The storm was unabated when Askew turned the vehicle on to a concrete platform overlooking the Chesil Bank. Gusts of rain blew straight in from the unseen sea. 'You'll need to run,' said Askew. 'We go down the beach to the fisherman's landing. There's a hut there, so we can shelter. I've fixed for this chap to take us out to the pilot cutter in his boat. I'll lead the way. Don't fall on the pebbles. They hurt.'
He jumped from the Land-Rover. Davies followed him. The rain was pounding and he ducked his head and began to run after the big crouched figure ahead. Now, even above the wind, he could hear the growl of the breakers and the rattling of the stones as the sea fell back to gather itself for a further rush.
Despite the warning he stumbled and swore a couple of times. The lights of Weymouth were shimmering as though through water on the horizon ahead. 'Are you all right?' shouted Askew.
'Fine. It's just a broken leg,' called back Davies after once more tripping over the slanting pebles.
Askew waited for him. 'He's not here yet,' he said. 'The chap with the boat. He shouldn't be long.' As he said it, he himself stumbled forward and tripped. Something fell on to the pebbles and bounced with a metallic clatter. Davies knew it was a gun.
'Damn, my lighter!' exclaimed Askew. He began feeling about in the dark, almost on his hands and knees.
'You must smoke heavy cigarettes,' said Davies. He moved towards Askew and the big man, with a surprisingly agile spring, came up from ground-level and punched Davies on the side of the head. It would have been the chin but Davies was slithering sideways. He fell down a slope, the small pebbles avalanching after him. Askew was still frantically searching for the gun in the pitch-darkness. Davies got up and charged up the slope at him. The man hit him again and knocked him into the next trough. Now he abandoned his search for the gun and came down powerfully after the policeman. Davies saw him looming above him and flung a handful of small pebbles in his face.
Askew cried out and staggered back, the moving slope causing him to tip backwards. Davies jumped up and flung himself on him. They rolled, hugged together down the incline to the edge of the sea. A powerful roller, black as the night itself but breaking into clouds of dull white, crashed up the beach and engulfed them. Still clutching each other, they felt themselves being torn away from the Bank by the huge undertow. Davies's overcoat wrapped itself around him like an octopus. He hung on to Askew.
'Let go, you stupid bastard!' bawled Askew. 'We'll both drown.'
They released each other simultaneously and each managed to crawl on slipping, sliding hands and knees up the cascading shingle to the first platform of pebbles. Panting and soaked, they faced each other. As though by tacit agreement each pulled his encumbering overcoat off. They then closed with each other again.
Jemma had watched from the streaming casement as the Land-Rover had picked up Davies and driven into the stormy dark. Uneasily she finished dressing then went down to the dining-room. She sat with the gale shaking the window at her elbow, the rain flung with the fury of the sea itself. The girl from behind the bar brought her the pencilled menu and she sat, troubled, with a glass of wine, watching the storm. As she ate she saw the knot of lights out to sea that she guessed was the approaching ferry. She wondered if Davies would be seasick. He probably would.
'How far out does the pilot boat go to meet the ferry?' she asked the girl.
That I don't rightly know,' she answered. 'I'll find out.'
There were only half a dozen people in the bar at that early hour. In one of the corner benches sat an old couple, solidly sipping Guinness. The woman nudged the man as if to stop him saying something, but he nevertheless called over to Jemma whom he could just see under the arch formed by the old beams.
'What did you ask, miss? About the ferry?'
'I wondered how far the pilot boat had to go out to meet it. I know someone going out there tonight and it's bound to be rough.'
The man seemed in no hurry to reply. He took a drink from his glass and, having swallowed it, said: 'There ain't no pilot boat, miss.'
Jemma got up from the table and went towards him. The couple were startled. 'How do you mean, no pilot boat?'
There ain't,' insisted the man. 'Because there's no pilot. The ferry comes and goes without one. The captain knows these waters like 'is own garden path. They don't need no pilot.'
