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Authors: James Hadley Chase

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‘I think you should know that she is an ex-alcoho
li
c,’ Iris said.
‘She’s all right now, but she mustn’t ever drink alcohol. If she
does, the doctor tells me, she will become an alcoholic again. So
please don’t ever ask her to join you in a drink. I don’t know if
you like a drink, but if it means little to you, it would be much
safer and much better if you never had alcohol in your home
when you marry and settle down.’
Calvin stared at her for several long moments. He began to hum tunelessly under
hi
s breath. Judas! he was thinking, so tha
t’
s it!
I’
ve gone into partnership for murder and robbery with an ex-alcoholic and she’s already
hi
tting the bottle again. Judas!
‘You know it is a disease,’ Iris said, a
little
shocked to see a sudden glaring flash light up Calvin’s staring eyes. It was gone in a brief moment, but his fleshy face was now expressionless, his almost lipless mou
th
like a pencil line. ‘I
t’s
like diabetes. So long as she doesn’t touch alcohol she’ll be perfec
tl
y all right. I
–
I thought I should tell you.’
‘Yes
…
thank you.’ With an effort he relaxed and smiled at her. ‘I’m glad to know. Poor Kit
!
I had no idea. Well, now you’ve told me
I’ll
watch out. I don’t drink much myself. I can easily do without and I wi
l
l.’
Iris looked curiously at him. That brief flash in his eyes had frightened her, but now the c
harm was back again and she won
dered if she had imagined the vicious, frightening glare.
He got to his feet.
‘Well, as far as your affairs are concerned,’ he said, ‘just be
patient. As soon as we leave Pi
ttsv
il
le, you can marry your nice young sheriff.’
When she had gone, he sat behind his desk and
lit a cigarette.
An alcoholic! The most unreliable, dangerous partner he could have chosen! And as the days dragged on towards the end of the month, he became aware that he was going to have trouble with it. She began to avoid him, and he guessed she was not only drinking, but losing her nerve. Whenever he ran into her, and he made a point of searching her out
, he saw the obvious signs of h
er slow deterioration. He could see she hadn’t been sleeping. She was losing weight and her complexion wa
s becoming like wax.
As soon as he had convinced himself she was drinking heavily, he left her alone. Alice and the old couple had already been told
of
their engagement. Calvin now spent much of his time in his room. From time to time, he would creep downstairs and remove Alice’s hat and coat to keep up the illusion that she was st
i
ll seeing
h
er boy-friend. Since he now seldom joined the old couple to watch television, they believed he and Kit were together upstair
s, double romance pleased them.
Four nights before the date set for the bank robbery, Calvin was sitting in his room, smoking and turning the pages of a golf
ing
magazine. The communicating door abruptly opened and Kit
came
in. She looked distracted and
ill
. She closed the door and
l
eaned against it, her breasts he
aving with her heavy breathing.
Calvin waited.
‘I’m not going through with it!’ Kit said, her voice shri
ll
. ‘I was crazy to have agreed to do it in the first place! I’m not doing it! Do you hear me? I’m not doing it!’

‘Well, all right,’ Calvin said in a deceptively m
i
ld voice. ‘Don’t get so worked up
about it. What’s the trouble?’

She stared at him, her eyes glittering.

‘Trouble? D
o you call murdering that girl j
ust trouble? I won’t let you kill her! Do you hear me?’

‘Yes
…
I hear you. If you don’t keep your voice down, she’ll hear you, too.’

‘You are a devil! You have no feeling. I’m not going to do it!’

‘Don’t get so excited,’ Calvin said. ‘Sit down
…
let’s talk about it. I thought you wanted the money.’

‘Not if it means killing her,’ Kit said, not moving. ‘I won’t have her death on my conscience!’

‘There is no other way,’ Calvin said. He stretched his long, massive legs and yawned. ‘I told you: you haven’t to do anything, I’ll do it.’

‘No! You’re going to leave her alone. Her life isn’t much, but she’s entitled to it! I won’t let you touch her!’

Calvin sucked at his cigarette, then released a stream of smoke down his nostrils.
‘I can’t do without your help,’ he said ‘Think a moment
…
three hundred thousand dollars! Think what it will mean to you. A poor thing like her! Who cares what happens to her?’
‘You can’t talk me into this!’ Kit said hysterically. ‘I’m not going to do it! I can’t sleep! I keep thinking of her studying her stupid books night after night while you are p
la
nning to murder her! I won’t do it! I’d rather stay poor!’
Calvin pointed to a bottle of whisky standing on the chest of drawers.

‘Have a drink. You sound as if you need one.’

Kit looked at the whisky, hesitated, then poured a large shot into the glass. She drank greedily in two long gulps and set down the glass with a little shudder.
‘I can’t do without your help,’ Calvin said. ‘Well, all right, if that’s the way you feel, then we’d better forget it. We’ll have to go on living out our miserable, drab little lives: you running a half-baked
rooming
-house and I the manager of a half-baked bank.’

‘I’d rather live as I’m living now than have her death on my conscience.’ She looked at the whisky bot
tl
e, hesitated, then poured another drink. ‘You’ve got to leave this house. You are evil. I can’t have you here.’

