Killer in the Shade (16 page)

‘Well, we hadn't made many payments on it, so we're not out of pocket,' her husband reminded her. ‘The same with the house and furniture. We've kept ready to move at short notice. I'm not saying that was wrong.'

‘Well, what in hell are you saying?' she snapped.

‘We chose the wrong moment. If we'd bluffed Hackley, told him he was mistaken about his fiancée's having seen me at Holly Lawn, what could he have done?'

‘Told the police.'

‘You think he hadn't?'

‘So?'

‘So they hadn't made a move against us. Which meant they either didn't know or had no proof or both. They certainly didn't know we had Brian next door and that he was working with that frightful Rennie — '

‘I don't think he's bad for a wog.'

‘Beryl, for God's sake! You'll be
fancying him next.'

‘It's his skin I don't fancy. It's got the right collection of muscles packaged inside it, but the colour's wrong. I find black so bloody depressing.'

Her husband growled something unintelligible and went on as though there had been no interruption.

‘ — he was working with Rennie to set things up with Peel. Not knowing that, they can't know our set-up here.' He rose and walked to the French windows and stood looking out. ‘That boathouse needs a coat of paint.' He spoke as though this was something urgent that had just occurred to him.

His wife crushed out another cigarette in the cluttered ashtray and moved to stand at his side.

‘Forget the damned boathouse,' she said tersely. ‘We shan't need it after this week. There's the money from the jewellery that's found its way back through Brian's cleverness. There'll be this money from the bank. Say around three hundred thousand plus the stolen stuff Peel's still holding. Brian fobs
off Jackson Rennie with a tale, Peel and he arrive, and we push off in the boat. Peel gets lost somewhere in mid-Channel, and that leaves a nice little sum in very simple arithmetic — three hundred thousand split three ways. You, me, Brian. Doesn't that do something to make you feel damned good?'

She turned a critical gaze on him as she asked the question.

‘You're a subtle bitch, darling,' he said, turning to meet the hardness in her eyes. ‘Your way of digging at me because the strike's practically over and so Peel won't be making the raid tonight. Well, it won't matter, sweetheart. Not even that I'm not there to make things easy. So the only reason I feel good is because I know what Peel will do.'

‘Brian told you?' she said quickly.

‘He got it from Rennie.'

‘Why wasn't I told?'

‘Rennie. Maybe he doesn't like white skins.'

She compressed her mouth into a thin line, refusing to be drawn, but the expression in her eyes was unpleasant
and boded no good for whoever she was thinking about.

He continued, ‘But now it doesn't matter. Peel — you've got to give the devil his due — has an alternative plan lined up, because I gave Brian information which he passed on. In the event of the strike being called off that scheme will be used, and it will make the bank raid unnecessary.'

‘What is this scheme?'

‘I gave my word — '

‘Bastard!'

He grinned.

‘You never could take a joke, Beryl.'

‘Not a sick joke, I agree. This one could get so sick it might put us in jail.'

He straightened out his grin and looked serious. ‘All right, then. The chances are — '

The fresh interruption was provided by the phone.

They looked at each other, both startled. She said, ‘No one knows this number except Brian.'

‘So it's your brother,' he snapped. ‘See
what he wants. The police have found Hackley in the garage. Tell him to keep under cover and if the police call not to get clever.'

She hesitated, listening to the strident sound of the telephone.

‘Well, go on,' he said. ‘Or do you want me to talk to him?'

She walked into the hall, where the phone was on a narrow table with a couple of local phone directories. He heard her say, ‘Who?' and some seconds later, ‘Oh, my God!' and he stood frowning, his back to the French windows, his thoughts milling in his head. He wanted to go into the hall and snatch the receiver from her, but he knew that wouldn't change bad news, if that's what she was being told.

He heard the phone click as the connection was broken after some muttering that he could not translate into words. She came into the room and almost collapsed into a chair. She looked shaken.

He stood looking at her, not saying anything because he had no wish to
learn whatever she had been told a second earlier than necessary.

It was bad.

That much was imprinted on her face. She had been shocked and she looked like a woman suffering mentally and physically, which was not a pleasant sight.

When she spoke her voice was low-pitched and came to him like a husky whisper that belonged to a stranger.

‘That was Brian's solicitor. He's been arrested and is likely to be charged with being an accessory to attempted murder.'

He stared down at her, his face muscles stiff and a chill crawling down between his shoulder-blades.

‘In what name?'

‘His own. They had his damned fingerprints on file, and there was no sense in lying. They've got him. All he could do was ask for a call to this lawyer, and tell him to let me know at once. Brian's saying nothing. Sitting pat.'

‘Rennie will be grabbed when he comes calling.'

She shook her head. ‘Our coloured
friend is also in custody. Apparently both Brian and Rennie were caught red-handed.'

‘How the hell do you mean, Beryl?'

‘In our place. They'd climbed over the garden fence and were grabbed. You know what this means?'

‘Oh, I know. Peel's out on his own. He'll ring our place, then next door, and he'll try to contact Jackson Rennie and will get nothing from all three. He probably did early this morning or even late last night. Checking. He's mad on checking — thank God! So he'll put the other plan in operation because I made it possible by telling him how. Then he'll come down here and we'll take off. That'll be tonight.'

‘Tonight!'

She was out of the chair and on her feet. The colour had not returned to her face and she was still twisting her hands together as though she could not keep them still. But she was recovering. It was demanding a great effort, but it was one not beyond her powers. There was a great deal of resilience in his wife. She was as
pliant as whipcord.

