1951 - In a Vain Shadow (19 page)

‘Well, do it!’

‘As soon as you’re hung up’

‘Make a job of it, Frank.’

‘Yes.’

I replaced the receiver, reached for a cigarette and lit it. I had only to get rid of him and I was safe. It was unbelievable.

I sat for a moment, breathing gently, letting the gin fumes rise to my head, and swimming away with them.

I had a drink, I had another.

‘Well, I’d better put you away, old boy.’ I said aloud. ‘There won’t be any chess where you’re going.’

I stood up and walked to the door. My legs were unsteady and the ground seemed to give under my feet.

‘Nobody would say you were sober; not even your worst enemy.’

I started for the front door, but changed my mind and had another drink. That finished the bottle. There was a hot, burning pain in my chest that bothered me. I lit another cigarette while I looked round the room. I couldn’t find any excuse to remain in the room any longer so I picked my way carefully to the barn. I knew exactly what I wanted. Among the junk in the barn was a whetstone, about a couple of feet in diameter with a hole in the centre. It was made for the job.

I had a lot of bother handling it. It must have weighed over a hundredweight. I had to get the garden barrow to shift it from the barn around the back of the house to the well.

It was a pretty dark night; no moon and only a few dim stars. The cold east wind blew my hair into my eyes and flapped my coat against my legs, but I didn’t feel cold. I had worked through a bottle of gin, and I had lost the sense of feeling.

I dumped the whetstone by the wall and took the barrow around to the front of the house where I had left the car.

Before I opened the car boot, I stood for several minutes, listening. It is only when you make a conscious effort at listening that you realize the country at night isn’t as silent as you think it is. I heard a sudden whirring of a pigeon’s wings in a nearby tree, a distant barking of a dog, the tap-tap-tap of a chicken’s beak against the walls of the hen house and the faint and distant squeal of a rabbit caught probably by a stoat.

I should have liked to have stood listening for the rest of the night, but I made the effort and opened the boot.

It was too dark to see him, and I didn’t want to see him.

I groped into the darkness and my hand touched his face.

Drunk as I was, that shook me. I started back, collided with the barrow and went sprawling on the gravel.

For some moments I half lay, half sat, staring at the back of the car, feeling the hairs on my neck rising. This was going to be even worse than I imagined. I got up unsteadily, hesitated, then tinned on the electric torch I had in my pocket.

I didn’t look at his face, but grabbed him by his coat and waistcoat and tried to lug him out. He was as stiff as a board and I couldn’t shift him.

I got hold of his legs and puffed until my sinews creaked.

Then I saw his knee caps were wedged against the top of the boot, and that was the reason he wouldn’t move. I managed to hook a tyre lever out from under him and wrench his knees free. After that it was easy.

I hauled him into the wheel barrow and carted him around to the back of the house. I knew if I stopped now I would never start again.

I had to leave him by the well while I went to the tool shed for a roll of wire and secateurs.

I kept telling myself it would soon be over. And once I had him down there I would be safe. That thought kept me going.

I collected the wire and the secateurs and went back to the well head. Then I really worked fast. I got him up on the wall of the well. I bound the wire round his waist, his thighs and his ankles. To the other end of the wire I fastened the whetstone.

Then I gently lowered him into the water and tipped the whetstone in after him.

chapter sixteen

S
he paused outside the gates of the airport and looked to right and left. I waved from the car window, and she crossed the road, walking quickly towards me. She had his overcoat over her arm, carefully folded inside out.

‘Let me in. I’m freezing.’

And she was too. Her face was blue with the cold.

‘You’d better drive. I’m higher than a kite. I don’t know how I got here.’

‘Is it all right, Frank?’

‘You bet it’s all right. He’s down among the dead men in a wet and watery grave.’

She slid under the steering wheel and draped his coat over her legs.

‘I’m cold! People must have thought I was cracked not to have put on the coat.’

‘Did you have any trouble?’