Jemma made for the door, calling 'Thanks' over her shoulder. She went to the bedroom, pulled on her coat and picked up Davies's car keys from the dressing table. Briefly she touched the telephone but then took her fingers away. It might still be all right. It might have been a mistake. She hurried down the creaky stairs and went straight out into the gusting night.
She had never driven the old Vanguard and she had trouble backing it out of the inn yard. She kept thinking she ought to tell someone. But who was there to tell? Only the police. She decided to go alone.
The rain suddenly eased and a trace of moon came out, running between torn clouds. She drove determinedly along the coastal road, bordering the beach at one point, turning inland and curling through streaming lanes by stiles and cottages for another mile and eventually touching the beach again. A prolonged cloud space suddenly flooded the whole of the seashore with moonlight. She could see the galleries of silver waves ploughing against the shingle of Chesil Bank. She stopped the car once and hurried to the top of the Bank, looking along the length of the illuminated amphitheatre. The coloured lights of Weymouth shimmered in the distance.
Back in the car she drove straight and fast until, rounding a curve hung with a clutch of low, windbent trees, she saw the Land Rover parked clear of the shingle. She turned out the Vanguard's headlights and pulled up against the other vehicle. Briefly she looked inside and then took off her shoes. Carefully she trod over the soaking pebbles, until she was in a gallery looking down to the next layer and the breaking sea. At once, immediately below her she saw a man on hands and knees. He was picking up something from the pebbles. In the wide moonlight she saw the silver glow of a gun. He was only yards away and she heard it click in his hand. He began to walk carefully, below her elevated place, and she saw he was advancing on a huddled mass on the beach.
Jemma crouched and crawled along her pebble gallery until she was ahead of the man. She could hear him cursing as he stumbled along the lower stage of shingle. Now, she guessed, they were both within feet of the heap on the Bank. Bent double she heard the man advancing. Then there was another stirring and Davies's blurred voice saying: 'So you found it.'
'I found it,' answered the man.
Jemma knew he was almost below her. She waited until he had stumbled past and then half rose from her concealment. He had his back to her now and
Davies was another few paces in front, still half lying. Her stockinged feet moved swiftly over the small pebbles. She briefly wondered if he would hear her over the pounding of the breakers, but it was too late now anyway. Ahead of her Davies was struggling to his feet. The man lifted the gun.
'Excuse me, Mr Askew,' she said quietly from immediately behind his back.
He whirled around and she brought a heavy pebble in her hand down on to his forehead. He dropped at her feet, the gun clattering away on the stones.
'Oh, Dangerous,' she sobbed, stepping over the man and running to him. 'You're all wet.'
'Christ,' he breathed against her neck. 'I was very nearly all dead.' He kissed her, keeping one eye on the prostrate Askew. 'I think it's time someone called the police,' he said.
'We're both going,' she told him firmly. 'God knows where the gun went. Leave him here. The police will find him.'
Arms about each other they staggered up the beach to the cars. Davies opened the vent and let the air out of one of the front tyres of the Land-Rover. 'Try blowing into that,' he muttered.
His neck and nose were bleeding, his nose copiously, his face was bruised, and there was a cut on his head. He began shivering with the wet cold. 'I'll drive,' she said, helping him into the Vanguard. 'We'll go back and ring the police.'
She started the heavy engine and backed out on to the road. 'Thanks for turning up, darling,' he said fervently as he lay back against the head-rest.
‘I
thought that was goodbye.'
'Anything for you,' she said, heading the car back to the inn.
That stone you hit him with was like a house-brick,' he said. 'I couldn't find anything larger than a marble on that bit of the beach.'
'I brought it with me,' she said.
16
'Nice havin' a while in London,' said the young police driver conversationally over his shoulder. 'I got an auntie at Shepherd's Bush. I can go and see 'er.'
The older man in the seat beside the driver was on the radio. 'Car H for Hardy
T
for Tess. Dorset Police, special escort. We're just approaching M3. Location of suspect's car, please. Over.'
He turned to his colleague. 'You've not got no auntie in Shepherd's Bush,' he said mockingly. 'It's that old slag you met when you was on Miners' Strike duty.'
