by Mark Timlin
‘Shut your fucking mouth,’ I said, ‘or I’ll punch your fucking lights from here to Christmas.’ Mercifully he did. ‘I need the Rolls,’ I said. ‘Can you speak to Vincent from here?’
‘If he’s in his room.’
‘He will be, I guarantee, and expecting the call. Tell him to meet me in the garage with the keys. Just that. Not a word about anything else, understand?’
‘I will not.’
I took the Taurus from under my belt and pointed it at his chest and hiked back the hammer. ‘Do it, David,’ I said. ‘Or it’s goodnight.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said.
‘Want to bet your life on it?’
He obviously didn’t. He stepped over the money on the floor and opened the top lefthand drawer of the desk. There were two telephones inside. He lifted the receiver of one and spun the dial. It was answered immediately. ‘Vincent,’ he said, ‘will you meet Mr Sharman in the garage with the keys to the car?’ He paused, then replaced the receiver.
Gotcha! I thought.
‘Right, in the safe,’ I said. ‘The pair of you.’
‘We’ll suffocate,’ protested David.
‘You’ll be okay for a few minutes. I’ll make sure someone comes up and lets you out. Go on.’ I gestured with the gun and both men stepped into the safe. I slammed the door, turned one key and left the room. I shlapped the case downstairs to the kitchen, using the stairs. Miranda was by the stove.
‘Hey,’ I said, ‘want to do me another favour?’
‘Certainly,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
‘In exactly five minutes from now run upstairs to the study and open the safe. The key’s in the lock. David Pike will be eternally grateful.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Don’t ask,’ I said, ‘just do it.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Is there any sticky tape around here?’
‘What kind?’
‘Any kind, as long as it’s strong.’
‘Try the first aid kit in the top drawer of the dresser.’
I went over to a handsome Welsh dresser and pulled open the drawer. Inside was a big white enamel box with a red cross on top. I lifted it out by its handle and opened it. Packed inside was everything useful in the event of a small domestic accident, including a large roll of flesh-coloured Elastoplast. I took the roll and stuffed it in the side pocket of my jeans. ‘Bless you,’ I said and I kissed her full on the lips. She tasted like the best thing I’d tasted for ages.
‘Another thing, Miranda,’ I said.
‘After that, anything.’
‘Pack my clothes and stuff for me. I don’t think I’ll be back here in a hurry.’
I left her looking confused as I dragged the suitcase down to the basement garage.
Vincent was waiting for me. He was holding a set of car keys in his fist. I humped the case over to the car and wrestled it onto the front passenger seat.
‘You wanted these, Mr Sharman?’
‘Yes, I want them,’ I said, and took the keys from him in my left hand. ‘Where is the switch you told me about that locks the passenger doors?’
He opened the driver’s door and leant in and pointed to a small stalk that protruded from the steering column. ‘That’s it.’
‘Can you still open the doors from inside?’
‘Yes, they all work independently, just use the handle as normal. They can’t be opened from the outside, that’s all.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. He turned as if to leave. I slid the gun from the waistband of my jeans with my right hand.
‘Hey, Vincent.’
‘Yes?’ He turned and I hit him with the barrel of the Taurus. He went down on one knee. I hit him again and he went all the way down. I tossed the gun onto the front seat of the car. I took him by one foot and dragged him across to some cold water pipes that ran up one wall. His head bumped gratifyingly on the concrete floor as we went. I undid his belt, tugged it out of the loops and used it to truss him to the pipes. I went back to the driver’s seat of the Rolls-Royce. I stuck the key in the ignition lock. The car started with a purr and only the gentlest vibration betrayed the fact that the motor was running. I engaged drive, slipped the hand brake and the monster limo crept towards the ramp. I touched the pad on the dash-mounted electronic eye and the garage door began to open. I pushed my foot on the accelerator and the car bumped up the incline and out into the mews. I left the door open behind me. I guided the car over the cobbles and left into Curzon Street, left again into Park Lane, through the lights, around Hyde Park Corner and west along Knightsbridge in the direction of Hammersmith. The traffic was light and the heavy car was a joy to drive. As I got used to the big steering wheel and the light power-steering, I started really to put it around the roads. I drove across the west of town at speed. It was a beautiful day, already hot, but I didn’t use the air-conditioning, just opened the driver’s window and guided the car one-handed as I drove.
27
I slid the Rolls into the narrow street at the back of the Shakespeare Grove development at seven o’clock precisely by the clock on the dash. I slowed the car to a crawl. The street was empty of life, not even a stray car or dog. A few nondescript cars and vans were parked up by the kerb. On one side of the road loomed the window-less back of a block of LCC flats, on the other the high wooden fence that guarded the building site, bare but for a few fly-posted advertisements for pop singles and albums and concerts and some brutal spray-painted graffiti. At the end of the street two chainlink gates that led onto the site stood open. Heavy-duty dry clay tyre marks scarred the broken pavement.
