprised, but hardly in a mood to shed tears over the matter. He hurried up to his flat, unlocked the door and went in. The fire had almost gone out and he took off his wet raincoat, got down on one knee and started to replenish it carefully. As the flames started to flicker into life the door bell sounded.
He opened it, expecting Miller, and found Joanna and Jack Morgan standing there.
‘Surprise, surprise,’ Faulkner said.
‘Cut it out, Bruno,’ Morgan told him. ‘We had a visit from Nick Miller early this morning and what he told us wasn’t funny.’
Faulkner took Joanna’s coat. ‘This whole thing is beginning to annoy me and there’s a nasty hint of worse to come. Visions of a lonely cell with two hard-faced screws, the parson snivelling at my side as I take that last walk along the corridor to the execution room.’
‘You should read the papers more often. They aren’t hanging murderers this season.’
‘What a shame. No romance in anything these days, is there?’
Joanna pulled him round to face her. ‘Can’t you be serious for once? You’re in real trouble. What on earth possessed you to bring that girl back here?’
‘So you know about that, do you?’
‘Miller told us, but I’d still like to hear about it from you,’ Morgan said. ‘After all, I am your lawyer.’
‘And that’s a damned sinister way of putting it for a start.’
The door bell rang sharply. In the silence that followed, Faulkner grinned. ‘Someone I’ve been expecting. Excuse me a moment.’
When Miller left the judo centre he was feeling strangely elated. At the best of times police work is eighty per cent instinct – a special faculty that comes from years of handling every kind of trouble. In this present case his intuition told him that Faulkner had something to hide, whatever Mallory’s opinion might be. The real difficulty was going to be in digging it out.
He sat in the car for a while, smoking a cigarette and thinking about it. Faulkner was a highly intelligent man and something of a natural actor. He enjoyed putting on a show and being at the centre of things. His weakness obviously lay in his disposition to sudden, irrational violence, to a complete emotional turnabout during which he lost all control or at least that’s what his past history seemed to indicate. If only he could be pushed over the edge …
Miller was filled with a kind of restless excitement at the prospect of the encounter to come and that was no good at all. He parked the car beside the corner gate of Jubilee Park, buttoned his trenchcoat up to the chin and went for a walk.
He didn’t mind the heavy rain – rather liked it, in fact. It somehow seemed to hold him safe in a small private world in which he was free to think without distraction. He walked aimlessly for twenty minutes or so, turning from one path to another, not really seeing very much, his mind concentrated on one thing.
If he had been a little more alert he would have noticed the figure of a man disappearing fast round the side of the old folks’ shelter as he approached, but he didn’t and the Gunner watched him go, heart in mouth, from behind a rhododendron bush.
When Miller walked into the flat and found Joanna Hartmann and Morgan standing by the fire he wasn’t in the least put out for their presence suited him very well indeed.
He smiled and nodded to the woman as he unbuttoned his damp raincoat. ‘We seem to have seen rather a lot of each other during the past twenty-four hours.’
‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be here?’ she demanded coldly.
‘Good heavens no. I’ve got one or two loose ends to tie up with Mr Faulkner. Shouldn’t take more than five minutes.’
‘I understand you’ve already asked him a great. many questions,’ Morgan said, ‘and now you intend to ask some more. I think we have a right to know where we stand in this matter.’
‘Are you asking me as his legal representative?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Quite unnecessary, I assure you,’ Miller lied smoothly. ‘I’m simply asking him to help me with my enquiries, that’s all. He isn’t the only one involved.’
‘I’m happy to hear it.’
‘Shut up, Jack, there’s a good chap,’ Faulkner cut in. ‘If you’ve anything to say to me, then get on with it, Miller. The sooner this damned thing is cleared up, the sooner I can get back to work.’
‘Fair enough.’ Miller moved towards the statues. ‘In a way we have a parallel problem. I understand you started five weeks ago with one figure. In a manner of speaking, so did I.’
‘A major difference if I might point it out,’ Faulkner said. ‘You now have five while I only have four.’
‘But you were thinking of adding a fifth, weren’t you?’
‘Which is why I paid Grace Packard to pose for me, but it didn’t work.’ Faulkner shook his head. ‘No, the damned thing is going to be cast as you see it now for good or ill.’
