There was a pause while the other man considered. Then he must have nodded, because the next noise Ewing heard was the sound of the door opening and closing. They had left the room.
He went to the door and waited for the sound of their footfalls down the corridor; then another pause and he heard the lift arriving, and the doors opening and closing.
Then he was out and sprinting past the lift for the emergency stairs at the bottom of the corridor.
He clattered down four badly lit flights of cement steps to the lobby level. Slowly he opened the door. His quarry had left the lift and was just disappearing out of the front door.
He had a problem. Their Alfa was parked closer to the hotel than his Jaguar. He had in fact to wait in the lobby as they headed out into the square and right, to the sidestreet and their car. It took off fast, back into the square, and east. It didn’t worry him — he knew their destination. Nonetheless, as soon as the car had disappeared round the side of the hotel block, he was out and sprinting for the Jaguar.
The rain had gone. The day was brightening up. He felt relaxed behind the wheel, and fairly confident. The Colt was under his right arm; the Jaguar felt solid. He kept its speed within the legal limit, fifty miles an hour, which seemed fast in the narrow country lanes heading for the M4. He had just reached out to pick up his driving glasses from the seat beside him when he half glanced in the mirror and stiffened. The red Alfa was two hundred yards behind him and slowly gaining on him.
He saw signs for the approaching M4. He had to make the decision. He could out-accelerate them on the motorway. But the point was not to escape them — he wanted to track them. He was confronted suddenly with the slip-road off to the left marked LONDON. He kept going, over the motorway bridge, heading north and deeper into the Gloucester countryside. They were glued to his tail.
Three miles on, he saw a sign for the approaching village: HEFFINGTON, and another sign: NATIONAL TRUST, COLMER RESERVOIR, 1 mile. His boot hit the floor and the Jaguar went through Heffington at ninety miles an hour, out the other side, and over the top of a hill as if the furies of hell were after it. Then he glimpsed the reservoir, two artificial lakes at the end of a long lane bordered by trees.
The first of the lakes was half a mile long. The second one lay a little beyond it. That was bigger, maybe twice as large, but darker and solitary, ringed in with a curtain of pine trees that sloped up the hills on all sides. Ewing headed down the road for the second lake.
He found what he was looking for. The afforestation scheme around the lake was marked out by tracks off the road and irregular stretches of barbed wire in bad repair. Since the coming of the M4 motorway, this area would have less of the commuter driver passing through it, heading for Bristol. There were fewer strangers and tourists who were going to play with matches and start forest fires in the dense growth of young trees. Ewing decided to lose the Alfa in the forest. He turned off the dirt road which served as the lakeside route and accelerated through a break in the fence deep into the trees. He dropped the speed of the car to navigate in the gloom beneath the high branches. His concentration was still split between getting rid of the Alfa, wondering how they had turned the tables on him, and wanting to arrest and interrogate these two men. He moved down to the lake’s edge and cut the pace right down.
Then he saw at the base of some pines half a mile up a rise in front of him the flash of red of the Alfa going fast. He braked. He saw the Alfa charge on, then brake, and the driver climb out and stand by the car. Ewing suddenly realized what they were up to. The Alfa driver had been driving faster than Ewing, then stopping his car every so often, switching off his engine, and listening for the sound and direction of Ewing’s car. And he would hear the Jaguar engine because the sound of it was being reflected off the lake below. Ewing turned off his engine, then let the car roll slowly down a slight slope into some bushes.
He got out and moved to where he could see the other car. He couldn’t see the men for a moment, then he heard the Alfa start up and he saw the driver coasting the car down to the lake edge.
Ewing’s position now was half a mile from the red car and about a hundred yards above the lake shore. He could see what the driver was up to. There was a concrete pier which ran off the lake edge and out thirty yards into the lake, with some empty rowing boats and speed-boats moored to it. The driver cruised the Alfa down to the pier, up on to it, and drove to its end, where he parked. He and his passenger were obviously hoping to get a better vantage point of the whole of the lake shore. The driver got out, stood there for a few minutes, lit a cigarette, then climbed back in and wound down all the windows. If Ewing started his car, they would hear it.
Ewing deliberated. There were a number of unknown quantities about the situation. There was also the psychological element. It had been a shock to find himself the pursued, not the pursuer. He didn’t like what had happened.
He started the Jaguar with a roar, slewed it out of the bushes, and accelerated with as much speed as he could get from the car downhill to the shore. He had a half-formed plan. He wanted to corner these men. Trap them. The idea was to drive up on to the narrow pier and block the Alfa’s exit.
The Jaguar hit the sandy shore at eighty miles an hour, and slammed up the concrete ramp and on to the pier. He saw the men twitch round, anger and surprise on their faces, to find their prey bearing down on them. It was when Ewing saw the passenger reach down and try to bring up a sawn-off shot-gun, and he remembered how the English crook Mavor died, that he changed his mind. He half braked the Jaguar and smashed it into the rear of the Alfa. The Italian car bulleted off the end of the pier and hit the lake surface with an explosion of spray. Ewing put the handbrake on and jumped out of the Jag. He pulled out his Colt, ran to the edge of the pier, and looked down. He was in time to see the roof of the car sliding slowly and awkwardly below the surface.
