The Gigantic Shadow (17 page)

There were footsteps on the stairs.

‘Who’s that?’ Brannigan asked.

Pine was stammering again. ‘I don’t know. I felt sure everyone had gone.’ He turned the handle of the door and said with relief, ‘It’s only Tanya.’

Tanya Broderick was smoking a cigarette in a jewelled blue holder. She stood in the doorway looking at the revolver in Brannigan’s hand.

‘You’d better get out of here.’ The Irishman’s voice was conversational, even.

She took out the cigarette, stubbed it in an ashtray, put away the holder. ‘You’re going to kill him. Who is he?’

‘His name’s Hunter, and he’s mixed up with Anthea Moorhouse.’

‘He was one of those two who came to see me.’

‘I know that.’

‘Where is she, Paddy? Where is Anthea Moorhouse?’

Pine said in his high voice, ‘You read the papers, you know as much as we do. She’s been kidnapped.’

‘That’s not what he thinks. I believe she’s dead.’

‘Really now, Tanya, you’re being silly.’

‘Let’s cut out the nonsense,’ Brannigan said. ‘Yes, kid, she’s dead. What are you going to do about it?’ The revolver in his hand was still pointed at Hunter.

‘Oh, my God. I wish I’d never started this.’ She looked unseeingly at Hunter, her doll-face crumpled. Out of the eyes rolled two round tears.

‘I like you, kid. Don’t tell me you’re going soft.’

‘I hate you,’ she said to Brannigan. ‘You’ve tricked me. When you put me in that flat you said you were taking it for me.’

‘So I was, kid. So I was taking it for you.’

‘You took it so that I could swear I saw him jump. I didn’t know what I was doing. You told me it was just to avoid awkward questions over a business deal. I never knew you killed him.’

‘Who’s saying I killed him, kid?’ Brannigan’s voice was low and level, but Hunter could feel the tension behind it.

Her own voice had been changing slowly as she spoke, a little of the artificial precision and pseudo-refinement chipping away with each sentence to reveal more of the east end Cockney beneath. Now the veneer was almost completely off as she cried, ‘I don’t want anything to do with murder. I don’t want to go to jail. I think I’d die if I went to jail.’

‘If you do what I tell you, none of us will go to jail.’

‘You killed Bond. And you killed that girl, Anthea Moorhouse, I know you did. Now you’re going to kill him. It’s got to stop, Paddy, it’s got to stop.’ She advanced across the room. Hunter waited for the moment when she would obscure Brannigan’s view of him. That would be the moment.

But the moment never came. Lightly and gracefully, on his toes like a boxer, the Irishman moved towards her. There was never an instant when the revolver was not pointed in Hunter’s direction. When the girl was within a foot of him Brannigan’s left hand, clenched into a fist, struck her in the stomach. Then as she doubled over and forward with pain, it came up to strike her under the chin. She gave a moaning cry and fell to the floor.

Pine said something incoherent. Hunter half rose from his chair, then sank back again as he saw the look in Brannigan’s eyes. Yet the voice in which the Irishman spoke was soft and calm as ever.

‘I’m sorry, kid. But you’ve got to learn. You can’t tell me what I should do or shouldn’t do. This is serious. You might be thinking about going to the police. Were you thinking of that, kid?’

The girl lay on the floor sobbing. A trickle of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth.

‘Because if you are, forget it. The Bond affair is finished. There was a suicide verdict, you heard it yourself. The police are happy, nobody’s going to stir it up again. As for Anthea Moorhouse, this red-headed moron here is the one who killed her. Then he came back here tonight, Arthur became suspicious of him, he attacked Arthur, Arthur shot him in self-defence. You see, I always told you there was some use for Arthur.’

‘I don’t think I can do it,’ Pine said. ‘Talk to the police, I mean. Afterwards.’

‘If you take a shot beforehand you can talk to anybody.’ He spoke again to the girl. ‘So you see you’ve got nothing to be afraid of if you go home and keep your mouth shut. If you don’t, you’ll be the first one to suffer. Accessory after the fact is what they call it. And when it comes to the point, can you do anything to me, have you got any proof of your story? If you’re lucky the police will think you’re hysterical. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be the first one they put away.’

She got up from the floor and wiped away the blood with a tiny handkerchief. ‘You’ve got it all taped, haven’t you?’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Where do you think? Home. Back to the love nest you took for me and never came to.’

‘I’ve told you why I can’t come there for a couple of weeks,’ Brannigan said patiently. ‘It wouldn’t be wise. You go home and put something on that face of yours. It’s swelling.’

She stood in the doorway looking at Hunter. The blue had come off two of her fingernails. She said nothing.

‘And, kid –’ Brannigan said gently.

‘Yes?’

‘If you’ve got ideas about going to the police and asking them for protection, forget those too. You know me. If you do that, I’ll kill you.’

‘I know you,’ she said dully. One hand was pressed to her stomach. ‘I know you now. Don’t worry. I’m going home.’