‘Of course. The only thing I don't understand is accessory to attempted murder. You understand what that implies?'

‘Hackley' — she started violently as realization came to her suddenly — ‘isn't dead.'

‘So he can talk.'

‘About us, Cecil.'

‘And plenty more besides.'

‘But what about Brian?' she wanted to know.

‘What about him?' It was a cold and callous refusal to acknowledge there was anything to be discussed.

‘You can't leave him — just do nothing.' The protest faded before it was spoken. The look on Cecil Weddon's face had nothing ambiguous about it.

‘I'm going to do plenty. I'm getting the hell out of this place as soon as Peel gets here. And you're going to do something too.'

He saw that she understood, but he went on to spell out his meaning with brutal simplicity.

‘I'll be heading for mid-Channel. Peel may try to be clever and keep me at the end of a gun. But when I cut the engine you'll be ready.'

She still said nothing.

‘You'll shoot him in the head and you'll do it with your eyes open, Beryl, to make sure you don't miss. Then we'll tie an anchor to his feet and give the mackerel a treat.'

All she said was, ‘I asked that solicitor if bail could be put up for Brian, and he said there wasn't a chance if they go ahead with the charge, and he thought the odds were that they would.'

‘Of course they will. This is what Drury has been waiting for, and that damned fool of a brother of yours has to give him a chance. I can't think why the hell Rennie agreed to be so bloody stupid as to attempt to break into our place.'

‘Can't you?' she said calmly. ‘I can. Those three LP records with calypsos and bongo music that Brian loaned me belong to Rennie. They'll be smeared with his fingerprints.'

She expected he would strike her.

Instead he sat down and laughed.

‘So three LP records save us a hundred thousand pounds — Brian's share, and give us a chance to collect Peel's leaving us to get away with all the boodle.'

His laughter became shriller.

‘Very, very sweet,' he said, the words bubbling obscenely in his mouth.

She listened and tried to make up her mind if she hated him enough to shoot him and let him share the anchor waiting for Humphrey Peel.

While Beryl Weddon stood irresolutely toying with the idea of ridding herself of a man who had grown stale in interest and threatened to usurp the role of dictator in their curious marriage, a nondescript green van with scarred black wings passed Basingstoke on the by-pass at a steady forty miles an hour, allowing all other traffic heading towards London to pass it. The green van drew level with the Hook turn-off and another vehicle turned on to
the London road and began to overtake it. The car behind was a grey Jaguar with a number-plate suggesting it had a fair mileage chalked up on the dash-board.

As it overtook the green van with the Devon number-plates the Jaguar seemed to lose speed, but picked up again when the road was clear. It was passing the green van when the driver spun the wheel to the near side. The man behind the wheel of the green van turned his head in jerked surprise, saw a face concealed behind a stocking mask and another with whiskers and a large pair of dark-lensed spectacles, and started to yell, but the sound did not clear his throat. The van was smacked hard and turned off the road and into a long row of bushes. The engine stalled, and the van's driver shouted, ‘Bert — look out!' to the man sitting with the sacks behind him.

What happened next was speedy, dramatic, and executed with a professional attention to detail.

The man with the stocking mask coshed the van driver, ran to the rear doors as Bert opened them, and beat
him over the head. As Bert collapsed the man in the large dark spectacles and wearing a Cossack-type blouse with a swinging metal chain drooping from around his neck started hauling at the sacks. Inside three minutes the sacks were in the Jaguar, which was backing towards the road. The gears meshed grindingly and then the grey car was headed back for the Hook turn-off.

It ran into a side lane and halted behind a black family saloon. Forty seconds later the sacks were in the saloon's boot, the stocking mask had been removed, the cosh had been tossed in a ditch, and the driver had changed his jacket simply by turning it inside out. The other man, the one keen to handle the sacks, had removed his dark glasses, donned an overcoat, and drawn a cap down over his face after peeling off his moustache and sideboards.

‘Okay, Micky?' he asked.

Micky Hanlon, a man born with a love of violence for its own sake, laughed in the back of his throat. He hadn't been so happy since he had broken out of Walton
Jail and cast the dust of Liverpool streets from his shoes.

‘Okay, Humph.' He almost sang his assurance.

The saloon cleared the lane and headed for Farnham and the Portsmouth Road. Before long it was south of Godalming and making another steady forty miles an hour. This time in the direction of Chichester. Micky Hanlon turned into a car-park at Midhurst and produced cigarettes while they both studied the immediate scenery. It was a free car-park, with no attendant, and at a suitable moment Micky leisurely climbed from the saloon, approached a beige two-door Viva, and with a quick jab of his elbow broke the window on the driver's side, opened the door, rolled down the broken window, climbed in, and unfastened the door on the other side and rolled the seat forward.

By this time his companion was passing in the first sack. It took Micky and his sheath-knife a full seventy-five seconds to cut the ignition leads and connect them free of the ignition lock. He got
out unhurriedly, lifted the bonnet, and tugged the starter lead. The warm engine purred dutifully. Micky slammed the bonnet down, got in again behind the Viva's wheel, and backed the beige car from its slot.

‘Looks a nice place, Midhurst,' Micky said condescendingly as he drove carefully through the small country town.

His companion grunted. His eyes were closed.

‘You got one of your headaches, Humph?' he inquired with excessive casualness.

‘Yeah. It's bad. If it doesn't go I'll have to take another couple of pills.'

The words had a short, chewed-up sound in the mouth that was almost as shut as the eyes above it.

‘Do that, Humph. Yes, do that. Or better still, try to get some sleep. Do you good.'