by John Creasey
‘Could be,’ said Roger. ‘But we want to get down there, too. We want that car checked for prints and anything else we might find, and we’ve only got two hours of daylight. I’m going.’ It was a relief to say that, a relief to get some physical action; it was almost as if he wanted to flagellate himself. ‘You and Brown aren’t built for it, Arthur. How about you, Salmon?’
‘I’m game, sir.’
‘Good. My case is in the boot of your car, Arthur. I’d better have it strapped on my back.’ They were moving towards Tenterden’s car, and Roger went on: ‘Salmon, nip ahead and tell the Chief Fire Officer that we’re going down on those ropes.’
‘Right away,’ Salmon said.
‘Handsome, are you sure you ought—?’ began Brown.
‘Yes,’ said Roger curtly.
‘That’s the trouble with you, never happy unless you’re risking your neck,’ Brown muttered. ‘I don’t mind admitting I wouldn’t go down there for a fortune.’
‘You can come and pick up my pieces,’ Roger said, but broke off when Cartwright’s voice was broadcast again. The tension which everyone felt was in the very air, like something which could be cut.
‘The plaster is off, sir, and very little skin damage has been caused.’
‘Good,’ said Arnold. ‘Now you can check if it is safe to move the patient. Look for any signs of broken bones, any sign of internal injury, any—’
‘I know the drill, sir.’
‘Damned good man, that Cartwright,’ Salmon said.
‘Very well.’ Arnold spoke as officially as if he were in the morgue. ‘Once you are satisfied that no harm will come to the patient if you move her before I arrive, get her out of the vehicle, and lay her on a piece of flat rock,’ he said. ‘In your considered opinion, will it be better to bring her back up the cliff, or by boat?’
‘By boat, sir. We can get her down easy enough, but I wouldn’t like to chance bringing her up.’
‘Very good,’ said Arnold, and then turned to the Chief Fire Officer and said in a voice which only just sounded over the loudspeaker, ‘I shall go down at once. You will arrange for a launch immediately, won’t you?’
‘Two are on the way,’ said the Chief Fire Officer. ‘I fixed that with the police.’
‘Good,’ said Arnold, and he slipped a harness over his shoulders and clipped the harness on to the rope, showing that he had been studying the way to get down the cliff-side, and that he was not going to waste a moment. He was beginning to climb over, facing the face of the cliff, when Roger saw a little cloud of dust rise up, and then heard a sharp crack of sound.
Arnold stopped.
Someone shouted: ‘The cliff’s falling!’
Then Roger saw that Richardson, only a few yards down the cliff edge, was clinging to an overhanging piece of rock, and that part of this had fallen and was bouncing down the cliff-side. If it struck a sandy patch it might start an avalanche; it could even bury the men down there, the unconscious girl, and even the car.
‘We’d better get Richardson back first,’ he said, and swung round towards the spot where the man had climbed over.
‘He’s not worth breaking your neck for!’ Brown protested. ‘If he falls serve him bloody well right.’
‘He could do a lot of damage,’ Roger pointed out, ‘and he might be an invaluable witness. I—’
He heard a scream; and he saw Richardson fall.
Chapter Fourteen
Dumb Witnesses
Roger watched the man as he fell, saw him strike an overhanging piece of hard clay, which checked his fall and flung him sideways. Richardson was only about thirty yards away, and Roger could see the man’s expression, knew that he was in terror, but knew also that he hadn’t lost his head. He snatched at a small bush growing out of the face of the cliff, and clutched it. He stopped falling. The small stones and rubble which tumbled downwards were making a lot of noise, but did not seem to dislodge any other stones.
Young Peter Key was on his stomach leaning over the edge, obviously trying to reach Richardson, who was still yards away. The taller, black-haired Paul Key kept well away from the cliff, while bearded Sir Lancelot kept an arm round Richardson’s wife, to hold her back.
The two firemen below were staring upwards, as if afraid of what might follow. Cartwright was already out of the car, but what he said over the walkie-talkie was distorted, partly by the new rumbling.
