Thinking of Norma reminded him to ring the hospital. He replaced the receiver and covered his unshaven face with his hands â Norma Gordon was no longer in any danger she was dead. The news saddened and enraged him. He knew he should ring Rothwell and have Douglas arrested immediately but first he had to sort out his own problems, he had to know if Claudine had been one of his victims or if he had killed her himself.
After showering and shaving he managed to force down more coffee and a slice of toast which he ate wandering around the kitchen, not wanting to sit across from Sarah's empty chair. He was desperate to ring her, but it would have to wait. The phone rang just as he was about to leave and he thought it might be Sarah, but it was Rothwell's secretary wanting to know if he was going to work at the archives as the superintendent was calling in to see him. That would save him a journey and give him time to confront Douglas Hood first.
From the top shelf in the safe he took down the old pistol and the small box of ammunition left there by the previous owner of the house. He should have handed them in when he first found them but had never got around to it. Not sure if it even worked, he loaded the gun and thought it ludicrously dramatic to be arming himself but having gone this far he had no intention of allowing a cold-blooded killer to slip through his fingers.
Arriving at the archives Darrington was late and distracted, he had driven to Douglas's home to confront him but found the house empty and the car gone from the garage. Having activated the door to let him in, Miss Bevis sat ramrod straight at her desk but unusually didn't acknowledge his greeting as his passed her, he stopped and looked back. “Is everything all right, Miss Bevis?” Slowly she looked across her shoulder as Fiona stepped out from the rows of shelving with Douglas Hood behind her holding a police issue revolver to her head.
Darrington moved forward, “For God's sake Douglas haven't you done enough harm, surely you're not going to hurt anyone else.”
“I wondered how long it would take you to work it out Max,” he said sarcastically, “for a policeman with your reputation and of your supposed intelligence, you didn't do very well did you, but perhaps we can put that down to your recent ill health.”
“Perhaps it was because you were someone I trusted and admired for many years and it never occurred to me you were capable of such things,” Darrington retorted bitterly.
“Why not? You thought it of yourself and you are, in fact, responsible for the death of Norma Gordon. You do know the old whore shuffled off her mortal coil early this morning? If you had just kept to what you were supposed to be doing, but oh no, that wasn't good enough for Red Max was it? You had to go poking around dragging up the past and that's why she's now dead. I rang the hospital to enquire about her. I said I was a policeman, in fact, I said I was you and the sister remembered me, it was then I realised you'd been talking to her. I rang again this morning and heard of her sad demise. Of course, she's no loss. She should've died years ago. She was a tart and people like that don't change, so you could say she was lucky to live as long as she did.”
“And Rona McLean?” Darrington demanded angrily, “she wasn't a whore, she was just a kid who got in your way, an innocent young girl, but you killed her.”
Douglas pushed the trembling Fiona forward. “Sit down,” he barked, pointing to the chair next to Miss Bevis, who took hold of the girl's hand and glared defiantly at him. He turned back to Darrington. “Yes, it was a pity about her. Believe it or not, I was sorry. I killed her by accident, a case of mistaken identity.” His voice and hands shook and his eyes blazed. “That's what happens when you mix with whores and tarts, you get caught up in the crossfire.”
“It wasn't crossfire, it was pre-meditated murder and you weren't sorry enough to stop were you, you went on killing,” Darrington accused.
Fiona looked up, her tear-stained face streaked with mascara. “He shot Matt.” She indicated with her eyes and Darrington saw Matt's body slumped against the shelving his right shoulder covered in blood.
“He's only unconscious,” Douglas sneered, “What is it they say about the bigger they come the harder they fall?”
“He's losing blood,” said Darrington but Douglas ignored him.
“Who have you told, Max?”
“I've reported everything to Rothwell.”
Douglas kicked out at Matt's shoulder. The unconscious man groaned and more blood oozed onto his white shirt. “If you don't want me to put another bullet into Mr Universe you'd better tell the truth.”