I halted the car and took the gun from the waistband of my jeans and the roll of Elastoplast from my pocket. I tore three long strips off the roll and taped the gun under the dash, butt outward, just far enough in so that it was invisible from above. I was careful not to cover the trigger guard or any of the moving parts. Then I tripped the switch on the steering column and locked all the doors from the inside.
I turned the Rolls onto the site and followed the rutted track, which tried even the smooth suspension of the big car, deep into the construction. I passed piles of brick and sand, silent plant machinery large and small, buildings that were complete, almost complete and mere foundations, until the road ran out in the middle of a yellow dust bowl between two mini skyscrapers shrouded with green netted scaffolding. In the middle of the bowl was parked a grey Mercedes estate. Three men were standing beside it. Through the slightly tinted windscreen I could just make out a blonde head belonging to the rear seat passenger.
I let the Rolls drift to within fifteen feet of the reception committee. I stopped the car and let the engine die. The dust it had raised settled gently. It was so quiet on the site that I imagined I could hear the particles patter on the bodywork of the Rolls-Royce. I stayed put and looked the trio over. It was made up of Ginger, the wide man and another man, older with thick grey hair and a face lined from years in the Australian sun. Ginger and the wide man each held the inevitable Berettas with silencers attached. The older man was unarmed. Ginger was grinning, obviously enjoying the whole thing. ‘G’day, bro,’ he said. ‘Don’t just sit there. Get out of the car and join the party.’
I did as I was told and stood by the open door. The three men crossed the space between us.
‘Mr Lorimar, I presume,’ I said to the older man. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to meeting you properly.’
The older man said nothing.
‘Shut up,’ said Ginger, his good mood evaporating. ‘Turn round and put your hands on top of the car.’ I did as I was told again. ‘Search him,’ he ordered his companion. I glanced round. The wide man slid his gun under his jacket and, being careful not to step between me and the ginger man’s pistol, came close enough to touch me. He frisked me thoroughly from shirt collar to shoes. ‘He’s clean,’ he said. ‘No gun, no wire.’
‘Smart boy,’ said the ginger man. ‘Where’s the cash?’
/> ‘In the case on the front seat,’ I replied.
‘Get it,’ he said to the wide man who walked round the back of the car to the passenger door and tried the handle.
‘It’s locked,’ he said. He sounded surprised.
‘I’ll get it.’ Before anyone could stop me I slid into the driver’s seat and flicked the switch on the steering column. The passenger door opened and the wide man lifted the case out and threw it onto the bonnet of the Rolls as if it weighed nothing at all. He flicked the catches and opened the case, and as Lorimar and the ginger man’s eyes shifted over to him, I reached under the dash and ripped the Taurus from where I had taped it.
The wide man swore in surprise at the contents of the case and hurled it off the bonnet of the car, scattering the maroon-bound books onto the ground. I brought the gun up into sight, cocking it as I did so. In the silence that followed his expletive and the violence of his action, the sound of the hammer locking back was as loud as a curse in church, and three pairs of eyes turned back to me.
‘Drop the gun,’ I told Ginger. His face turned into a mask of anger, but he didn’t speak, just let go of his Beretta and allowed it to fall with a thud onto the ground where it raised a small cloud of dust. I stepped out of the Rolls. I needed to hold on to the element of surprise to splinter the group. The way they were standing, I couldn’t keep them covered properly. ‘You, Fat Fuck,’ I said, and shifted my eyes over to the wide man. ‘Take your gun out, just use the tips of your fingers. Don’t get smart, or I’ll shoot you down like a dog.’
He looked disgusted, but did what he was told and dropped the gun.
‘Kick it away,’ I said. ‘Right away.’
He did as he was told again and the gun spun twenty feet and hit some breeze blocks where it bounced into a clump of wild grass. I ripped the strands of tape from the Taurus. ‘Lorimar, come here,’ I said. He obeyed. I pushed back his jacket and ran my hands under his arms and around his waist. Nothing. I pushed him away. ‘All of you move back towards your car,’ I ordered. ‘We’re going to talk.’
‘You stupid bastard,’ said the ginger man. ‘We know you had the money, why didn’t you just bring it and do the deal? Now we’ll have to kill you.’
‘Shut up.’ I turned to Lorimar. ‘Did you kill her?’ I asked.
‘Who?’
‘Catherine Bennett, Catherine Pike, whatever you call her.’
‘She’s in the car,’ he said.
‘Not her,’ I said. ‘I mean the real Catherine Bennett.’
