Matlock's System

by Reginald Hill

  Matlock moved across the room. The card-players stiffened again. The Inspector sighed.

  “It would be more comfortable for us all and cut down the chances of an unfortunate accident if you would announce your proposed movements in advance.”

  Matlock shrugged his shoulders.

  “If you wish. I am going into the bathroom. I would prefer to be alone.”

  The Inspector raised an eyebrow at the oldest looking of the three card-players who nodded. Matlock took this to mean the bathroom had been searched and declared safe. No hidden weapons. No escape route. He could have told them that himself. But he felt the need to be alone, to think.

  “Of course,” said the Inspector.

  Matlock was not surprised to find the lock had been removed. Nor did he mind much. He was too old to be modest. If the Inspector wanted to make a lightning check, let him. For the sake of authenticity he undid his trousers and sat.

  The seat was warm.

  There was only the bath and the shower cubicle. He arose, pulled up his pants and moved silently across to the cubicle.

  The sliding panel was open a fraction. He put his eye to the crack and peered in.

  Squatting uncomfortably up against the soap rack was a policeman.

  Matlock’s first impulse was to roar with rage, then go screaming to the Inspector. This lasted only a moment. His second was to roar with laughter at the ludicrous excess of zeal in this superficially so suave and world-weary Inspector. But he checked the noise in his throat.

  The policeman was staring straight up at what to him must have been a mere sliver of eye, and was pressing his forefinger to his pursed lips.

  Matlock moved the panel further open. It squeaked slightly. The policeman shook his head and produced a piece of soap from behind his back. Then he bent forward and rubbed it gently along the panel’s running track. Finally he was satisfied and when he nodded permission to Matlock, the panel slid fully open in complete silence.

  Next the man reached into his tunic pocket and produced a notebook. From it he took a loose sheet and handed it over. He was smiling broadly and familiarly. Matlock felt he ought to know him.

  He read the piece of paper.

  ‘About time. I will give you a handgun. When you go back, pretend you are going into the kitchen. As you pass the card table, start shooting.’

  Matlock found himself mouthing questions like a goldfish, but quickly restrained himself. The man’s familiarity still scratched at some small window in his mind. He took the proffered gun, nodded twice, turned and made his way towards the door. He was only a yard from it when a sudden noise burst out behind him.

  Startled, he turned violently.

  The policeman had pulled the plug.

  He stood there shaking his head gently as if reprimanding a small boy’s misdemeanour. Then he held up his right hand and gently waved the gun he was holding.

  Matlock stood puzzled for a second before realizing he was clutching his own gun with no effort at concealment. Sheepishly he slipped it into his pocket. The man nodded with approval, then motioned to the door.

  As he did so, Matlock recognized him. The nose was unmistakable, but something was missing.

  The beard!

  It was a clean-shaven Brother Francis.

  But there was no time to display his knowledge further than a raising of the eyebrows, as Francis was waving him more urgently to the door. He realized why as he moved back into the living-room. The Inspector was out of his chair and moving towards the bathroom door. Brother Francis obviously had keen ears.

  “You weren’t going to peep, were you, Inspector?” he asked lightly, keeping his hand out of his pocket only by an effort of will.

  “Perhaps. But only in the way of duty, Mr. Matlock.”

  “The things men do for duty. Now, gentlemen, I am moving across to the kitchen where I shall make myself some coffee.”

  The Inspector made a negative gesture.

  “Oh, no, Mr. Matlock. That would not be right. You must take some advantage of us. Sit down and we’ll take coffee together. Andrews!”

  One of the card-players half rose from his seat. There was no time to work out the possible advantages of this new arrangement of personae, and in any case Matlock had keyed himself up to deal with the old.

  “No. I prefer to make my own.”

  He spoke more brusquely than he had intended, but in the event this had the desired effect. The Inspector shrugged and waved him by with a repeat of his former ironic little bow. Andrews sat down and picked up his cards.

  Matlock started to move across the room.

  The three policemen watched him steadily as he moved. Andrews, he noticed, still had both his hands occupied with his cards. The other two had their right hands under the table. The eldest had put his cards down, but the other still held them in his left hand.

  The Inspector also, he sensed, was standing behind him watching every step. This was good, he tried to reassure himself. They could not watch him and the bathroom door at the same time. But those eight eyes coldly drilling into him left him very little room for reassurance.

  He was nearly at the kitchen door. He thought of going in and postponing attack till the return trip, and though he recognized this for the procrastination it was, he had almost made up his mind.

  Then he sneezed.

  It was a real, natural, unrehearsed sneeze.

  And just as naturally his hand moved into his pocket in search of his handkerchief.

  It came out with the gun.

  He shot the oldest first. The other man fired from under the table, but Matlock had not stopped moving, and accurate aim from such an angle was impossible.

  Matlock shot him in the chest. It was easier than the head. He fell forward over the table and his cards slipped out of his hand.

  He had two pairs, Aces, nines, with a Jack.

  Andrews hadn’t moved. Matlock blew a hole through his head then realized this made two.