He waited five minutes. Neither of the men surfaced. They were in that car and they were drowning, or had drowned — and alive they were valuable, and drowned they were useless and there was nothing that he or anybody else could do about it. And still he strode up and down, eyes searching the black water, and ten minutes passed, then fifteen minutes, and nothing came to the surface, except a slow, lazy oil-slick. ‘Fuck!’ he said finally, and very loud.
He went back to the Jaguar and studied it. The overhang in front of the car had been stove in about a foot, and the headlights broken. Otherwise the car was in driveable condition. He got in and pressed the starter. His hands were shaking, but in anger at himself. He knew that in this case leads were not going to come thick and fast. He had some names, those names he’d overheard on the bugged phone, Kavanagh and Parrish, and the Broker, who might be a third man, or a nickname for Parrish or Kavanagh. Two common Irish names and a nickname, and two dead men who sounded as if they could have been key witnesses. He’d blown it.
Meanwhile Jack Regan screwed himself at approximately four pm that afternoon.
Joe Arthur Harold Edward Thomas Lear was sixty-two-years old and didn’t amount to much more than the Christian names of his mother’s five brothers and the surname of the man she reckoned was his father. Plus he was a lousy photographer and forger. He stood in more or less all he possessed, a shabby suit which had housed a wallet they’d taken away, containing thirty- two pounds in cash and one condom. The suit was grey, the boots were brown, the tie was blue, the hands trembling, and the face white. When Carter nicked him, he was squired to Notting Hill Gate, the nearest station to his photographer’s shop. But the first thing that Regan wanted was for Lear to be brought to West End Central. There was some belief among the current gossip of the villains in London’s underworld that West End Central was where they put the boot in while they asked their questions. And sometimes after the answers. It didn’t happen to be true. Regan had seen no kicking done during interrogations at West End Central.
But the myth prevailed that West End Central was no place to hang about, and Lear, weighted by problems, on
e of which was guilt, plus five Christian names, was upset when they pulled him out of Notting Hill and shoved him into an interview room in West End Central and there was a Sweeney bloke there.
‘Detective Inspector Regan, Flying Squad,’ Regan said. ‘Sit down.’ Lear sat.
Regan changed his mind. ‘Stand up.’
Lear stood up.
‘Come here,’ Regan gestured. He was standing by the window.
He gestured Lear to join him at the window. ‘Look.’
Lear looked out into London, or as much of it as he could see cluttering up Savile Row. People from another world parking their cars, heading off high-voiced to world-famous tailors, or West End restaurants with important names. Lear had never made it into one of those restaurants. Now he felt he never would.
‘London,’ Regan’s finger sweeping across the visible horizon.
‘There are nine million people out there. Did you know that?’
Lear nodded but was confused by Regan’s selection of that particular statistic.
‘So why have we picked you to stick the Mavor murder on?’
Lear stood there and looked at Regan, blank and instantly shattered. It was obvious he’d never heard of Eddie Mavor. No quick shift of the expression at the name, just the eyes slowly opening wider and wider -amazement. He was on a murder charge, and he’d never heard the murdered man’s name. He staggered over to the chair and sat down.
‘Stand up,’ Regan said quietly.
Lear lurched to his feet and stood there like a drunk squaddie on parade.
‘First question, why — why did you kill him?’ Regan asked, not too heavily.
‘I don’t know... who you’re... talking about...’ Lear said it all in little gasps.
Regan sat down at the desk, opened and studied a file.
Sergeant Carter stepped into the room, closed the door quietly, ignored Lear, nodded to Regan, walked across and took up a position leaning against the window sill.
"Here," Regan pulled the five Irish passports out from the file. He found the one with Purcell’s photo in it which had been taken from Lear’s shop, and opened the other four, the two blank ones and the two with photographs of Mavor.
He held up an open page of the passport with Mavor’s grim look on a photo. ‘You saying when you killed him you didn’t know his name was Eddie Mavor? Distinctive enough name. You should’ve remembered it. You forged him two passports.’
‘I didn’t.’ But this time, by Regan’s calculation, Lear’s voice carried less conviction.
Carter shifted his position at the window. He now leant his back against the high sill and folded his arms, eyes still on Regan.
"You were in Wotton, Gloucestershire, four days ago, one- eighteen pm. You shot and murdered Eddie Mavor. I have two witnesses to prove it.’
‘Bloody lies..’ The old man, his head rocking forwards now, soft voice, almost in tears. ‘Bloody lies..’
‘Way I work, I ask questions before I formally charge you. I mean, for Christ’s sake, you never know — we can always make it easier for you if you can make it easier for us. That’s what we are, aren’t we? Put a copper and a toe-rag caught on the hop together, you’ve got a couple of blokes who should make a deal.’
The old man wasn’t listening. ‘I need a glass of water.’