“Tell him Max, please,” pleaded Fiona.
“I haven't told anyone.”
“That's what I thought, well you wouldn't would you? Wouldn't want to share the glory with anyone else and you also had to know for certain whether you were guilty of murder.
Are you armed, Max?”
Darrington hesitated but when Douglas again lifted his foot towards Matt, said quickly, “All right, all right, leave him alone. Yes, I'm armed.” He opened his jacket revealing the gun in a holster.
Fiona again felt the muzzle of Douglas Hood's gun at her head. “Take it out slowly and put in on the floor and no tricks Max or there'll be one less tart in the world.” His laughter was high pitched. “Did you think I didn't know you were screwing young Fiona here?” He pulled the girl roughly by the hair and she closed her eyes in terror as he put his face next to hers. “Didn't it bother you that he was married, had a wife and family?” He looked at Darrington, “I actually tried to give Sarah a hint about you and this little scrubber, but I'm not sure she believed me.”
“It's not true,” wept Fiona.
Slowly Darrington put the gun on the floor while desperately trying to formulate a plan. Douglas Hood had totally lost control and while that made him dangerous it also made him vulnerable. “So what happens now Douglas?” he asked almost casually.
Letting go of Fiona's hair and pushing her to one side Douglas stared ahead, his eyes wide and manic. “Well, I'm not going to prison if that's what you think.”
“But you killed six women.”
“Six!” His laughter verged on hysteria. “They were the ones found, to tell the truth I lost count.” Again he leaned closer to Fiona, “so one more wouldn't make any difference to me,” he tormented.
The girl whimpered and leaned toward Miss Bevis, who suddenly yelled at Douglas, “Stop frightening her you cowardly bastard.”
Douglas glared at the tiny woman who looked anything but frightened, “You keep your mouth shut you old slag, just because you're too old to be bed hopping doesn't mean I won't put a bullet in you. No doubt you were like all the rest sleeping with anything in trousers, while men like Max and I were fighting for our country's survival.”
Darrington jumped at the chance to align himself with Douglas. “You're right; even if I did kill Claudine, I wouldn't have done if she'd been faithful, it wasn't my fault. We're in this together and we need to decide what we're going to do; make some plans without anyone else listening.”
Douglas beamed. Max was on his side, he understood, “Good idea. Where's the safe room you were telling me about?” He looked around, “We can put them in there.”
While Douglas had his back turned for a second, Darrington nodded quickly to Alice Bevis, and moved forward noisily covering the sound of his gun sliding across the floor when he kicked it toward the desk. “It's at the back of the room,” he pointed through the shelves. “What about him?” He looked at Matt, who was conscious but looked white and sickly.
“The women can see to him,” said Douglas animated and happy to have an ally, “that's the second thing they're good for, looking after the wounded.”
Darrington felt sick and disgusted. How could this be the man he had admired so much for so long? The gentle stranger who had shown so much compassion, the man he had invited to his home, made godfather to one of his sons and trusted implicitly. How could such a man be what he saw now, a cold-blooded killer and a jealous, pathetic women-hater? Where had his own perception and judgment been? Suddenly he remembered something Sarah had said. Douglas got on with everyone in the family, especially his mother and uncles who were so grateful to him for helping Max during the war, but Sarah didn't really like or trust him.
“I don't know what it is but it's something sexual,” she had said.
He had laughed and teased her, “Perhaps he fancies you Sarah and who could blame him, but you need have no worries about Douglas, he's a good man.”
Once again the gun was at Fiona's head as Darrington helped Matt to his feet and Miss Bevis picked up the first-aid box from beneath her desk. She opened the safe room door and Douglas herded them in pushing Fiona with unnecessary force.
Darrington laid Matt on the floor and spoke to Miss Bevis, “The bullet's gone straight through, try and stop the bleeding and he should be all right.”
“Don't worry, I know what to do I've got everything I need,” she tapped the first-aid box with the flat of her hand. Her eyes gleamed with hatred at Douglas Hood and then moved to the telephone on the desk. Darrington gave the slightest nod before closing the door and following Douglas through the shelves of filing to the reception desk.