  Turning round he looked across the broken body of the Inspector to where Brother Francis stood in the open bathroom door. He found himself grinning foolishly like a schoolboy expecting congratulation, but Francis had no time for that. In two leaps he was across the room and flat against the wall behind the main door which burst open to let in the two outside guards. Matlock loosed one vague shot at them and fell sideways through the kitchen door as they ran across the room towards him, firing as they came. He scrabbled over the tiled floor, trying to squeeze himself behind the fridge but even as he regained his feet and turned, the door flew open behind him and a uniformed figure, gun smoking in his hand, stood looking down at him.

  He brought his own gun up, but the other just shook his head and said, “Come along, Mr. Matlock.”

  “Francis.”

  He stood up straight.

  “I feel like a cup of coffee now.”

  “No time for bravado. Let’s be on our way.”

  His living-room was not the shambles he expected; only the bodies were untidy. And even they didn’t stop the comfortable familiarity of the room pulling him more strongly than the sinister rectangle of space revealed by the open door.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll be coming back here.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Francis paused momentarily as he hustled him to the door.

  “If there’s something you want, get it quick.”

  Matlock looked around. He had had this flat for over twenty years. He had lived in it longer than any other place except his parents’ house. Perhaps longer than that. He’d have to work it out. Everything he owned was here, somewhere.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I want nothing.”

  If he thought this gesture of finality would impress Francis, he was quickly disenchanted.

  “Right. Out you go.”

  He was thrust into the corridor before he had time for a sentimental last glance.

  Francis pulled the door shut behind them.

  “I don’t know what kind of reporting
system they’ve got, but you can be certain it’ll be pretty regular.”

  “Every half hour,” answered Matlock. He wasn’t sure where he’d picked up the information, or whether by eavesdropping or observation, but it was there.

  Francis glanced at him approvingly, and said, “For Godsake put that bloody thing away.”

  Surprised, Matlock realized he was waving his handgun around like the hero of an old gangster film. He slipped it into his pocket.

  “What about yours?”

  “Once we’re out of here, you’re an age-offender I’ve just picked up. I’m taking you in. You’re not happy.”

  “I’m not happy.”

  They emerged into the sunlit street without meeting anyone. Matlock was full of questions, but he knew his slender chance of escape lay in Francis’ hands and he had no intention of disturbing the monk’s concentration.

  Once out in the open, Francis abandoned the care and caution with which he had moved in the building and strode along with all the ebullient confidence of his assumed kind. Matlock found himself being pushed and prodded almost into a trot to keep just ahead. Once he stumbled and nearly fell and turned instinctively to expostulate. But before he could speak, Francis’ pistol-barrel rapped him lightly but painfully along his jawbone.

  “Move,” he said.

  Matlock moved, though he felt for a moment that Francis was overdoing it.

  Only for a moment.

  Out of the mouth of a shop doorway right in front of them stepped two more policemen.

  Francis jerked Matlock to a halt. The two policemen studied them carefully, unemotionally.

  “Trouble?” said one of them finally.

  Francis laughed.

  “Not much. Grandpa here doesn’t want his clock rewound. That’s all.”

  “I see. He’s got another day, you know.”

  Matlock looked at the man in surprise. But a glance into the expressionless face and hard black eyes assured him that this was no unexpected humanitarian, but merely a believer in the rule-book.

  “In another day, this one would be over the hills and far away. Only he’s got relations who don’t fancy a sudden drop in their E.O.L. if the old devil made it.”

  Francis laughed again. Again there was no response from the other two, but the one doing the talking seemed to relax slightly and his next words were more reassuring.

  “The old trouble. But it helps us. Be careful how you go. There’s a smell of trouble in the air. And this is an especially controlled area for some reason.”

  “Right, thanks. We’ll be on our way.”

  As they talked, Matlock from under lowering brows had been watching the other, the silent one. He had taken a step to the side, as if to let Francis past. But his eyes had been moving systematically over every square inch of Francis’ uniform since the start of the encounter.

  The monk prodded Matlock forward again. Matlock stumbled and collapsed to one knee. As he rose, he turned with his gun in his hand and shot the silent man whose own weapon was half out of its holster. Then he kept on turning, the gun-barrel moved past Francis’ bulk, and he sent his second shot an inch past the monk’s belly into the black-eyed policeman who had had time for nothing other than to register amazement.

  “What the devil did you do that for?” cried Francis kicking aside the body which had collapsed over his feet.

  “You should be more careful where you get your uniforms made,” said Matlock. “Your shoulder number is the same as his.”

  He pointed at the silent one, silent now forever. Francis nodded appreciatively.

  “Thanks. Now we must really move.”

  There was no one else in sight, but there must have been witnesses. Matlock peered into the shop outside which they stood and was sure he saw a movement in its dark depths.

  Then they were running, down the street. Shoulder to shoulder, partly because Matlock didn’t know where they were going and partly because he had no desire to run ahead and be shot down as a fugitive by some disinterested passer-by. Partly also, of course, because after a couple of hundred yards his legs felt as strong as pipe-cleaners and only Francis’ steadying hand between his shoulders kept him going.

