Headcase

by Peter Helton

  “A little silver thing. First I thought he was trying to fool me with a cigarette lighter but it’s real. 4.5 mm.”

  There were more lethal guns on the streets but at point blank range calibre becomes an academic issue — a hole in the head is a hole in the head. And I needed a hole in the head like…well, I just didn’t.

  “No sign of any van,” Tim reported when he reappeared from the Great Pulteney Street corner. “Doesn’t mean a thing, mind, he could have parked elsewhere.”

  It was near impossible to descend quietly on the cast iron steps down to his front door, though the ceaseless stream of traffic on the nearby roundabout helped to mask the metallic clang of our descent. The little courtyard was littered with oozing bin liners and empty wine boxes. It appeared Eely was drinking his share of the company stocks.

  Nicotine yellow net curtains, encrusted with squashed flies, covered the two small windows. The opaque glass set into the scuffed front door revealed no movement. I bent down to peer through the letter box and hoped not to see a silver glint when I pushed the flap. If he was in and prepared for us…

  Eely had aptly demonstrated his willingness to use his gun in my studio. But we had to go through with this. We had nothing on the guy apart from Leonard’s testimony, and right now he didn’t look up to much, staring at the door as if his doom lay on the other side. As well it might.

  Gingerly I pushed the pock-marked metal flap. It was shadowy inside yet I could clearly make out that the hall was empty. I let Tim do the business. When the lock clicked open he unsheathed his gun and poked it into the widening crack. I cocked my revolver and pushed the unhappy Leonard in front of me. He had gone rigid and shuffled with tiny steps like a man with his shoelaces tied together. I deposited him against the wall. Both Leonard and the wall felt damp to the touch. We all stood still, listening to the ticking silence. Two doors led off the narrow hall, both were open. Tim and I sought each other’s eyes, nodded a silent agreement, then got it wrong and tried to storm through the same door together.

  “More Laurel and Hardy than…”

  “Cagney and Lacey?”

  “As long as I can be Lacey.”

  “After you, Mary Beth.” We quickly established that the place was empty. Surely no one could live with a stench like this anyway. It went some way beyond dampness. There was the whiff of garbage decomposing in the moist heat as well as the base note of festering drains and stagnant dishwater in the clogged-up sink in the tiny kitchen-diner. Dining had consisted of takeaways — Indian, Chinese and pizza — and the mouldy remains of a couple of weeks’ culinary debasement were scattered over the floor, sofa and coffee table. Beer cans and wine bottles were strewn everywhere, along with curled-up girly magazines and empty fag packets. Apart from the detritus this room appeared empty, no sound system, no TV, not a scrap of personal belongings. The bedroom was empty too, apart from a bedstead, its uncovered mattress sporting uninviting stains of dubious origin. Everywhere the debris of departure: scraps of paper, a broken biro crushed on the floor, the odd crusty sock, a clapped-out pair of trainers. The windowless toilet and shower room made me shiver. It had stains and encrustations, one bar of cracked pink soap and not much else.

  “Looks like our friend quit his lodgings. Any ideas?”

  Leonard looked relieved, shook his head.

  Tim hollered from the kitchen-diner. “Chris, over here. How do you like this?”

  I didn’t. Blu-tacked to the wall under a stopped kitchen clock were three colour prints. The topmost showed Annis and myself entering the Bartlett Street Antiques Centre. It had to have been taken the day I discharged myself from hospital. It was a snapshot, probably taken with a cheap camera and from some distance. The second was of Tim walking towards his TT in a car park. “That’s up at the uni,” he confirmed. The last print was of Alison. Unlike the others this was taken from quite close up. Alison looked at the camera, one hand controlling a wayward strand of dark hair. An uncertain smile. The background was blurred. Had Eely taken this picture or did he steal it? All the prints and the surrounding wall were punctured by many small holes. The print of Alison was pinned by a dart piercing her forehead. He’d been using all of us for target practice.

  “The guy’s been following us around.”

  “I don’t think he’s a fan, though.” Tim tickled the plastic plumage of the dart.

  Eely had flipped. No loose ends, Leonard had said.

