Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense (24 page)

He also knew, from his own tedious experience, the detail of the police searches that would follow the discovery of the woman's body. To dispose of the gloves anywhere on his beat would be too risky.

But he had planned for that, too. He felt a glow of satisfaction as he contemplated the extent of his planning.

The gloves had to be burnt. Burnt with intense heat until they congealed, melted, and were consumed.

And they were going to be burnt in the one place where police investigators would never look for them.

He continued evenly pacing his beat.

It wasn't yet light at six-fifteen as he approached the back entrance of the police station. The welcome blast of heat from the antiquated radiators greeted him as he walked inside.

He smiled at the irony. The heating system at the Station had long been scheduled for modernization, but the work kept being delayed. And as long as it was delayed, the old coal-fired boiler remained roaring away in the basement. Right next to the constables' locker room.

All he had to do was go downstairs and slip the gloves under the lid of the boiler. There'd be nobody around. The other constables would have nipped into the locker room sharp at six and already be on their way home or warming up with cups of tea in the canteen.

As he walked along towards the basement stairs, a WPC came rushing along the corridor. “Sensible lad, Norton,” she said, “coming in the back way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can't get through the reporters at the front.”

“Eh?”

“Haven't you heard? The Thirteenth Killer's struck again!”

And she hurried on.

He assessed how hard the news had hit him. So . . . someone had found the woman's body earlier than he had expected. So . . . his interrogation would come that much earlier.

But it didn't worry him. He still felt calm. He could cope.

Just get rid of the gloves, and he could cope.

He had started down the stairs when Constable Tate came bursting out of the Operations Room. The youth was transformed. He walked ten feet tall and positively glowed with triumph. “Norton,” he shouted, “have you heard?”

The urge to get down to the boiler was strong, but Norton curbed it. Act naturally. Act naturally, and everything will be all right.

He managed a wry grin. “Yes, Tate, I've heard. The Thirteenth Killer has struck again. I take it all back. You were right and I was wrong.”

“Thank you. Very decent of you to say so.”

“So now all that remains is for us to find the bastard.”

“But we have!”

“What?”

“Or rather
I
have.”

“You . . .?”

“I was patrolling Nelson Avenue at half-past twelve and I actually saw the attack. Had to chase the bastard for miles, but I got him! Caught him absolutely red—no, get it right—caught him
blue
-handed! Isn't it great news? He's in the . . . Here, are you all right?”

Norton was not all right. The shock hit him like a punch in the stomach and he vomited instantly.

“Good God, you poor soul. Have you got a handkerchief? Let me mop you up.”

“No, I . . .”

But Norton was too weak to stop Constable Tate from reaching into the trouser pocket. He just swayed feebly against the wall as the young man drew out the rolled pair of blue rubber gloves.

It was at that moment that everyone came rushing out of the Operations Room with news of another sensation.

A woman's body had been found in St Mary's churchyard.

I
HAVE BEEN
described as not very bright. Partly, I reckon, it's my size. People who look like me have appeared as dumb villains in too many movies and television series. And if you've had a background as a professional wrestler, you find the general public doesn't have too many expectations of you as an intellect.

Also, I have to face it, there have been one or two unfortunate incidents in my past. Jobs that didn't turn out exactly like they was planned. Like when I was in the getaway car outside that bank and I drove off with the wrong passengers. Or when I got muddled after that bullion robbery and delivered it all back to the security firm. Or when I wrote my home address on that ransom demand. Okay, silly mistakes, sort of thing anyone could do in the heat of the moment, but I'm afraid it's the kind of thing that sticks in people's minds and I have got a bit of a reputation in the business as a dumbo.

Result of it all is, most of the jobs I get tend to be—to put it mildly—intellectually undemanding. In fact, the approach of most of the geysers who hire me seems to be, “We couldn't find a blunt instrument, so you'll have to do.”

Now, of course, my own view of my mental capacity doesn't exactly coincide with that, but a chap has to live, and a recession isn't the time you can afford to be choosy. I mean, you read all this about rising crime figures, but you mustn't get the impression from that that villains are doing well. No, we feel the pinch like anyone else. For a start, there's a lot more blokes trying to muscle in. Side-effect of unemployment, of course, and most of them are really amateurs, but they do queer the pitch for us professionals. They undercut our rates and do bring into the business a kind of dishonesty that I'm sure wasn't there when I started. The cake isn't that much bigger than it ever was, and there's a hell of a lot more blokes trying to get slices.