When the outer door closed, the sound seemed decisive. The silence in the room was awe-inspiring, terrible. This is where I am to die, Hunter thought, this is where the world ends, in the room of a drug-addicted athlete I am to be murdered by a ghost from the past I’ve been running away from. We can never run far enough or fast enough, he said to himself. There’s no such thing as a clean break.

There was a slight click as Brannigan again lifted the lid of the record player.

Pine said, in a voice that fluted uncertainly, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Jesus, you know what I’m going to do. Get out of the way. Go downstairs. You’re more nervous than he is.’ He put on the record.

‘I’ve got those double you blues.

One of you is kind and one of you is not.

One of you’s cold and one of you’s hot.’

Pine began to walk towards the door. If he takes another couple of steps he’ll be between us, Hunter thought. Just another couple of steps, that’s all.

Pine took the two steps. He was saying something in that uncertain voice about his carpet, his furniture. He stood almost, not quite, between them. Hunter’s right hand moved to his hip to get his gun, and at the same moment he rolled sideways out of the chair, pulling it down with a crash almost in front of him.

He was clumsy in getting the gun. Taken by surprise though he was, Brannigan was still too quick for him. At the moment that he fired Pine was still moving, saying something unintelligible. The words, whatever they were, were cut off in a scream, a babbling about God and mother. Pine staggered before he fell, and obscured Brannigan’s view of Hunter for three or four more seconds. By the time he had fallen to the ground, Hunter at last had his revolver out.

They must have fired almost at the same moment, but Hunter did not hear Brannigan’s shot in the deafening roar of his own. He was conscious of an intense, searing pain in his shoulder, and of Brannigan standing there by the record player, with surprise and pain in his eyes. He squeezed the trigger again. The noise was like thunder in his ears. He had time to think how bad a shot he was and then, to his astonishment, Brannigan crumpled, clutched desperately at the sofa near him for support, and fell forward. Blood came from his mouth. The record was still playing.

‘One of you’s laughing and singing a song,

And one just doesn’t make a sound,

Oh, there’s one of you alive and kicking, baby,

And one of you’s under the ground.’

I hit him, Hunter thought, I hit him after all. There was a smell of cordite in the air, and somebody was crying like a dog. This crying was the last thing he remembered.

‘He’s coming round,’ a voice said. It was a voice he knew, one with disagreeable connotations. He opened his eyes to see, close to his own face, the fresh, eager features of Inspector Crambo. He closed his eyes again, and groaned.

‘You’re a bit of a hero,’ Crambo said. Hunter opened his eyes again in astonishment. ‘Do you feel up to telling me what happened?’

‘Brannigan was going to shoot me. Pine got in the way. I shot Brannigan.’ He struggled up to a sitting position, saw that he was in the bedroom leading off Pine’s sitting room, winced with pain.

‘He put a bullet through your shoulder. It’s not serious. Brannigan and Pine are both dead. You killed Brannigan. Pine died ten minutes after we got here. He told us Brannigan killed Miss Moorhouse. She’s down in the cellar.’

‘Yes. They told me. That girl I talked to you about, Tanya Broderick. The one who gave evidence about Bond.’

‘Yes?’

‘She didn’t want to be mixed up with murder. She was here just before the shooting. Brannigan hit her. She’ll talk.’

‘Good. Let me tell you now how the business about Anthea Moorhouse works out. Brannigan and Pine kidnapped her, killed her, planned to get the money. Actually got fifteen thousand pounds which Moorhouse paid over on our instructions. Notes had been impregnated with a chemical so that they couldn’t use them. We’ve got them back. In a cupboard downstairs.’ Crambo’s face was solemn as a poker player’s. ‘We don’t usually like people playing Sherlock Holmes, but as I say you’re a bit of a hero. That’s the way I look at it, the way it works out.’ Was there a peculiar emphasis on those last words?

‘But –’

Through the open door he could see into the next room. Men were taking flashlight photographs, measuring distances. Flashlight bulbs popped.

‘Listen to me and don’t interrupt.’ Crambo’s voice was hard. ‘I said, that’s the way it works out. Brannigan was an agent for a drug distributing organisation. Pine was working with him. Anthea Moorhouse was one of the distributors. She’d become awkward, was threatening to give the show away. Brannigan and Pine decided she was dangerous, had to be disposed of. They arranged the kidnapping to squeeze money out of Moorhouse as well. When you found out about it, doing your Sherlock Holmes act, they were going to kill you too. Do you agree with that? Have you got any objections?’

A sergeant appeared in the doorway. ‘The boys have finished now, Inspector. Anything else?’

‘No. I’ll be along in five minutes.’ Crambo was staring at Hunter. He repeated, ‘Any objections?’

‘I suppose not,’ Hunter said slowly.

‘If you have any objections,’ Crambo said, looking at his high-polished shoes, ‘it might be awkward for everybody. There are questions we should have to ask. About Westmark, for instance. You know Westmark?’

‘I’ve met him.’

‘He said at first that you’d been to see him. Later, when he heard that Brannigan was dead, he changed his mind and saw things the way I expected. Then one of my men thought he saw you this evening. Thought he had a bit of a brush with you in fact, outside a pub. You don’t remember that, do you?’

