1951 - In a Vain Shadow (18 page)

‘Listen, Frank we can still do it. Get hold of yourself. We can still beat them.’

A picture of her swam into my mind: the green, glittering eyes, the sullen, stony face and the undefeated spirit behind the mask. If there was a way out, she would find it. She and nobody else.

I grabbed hold of her.

‘I didn’t mean to do it, Rita.’

‘Do you think they’d believe you? It’s done, and he’s dead.’

‘What am I going to do? I’m sunk! They’ll be waiting on the plane for him, and when he doesn’t show up, they’ll look for him.’

‘I’m going in his place. It’s the only way out, Frank. If I wear his coat and those bandages, they won’t know the difference. We’re the same size, and they know the coat. They’ve seen it dozens of times. They won’t be looking at me; they’ll be looking at the coat!’

‘They’ll spot your voice.’

‘I won’t speak. Wait here. You mustn’t be seen. I’ll get the car. Get his coat off Frank.’

The paralysing fear that had gripped me began to recede.

This could be the way out: with any luck, it was the way out.

I moved into the darkness and knelt in the damp grass where he lay. I couldn’t see him. I didn’t want to see him.

Sweat ran down my face and into my eyes as I groped for him.

My hands touched the sleeve of his coat. I had to steel myself to undo the buttons. I got it of him somehow. He was like a limp doll.

I had the coat now and I stood up. I had killed him for the coat and now I had it, I didn’t even bother to put my hands in the pockets. The fear of being caught and hanged had purged the thought of the money and the diamonds out of my mind. If the diamonds had been lying in the grass I wouldn’t have picked them up. There was no room in my mind for anything else except the frantic clamour to escape the penalty of killing him.

She backed the car into the shadow of the hangar and pulled up with the rear bumper a couple of feet from me.

She had an electric torch in her hand as she got out of the car.

‘Time’s running out, Frank!’

She went over and knelt beside him. I held the torch, shielding the light with my fingers. I watched her pull of his hat and unwind the bandage from his face. There was a patch of blood on the bandage where he had bled a little from the mouth. When the tail of the bandage stuck to his lips she jerked it free, brutally, pulling his mouth out of shape. It made me feel sick to watch her. Every movement she made was confident, swift and ruthless.

‘All right. Help me get him into the boot.’

She dragged him by his Does across the grass towards the car. I gripped his coat collar, and together we hoisted him into the boot.

He was small, but not small enough. His legs and arms hung out, making him look like a puppet without wires.

She pushed me aside and crammed his legs in, shoving them up to his chin as callously as if she was handling a sack of potatoes. She wedged his arms up behind his head. ‘Give me the light!’

She snatched the torch out of my hand, and flung the beam on his dead face. For a couple of seconds, she stared at him, then she slammed the boot shut.

‘At last, he’s dead!’

The triumph in her voice made my blood run cold.

The whole of the ghastly operation hadn’t taken more than three minutes, but time was running out. From where we stood we could see shadowy figures coming from the reception hall, and moving towards the aircraft.

‘Give me his hat and coat. Hurry!’

She began to roll up the bandage.

‘You’ll have to do it. Get the bloodstained bit at the back.’

She snatched the hat and coat from me and gave me the roll of bandage.

It sickened me that she could endure the feel of the bloodwet bandage against her neck.

‘Make it tighter! Let me finish it.’

At last it was done. I watched her strip of her fur coat.

She tucked her hair inside the hat and pulled on his coat. It reached almost to the cuffs of her black slacks, and looking at her I knew at once, provided she didn’t have to speak, no one would tell her from Sarek.

‘Will I do? Will they spot me?’

‘You look like him. Yes, you look just like him.’

‘If I can get away with it, we’ll beat them, Frank. Now, listen, go back to the house. Follow our plan. Drop him down the well. Are you listening?’

‘Yes.’

But I was thinking if they didn’t spot her I was safe. I was sure of it now: safer than I would have been if I had followed put my original plan. Safer because I hadn’t taken the Robinson woman into account, and she could have been the spanner in the works. Now she would swear he had left on the plane.

If only they didn’t spot her!