Result is, I take anything I'm offered . . . driving, bouncing, frightening, looming (often booked for looming I am, on account of my size). No, I'll do anything. Short of contract killing. Goes against my principles, that and mugging old ladies. As I say, it's no time to be choosy. When this country's got more than three million unemployed, you just got to put off your long-term ambitions, forget temporarily about career structure, and be grateful you got a job of any sort.

So when I was offered the Harbinger Hall job, never crossed my mind to turn it down. Apart from anything else, it sounded easy and the pay was bloody good. Five grand for a bit of petty larceny . . . well, that can't be bad, can it? Sure, there was always the risk of getting nicked, but didn't look like there'd be any rough stuff. Mind you, never be quite sure in stately homes. Tend to be lots of spears and shotguns and that stuck on the walls, so there's always the danger that someone might have a fit of temperament and cop hold of one of those.

Still, five grand for a weekend's work in a slow autumn was good money.

The initial contact come through Wally Clinton, which I must say surprised me. It was Wally I was driving to Heathrow after that jeweller's job the time I run out of petrol, so I didn't think I was exactly his Flavour of the Month. Still, shows how you can misjudge people. Here he was letting bygones be bygones and even putting a nice bit of work my way. Take back all that I said about him at the Black Dog last New Year's Eve.

Anyway, so Wally gets in touch, asks if I'm in the market and when I says yes, tells me to go and meet this bloke, “Mr Loxton” in this sauna club off St Martin's Lane.

Strange sauna club it was. Not a girl in sight. I think it actually must've been for geysers who wanted to have saunas. All neat and tidy, no little massage cubicles with plastic curtains, no funny smell, no nasty bits of screwed-up tissue on the floor. Most peculiar.

Bloke on the door was expecting me. Give me a big white towel and showed me into a changing room that was all very swish with pine and clean tiles. He told me to take my clothes off, put on the towel and go into the sauna. Mr Loxton would join me shortly.

Don't mind telling you, I felt a bit of a grapefruit sitting on this wooden shelf with nothing on but this towel. When I first went in I sat on the top shelf, but blimey it was hot. Soon realized it got cooler the lower you went, so I went to the bottom one. Still uncomfortably hot, mind. Geyser my size really sweats when he sweats.

I tried to work out why Mr Loxton had chosen this place for the meet. I mean, a sauna's good if you're worried the opposition might've got shooters. Isn't anywhere you can put one when you've got your clothes off. Nowhere comfortable, anyway. But this wasn't that kind of encounter.

On the other hand, it wasn't bad if you didn't want to be identified. The lights in the sauna was low and it was a bit steamy. Also, people don't look the same when they're starkers. Oh, I know they do lots of corpse identification from secret birthmarks and moles on the body and that, but the average bloke without clothes on looks very different. For a start, next time you see him, chances are he'll be dressed, and you'd be surprised how many clues you get to what a person's like from what they wear. I reckoned Mr Loxton was meeting there to maintain the old incog.

I felt even more sure of that when he come in. He had a big towel round him under his armpits like me, but he also got a small one draped over his head like a boxer. He didn't turn his face towards me, but immediately went over to a wooden bucket in the corner, picked out a ladleful of water and poured it over this pile of stones. Well, that really got the steam going, and when he did turn towards me, he wasn't no more than a blur.

“You are Billy Gorse.”

I admitted it. Wasn't spoken like a question, anyway, more a statement.

“Thank you for coming. Wally Clinton recommended you for a job that needs doing.”

He might have hid his face with all the towels and the steam, but he had a voice that was really distinctive. Private school, you know, and a bit prissy. I'm good with voices. Knew I'd recognize his if I ever heard it again.

I stayed stumm, waiting for the details, and he went on. “What I want you to do, Gorse, is to steal a painting.”

“Blimey,” I said, “I don't know much about art.”

“You don't need to.”

“But surely . . . paintings . . . I mean specialist work, isn't it? Not like walking in and nicking someone's video. If a painting's any good, it's got security systems all round it. And then finding a fence who'll handle them sort of goods—”

“All that side is taken care of. All I said I wanted you to do was to steal a painting.”

“You mean I'd be, like, part of a gang?”

