The Executor (Keith Calder Book 10)

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘I understand,’ Keith said. ‘I don’t approve, but I understand.’

  *

  The cases were heavy – many of Clune’s relics were books, the lighter classics of boyhood, retained for nostalgic rather than literary interest. Keith took one case and, after a last, backward look, Clune followed with the other.

  Keith moved quickly. He was almost sure that Clune’s words could be taken at face value, but he would be uneasy until he had seen that Deborah was unharmed. The talk of rape and murder had unsettled him. Such happenings might be rare, but he had been reminded that they did happen. The two men were stepbrothers and no kind of blood relations, but the common element in their background might have produced similarities in their aberrations.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Clune stopped and Keith was forced to wait for him. ‘That’s it, then,’ Clune said. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever come here again.’

  ‘That’s for sure,’ said a voice. The man Keith knew as Eric came out of the drawing-room door. He had a gun in his right hand. It had once been a hammerless shotgun, but was now sawn off at both ends.

  Keith’s first impulse was to throw the suitcase, but the intuition which is born of experience told him that such a weight could not be thrown quickly. With that weapon, Eric could blow his head off before the case was properly on its way. He put it down slowly.

  ‘Sit down, both of you,’ Eric said. Steven Clune moved towards the chair by the telephone. ‘No, not there. On the floor, with your backs to the wall. But first, you—’, he pointed the gun at Keith who felt his chest contract, ‘open your coat and turn around.’ Keith did as he was told. ‘Take the knife out of its sheath with your left hand, slowly, and drop it on the floor.’ Again, Keith had no choice but to obey. ‘So you’re not carrying my revolver,’ Eric said. His air of superior amusement had returned but with an added edge. ‘Well, you never liked it anyway. You think this is better?’

  ‘I could have got you a thousand quid for that before you went and sawed it off,’ Keith said. His voice sounded hoarse.

  ‘It didn’t cost me anything.’ Eric surveyed the seated pair with satisfaction. ‘Isn’t this nice! The two men I most wanted, and I catch you together. I was following you.’ He nodded at Clune. ‘I lost you at Lasswade, so I tried here on the off-chance and struck lucky.’

  ‘You’ve already beaten me up once,’ Clune wailed. ‘What do you want now? What am I supposed to have done?’

  Eric smiled unpleasantly. ‘You don’t know my name? Either of you?’

  ‘You’re Eric,’ Keith said. ‘That’s what Mary called you.’

  ‘I’m Eric Dunlap. Does that start any bells ringing?’

  It meant something to Keith but, before he could speak, Steven Clune said, ‘Dunlap? You’re not Bobby’s . . .?’

  ‘Brother,’ Eric said. ‘I’m the big brother of your latest boy-friend.’

  ‘It’s over now,’ Clune said drearily. ‘You needn’t worry. He’s left me.’

  ‘I took him away. But not before you’d debauched him, turned him into a half-and-half like yourself. That’s what the beating was for. I couldn’t kill you just then. Not with the others looking on. Mary doesn’t mind a little rough stuff but she doesn’t go for snuffing. So I had to defer the pleasure for another time. Like now.’

  ‘I didn’t make him into anything he wasn’t already,’ Clune said. Keith thought that that was probably the wrong thing to say. And Clune’s voice was quavering with fear. Keith could look for little help from that quarter.

  Despite the seriousness of his predicament, a detached part of Keith’s mind could feel the satisfaction of a mystery neatly resolved. One brother the lover of Steven Clune, one in Danny Bruce’s employ. A third Dunlap – another brother? – tipped off that Halleydane House contained valuables and that the maid had left, watching the house and, seeing the taxi, thinking that both occupants had gone out. Danny Bruce’s omniscience was explained.

  Keith’s complacence was short-lived. Eric called Clune an arse-bandit and then switched his attention. ‘As for you, Calder,’ he said, ‘I’d been looking forward to this since Saturday. You made me look stupid in front of Mary, taking Nigel’s shooter off me like that. And what you did . . . nobody does that to me and gets away with it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to do you any real harm,’ Keith said. ‘You pushed a gun at me. And then Nigel, rushing at me—’

  Seated as he was, with his back literally to the wall, there was no way that Keith could get up in a hurry. His knife was on the floor, only a yard away but out of reach. How long would it be before Deborah came to look for him? And did he even want her to come? She might be killed. But if she didn’t come until too late . . . .

  ‘Nigel’s coming wouldn’t’ve mattered if you hadn’t already grabbed me exactly where I’m going to put a load of BB into you,’ Eric said loudly. He was visibly working himself up into a passion. ‘And now . . . Mary! She’s going to go down for carrying concealed weapons and assaulting the police, and it’s all down to you.’