‘No, I don’t remember.’

‘Just as well.’ Crambo laughed briskly. ‘My chap thought the man he saw was carrying a suitcase. The money was found in a suitcase, I think I told you that.’

‘You did.’

‘But there you are, just a coincidence. That’s the way it works out, and it leaves you a bit of a hero. Don’t you agree?’

‘What?’ Hunter said. ‘Yes. Oh, yes, I agree.’

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Brannigan was only an agent. Behind him –’

‘I know who was behind Brannigan. I can’t prove it, but I know. He was only a medium-sized fish. We’ll land the big one some day. Quite a flair for metaphor I’ve got, don’t you think? Would you call it a metaphor?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You’re wondering why I’m doing this – adopting this attitude, I suppose an intellectual like yourself might call it.’

‘I’m not an intellectual. But, yes, I was wondering.’

‘It’s the easy way out, that’s what you’re thinking, old Crambo’s chosen the easy way out. But that’s not all it is, Hunter. There’s a lot I could make stick to you, enough to send you up for years, you know that, don’t you?’

‘I…’

‘All right, don’t answer, I don’t want you to answer. I don’t love you, Hunter, any more than you love me. But why should Moorhouse suffer more than he has done? Who’s it going to help if he does? There’s a lot that I know and can’t easily prove. And if I could prove it, what would be the use? Miss Moorhouse is dead. It won’t help anybody to drag her name through the mud. Is that what you want?’

‘No.’

‘Let lying dogs sleep is what I say. Do you agree with that too?’

‘It’s not the usual way of putting it.’

‘Or you might say, a fool and his paradise are soon parted.’ If such a thing had not been impossible, Hunter might have thought that Crambo’s bright salesman’s gaze held a trace of something like pity. ‘You’ll have the reporters on your tail tomorrow, but for tonight I’ve kept them off. There’s a car laid on to take you wherever you want to go, and a chap on duty who’ll give you a hand. Your wound’s strapped up, but tomorrow you ought to see your own doctor, or go to the hospital for treatment.’

‘I will. And thank you.’

‘I’ll leave you with an old Chinese proverb. At the Yard they call this my proverbial mood. Those whose hands are twice as dirty as other people’s need to wash twice as often.’

It was not until Crambo had gone that Hunter looked down and saw again the faint yellow stains on his fingers.

His shoulder hurt, but he was able to walk up the stairs by himself. ‘It’s all right,’ he said to the detective who was following him, ‘I’ve got a key, I can open the door on my own.’

‘Sure you can manage?’

‘Quite sure. Good night.’

Anna lay on the sofa asleep, wearing an old dressing gown of his – she had always been too lazy to buy one for herself. Copies of women’s magazines were scattered round her, on the floor. The French clock on the mantelpiece said a quarter to twelve. He spoke her name, and she opened her eyes.

‘Bill.’ She sat up, shaking herself like a dog. The dressing gown fell open. ‘I thought you’d gone for good. But what’s the matter? You’re hurt.’

‘It’s nothing much,’ he said, absurdly heroic. ‘I was shot in the shoulder.’

‘Why, Bill. Who shot you?’

‘A ghost. A shadow out of the past I’ve been so busy running away from. A gigantic shadow.’ He felt weak, and sat down suddenly on the sofa.

‘You ought to be in bed.’

He felt wonderfully weary, but he said, ‘I’ve got something to do first. Get my wallet.’

‘You’re delirious.’

‘Get out my wallet, I tell you. I can’t use my left arm. Now, you’ll find an envelope. Yes, that’s the one. With two air tickets in it.’

She looked at them, and then looked at the clock. ‘For midnight. To Tangier.’

‘I told you I was trying to run away. Give me a box of matches.’

‘But Bill – oh, all right. I hope you’re not delirious, that’s all.’ He clumsily struck a match and lit the tickets. They watched them burn to ash. ‘That’s what it was all about – Westmark and all that?’ she asked timidly.

‘Yes.’

‘And now you’ve given it up?’

‘It was a pipe dream. I thought I was making a break with the past, but it was just a pipe dream. I was running away, but you can never run fast enough to get away from a shadow.’

‘So you’ve come back to me. Well, I’m no pipe dream.’ Her eyes strayed towards the box of liqueur chocolates, then she looked guiltily away. ‘I still don’t understand.’

‘That doesn’t matter. Anna, let’s get married.’

‘Married?’ She felt his forehead, her face full of concern.

‘You know you can get a divorce. Then we’ll get married. It’s what you want, isn’t it? And tomorrow morning I’ll ring Charlie and ask about that job.’

‘You’re running a temperature,’ she said decidedly. ‘You’d better get to bed.’

‘Anna, don’t be a fool. I told you, I’ve been playing round for weeks with a pipe dream. Now I’m trying to face reality, and I need a little help. Don’t you understand?’

‘Is that what you call getting married to me – facing reality?’ She reached over, took one of the liqueur chocolates, and settled at his feet among the women’s magazines. With a sigh of contentment she said, ‘I never knew reality could be so nice.’