‘I see.’ Miller turned from the statues briskly. ‘One or two more questions if you don’t mind. Perhaps you’d rather I put them to you in private.’
‘I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘As you like. I’d just like to go over things again briefly. Mr Morgan called for you about eight?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Sleeping. I’d worked non-stop on the fourth figure in the group for something like thirty hours. When it was finished I took the telephone off the hook and lay on the bed.’
‘And you were awakened by Mr Morgan?’
‘That’s it.’
‘And then went to The King’s Arms where you met Grace Packard? You’re quite positive you hadn’t met her previously?’
‘What are you trying to suggest?’ Joanna interrupted angrily.
‘You don’t need to answer that, Bruno,’ Morgan said.
‘What in the hell are you both trying to do … hang me? Why shouldn’t I answer it? I’ve got nothing to hide. I should think Harry Meadows, the landlord, would be the best proof of that. As I recall, I had to ask him who she was. If you must know I thought she was on the game. I wasn’t looking forward to the party and I thought she might liven things up.’
‘And you met her boyfriend on the way out?’
‘That’s it. He took a swing at me so I had to put him on his back.’
‘Rather neatly according to the landlord. What did you use … judo?’
‘Aikido.’
‘I understand there was also some trouble at the party with Mr Marlowe?’
Faulkner shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have called it trouble exactly. Frank isn’t the physical type.’
‘But you are – or so it would seem?’
‘What are you trying to prove?’ Joanna demanded, moving to Faulkner’s side.
‘Just trying to get at the facts,’ Miller said.
Morgan moved forward a step. ‘I’d say you were aiming at rather more than that. You don’t have to put up with this, Bruno.’
‘Oh, but I do.’ Faulkner grinned. ‘It’s beginning to get rather interesting. All right, Miller, I’ve an uncontrollable temper, I’m egotistical, aggressive and when people annoy me I tend to hit them. They even sent me to prison for it once. Common assault – the respectable kind, by the way, not the nasty sexual variety.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Somehow I thought you might be.’
‘You brought the girl back here to pose for you and nothing else?’
‘You know when she got here, you know when she left. There wasn’t time for anything else.’
‘Can you remember what you talked about?’
‘There wasn’t much time for conversation either. I told her to strip and get up on the platform. Then I saw to the fire and poured myself a drink. As soon as she got up there I knew it was no good. I told her to get dressed and gave her a ten-pound note.’
‘There was no sign of it in her handbag.’
‘She slipped it into her stocking top. Made a crack about it being the safest place.’
‘It was nowhere on her person and she’s been examined thoroughly.’
‘All right, so the murderer took it.’
Miller decided to keep the information that the girl had had intercourse just before her death to himself for a moment.
‘There was no question of any sexual assault so how would the murderer have known where it was?’
There was a heavy silence. He allowed it to hang there for a moment and continued, ‘You’re quite sure that you and the girl didn’t have an argument before she left?’
Faulkner laughed harshly. ‘If you mean did I blow my top, break her neck with one devastating karate chop and carry her down the back stairs into the night because she refused my wicked way with her, no. If I’d wanted her to stay the night she’d have stayed and not for any ten quid either. She came cheaper than that or I miss my guess.’
‘I understand she was found in Dob Court, Sergeant?’ Morgan said.
‘That’s right.’
‘And are you seriously suggesting that Mr Faulkner killed the girl here, carted her downstairs and carried her all the way because that’s what he would have to have done. I think I should point out that he doesn’t own a car.’
‘They took my licence away last year,’ Faulkner admitted amiably. ‘Driving under the influence.’
‘But you did go out after the girl left?’
‘To the coffee stall in Regent Square.’ Faulkner made no attempt to deny it. ‘I even said hello to the local bobby. I often do. No class barriers for me.’
‘He’s already told us that. It was only five or ten minutes later that he found Grace Packard’s body. You left Joanna’s gloves on the counter. The proprietor asked me to pass them on.’
Miller produced the black and white gloves and handed them to Joanna Hartmann who frowned in puzzlement. ‘But these aren’t mine.’
‘They’re Grace Packard’s,’ Faulkner said. ‘I pulled them out of my pocket when I was looking for some change, as you very well know, Miller. I must have left them on the counter.’