'She's my auntie,' insisted the driver primly. 'I ought to know.'
The radio cackled. 'Hello, Dorset Police, special escort, car
HT
....
Your suspects have just passed our check at Basingstoke, heading for London. Speed seventy.'
'That's very law-abiding,' said Jemma.
'They'll not want to be nabbed for speeding,' said Davies. His nose had begun to ble
ed again. She handed him a
pillowcase. The inn had been short of bandages but had been generous with substitutes. 'Does your eye ache?' she asked gently.
'Like hell,' he replied. 'Both. He had the biggest fists I've ever known and I've known a few.'
The radio came through again. It was eleven-thirty and there were few cars going towards London. 'Hello Dorset special escort, H.
T
. Over.'
'Dorset H.
T
. here. Over.'
'Can we check the registrations of your two suspect vehicles? They're Continental. Over.'
'Right then. First one - 2765 J. 0. That's J for Jude, O for Obscure. Over.' 'Got that. Over.'
'Second one. 8965 N. G. That's N for Native, G for Gabriel. Over.'
'Got that one too. Thanks. Over.'
Davies, his injuries throbbing, dozed against Jemma in the back. 'What's for C?' she asked. 'Casterbridge?'
'How come you know our codes?' the policeman said over his shoulder.
The next check was at Sunbury at the end of the motorway. The two estate cars were ten minutes ahead. Davies awoke and blinked at the white lights arched like luminous trees over the road. 'Nearly there,' said the driver. 'I recognize this section. 'Tis a bit different from Piddlehinton, ain't it, Percy?'
'More like Bere Regis,' said the other policeman. 'Can't wait to see how these London coppers spring the trap. They'll all be ready now.'
'If I know anything,' said Davies wearily, 'they'll be strung three abreast across the road stopping all traffic entering the area, including the two cars we're supposed to nab.'
They drove over the elevated sections of the road on to the suburban carriageway and turned north. Davies sat up expectantly as he gave the driver final directions. 'I wonder how Mod managed,' he said to Jemma.
When they reached the trading estate it was flooded with light. People were standing on the opposite pavement and leaning on their forearms in the upper windows of their houses. The Dorset car was stopped by a road block but after some discussion was permitted through. The gates of the estate were wide open and guarded by further police. 'They've certainly sat up and taken notice,' said Jemma.
'Sometimes they tend to go over the top
’
said Davies. 'They've probably got a warship patrolling the canal. There are the cars.'
Two estate vehicles, surrounded by police, uniformed and in plain clothes, were parked directly outside the gaping service doors of Blissen Pharmaceuticals. An ambulance was drawn up on the road and the attendants were loading a stretcher on which was a substantial mound. 'Mod,' said Davies.
They got out as soon as the Dorset car stopped. Police were chattering into walkie-talkies. Davies and Jemma hurried to the ambulance. By now Mod was inside groaning on the stretcher. They went in after him. He was lying, head padded and bandaged, eyes closed, his cheeks blowing like bellows. He opened his eyes and saw them. 'God, Dangerous, what you let me in for,' he moaned. 'That woman, the Jungfrau, she caught me. She beat me up something terrible, Dangerous. Both fists. I've never been so battered. She hit me a glancing blow with a fire-axe.'
Davies said: 'Thank God it's not serious.'
'It was quite a soft fire-axe,' muttered Mod. 'I hope I can claim compensation.'
They left the ambulance to take him to hospital. 'Poor old Mod,' said Davies. He looked at Jemma. 'Fancy being mugged by Frau Harrer.'
They saw Harrer immediately they entered the Blissen warehouse. She and three men from the estate cars were handcuffed, scowling, and sitting on some cardboard cartons, half-surrounded by police. Superintendent Vesty appeared. 'The drug squad are livid, Davies
’
he said with gritty satisfaction. 'Their guv'nor, Berry, is after your skin. They've been watching this set-up for months and now they reckon you've fouled up the whole operation.'