  “Leonard?” I looked for him in the hall. The front door was ajar. I raced up the iron stairs and searched the horizons — no sign of the little shit. Only now did it occur to me that I didn’t know where he lived, not that I thought he would go there unless he’d somehow managed to keep the place secret from his unstable partner. At this moment I couldn’t have cared less. He had outlived his usefulness. Whether his family decided to shop him or not was immaterial now. I would drop him in it at the first opportunity. After all, he’d never been my client, had he?

  As far as Eely was concerned, Alison had probably outlived her usefulness too. Or was that all of us? I keyed in Annis’s number and got nothing. Alison’s phone at the cottage rang but no one picked it up.

  “I can’t raise Annis or Alison. I don’t like it. Eely might go down there. I think he might have tried to kill her once before, by running her off the road,” I told Tim on the way back to the Holburne. I was nearly running now. I’d handled this whole affair badly, right from the beginning. I should have made Eely my priority from the moment I escaped from the warehouse. “I’m going down there. Now.”

  “Am I coming?”

  “No, I want you here. Find Al-Omari and Nadeem. If you do, call Needham and bring him up to speed. Tell him they’re armed, that’ll get him going like a bullet train. Tell him anything you like. Try all the hotels in and around Bath, the guest houses, B&Bs…”

  “That could take forever. Why don’t we let them get to the airport, have Needham pick them up there?”

  “We haven’t got anything on them apart from illegal firearms offences. The paintings could well be shipped separately and they’re not likely to take guns on to the plane. They must have picked them up over here and they’ll leave them here. No, we’ve got to get to them while they’re still tooled up so Needham can hold them. Unless Leonard makes a full statement. And I just lost him.” I’d suddenly remembered what I’d needed Leonard for.

  We had reached our cars behind the museum. “Let me have the shotgun back.” Tim was only too glad to relinquish it, he’s never been keen on guns. “You can start with the Carfax down the road in Great Pulteney Street. It’s the only dry hotel in Bath.”

  “You mean dry as in teetotal? Weird.”

  “I know, it’s shocking. But it might appeal to Muslim clientele, so it’s worth your first shot. One other thing. If you get time, get on to the Land Registry and find out who actually owns Somerset Lodge. The Culver-house Trust only rents it, I want to know who from. And speaking of Somerset Lodge, you’ll have to cook them a meal tonight, I’ll never make it back in time.” I peeled the key off my key ring and shoved it into his reluctant hand.

  “You have got to be kidding! I can’t cook,

  I just throw stuff on barbies.”

  I was already nosing the DS out of the wrought-iron gate. “They’ll love it,” I called back to him. “Only make sure you get some rabbit food for them as well.” The look he gave me made me glad I had disarmed him first.

  As soon as I joined the traffic on Darlington Street my own problems drove poor Tim from my mind. If I tootled down A-roads all the way to Tredannik it would take me the best part of the day. It would have to be the motorway and even that would spit me back on to minor roads at Exeter. I’d been all right on the road since my panic attack on the M5 but I hadn’t driven on a motorway since. What if my panic returned? What if I froze behind the wheel again and ended up with shredded nerves on the hard shoulder, without Annis to take over from me? Slowing only for built-up areas I pushed the car as fast as it would go a
long the A368, heading for the M5. Chew Valley and Blagdon Lake flew by I took none of it in but pushed on south on the A38. I would join the M5 at Junction 22. Junction. The word alone brought beads of sweat to my forehead. This was all wrong. As long as I went by minor roads I would definitely make it and only definitely would do. I dug around for my mobile. Driving and talking on my mobile at the same time?

  There were limits. I stopped at an old-fashioned corner shop in a one-eyed village called Rooks Bridge and called Needham on his mobile.

  “Mike, this is Chris.”

  “What’s up, Honeysett? I hope this is about Matt Hilleker and Lisa Chapwin.” So neither of them had been picked up. I wasn’t sure any more that this was a good thing.

  “I’m working on that, promise. This is something else. I need a favour.”

  “Favour? Go to hell, Honeysett, I haven’t arrested you, what more favours do you want?”

  “Only doing my duty as a responsible citizen, Mike. You wouldn’t want me to keep quiet about someone running around with an illegal firearm, now, would you?”