‘Later.’
‘Now. I need it.’
‘Later.’ Regan quiet but definite.
The old man’s eyes filled with tears.
‘You’re the wrong side of a pension to go shooting people,’ Regan said harshly. ‘Especially people who are friends of mine. Especially such people.’
Tears and despair now in the old man’s eyes.
‘What did he do to you?’
‘I’ve never met this bloke.’
‘That’s your official line, is it?’
‘Yes.’ The old wet eyes on Regan.
‘But you forged these two passports — your fingerprints on them. This is your form. You’ve committed every dirty little crime in the book. So why not in the twilight of your years, a new hobby for a retiring villain, murder? I mean, murder’s what you’re here for, forger’s a joke. But let’s get that out of the way first. Did you or did you not in any way contribute to the forgery of these stolen blank Irish passports? Yes or no?’
The old man tried to clear his nasal passages and made a noise that Regan took to mean an affirmative. ‘Good,’ he said loud and clear, ‘we’re getting somewhere.’
He looked at Carter. Carter was doing the right thing. Just being a presence — a figure cold, impassive, saying nothing. He wondered vaguely how Carter would handle this; wade in, accuse an old man of murder just to shake him up? Probably not. Probably something subtler. On the other hand there was plenty of time for subtlety if the blitzkreig approach didn’t pan out.
‘So the first time you met this friend of mine you murdered was when you took his photograph at the studio?’
‘No.’ ‘Before?’
‘I have never met him. I didn’t take his passport photeys. I got give ‘em. I just forged the passport, the stamps — ‘
‘What stamps?’ Regan asked quickly, wanting to get the man more and more committed to his forgery confession. One admission of guilt obtained from a suspect and the ice is broken; more
will follow, if there are more admissions to be made. He gave the old man one of the passports.
‘Those ones, ‘ere ‘nd ‘ere.’ The old man pointed out the stamp which said: AMBASAID NA h-EIREANN, LONDAIN, and the die-stamp on the photograph. ‘And I forged the signature.’ He pointed out the signature of the consular official in London, a woman’s name.
Regan, for a second, indecisive, not sure which way to go. But as soon as he asked the next question, he knew. ‘You say you didn’t take these photographs in your passport photograph studio. All right, who supplied them?’
It was just that second’s flash of fear across the man’s face, a fear that confirmed his belief from way back that he should never have taken this job and mixed with these people, a fear that it was better to be accused of murder than to point the finger towards them, which was certain death. They had told him that on three occasions, that he would die with two bullets in the back of his head if he ever said a word to the English police.
‘The Dublin authorities say these passports were nicked by the IRA. Did they give them to you, and the photographs?’ Regan’s voice now rising. ‘Did they give you the photograph for this passport which was in your shop?’ He pulled the fifth passport out from under the file. ‘This man? D’you know who this man is?’ Regan’s voice now sharper, harder. ‘Do you know this man killed a policeman? Have you any idea how much trouble you’re in?’
Joe Arthur Harold Edward Thomas Lear collapsed on the floor. His last gesture before unconsciousness was to try and pull a pill bottle out of his pocket.
It took twenty minutes to get a doctor to him, and fortunately the doctor identified the big pills as Adrinalex and diagnosed that the man suffered from acute low blood pressure. They were the kind of pills you took every four hours. That’s why he’d been asking Regan for water. The doctor opened Lear’s mouth and pushed a pill down the back of it, and sluiced in some water. Fifteen minutes later, when the ambulance men got to the office, Lear was still unconscious. The police doctor directed Regan that he was not to attempt to question him for at least twelve hours. Lear was carried off to hospital. And Regan had blown it.
The Witches’ Elm, Earl’s Court Road, has three bars, graded by noise level. The public bar always jammed with Australians — Earl’s Court Road having another name, Kangaroo Valley. In the public bar Antipodeans bawl at each other at such volume that the assumption can be made that they are to include within hearing range their bazzas and Sheilas in the Old Country. The middle level bar is the saloon bar, but Regan wouldn’t go there because it was always full of the CID crowd from Kensington nick just up the road, and he knew them all, every constable, every sergeant and the four D
Is. Regan went up two flights of stairs to a small purple wallpapered room called the Weigh-In Bar. The landlord had some association with boxing, and pictures of boxers, the sepia ones presumably long dead, the Kodachrome still alive and killing each other, adorned the walls. The forty-year old bar lady was repulsive. She even had a wart on the tip of her nose. She kept the place empty and tidy — which was how Regan liked it. He came to bars to drink and think. He did not understand social drinking. You either drink, which is a process whereby you get drunk, or you talk. The two operations as different as dying and gardening.
He said he would be there at eight o’clock. He joined Regan at one minute past eight.
‘What’s yours?’ Regan asked.
‘They have Jim Beam here?’ Ewing’s eyes going round the place.
‘They would.’
‘That’s my shot.’ Then he came to some conclusion about the Weigh-In Bar. ‘This is not the finest pub in London.’
The Sweeney 01 Page 6