‘It was easy. The air hostess fixed everything. I didn’t even have to show his passport. They saw the coat and waved me through. They all know him, of course. I went to a nearby hotel and put the call through to you. Then in the darkness of the phone booth I took of his hat and bandages, put them in the pockets of the coat, folded it inside out, and went back to the airport. There was a plane leaving almost at once. It was half-empty at that time. I bought a ticket and here I am.’

‘Pretty good.’

‘I hadn’t a chance to get rid of the coat. I was scared they would want to examine it at this end, but they didn’t.’

‘We’d have looked pretty silly if you had got rid of it. It’s got his money in it.’

I hadn’t meant to say that, but I was so tight it slipped out before I could stop it.

‘I was so scared I didn’t think about the money.’

‘I know. That’s how I felt. I’ve got over it now.’

‘Did you search him, Frank?’

‘Search him? No. It was as much as I could do to get him down the well. He looked awful.’

‘You fool! He probably had a money belt.’

‘I bet he didn’t. I bet it’s all in the coat.’

‘If it isn’t...’

‘Here, give it to me. Let me see.’

‘We’ll wait until we get back.’

‘Wasn’t there anything in the pockets?’

‘Do you think he’d carry diamonds in the pockets? Use your head Frank. Are you sure he’s down there for good?’

‘Unless that whetstone can float. That’s what’s keeping him down.’

‘I wish you had searched him.’

I wished I had too.

As we drove through Chesham High Street she said, ‘What happened to Emmie? What did she want?’

‘She came to say goodbye. She gave me the fright of my life. Talk about luck! Her taxi hit another car and she got held up, otherwise she would have been on the spot when I – I…’

‘You were crazy to have done it, Frank. Why did you do it?’

‘I couldn’t stand the thought of all that money slipping through my fingers. I didn’t mean to kill him. I was going to grab the coat and bolt.’

‘And what about me?’

‘I had that planned. I was going to give you your share later.’

I looked at her out of the comers of my eyes. She was staring straight ahead her mouth set and her eyes half closed ‘Well, that’s nice to know, Frank.’

‘I am not kidding.’

Another long silence, then she asked, ‘What did Emmie give you, Frank?’

I was ready for that one.

‘She didn’t give me anything. She had some papers to give him. I snatched them out of her hand and ran on ahead to stop her seeing you. I couldn’t give them to the air hostess because she would have come to you with them and might have spotted you, so I made believe I wanted a word with a passenger who I knew wasn’t on the plane. It fooled Emmie all right.’

‘What were the papers, Frank?’

‘Just records. Names and addresses. Stuff like that. When I made sure there was no money I dropped them down the well.’

‘I see.’

I wished I knew whether she thought I was lying.

‘Frank’

‘Hello.’

‘I’m glad he’s dead.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry we quarrelled.’

‘Forget it.’

‘I did help you, didn’t I? If I hadn’t had that brain wave. If I hadn’t taken his place . . .’

‘I know. You don’t have to draw a map.’

‘Would you have done the same for me, Frank?’

I thought of the dagger.

‘You bet I would.’

‘It’s easy to say, isn’t it, Frank?’

The hands of the clock on the mantelpiece showed two forty-five. She had pulled the curtains and lit the table lamp.

The coat lay on the settee.

‘All right, now let’s see what we’ve got.’

I stood over her as she examined the coat. Her hands paused suddenly above the breast pocket.

‘Something here, Frank.’

I pushed her away. Through the thickness of the cloth I could feel something soft and lumpy.

‘Get a razor blade.’

‘Get it yourself.’

Neither of us trusted the other a yard from that coat. I took out my pocketknife and cut into the cloth.

‘Fivers!’

We spread them out on the table: a hundred brand-new five-pound notes.

‘I don’t like this stuff. They keep a record of it.’

‘I’ll have it if you don’t want it.’

I grinned at her.

‘I don’t dislike it all that bad. Come on, I want the diamonds.’

We spent half an hour on the coat but we didn’t find anything else.

‘All right, all right, don’t get excited. Let’s go over it again; carefully this time.’

We sat side by side on the settee, the coat over our knees, and we went over it inch by inch, feeling in every corner, pressing the cloth between our fingers but still we found nothing.

We looked at each other.

