I shook my head and the gauze lifted from my eyes. I glanced at Montez. His mouth gaped open.
But it wasn't his mouth. There was a hole in his cheek. When the rifle fired, he'd shot himself. I was covered in his blood.
I forced myself to look more closely. The bullet had passed through his brain. There was an ugly exit wound in his scalp.
I started to shake. Perspiration flooded my pores. My chest felt like it was tied with rubber bands. I knew that if I couldn't climb out from under Montez I would die of shock.
I shifted under him. I felt I'd used a year's worth of energy just to do it. But I had to find more. I struggled furiously. I freed my right arm. Which meant all Montez's weight was now on my left. I took a deep breath and heaved. I pushed him roughly off me. He rolled over onto his back and lay still.
It wasn't going to take a doctor to tell he was dead.
I stood up, tried to calm my breathing. Took a couple of tentative steps. Felt more confident I could cope with what I had to do next.
I hurried over to the window and looked out. Beaky Nose and Double Chin, the two cops, were blundering about. They looked confused. They pointed at the motorcycle. They exchanged baffled looks. They'd put the crack of the rifle down to the cycle backfiring.
I saw Tomkins climb out of the police car and hurry over to Churchill. The old war leader seemed unharmed. Tomkins took Churchill's arm and ushered him towards the door of the old school building.
I felt a hot anger building inside me. Maundsley's plot to kill Churchill had failed. But if the cops continued to blunder around, he would get away with it. He could be out of the country in hours.
In days he could be holed up in a hideout. In Argentina. Or Paraguay. Or wherever the Mon Repos Home for retired Nazis was these days.
Right now, I pictured him lurking in his mansion. He'd be tense by the telephone. He'd be waiting for word from Montez that his mission had been a success. But the word wasn't going to come.
I thought about that for a moment. Maundsley's plot had failed, but with Montez dead, there was no evidence to connect him to it. As I'd already seen, Maundsley was clever in keeping himself clear of the dirty deeds done in his name.
There would always be a faithful cut-off - Blunt in the case of Clapham's killing, Montez in the case of Potter's murder. But what evidence was there to link Maundsley to the attempted assassination of Churchill? I could explain what had happened, but with Montez dead, there was no hope of establishing the kind of hard evidence that would lead to Maundsley standing in the dock.
He was going to walk free. Worse, when the news broke of the failed assassination - I'd see to that in the Chronicle - Maundsley would use it to whip up support for his extremist views. He'd claim the plot was part of a breakdown in law and order. He'd demand a strong man in power to take back control.
There wouldn't be any doubt about who that strong man should be. Maundsley would be the winner from a plot he'd engineered.
I couldn't let that happen.
I glanced once more at Montez's body. I left him lying on the floor and hurried through to the back of the apartment.
In the kitchen I found an old dust sheet left behind by the decorators. I ripped pieces off it, doused them in cold water, and cleaned myself up. I couldn't do what I planned if I was still covered in blood.
There was a door in the kitchen which led onto a metal fire escape. The steps ran down the back of the building.
I unlocked the door, stepped outside, and headed down the stairs like a man fleeing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
It took twenty minutes of hard driving to reach Maundsley's mansion.
His Bentley was parked outside on the carriage drive.
I jumped out of my MGB and marched up to the front door. I was reaching for the bell pull, when I noticed the door was ajar.
I glanced behind me. Was this a trap?
I couldn't see anyone. I put my ear to the crack in the door and listened. In the hallway a grandfather clock tick-tocked. There were no voices. No stealthy footsteps snuck up the hall.
I pushed the door open some more.
The hall had a chequerboard floor in black and white tiles. There was a red Persian carpet in the middle of it. The grandfather clock tick-tocked away to the left.
I stepped into the hall and called out: "Is anyone home?" Felt a bit stupid, but even in a crisis it's hard to stop yourself behaving as though things are normal.
No-one answered.
Better still, no-one appeared and fired a gun at me.
I was beginning to feel at home. Or I would've done if I didn't have a job to do.
There was a door on the right side of the hall. I stepped through it. It was a sitting room. Plenty of chintzy chairs. Faded Wilton carpets on the floor. Oil paintings on the walls of old buffers with scowling faces and fusty clothes.
At the far end of the room, there was a circular coffee table. It held a coffee pot, one cup and saucer, and a plate of biscuits. I walked over to the table and had a closer look.
The cup was half full. There was a custard cream with one bite taken out of it resting in the saucer. I felt the coffee pot. It was still warm.
I resisted the temptation to pour myself a cup and forced myself to think.
I'd made mistakes already chasing this story. I'd assembled facts but failed to imagine the links between them, as the old relativity man had reminded me.
I was determined not to make the same mistake again.
The facts - the unlocked front door, the half-drunk coffee, the uneaten biscuit - led to only one conclusion.
Maundsley realised his plot had failed.
But how, I wondered? Maundsley would have known that if his plot had worked, Montez or one of the conspirators would have passed the news by telephone. But if the plan failed, the conspirators would be under arrest - or dead. There'd be no message. The phone wouldn't ring. According to the wartime saying, "no news is good news". But not in this case. For Maundsley, no news would definitely be bad news. So there'd be a deadline for a message. If the deadline passed with no message, Maundsley would assume the assassination had failed.