‘I’ll come straight back tonight. I’ll telephone you as soon as I get to Paris. Wait for my call. It’s going to be all right.’

‘How about Robinson?’

‘It’s all right. He said goodbye to here She promised to tell the airhostess to leave him alone and not worry him. They have reserved a seat up in front so no one can look at him. If I can get into the plane without being spotted I’m all right.’

‘How about getting back?’

‘I’ll manage. I have my passport. It’s going to be all right, Frank.’

I grabbed her arms.

‘It’s got to be all right!’

‘Be careful how you drive back. If you had an accident...’

‘I’ll watch it. You’d better get off. Look, the girl’s there now with her checking list. Get off now.’

‘Get rid of him the way we said. Don’t forget my coat. Can you manage, Frank?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry about the way I behaved. Now he’s dead I feel different.’

‘You’d better get off.’

‘Kiss me, Frank.’

I kissed the side of her neck.

She was saving my life, wasn’t she?

The passengers were getting into the aircraft now, moving up the stairway; the women first, the men politely hanging back. The girl checking them in had a word to say to most of them.

I waited, scarcely breathing, my fists clenched, my heart hammering.

Rita walked towards the aircraft without hurrying. From a distance she looked exactly like Sarek: she even managed to walk like him.

The airhostess glanced up as she reached the stairway. I held my breath. Would she notice anything? Would she stop her? Rita didn’t pause. The girl made a tick with her pencil and looked away. She had obviously been warned not to stare. Rita went on up the stairway and disappeared into the aircraft.

She had done it!

I thought I couldn’t have lived through a worse moment, but a couple of seconds later I knew different.

A car came out of the darkness and swung to a skidding halt before the reception hall entrance. A fat, dumpy figure climbed out.

I would have known who it was without seeing the crumpled pheasant’s feather and the rabbit-skin coat. It was Emmie!

I looked towards the aircraft. The stairway was still in position. A passenger was talking to the checking girl, waving his bands and pointing to his papers. Two uniformed men stood either side of the stairway, waiting to wheel it away.

Emmie was about four hundred yards from them. An official came out of the reception hall and she ran up to him.

Her movements were flustered. She caught hold of his arm.

Somehow I had to stop her reaching the aircraft. I was as good as hanged if she got to it before I could head her off. I ran as I had never run before.

The official turned and pointed to the distant aircraft. She began to run towards it, her short, fat legs taking her along at a slow jog-trot.

I increased my speed, racing over the wet grass. She heard me coming and looked back over her shoulder. I reached her, caught hold of her arm and swung her round, ‘Miss Pearl! What are you doing here?’

Her hat was over her eyes. There was a bruise under her left eye, and in one fat hand she clutched a long, thick envelope.

‘Let me go!’

I hung on to her.

‘He’s on board. You’ve missed him! She’s taking off now.’

The engines started up as I spoke, roared for a moment, and then throttled back. The two men began to wheel the stairway away.

‘Let me go! I’ve got to give him this!’

She waved the envelope in my face and tried to wrench herself free.

‘You’ll never do it. Here, give it to me. I’ll get it to him!’

I snatched the envelope out of her hand, shoved it down inside my coat and ran towards the aircraft.

The air hostess was closing the door when she saw me.

I waved to her and put on a terrific spurt. She waited. I came panting up.

‘Is Mr. Oppenheimer on board?’

The girl stared at me.

‘Not on this plane, sir,’ and slammed the door in my face.

One of the uniformed men ran up to me and waved me away. The engines roared and the aircraft began to move. I could see the bandaged face looking at me through the front window.

Emmie came panting up. She was so breathless she couldn’t speak.

‘He’s got it,’ I yelled above the noise of the engines. ‘Look, there he is, up at the front.’

The bandaged face was still looking in our direction as the aircraft moved of down the runway; a hand waved, then we turned away as the slipstream struck us.

I stopped at a pub in Amersham and bought two bottles of gin. I knew I would never bring myself to open the car boot unless I was roaring drunk. I had got over my first panic, but I knew I would get the shakes again when I opened the boot and saw him. I had to go through with it, but I couldn’t go through with it sober.