  Eric was standing with his back to the open front door. Keith saw the slim figure poised on the threshold and knew that he must hold the man’s attention at all costs. ‘If she’d asked me,’ he said loudly, ‘I’d have warned her not to pull a gun on those three coppers.’

  Steven Clune had also seen it and from somewhere he produced a buried reserve of courage. ‘Don’t tell me that you’re carrying a torch for that . . . that virago,’ he said.

  Deborah had vanished. How much had she seen and heard? Keith remembered that the jeep’s keys were still in the car, with the key to the gun-locker attached. One of his fears had always been that she would be drawn into one of his scrapes and end up with a man’s blood on her hands. He could not think what to hope for.

  ‘If it’s any of your business . . .’ Eric began. He broke off. ‘What did you call her?’

  ‘It means a femme fatale,’ Keith said quickly. ‘A heart-breaker.’

  ‘She’s all of that. And now God knows when I’ll see her again. Christ, how I’m going to enjoy this!’ He lifted the gun, two-handed.

  ‘You won’t, you know,’ Clune said. ‘Revenge is never as sweet as you expect it to be. And Mary won’t approve.’

  ‘She won’t know, ever. But I’ll still have done it for her.’

  Keith kept his voice calm and reasonable. ‘I suppose Danny Bruce knew about the collection through Bobby and you?’

  Eric scowled at him but at least he postponed pulling the triggers. ‘If it matters, yes.’

  ‘And the Dunlap who’s been lifted for Robin Winterton’s murder?’

  ‘Our brother,’ Eric said. ‘But he always was a bloody fool. Mary told him to be sure that the house was empty. That’s enough talking. You’ve got ten seconds to say your prayers.’

  Keith’s next gambit was dangerous but he could think of nothing else to say which might postpone a little longer what seemed to be becoming inevitable. ‘Did you know that it was Mary who provided his description?’

  ‘Balls!’

  Keith hurried the discussion away from the unfortunate word. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘Just after we had our fight. You weren’t in the room, but Nigel could have told you. She didn’t name any names, but she described a man she said had sold something from here in one of her father’s shops. I repeated that description to the police – not knowing, of course, that the man was any relative of yours. . . .’ His tone sought to imply that if he had known that the man was Eric’s brother he would have kept silence.

  The sun had managed to break through. Outside the door, Keith could see the shadow of the rowans. A rowan tree to the north of a house is supposed to keep witches away. A pity – he could have used the services of a well-disposed witch. As the thought came to him, he saw Deborah’s figure reappear, his heavy magnum over her arm. Her face shone white.

  Eric found his voice. ‘That can’t be true,’ he said. ‘Or else . . . maybe she didn’t know his name.’

/>   ‘She knew it, all right,’ Keith said. ‘She was prepared to see your brother taken up for murder, just to divert my attention while she made her play for the guns. Just . . . to . . . divert . . . attention,’ he repeated loudly.

  ‘Damn you, she wouldn’t do that,’ Eric yelled. He levelled his gun.

  Deborah had taken the message and had moved to the side until she could no longer see Eric. She was out of Keith’s view and when she fired he was sure for a moment that Eric had killed him.

  Her shot swept a chiming clock off the wall and scattered it in fragments up the stairs.

  As Eric swung round, Steven Clune moved with a speed and courage which astonished Keith. He was up, sweeping Keith’s knife off the floor and sailing towards Eric in a flying tackle before Keith had half risen. Eric swung back and Keith ducked under the arc of the gun and flung himself flat. If Eric was, as he had said, using BB shot, even the fringe of the pattern would inflict appalling damage.

  The second shot, fired within the confining walls, was deafening. The room was filled with the reek of burned nitrocellulose.

  When Keith raised his head, he saw that both the other men were down. Eric had subsided against the wall beside the door, with the handle of Keith’s knife protruding from the middle of his chest. Steven Clune had been flung on his back, his chest ripped open by the shot. Half the room was spattered red.

  ‘Go back and wait at the car,’ he called to Deborah.

  Her white face peered in. ‘Did I do it right?’ she asked in a quavering voice.

  ‘You were wonderful. Now go.’

  Eric seemed dead but Keith kicked the gun beyond his reach, just in case. Steven Clune was still breathing, somehow, although one lung must have been collapsed. Heedless of the blood, Keith knelt down and cradled his head.

  Clune managed to show his uneven teeth in a half-smile. Keith guessed that he was feeling little pain, saved by the numbness which often follows shock. ‘Did I get him?’ he whispered.

  ‘Dead centre,’ Keith said.

  ‘That’s good. And now I’m bleeding all over another carpet. Don’t know what Mother would have said.’ His whisper was getting very faint. ‘Couldn’t let that girl of yours . . . oh damn! Things might – I might – have been so different . . . if I’d ever known . . . a girl like that.’

  He died without saying any more.

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