Arnold was now lowering himself hand over fist, as if determined not to allow the disturbance to worry him.
‘If we can get a rope round Richardson he’ll be all right,’ said Tenterden. ‘The roots look safe enough.’ He stared at the way the roots were being strained from the cliff, but they showed no sign of giving way.
Two firemen came up, carrying a coil of rope, and Peter Key moved away and dusted himself down.
‘With a bit of luck, we’ll soon have him up,’ one of the firemen said, and looked as if he wanted to add what he thought of Sydney Richardson. Richardson had hitched himself to one side so that he couldn’t fall so easily, and there was less strain on the bush. It seemed obvious that he had at last realised that he could not hope to climb down; there was nothing like the shadow of death to put sense into a man. ‘Only danger is loose earth,’ the little fireman added. ‘If any more falls, it’ll go straight down on top of that car.’
As he spoke, the Chief Fire Officer came up, and said to Tenterden: ‘We ought to move all these cars back at least twenty yards. If the soil’s been loosened there could be a nasty fall.’
‘I’ll lay it on,’ Tenterden promised, and sent a man for the drivers of the cars which were too close to the edge.
The little fireman and his companion climbed over cautiously, and Roger watched as they put a rope round Richardson. With one man on either side of him, they began to help him up, while Salmon, Brown, Peter Key, and two Corby policemen took the strain on the ropes. So much was happening at once that it would be easy to miss the most important, and Roger, inwardly fuming because he had been delayed, watched the fireman down by the car, and Arnold being lowered.
The girl had been lifted out by the men.
She had been put on to a stretcher, and even from here it was easy to see how cautiously the men were handling her. It would be some time before they managed to get her over the ridges to the shore, but she would soon be out of sight from the cliff. The stuttering noise of a motor launch became audible, and two launches appeared round the headland, moving very fast; there were three men in each.
Up here there was a noise of engines as several cars were started at once, their owners moving them out of the danger zone. Soley, Paul Key, and two newspapermen were the only ones whom Roger noticed. Engines snarled as the cars were reversed up the sloping land.
One of the newspapermen with a camera came up, and asked: ‘Wouldn’t care to estimate the cost of an operation like this, Mr West, would you?’
Roger forced a smile. ‘I’d rather leave the guessing to you.’
‘Any idea what happened to Miss Richardson yet?’
‘No.’
‘Must be attempted murder, in view of that adhesive plaster.’ The newspaperman was young, curly haired, and probably only pretending to be naive.
‘Could be,’ agreed Roger mildly, and then Richardson was lifted over the top. His coat was badly torn, one of his shoes had a gash in it, and dust and dirt smothered his hair and made him look almost like a black man. Two nasty scratches over his eyes were bleeding, and there was a little scratch on his chin. He kept spitting out dirt.
‘Rope’s free now,’ Salmon said suddenly.
He could talk to Richardson at once, Roger knew, but probably it would do little good. It would be impossible to question the man privately, and it wouldn’t be reasonable to take him away from here until they had a fuller report on his daughter’s condition. Richardson would probably never be in a more vulnerable position for questioning, even if he did know anything of importance, but the time simply wasn’t right
. Roger satisfied himself with saying: ‘We’ll want to talk to Mr Richardson again before he goes back home, Superintendent.’
‘I’ll arrange it,’ Tenterden promised, and then Brown, who looked very cold on the windswept headland, and miserable with it, came over and joined Roger. He kept his voice low as he said: ‘I don’t think you ought to go down there.’
‘Forget it, Browny.’
‘I still don’t think you ought to go,’ said Brown doggedly. ‘I’ve been having a good look at this cliff, and there are a dozen places where it might collapse. Been too many people up here today, and too much moving about. Won’t need much to start a nasty fall, and if that happened you could have had it.’
Roger said: ‘Someone’s got to go down.’
‘Well, maybe, but—’
‘Forget it,’ Roger said again.