‘We’re suppose to be getting married,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘Remember?’
‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man left on earth! You are to go! I mean that! I won’t have you in my house!’
He thought for a moment, watching her, then he shrugged
.
‘All right. I’ll leave at the end of the week
.
What are you going to tell Iris, the old people and Alice? Or would you rather I tell them that I have discovered you are an al
coholic and I now don’t fancy m
arrying you?’
She turned white and put down the glass of whisky.

‘You’re not to tell them that! It isn’t true!’ she said
in a rasp
ing voice.

‘Of course it is! You’re half drunk now. I
t’ll
be interesting to see Alice’s face. She admires you. It’ll be interesting too to hear what the major and Miss Pearson have to say when they learn you are an uncontrolled boozer. But what should be amusing is to hear what Iris has to say.’ He leaned forward and suddenly snarled at her. ‘Get out of my sight. You sicken me!’
Kit turned and went into her
room, closing the door and lock
ing it.
When he heard the lock turn, his fleshy face became hideous. He looked like a savage, his face convulsed with rage. Suddenly he spat on the carpet and clenching his fists, he began to pound them on his knees.
He sat there for over an hour. When his rage finally wore itself out and his mind began to function again, he became like a trapped animal. He couldn’t see any way out of this impasse. His immediate reaction was to murder Kit, but he quickly realised killing her wouldn’t help him lay his hands on the payroll. Without her, his foolproof plan became impossible.
Exhausted by the murderous rage that had gripped him, unable to find a solution to the problem, he stripped off his clothes and got into bed. He lay in the darkness, his mind seething, trying to decide what to do.
Finally, around one o’clock in the morning he fell asleep. He had no idea how long he slept but he woke suddenly aware his heart was thumping. He hadn’t awakened like this since his combat days. Then he had developed an acute animal sense of self preservation that had served him well. There had been times when he had been sleeping in his fox-hole, his rifle gripped
in
his hands, and had come awake as he had now come awake, in time to spot a Jap crawling towards him out of the jungle.
The faint light of the moon came through the curtains. He could just make out the outlines of the armchair and the big closet facing hi
m.
Why had he woken like this? He was about to switch on the bedside light when he heard a sound that made him stiffen.
Someone was in the room!
By listening inten
tl
y, he was ab
le to hear rapid, uneven breath
ing.
He remained motionless. His eyes stared into the darkness. Then gradually he was able to make out a shadowy figure standing at the foot of his bed. His powerful muscles became tense, but he didn’t move.

As he continued to stare, the figure became recognisable. Kit, in her nightdress, wa
s looking towards where he lay.

‘Dave
…
’
Calvin slowly lifted his head.

‘Dave
…
please
…
’

She moved around the bed and sat beside him. He lay motionless, trying to see her hands, trying to see if she had a weapon or not.
‘Dave
…
’

‘What is it?’

He could
feel she was trembling and he c
ould smell whisky on her breath.

‘I’ll go through with it,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I can’t face living here for the rest of my days. I’ve got to have money. I’ll do it
with
you, but please be kind to me
…
please be kind to me.’

He jerked back the blanket and sheet and caught hold of her, pulling her down beside him. Her whisky-laden breath fanned his face as she twined her arms around his thick muscular shoulders.

She was crying and very drunk.
‘I’ll do it. I’ll do w
hatever you say,’ she moaned, ‘but don’t tell them about me
…
please promise not to te
l
l them. I can’t
help
it
…
I’m so ashamed of myself.’
His expression of contempt and disgust hidden by the darkness, Calvin forced his hands to caress her.
CHAPTER FIVE

1

‘
Well,
that’s it,’ the sheriff said as the armoured truck drove off into the darkness. ‘You two are working late tonight, aren’t you?’
‘We’ll be here until seven,’ Calvin said.
‘You’ll be okay,’ the sheriff said. ‘If anyone knocks on the door, sound the alarm buzzer in your office. I’ll come over or I’ll send Ken. Don’t open the door when you are leaving before you turn the lights out. You know about that?’
‘Sure,’ Calvin said.
‘Then I guess I’ll be getting along.’ The sheriff tipped his hat to Alice who was standing by Calvin. ‘Good night, Miss Craig. Good night, Mr. Calvin.’
He walked away down the path, followed by Travers and Calvin shut and locked the bank doors.
He was aware that his big, fleshy hands were damp with sweat and his muscles ached with the fatigue of three almost sleepless nights.
‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ he said to Alice. ‘The sooner w
e start, the sooner we finish.’

‘Yes, Mr. Calvin.’

He watched her walk to her stool and hoist herself onto it. The lights from her shaded desk lamp reflected on her glasses. He stood for a long moment staring at her, realising that in less than half an hour, she would be dead and he would b
e responsible. He took out h
is handkerchief, wiped his hands, then went into his office and closed the door.
He sat down and with unsteady hands, he lit a cigarette.
The past three days had taken a toll of him. He was still not sure if Kit could be
relied on. Each night after he h
ad returned from the bank, he had found her drunk. She had been in a weepy, sexually excited state that had nauseated him, but it was essential to keep her in this mood and he had played along with her: hating her, but realising if she was to play her part, he had to jolly her along somehow.

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