So what would Maundsley have done then?
He'd have to get away. But that might not be easy if Montez had been captured. Maundsley would believe he could rely on Montez's silence. But killing a painter and decorator like Potter wasn't in the same league as assassinating the world's most famous statesman. Local cops wouldn't interrogate Montez. It would be the security services. And they wouldn't care what methods they used to break Montez fast.
So, I imagined, Maundsley would want to flee the country in secrecy. An old schemer like him would have had two plans. Plan A for success. Plan B for failure.
Well, he wouldn't be needing Plan A now.
Plan B would be a scheme to spirit himself out of the country. But that would take time.
So where would Maundsley hole up while he waited?
I wandered around the room deep in thought. I stood at the window and gazed out over the Sussex countryside. A manicured lawn with croquet hoops ran down to a line of trees. Beyond the trees, the land rose in thick woodland. I'd hidden in those woods, when I'd spied on the house. I knew there was a path which led down to the farm at the back of the house. The farm with the long Nissen hut which held the pigs.
The hut with the super-strong padlock that mocked intruders.
The pigs that needed a danger warning.
When I reached the hut, the door was closed but the padlock was gone.
There was no keyhole to peer through. So I put my ear to the door and listened.
Oink, oink.
Well, it wasn't Maundsley.
Grunt, grunt.
Not Blunt either. But, perhaps, a close relative.
The hut had no windows, but there was a gap under the door. Not enough to see into the hut, but sufficient to see a light was on inside. There would have to be lighting in there when the pigs were being fed, but would it be le
ft on at other times? Someone had once told me that pigs were social creatures. Perhaps they liked some light so they could rub snouts with their fellow porkers. But perhaps the light was usually turned off.
In which case, it would be on because someone was inside.
There were too many maybes in my reasoning.
Either Maundsley was in there or he wasn't.
Either he had a gun pointed at the door or he didn't.
Either he would pot the first person who walked through it or he wouldn't.
I'd come too far to walk away without knowing the answer.
And there was only one way to find out.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
Maundsley was sitting on a bench at the far end of the hut. He was wearing a dark black coat and a homburg hat. He stood up when he saw me. All aggression with his arms akimbo. He looked like a bit-part actor in a B-movie western. Just at the point where the villain draws his six shooters.
But Maundsley, I was relieved to see, had no gun.
At least, I reminded myself, not one he'd yet produced.
I took a quick look around as I walked the length of the hut towards him. The pigs - about fifty of them - were penned off to the left-hand side by a low wall made out of breeze blocks. Half way down the hut there was a gate in the wall. It was closed.
The air was heavy with a musky stink I knew would take days to wash off. It wasn't quite like bad breath. It wasn't quite like rotting manure. It wasn't quite like over-boiled cabbage. But mix all three together and it wasn't far off.
The pigs snuffled and snorted. They seemed restless. Their sty was equipped with two long troughs - one for water, the other for food. The food trough was empty. Licked clean by the greedy porkers.
To the right of the hut, there was a row of boxes filled with sacks of feed. There were shelves and buckets and ladders. There were mops and brooms and shovels. Everything the well-equipped pig-keeper could ever want.
The place was lit by bright fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling. The lights were mounted on overhead ducts which held the power cables that came into the hut through the roof.
I stopped two feet from Maundsley. His face was set in a frown, his lips compressed in annoyance.
I said: "Conrad Montez, your hired assassin, has danced his last tango."
Maundsley's eyebrows lifted, but not more than if I'd told him it was about to rain.
"And the target?"
"If you're referring to the Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, very much alive. But I see him more as a Viennese waltz type."
Maundsley's shoulders sagged. For the first time, he looked like an old man.
I said: "The police will be here shortly to quickstep you into custody."
Maundsley smirked. "If the police were coming they would be here now. Especially if the information you've just given me about Montez is correct."
That worried me. It could take the blundering Tomkins hours to discover Montez dead in the empty apartment. And when he did there would be nothing there to link Montez with Maundsley. Besides, Maundsley wasn't hanging around with the pigs because he enjoyed their company. This would be a pre-arranged place where he'd meet whoever it was operated the plan B to spring Maundsley to freedom.
Maundsley must have read the thoughts running through my mind.
"You've worked it out," he said. "Help is on the way. My transport to safety. Don't worry, we won't kill you. At least, as long as you don't make a nuisance of yourself. We'll just lock you in here. You can keep the pigs company."
"That will be an improvement on having you about the place."
"Brave words - even if insulting."
"Before you leave, tell me why you wanted Churchill dead."
Maundsley folded his arms tightly across his chest. Stuck his chin out in the aggressive pose he loved photographers to catch.
"Winston Churchill failed the country in its hour of greatest need." His voice cracked with contempt. "Great Britain could so easily have come to an agreement with Herr Hitler. We would have had our Empire and Hitler would have had Europe. Together we would have controlled the world."