  “You’ve got some nerve.”

  “You told me not to keep anything from you and I’m delivering: Tom Eels, six-one, shaved head, wears gothic jewellery. He’s driving around in a white box-van in Cornwall or en route there. I don’t have the registration but it’s a company van, Sulis Wines. Registered to a Leonard Dufossee double S double E. He carries a 4.5 mm pistol and he’s got previous for aggravated burglary. Dangerous headcase. You got all that?”

  “I’m all ears, Honeypott.”

  “Don’t start that again. He’s probably on his way to a cottage on the headland southwest of Tredannik. A hamlet in Cornwall. The nearest cop shop should be Mousehole. The house belongs to an Alison Flood. She’s in danger from Eels. Can you send someone round to make sure she’s okay? I’m on my way there but it’ll take me hours yet.”

  There was a pause, then I heard Needham reel off instructions in the background. It seemed to go on forever. “On one condition,” he came back.

  Condition? Since when did the police barter for their services? What next, call-out charges? “Anything, Mike, just name it.”

  “Your gun. I want that bloody gun handed in.”

  “You’ve got it.” I broke the connection. The words not, bloody and likely sprang to mind.

  To keep me going on the road I stocked up on Camels and some unfeasibly green and bullet-proof apples. I was feeling a little less frantic now. Needham would send a patrol car to Alison’s cottage. If that was too late then I was too late too. If they got there before Eely they would warn them that trouble was on the way. Annis would know what to do — get the hell out of there and not stop for anything.

  Back in the car I pulled out my tattered road atlas. My hands were trembling as I flicked through it. Smoking furiously to steady my nerves I found the relevant section. The blue ribbon of the M5 slithered like an evil snake across the map, poised to inject its deadly venom of fear. I snapped the atlas shut. And made a decision that would change everything. I took the slower route.

  CHAPTER IX

  I’m used to the left-hand drive, of course. It gives you the edge in right-hand bends but that’s about all the advantage you get while driving in Britain. Overtaking on winding, narrow roads without a co-driver can be a heart-in-the-mouth trial and error operation. Error I couldn’t afford. Time and time again I surged up behind the type of driver who only drives at one standard issue speed and never seems to change gear. Whether a village with 30 mph restriction or the open road makes no difference, they drive at 39 mph. Why? Are they asleep? Listening to The Archers? Got cramp? It’s one of the dark unsolved mysteries of the British countryside.

  Come on Pilgrim. Even The Pixies couldn’t drown out the voice in my head.

  The voice in my head hurled abuse. At comatose drivers who’d never worked out what all those pedals were for; at people who build roads not wide enough for passing; at the pathetic Leonard, the psychotic Eely. But most of all at myself.

  It was getting late. I was getting closer though, if the landmarks were anything to go by: a field of elegant windmills, a memory of Jamaica Inn and at last St Michael’s Mount, now a mere fantasy, dramatically lit in the dusk. I whizzed through Penzance, crowded with tourists perusing the menus outside restaurants, and took the coastal route towards Mousehole, which would be even more crowded at this time of year. Nearly there. A few miles to Tredannik now. Soon. Soon.

  There are many creative ways of losing time but one method beats all others in terms of its sheer stupidity. It’s known as the Dodgy MOT. It could be corroded leads, a fading of your brakes, a fatal loss of oil or a tired gasket that gives up on you as you hurry along. Only for dramatic effect nothing beats the sudden disappearance of the floor under your feet. After thirty-two years, as predicted by Jake and without further warning, the bottom fell out of the DS and my arse hit tarmac. One minute I was straightening the car after a sharp bend, the next I was staring at the underside of the dashboard surrounded by multi-coloured sparks and the hideous sound of metal scraping on tarmac. I worked the pedals, hanging like a chimpanzee from the steering wheel, and wrestled the wreck to a stop without hitting anything. Of all the stupid…humiliating…frightening…infuriating…and of all the times. Half strangled by my old-fashioned seat belt I keeled out of the door on to the verge of the lane and stared with disbelief into the place where my seat should have been. Not only the floor but one of the spars under the door had given way. Below the pedals was nothing but air. If I’d been driving on the motorway…This looked pretty terminal, at least until Jake got on to it. I hadn’t so much broken down as broken through. Of course I had a breakdown service (more important than wheels with a DS) but all they would do would be to cart it away and laugh a lot, perhaps not even in that order. As one might expect, there was suddenly no traffic on the road. I had passed Mousehole ten minutes ago and was now in glorious landscape, somewhere, if only I could see any of it over the high hedges.