‘All right, I’ve acted this little scene long enough. You’d better hand them over, Rita.’

Every muscle in her body went rigid.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I say. You don’t think you’re kidding me do you? You’ve had this coat for over six hours. Don’t tell me you haven’t been over it. As they’re not in the coat now, it means you’ve already found them. So hand them over.’

Her face was a study of cold vicious fury and suspicion.

‘And I suppose I’m to believe you didn’t search him, you rotten thief! You’ve got them! That’s it! You found them, didn’t you? Well? you’re not going to cheat. . .’

‘Hand them over, Rita, or I’ll take them of you!’

She pushed the coat aside and stood up. I stood up too.

‘Don’t make a fuss. Hand them over!’

‘I haven’t got them.’

She grinned casually and picked up her handbag. I grabbed her wrist, twisted it behind her, screwed the bag out of her hand and kicked it under the table.

For a minute or two we fought like a couple of animals.

Although she was strong I was that much stronger, and I got her down on the floor and knelt on her.

‘Are you going to let me search you or do I have to bang your head on the floor?’

‘All right, damn you, search me!’

I didn’t find the diamonds. I went through her bag, put the gun in my hip pocket and threw the bag on the floor.

‘It’s beginning to dawn on me there aren’t any diamonds.’

Her face was white, and her eyes glittering, ‘How do I know you haven’t got them?’

‘Because I wouldn’t be here if I had them. If I had found them I would have skipped, wouldn’t I? Use your head!

She pulled on her sweater, ran her fingers through her dishevelled hair and sat down on the settee. She began to go over the coat again, this time with feverish fingers.

‘You’re wasting time. You cooked up that story about the diamonds, didn’t you? You wanted him dead. And don’t think I don’t know why. I do. I know all about you.’

She looked up.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Never mind what I mean. You’ve tricked me into killing him, haven’t you? There never were any diamonds. You just threw out the bait and I swallowed it.’

‘You’re drunk, Frank.’

‘But not all that drunk.’

‘You’re talking nonsense. I know he had the diamonds. I saw them.’

‘I don’t have to believe you, do I?’

She picked up the hundred five-pound notes.

‘All right. If that’s how you feel about it. Take these and clear out.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Take these and call it quits. I’ll find the diamonds if I have to get him out of the well, and when I’ve found them I’ll stick to them.’

I stared at her.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘Take the money and get out, and don’t come back.’

‘And you keep the diamonds if you find them; is that it?’

‘You say there aren’t any diamonds. All right, I’ll buy your share of mythical diamonds with my half share of this money. I’m willing to gamble on it.’

I picked up the bottle of gin. I had a drink.

‘Do you think I’m risking my neck for five-hundred pounds?’

‘If, as you say, there are no diamonds, then you’ve already risked your neck for five hundred pounds.’

I snatched the money out of her hand, counted out fifty of the notes and offered them to her.

‘That’s your share. I’m staying until I’m sure the diamonds aren’t hidden here. You’re not going to gyp me out of a hundred-thousand worth of diamonds. You and nobody else.’

‘I don’t want the money, Frank.’ She was smiling, and when she smiled that way she could set fire to a saint. ‘You said you wanted the money and me, didn’t you, Frank? Well, here’s the money.’ She moved towards me. ‘And here am I.’

She had gone when I woke up, but I could hear her moving about downstairs, humming to herself.

I had a clapper inside my head that went bang-bang-bang, and a mouth like the bottom of a parrot’s cage. I had certainly been drunk last night.

I looked at the time. It was half-past nine, and the bright winter sun came through the blind, striking across my eyes and making me feel like hell.

I rolled over, wincing to the clapper inside my head.

After a while she came m carrying a tray.

‘So you’re awake.’

‘I feel like something the cat brought in.’

‘You were pretty drunk last night, Frank.’

‘I’ll say I was. What’s that - coffee?’

‘Hot and strong. I’ve got to feed the chickens. It’s late, Frank.’

She put the tray on the table by my side.

‘Come back when you’re through. We’ve got things to talk about.’

‘I’ll come. Do you want a cigarette?’

‘My case is over on the dressing table.’