"I don't think the United States would agree with you."
"Together Hitler and I would have kept America in her place. Instead the war ruined us. Look at our country now - saddled with debts and most of the Empire gone. Churchill has lived on this occasion, but the time will come when people will see the truth. They will cherish my legacy."
"The only thing people will cherish about you is that you're six feet under and can be long forgotten."
Maundsley smirked again. "Not forgotten. My book will see to that."
He gestured at the bench he'd been sitting on. For the first time, I noticed there was a thick ring binder stuffed with papers.
I looked back at Maundsley. A flash of worry clouded his eyes. He'd realised he shouldn't have mentioned the book. He moved towards it, but he was old and I was young.
I grabbed the folder. He lunged towards me but I held up my hand.
I said: "One more step and this goes as feed for the pigs."
He said: "Give that back to me. It's the only copy of the manuscript."
"Sounds like a collector's item. A rubbish collector's."
I flipped open the binder and read the title page: My Legacy. I turned the page to chapter one. It was entitled: The Morality of Strength.
I read aloud a couple of sample sentences: "When a nation possesses a supreme moral purpose, it is right that it should be the strongest of nations. It should use war and conquest to impose its moral purpose on weaker nations, whatever the cost in human life."
I looked at Maundsley: "So the strong should always beat up the weak. That's your morality, is it?"
"It's like all life - the survival of the fittest," Maundsley drawled.
"And the weak go to the wall - or, if you get your way, to an early grave. Well, I think the world can well do without this part of your legacy."
I grabbed a handful of pages and yanked them from the folder. I tossed them into the pig sty. The porkers fell on them like they hadn't eaten for a week.
"I hope that lot doesn't give them indigestion."
Maundsley stepped forward. "How dare you…"
But I cut him off. "One more step and the whole folder goes in. Even if the pigs have to save some of it for tomorrow's breakfast. Let's see what else we have in here."
I turned some pages at random. Came to a chapter entitled: The Inferior Races.
I read: "The reason the white peoples of the earth are the most prosperous and most educated is because they have advanced furthest in evolution. It follows that black, brown and other races are inferior. Although slavery has now been abolished in most places, it is right that these inferior peoples should be constantly reminded of their lesser role on this earth."
I said: "So that's it - a world of oppressed and oppressors."
"It's how the world has always been."
"No, it's how it has always seemed to people who think they're better than everybody else. So I think we can do without this legacy."
I yanked the pages out of the folder.
"Here, piggies, more lunch," I said.
The porkers fell on the pages like it was their best meal ever. A fat sow snatched a mouthful of paper while two others tugged at the other end of it.
Maundsley screamed: "You're destroying my life's work."
I turned to another chapter: The Strong Leader.
I read: "Because almost all people are fearful and confused, they need a strong leader. The leader must understand the darkest recesses of his followers' souls. For it is in these places that he will find the fears and nightmares with which he can frighten his followers into obedience."
I said: "You know, I'm beginning to find this book a bit tedious. Not many laughs. And I don't even want to know whodunit. Because I know it's a ratbag like you. I think I know what we'll do with this."
I ripped the
folder open and tossed it high over the pigsty. Maundsley rushed forward and tried to catch the pages as they fluttered earthwards. He snatched one out of the air.
The rest sprayed across the sty. The pigs went wild. They grunted. They oinked. They squealed. They raced around grabbing the pages. They cannoned into one another with wet squelching sounds. Pages ripped apart as they fought over them. The clever ones grabbed a mouthful and retreated to a corner to eat them quietly.
Maundsley's face was red with fury. His eyes had misted. He held a single sheet in his hand.
I said: "Which chapter have you rescued there?"
"No chapter," he said.
He handed me the sheet. There were just two words on it: The End.
"The end. It is for you," I said.
"And for you," a voice said behind me.
I spun round.
Captain Wellington Blunt stalked into the hut. He pushed Shirley in front of him. Her hands were bound with a red cord and he was pointing a gun at her head.
Chapter 25
Shirley turned on Blunt with a spark of fire in her eyes.
"Don't push me, whacker. I'd kick you in the balls - if you had any. It's my hands that are tied, not my feet."
I ran towards her. Took her in my arms and kissed her.
Blunt poked the gun into my shoulder and pushed me away.
"What happened?" I asked Shirley.
"I'm sorry, Colin. I went to the tango school after all. I was rootling around, looking for a way in when this bludger turned up. We had a rumble and I thought I'd beat him. But the fat basket has a weight advantage I couldn't top. He got me on the ground and tied my hands."
"Don't call me a fat basket," Blunt snapped.
"Got a sensitive nature have you, Blubberface?" Shirley said.
"I'm going to untie your hands," I said.
"If you do, I'll shoot her," Blunt said.
I gave him a look that would've melted a steel girder. But looks don't stop bullets.
I said: "I thought your normal method of execution was a cut throat. Just like you killed Derek Clapham."
Blunt smirked. "Clapham was no match for a trained soldier."
"Trained for what? Captain Bogbrush, they used to call you."
The Tango School Mystery Page 21