  The boot was full of the usual junk, including a forgotten bag of spuds, nicely sprouted. A bright red tow rope, the car jack and wheel brace looked more promising however. Half of the floor under my seat was still attached to the rest of the bodywork. I levered and yanked the twisted metal up, losing great bits of it in rusty flakes, then wedged the wheel brace and jack handle under what was left of the frame of my seat. It kind of held up but was too precarious like that. So the seat belt became just that, a belt to keep the seat in position, and the tow rope braced the whole ensemble in a triangle from the passenger seat to the hand grip between the doors and back. It looked feasible. Gingerly I tried my weight on the wonky platform and jumped off instantly. It would never hold my weight. It didn’t work.

  Twenty-five miles per hour. I think that’s the highest speed I can recommend when driving a left-hand drive DS21 from the passenger seat. It was clearly insane but my innate ability not to think straight in times of crisis helped a lot. Shifting gear was the worst operation, having to stretch my left foot into the far corner where the fading daylight appeared below the clutch pedal, which is why I bansheed along in a protesting second gear. Fortunately the only thing I met was a boy on a scooter who never gave me a second glance.

  The sun had long set and a light, wind-driven spray of rain was falling by the time I reached the gate across the track that led to Alison’s hideaway. Hideaway was how I had come to think of it now, a faker’s cottage, far from prying eyes. I still found it hard to believe but in retrospect everything seemed to make sense: Alison’s jumpiness, her reticence about her recent work, the fine, handmade paints she used. The gate was closed but not locked and only wanted to open outwards, so I laboriously backed up, swung the rickety gate open and drove up the track. The swivelling headlamps of the DS picked out the yard. The junk in it had not been cleared but rationalized into one massive pile in a corner furthest from the house. There was plenty of space for me to park this time and no other cars. It looked as though
Annis and Alison had been warned by the police and cleared out. There was some residual light in the sky along the edges of the rain clouds that drifted in from the sea but the cottage lay in darkness and there was no sound apart from the wind, which was picking up steadily. Annis and Alison safely away from here had been my favourite scenario, but one that hadn’t taken into account a broken-down DS. I would have to somehow make it back to Mouse-hole and find a B&B for the night or sleep in the car. Just in case, I checked that my mobile was switched on. Why hadn’t the silly girls rung me? Perhaps they’d left a message at the door? Unlikely, since they couldn’t have known I was on my way. Unless somehow the police had remembered to pass that message on.

  There was no note. Distractedly I tried the door. It was unlocked. My heart sank. This was too unlikely. I’d heard there were still places in Britain where people left their doors unlocked. Not here, not under the circumstances. Not today. Or had their departure been that hasty? There was one other possibility I could think of: Annis and Alison had hidden their cars and were lying in ambush for Eely, perhaps even with police inside. It never ceases to astound me how you can get things half right and still be so completely wrong.

  I stepped into the stone-flagged hall and closed the door behind me to shut out the distraction of the wind and rain. Inside, the air was warm and a little sticky. I stood very still. The first opening on my left was the open kitchen door. Apart from the humming of the fridge a low, steady hissing sound came from there, along with the tiniest amount of light. I slid quietly along the wall and went inside. On the cooker at the far end a saucepan sat over a burning gas ring. In the blue light of the gas flame I could make out that no steam was rising from the pan, nor was there any smell of burning. Reluctantly I approached the cooker. The eerie blue and yellow of the gaslight and the soundless, steam-free pan spread an evil aura in the sticky room. In the beam from my Maglite I could see the content. The pan was full to the brim with quietly seething oil. I turned off the gas, glad the hissing sound had ceased. A boiling chip pan in an empty cottage was not a good sign.