“That door can't be opened from the inside can it?” Douglas demanded.
“No,” Darrington stated firmly, although he didn't know if it could or not.
At the reception desk, Darrington suggested they took the phone off the hook so they wouldn't be disturbed and Douglas rambled. Making excuses and allowances for his psychotic madness, reeling off details of the immoral and disgusting women he had murdered, always blaming others and looking to his friend for sympathy and understanding. He ranted, sometimes incoherently, about his wife confessing he had lied about her being killed in an air-raid. In those desperate months of the Blitz the authorities had called for urgent help from the Home Counties emergency services to deal with the aftermath of the bombing in London and Douglas became something of a hero, volunteering his services and working his off-duty hours in the capital and taking the opportunity to track her.
Jenny Doig had indeed been his first victim. He had stalked her as she went off with a young soldier she had solicited outside of a pub. He had watched them pick their way across the waste ground and followed them keeping out of sight and a good way behind them. From the shadows, he had shone his torch and the soldier, having had what he had paid for, ran off into the night leaving the girl alone. Seeing his uniform she tried the only way she knew to avoid arrest. Douglas had let her get close to him imagining her to be his wife, he even called her Dorothy, and the girl agreed she could be Dorothy if that's what he wanted.
In sickening detail, he described slashing her throat with a razor and listening to her pathetic death throes, before obliterating the strange face with a building brick thereby allowing himself to believe she truly was Dorothy. Thus the pattern was established.
Some of the killings were opportunistic â like when he came upon a streetwalker earning her living â but mostly he selected women at random and watched them, making notes of where they lived and what they were up to. When he was in London, he followed up on their movements and if the opportunity arose punished them for their wickedness, always during an air-raid and, for the most part, the murders were not even discovered.
“You see Max it wasn't murder, it was justice. I started off looking for Dorothy and I did plan to kill her. That's why I carried the razor but when I saw the wicked, vile lifestyle of these women, well I had a duty to rid the world of them. They were enjoying the war while their men were sacrificing themselves. You can see that can't you? Men were dying to defend their country and these bitches were betraying them with anyone they could pick up.”
“Did you ever find your wife?” Max asked.
Malicious glee spread across his face. “Oh yes, I found her a couple of years later but the poor girl fell under a train.” He cackled uncontrollably and Darrington shivered. He was in the presence of a grotesque, homicidal maniac with only his wits for protection. “There were no air-raids at that time you see but I followed her for days and then it just happened. Well, you know how crowded the underground gets, she just tripped or perhaps she was pushed â who knows?”
“And Claudine?” Darrington asked, desperate to be released from the burden of guilt but hating the idea of her dying at the hands of this wretched madman.
“Ah, yes, the beautiful Claudine,” Douglas mused. “No, I'm sorry that wasn't down to me. I wouldn't be talking to you like this if it were, if we weren't birds of a feather so to speak. No, I feel safe with you because you obviously did the same thing.”
“I don't think I could have killed her,” Darrington inadvertently protested. “She was my wife, the mother of my son and I loved her, perhaps it was you, perhaps you just can't remember. You said yourself you'd forgotten some of your victims.”
“Whores Max, whores, let's give them their correct title. I certainly don't think of them as victims. But no I would have remembered Claudine because that night when I found you in London I'd just finished off a little red-headed slut, she was never found but I got too close to her and my clothes were covered in blood.” He grinned, “I had to blame you for that at the hospital. I said I thought you might be injured as you had blood on your clothes â just in case, you know. That's why I got your uniform cleaned for you, just like any good friend would.”
“So, I didn't have blood on my uniform?”
“What does that matter?” Douglas demanded suddenly hostile, “are you still trying to convince yourself that you didn't kill Claudine?”
The sound of the outside door opening made them look at one another and as footsteps came closer Douglas suddenly jammed the gun to Darrington's head.