  He thought with mocking irony of his own prideful posturing in front of the mirror with Lizzie the morning before. He was as good as you could expect at nearly seventy, but that didn’t qualify him for the Olympic Games, even if they hadn’t stopped the Olympic Games fifteen years earlier.

  “For Godsake, Francis,” he gasped, “slow down!”

  “Not far now,” grunted the other, increasing his pressure on Matlock’s back.

  But Matlock was too experienced to put much faith in such vague encouragement.

  He stopped dead and held Francis back by main force while he sucked in two great breaths. Slightly recovered, he leaned against the wall of the anonymous sky-scraper block they were passing and said, “Look, Francis, do you know where we’re going?”

  There was only a second’s hesitation, but it was enough for Matlock.

  “So we don’t know?”

  “Well, yes and no. I know where I want to be, but as things have turned out, I don’t think we’ll have time to get there.”

  “You mean because the alarm will have been raised by now?”

  “Yes.”

  Matlock thought a moment.

  “Is there a deadline?”

  “Midday.”

  It was just after eleven.

  “Distance.”

  “About a mile and a half. Fifteen minutes walking.”

  “Listen,” said Matlock.

  In the distance they heard a bell slowly ring out. Then another, closer. Then another. Till the sonorous peel rang from nearly every building.

  “Curfew. Fifteen minutes walking will get us at the bottom of a Curfew Wagon. We’ve got to get inside.”

  There was no way of telling whether the Curfew bell was being tolled because of his escape or because of the shooting which had just taken place. But it didn’t matter. Once that bell sounded, everyone got off the streets. Anyone who didn’t was fair game for the Curfew Police.

  The next step was a building-to-building search. Every building had its own Supervisor who would do his own preliminary Curfew check, but the real trouble started when the Search squad proper arrived.

  It was a good efficient system.

  “Come on then,” said Francis, trying to move Matlock into the nearest door.

  “Wait a minute, Brother. I may not be able to beat you on the long-distance running, but there’s an old head on these old shoulders. Let’s see what we have here.”

  The building was an office block, about fifty storeys high. Matlock moved his eyes rapidly up the outside list of firms who used the building, but he had only covered about two thirds of them when Francis seized his arm again.

  “Look.”

  Round a corner about two hundred yards away came the huge square bulk of a Curfew Wagon. Its bullet-proof steel casing gleamed dully in the sunlight. The four periscopes on top turned and turned in an angular square-dance. There were no armaments to be seen. The terror lay inside. And archaically, but most sinister of all, from the arch of metal above the great flat top of the vehicle hung the slowly tolling bell whose clang warned of its approach.

  One leap took them through the doorway into the building.

  “I hope to God they didn’t see us,” panted Francis.

  “Why? They’d hardly have time to recognize us.”

  “But you don’t usually see policemen hiding from the Curfew Wagon.”

  “Is there anything I can do, officer?”

  The new voice startled them and made them suddenly aware of their surroundings. They were in the vestibule area of the building. There was an elevator in the wall facing them, and beside it a staircase.

  With a real shock Matlock discovered he was contemplating whether he should shoot this man or not.

  “How easily the habit grows,” he said aloud.

&n
bsp; “I beg your pardon?” said the porter, obviously still trying to work out what degree of deference Matlock deserved.

  Brother Francis took over.

  “We’re going upstairs. This gentleman has made a complaint against one of your firms. Come along, sir. Let’s look into this.”

  They strode purposefully across into the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, Matlock reached forward and punched the twelfth-floor button. The lift accelerated up rapidly, forcing their feet hard against the floor.

  “Why the twelfth?” asked Francis.

  “Because it is two past the tenth.”

  The lift stopped.

  Cautiously he peered out. The corridor was empty, but there were sounds of activity from the offices which lined it.

  Francis looked around uncertainly. He obviously felt that in some way the initiative had been wrested from his grasp and he was not sure what to do about it.

  “Why here?”

  “Not here. The tenth.”

  Matlock led the way swiftly to the staircase and started to descend.

  “The porter will have watched which floor we got off at. I only hope he doesn’t check by ’phone.”

  He checked that the eleventh floor corridor was empty before they swung rapidly over the landing and down the next flight of stairs.

  At the bottom Matlock paused and held up his hand for silence. He had been cautious before, but now every move was as stealthy and silent as he could make it.

  Again the corridor was empty, nor was there any sound of life coming through any of the closed doors.

  The plaque on the wall credited all this inactivity to the Technical Education Recruitment Board. Brother Francis looked at this then turned to Matlock, his battered boxer’s face (which suited his present uniform much more than his monk’s robes) twisted into puzzled enquiry. Matlock pressed close to him and made a funnel of his hands at his ear. Down this he whispered, “The slightest move from anyone in there, start shooting. Anyone. Understand?”

  Francis shrugged, then nodded. Matlock turned and led the way along the corridor to the door marked ‘Enquiries’. Here he pressed himself up against the wall and motioned Francis to knock.

  Nothing happened for a full thirty seconds after the knock, but Francis had lived on his intuition long enough to know that he was being scrutinized. Finally a woman’s voice said, “Come in please”.