“There's no need for you to know anything about anyone else involved. All you have to do is to follow instructions without question.”

“I can do that.”

“Good. Wally said you could. You do the job on the last weekend of October.”

“Where?”

“Have you heard of Harbinger Hall?”

I shook my head.

“Then I suppose you haven't heard of the Harbinger Madonna either.”

“Who's she?”

“‘She' is the painting you are going to steal.”

“Oh. Well, like I said, I don't know much about art.”

“No.” His voice sounded sort of pleased about that. Smug.

He asked me where he could send my instructions. I nearly give him my home address, but something told me hold my horses, so I give him the name of Red Rita's gaff. She often holds mail for me, on account of services rendered what I needn't go into here.

Then Mr Loxton reached into his towel and pulled out a polythene bag. Thought of everything, he did. Didn't want the notes to get damp.

“Five hundred in there. Two thousand when you get your instructions. Second half on completion of the job.” He rose through the steam. “Stay here another ten minutes. If you appear in the changing room before I've left the building, the contract's cancelled.” He reached for the door handle.

“Oh, Mr Loxton . . .”

His reaction was that half-second slow, which confirmed that he wasn't using his real name. No great surprise. Very few of the geysers I deal with do. Not for me, that. Always stick to “Billy Gorse”. Only time I tried anything different, I forgot who I was half-way through the job.

“What did you want, Mr Gorse?”

I'd got what I wanted, but I said, “Oh, just to say thank you for the job, Mr Loxton.”

He done a sort of snort and walked out the sauna.

Long ten minutes it was in that heat. When I come out I was sweating like a Greek cheese.

Instructions come the following week as per. I went down Red Rita's for reasons that aren't any of your business and after a bit, she give me this thick brown envelope. Just my name on it. No stamps, nothing like that. Just come through her letter-box. She didn't see who dropped it.

I didn't open it till I got back to my place next morning. First I counted the money. Fifties, forty of them all present and correct. Then there was this postcard of some bird in blue with this nipper on her knee. That was presumably the picture I was going to nick. I didn't take much notice of it, but unfolded the typewritten sheet of instructions.

No mention of my name and they wasn't signed either. Plain paper, no other clues to where it might've come from. It was all typed in capital letters, which I must say got my goat a bit. Reckon Wally Clinton'd been casting aspersions on my literacy, the cheeky devil. Anyway, what I had to do was spelled out very clear.

FIRST
—
FILL IN THE ENCLOSED BOOKING FORM
,
BOOKING YOURSELF INTO THE “STATELY HOME WEEKEND
”
AT HARBINGER HALL FOR 29 AND 30 OCTOBER. SEND THE FULL PAYMENT BY MONEY ORDER. (ALL YOUR EXPENSES WILL BE REPAID
.)

SECOND
—
THIS FRIDAY
, 21
OCTOBER, TRAVEL DOWN TO HARBINGER HALL AND TAKE THE CONDUCTED TOUR OF THE BUILDING (THESE RUN EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR BETWEEN 10 A.M. AND 4 P.M.). WHEN YOU REACH THE GREAT HALL, LOOK CAREFULLY AT THE PAINTING OF THE MADONNA, NOTING THE VISIBLE SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS AROUND IT
.

WHEN THE TOUR REACHES THE END OF THE LONG GALLERY UPSTAIRS, LINGER BEHIND THE GROUP. AS THE REST OF THEM GO INTO THE BLUE BEDROOM, OPEN THE DOOR LABELLED “PRIVATE” AT THE END OF THE GALLERY. YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF AT THE TOP OF A SMALL STAIRCASE. GO DOWN THIS QUICKLY AND YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IN A SMALL LOBBY. ON THE WALL OPPOSITE THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS YOU WILL SEE THE BOXES CONTROLLING THE BUILDING'S ALARM SYSTEM. THESE ARE OPERATED BY A KEY, BUT YOU WILL SEE THE WIRES WHICH COME OUT OF THE TOP OF THE BOXES. WHEN YOU ACTUALLY COME TO STEAL THE MADONNA, YOU WILL CUT THROUGH THESE WIRES. HAVING SEEN THEIR POSITION, RETURN AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE UP THE STAIRS AND REJOIN YOUR GROUP. COMPLETE THE REST OF THE TOUR AND RETURN HOME WITHOUT FURTHER INVESTIGATION
.