At least I had fooled Emmie. Luck had been on my side.

On her way to the airfield her taxi had rammed another car and she had been shot of her seat on to the floor. The smash had shaken her, and she wasn’t her usual sharp suspicious self.

But once she got over her panic of nearly missing the plane, she began to ask questions. She wanted to know where Rita was. I told her we had been early, and Rita hadn’t waited.

I knew she was capable of checking with Miss Robinson so I told her Sarek had been angry with me for getting them to the airport forty minutes too soon and I had walked out on him.

‘But I hung around because I wanted to be sure he was all right. I feel pretty bad I made such a rotten job of guarding him.’ She looked at me through the thick lenses of her spectacles: a quizzing, curious look.

‘Are you going to London?’

‘I’m meeting a girlfriend in Amersham. The London bus leaves in a few minutes. You get it over there.’

She thanked me. All the time her weak little eyes probed my face.

‘Well so long, I don’t suppose I’ll see you again.’

‘I don’t suppose you will.’

‘I’ll give Mrs. Sarek a ring tomorrow. I’d like to know if he arrived safely.’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’

‘No reason at all. But there’s no harm in showing a little interest, is there? I liked him.’

‘I don’t think he would like you bothering Mrs. Sarek.’

‘I think I’ve told you before. I couldn’t care less what you think.’

I walked off, leaving her to stare after me.

That’s how we parted. She hating me and I hating her.

But I had fooled her. I was sure of that, and I felt pretty certain I could keep her fooled.

Four Winds looked sinister and lonely as I swung the car through the gate. The time by the dashboard clock was fifteen minutes past eleven. In another twenty minutes she would have landed in Paris. In another quarter of an hour she would be phoning me.

I left the car before the front door and carried the two bottles of gin into the house. I gave myself three inches of neat spirit before I even took my coat off. Then I lit a cigarette and sat down before the electric fire. My nerves were still jumpy, and I had a sick, empty feeling inside. I wasn’t going to touch him until after she had phoned. When I started on him I had to make a job of it. I couldn’t risk having to leave him to answer the telephone.

I remembered the envelope I had snatched from Emmie, and was suddenly curious to see what was inside it. I got up and took it from the inside pocket of my overcoat and carried it back to the fire.

The envelope contained a flat, wooden box about nine inches long, something like a wooden pencil box kids take to school. I opened it. Inside was a dagger: quite a small thing, almost a toy, but its point looked as sharp as a needle.

There was a piece of chamois-leather wrapped round the handle, but what made me stare was the brown-red smear on the blade.

I didn’t touch it, but looked at it, puzzled, wondering what it meant.

Then I looked inside the envelope. Pushed right down at the bottom was a scrap of paper. I fished it out. It was a cutting from a newspaper. In the centre of the two-column spread was the picture of Boris Daumier balancing Rita on his hand: the same picture I had found in the box in her wardrobe drawer.

The cutting was a report of a murder: Boris Daumier’s murder. He had been stabbed to death in his flat in Cairo after a quarrel with his partner, Rita Kersh, as they called her. There was no doubt that she had killed him. As many as three people from the opposite flat had actually seen her stab Daumier. Up to the time of going to press, no trace of her had been found, and the newspaper seemed to think someone had smuggled her out of the city.

No wonder she had been so anxious to get rid of Sarek.

Obviously he had engineered her escape, and so long as he lived she was in his power. A word from him, and she would be arrested for murder.

I wondered if she knew he had the dagger. He had probably protected the handle of the dagger with the chamois-leather to preserve her fingerprints. After thinking about it I decided she couldn’t know he had it, otherwise she wouldn’t have dared plan to murder him.

Well, I knew and I had the dagger now. If she had something on me, at least I had something on her. The balance of power was about even.

Around ten to twelve the telephone bell rang.

‘Frank?’

‘Yes. All right?’

‘Not a hitch. I’ll be back by half-past one Will you meet me?’ I took out my handkerchief and wiped my face and neck.

‘I’ll be there.’

‘And Frank ... have you done it?’

‘Not yet. I was waiting for your call.’