But as he fastened on the shoulder harness by the fire engine, and watched Salmon doing the same, he felt a twinge of disquiet. There were cracks – not in the top of the cliff, but in the cliff face itself. There were evidences of heavy falls in different spots, too, and for the first time he noticed a sign which read: Danger – Keep Back. The sun was unexpectedly warm on the back of his head. When he started down, he saw the sea breaking more roughly on the foot of the cliffs, and the wind seemed gustier here than it had on the top. He felt surprisingly lonely, too. He could not be more than thirty or forty feet away from the cliff-top, but could see no one up there, and only Salmon was with him. Then Salmon’s harness got stuck on the rope.
‘You carry on, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll get free in a minute.’
‘Right,’ said Roger.
If he slipped, his harness would hold him, he told himself. But ropes could break. The case, his murder bag, was heavy on his back, and the harness was chafing him under his right arm. When he looked down again he was half-way between the top of the cliff and the nearest of the rocks where he would free himself from the harness, and start climbing.
He could not see the car from here, or the boat party, but could see Arnold, climbing over ridges which had given Cartwright so much trouble. Now and again, his own rope seemed to go slack, and once it was jerked sharply, and flung him against the side of the cliff painfully. He dangled for a few seconds, then started to go down again, feet planted against the surface of the cliff. Small showers of stones and dirt fell ahead of him. A heavier shower came from above, and he closed his eyes and turned his head away sharply, but could not stop some of the dust getting into his eyes. His eyes watered freely, but he kept going down, and then kicked against a ridge of earth immediately beneath him. He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief; they were painful, but he could see, and the surrounding danger gave a strange quiet to his mind.
Salmon, who had caused the fall of dust, was still half-way up to the top. He himself was isolated except for the two launches bobbing up and down on the sea; they were waiting for the girl. He caught sight of a little dinghy, and that told him that the sea was too rough for the launches to come right in. It would be difficult to get a stretcher on to that dinghy.
He stood upright, freed himself from the harness, and then clambered over the ridges. The clay was slippery with seaweed, and had been worn smooth by countless tides. The worst part came when he had nothing to hold on to, but soon he was able to steady himself. From here, he could see the car more clearly – and he saw two men going very slowly down towards the little sandy inlet where the dinghy was drawn up. Dr Arnold was walking just behind the stretcher.
Roger called: ‘Dr Arnold!’
The little man looked round.
‘How is she?’ Roger called.
‘I have every reason to hope that she will survive,’ Arnold said. ‘I will discuss it with you later.’ He nodded brusquely, and turned and followed the stretcher, and for the first time since he had started to climb down, Roger grinned; he would forever have a soft spot for the pompous little police surgeon. Arnold wouldn’t talk loosely, either; there must be a real chance that the girl would recover, and therefore that she would be able to give them some information; she might even have recognised her attackers.
But she might not come round for some time.
Roger reached the car. One fireman was left on duty there, the smallest of them all. Roger offered him a cigarette, and they lit up, while Roger opened his case, took out his magnifying glass, and made a quick examination of the inside of the car. A glass didn’t help to perform miracles but often came in handy. He saw pieces of grit, paper, a cigarette end, some shreds of tobacco, a broken point of a pencil, some threads of linen. There were some scratches on the old black leather upholstery, and these seemed new. One of the remarkable things was the fact that the car had been comparatively little damaged, and the girl was doubtless alive because of that. He looked upwards, studying the trajectory of the fall. He could just make out the broken cliff where the car had plunged over, and it so happened that the face of the cliff had sloped very gradually from the spot where the wheels had struck it; another car would probably have landed on its back, and if that had happened, the girl would almost certainly have been killed. As it was, by a freak of balance the MG had fallen on its wheels again, and then actually run about fifty or sixty yards until it had struck some heavy sandstone ridges. It had been stuck between one tall ridge and a small one, and jammed tightly; but for that it would have gone well below sea-level.
Rose Richardson would never have more luck than she had had this time.
Salmon came up.
‘Having any luck?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know,’ said Roger, ‘but I think we ought to use a powder and see if we can get any more prints from the wheel. Then we can check the floor for bits and pieces. I’ll do the wheel and the gear lever, you start on the floor, will you?’
‘Right,’ said Salmon. ‘Mind if I borrow your tweezers and some envelopes?’
‘Help yourself,’ Roger said. He leaned through the driving door and breathed on the black ebonite wheel, so that any finger-prints on it would show up. Several did, but most of them were smeared, and he felt pretty certain that whoever had handled the car had worn gloves. He checked the handle of the gear lever, and there was hardly a print on it. He grunted but said nothing about his disappointment as he tried the dashboard.
‘Anything doing?’ asked Salmon.
‘Not much,’ Roger said. ‘I think we ought to take this steering-wheel off and take it up, though, we might—’ He broke off.
He heard a rushing sound, and distant shouting. He glanced up in alarm, and saw the front wheels and the nose of a car leap on to the edge of the cliff, just about the spot where the MG had fallen over.
He heard Salmon cry: ‘My God!’
‘Scramble!’ Roger gasped, and flung himself away from the side of the car. The rushing noise stopped suddenly, but there were different sounds, of rending, crashing noises. The car had come right over the edge. It looked like an enormous caterpillar when he saw the undercarriage, but suddenly and with bewildering precision it began to turn over. It struck the cliff face again. A big rock was dislodged and came crashing down. Roger reached a smooth spot, the patch the ambulance men had used, and went into a skid. He waved his arms wildly, held his balance, and then leapt downwards towards the sand. The dinghy was already being towed along behind one of the launches, the first launch was out of sight.
The car crashed into the MG. A great fall of dirt and stones was smothering it and the small car – burying them, burying his case of instruments and all the hope there was of finding clues here.
Then Roger realised that Salmon was almost buried, too.
Chapter Fifteen
Burial
Roger saw the whole scene with frightening clarity.
He had been on the left of the MG and nearer this sand and escape. The avalanche caused by the other car had fallen mostly on the far side, and Salmon had been trapped before he could get far enough away. Now, his head and one arm showed, obviously he was trying desperat
ely to keep more stones from falling on to his head, but he had no chance at all, for there was a steady fall in a kind of cascade; every second buried him more deeply. The two cars were half buried, too, and obviously there was a danger that the big one on top of the MG might topple over. If it did, there would be no chance for Salmon.
Only his hand showed, and there was no sign at all of the little fireman.
Roger glanced round at the sea. The dinghy had turned the headland, and was out of sight; it had probably been out of earshot, too. He was utterly alone, with the whippy wind and the writhing sea swarming up so that he was ankle deep in water.
He started back for the half-buried cars and the mound of soil and clay. Salmon’s hand was motionless. Roger looked round desperately for something to dig with, but there was nothing. He clambered up the rock towards Salmon, and reached a spot just in front of the hand. He knelt down in the loose soil and rock and began to dig with his hands, forcing himself to make each movement deliberate. Stones were sharp against the tips of his fingers and his nails, but that did not worry him. Ominous creaking noises did. The big car, now on its side, was an old Austin, and it was perched precariously above the MG. If it toppled forward it would fall on him and on Salmon, whose hand had stopped moving. Roger kept looking round, but there was still no sign of the little fireman.
He kept digging; and the groaning, creaking noise was repeated time and time again. Whenever he glanced up, the undercarriage of the car seemed to be nearer, as if everything was slipping. The awful thing was the depth to which Salmon was buried, and the difficulty of moving the earth which kept running back into the hole made by his hands. Roger pressed against the sides, to try to stop it. Soon he had about eighteen inches clear, and he felt something hard and yet different from the stones. A moment later he saw Salmon’s brown hair and the top of his forehead. He scooped the earth away with great care, first clearing the man’s eyes, then his nostrils. Salmon’s eyes were tightly closed, and rimmed with dirt. His nostrils were blocked, and there was a lot of black earth in his mouth. Roger dug, still carefully, until the whole of the head was clear – and as he did so, he saw that there was a slight convulsive kind of movement at the man’s throat.