Lorimar’s face seemed to collapse in on itself.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Get real, Lorimar,’ I said. ‘It was a good try, and it almost worked, but not quite.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I didn’t for sure, not until I found this.’ I took the piece of paper I had found in the file out of my shirt pocket with the fingers of my left hand. ‘You were very thorough. Too thorough, if anything, but you missed this. I went through Catherine’s papers last night. The papers she brought from Australia. After all the trouble you went to to supply her with all the right credentials, I don’t think anyone had ever gone through them before, or else they might have seen that there were too many things missing for someone who kept their whole life in a box. There were no photographs in that file, none at all. Up until her passport was issued, she didn’t have one photograph. Not one in twenty-one years. A girl who was supposed to have attended drama school. I couldn’t believe it. Even when she told me she’d only gone for a couple of terms, I still couldn’t believe it. And there were no dental records. She must have been to the dentist at some time. And nothing in her own handwriting, not after she was a child. But the clincher was this.’ I held up the paper. ‘It was in a medical folder, pushed right down. I almost didn’t see it myself.’
‘What is it?’ asked Lorimar, and his voice sounded weary and thin as a reed.
‘A bill from a private hospital in Melbourne. A bill for an operation on Catherine Bennett. Dated 1969 when she was fourteen. A bill for the removal of her appendix. Now I know these surgeons are good, but not that good. I slept with that woman the night before last.’ And I remembered her sweet belly, covered with a sheen of sweat as she pushed it into my face to be kissed. Apart from the indentation of her navel, from the rib cage to the triangle of curly blonde hair between her legs, her body had been as flat and white and smooth as if the skin had been airbrushed. ‘She’s never had an appendectomy, not on this planet,’ I said.
The ginger man looked at Lorimar. ‘You stupid old fool. I don’t know why I ever listened to you. You told me it would be easy. I might have known you’d fuck it up.’ And he made as if to hit Lorimar.
‘Stand still or I swear I’ll kill you.’ I said. ‘I haven’t forgotten what you did to Leee.’
‘You won’t kill me,’ said the ginger man.
‘Won’t I? Why do you think she got Elizabeth to hire me?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that why you’re here?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you understand why I’m here.’ I thought again of the lonely child with her book of scraps. ‘Let’s just say I wanted to see your face when you realised that you weren’t going to get any of the money.’
He spat on the ground, but said nothing.
‘Did you kill her?’ I asked Lorimar again.
‘It was her own fault.’ He was almost pleading. ‘You don’t understand. She wouldn’t have anything to do with Pike. In the end she hated him as much as Joanna did. I told her she could have a good life with him in England, but she didn’t want to know. She preferred hooking on the streets. That was where I found her again. She was diseased and strung out on speedballs, but she still wouldn’t take the money he left for her.’
‘You got her to change her mind.’
‘I did,’ said the ginger man, and looked well pleased with the memory.
‘You’re a fucking scumbag,’ I said.
The ginger man smirked but said nothing. Scumbag was probably a compliment where he came from.
‘You still haven’t answered my question, Lorimar. I won’t ask you again. Did you kill her?’
‘She would have been dead anyway within a few months,’ said Lorimar.
‘So you did.’ I suddenly felt very old.
‘He helped her on her way,’ said the ginger man. ‘Let’s put it that way.’
I did feel like killing all three of them, there and then, but I’d come that far and I wanted to know a little more. ‘So who’s that in there?’ I nodded over at the Mercedes.
‘A girl we knew,’ said Lorimar.
‘And what did you have on her?’
‘She owed money. She was broke. She was glad to do it. She looked a lot like Catherine, same hair, same eyes. As for the photographs, you’re right. Our girl just didn’t have any, none that fitted in with being Catherine Bennett.’ He looked first at me and then at the ginger man. ‘How was I supposed to know he’d sleep with her?’ The ginger man looked at Lorimar like death.
‘So who is she?’ I asked.
‘Who cares?’ said the ginger man. ‘Just another cunt.’
‘She called herself an actress,’ said Lorimar. ‘But she was lousy. I don’t think she ever got a part.’
‘She can’t have been that bad,’ I said. ‘She took everyone in when she got here. You took a hell of a risk.’
‘It was a hell of a prize,’ said Lorimar.
My right hand was getting tired and cramped from holding the heavy pistol and I swapped it to my left. ‘Did she know you’d killed the real Catherine?’
‘What do you think?’ asked Lorimar.
‘And what about Robert Pike?’ I asked. ‘Did you help him on his way too?’
‘I told him the truth about her, and threatened to make it public,’ said Lorimar. ‘I suppose he just couldn’t face losing her twice. Or maybe he couldn’t stand to be made a fool of.’
I remembered then what I
had said about suicides to Elizabeth back in my office.
‘But why? You had a good deal going.’
‘She stopped paying us,’ he said. ‘In the end I think she really believed she was his daughter.’
‘I am,’ said Catherine.
In all the excitement no one had seen her get silently out of the Mercedes. In the bright daylight she looked a lot older and more worn than I remembered. Her dress was wrinkled and dirty and had sweat stains under the arms, and her bright hair had turned dull and brassy. She had lost a shoe and leant against the car for balance. ‘You killed my daddy,’ she said to Lorimar, and I saw the sun reflect off the object she held in both hands. Somewhere in the back of the car she had found a screwdriver. She tottered towards him, one high heel on, one off, and drove the shank of the tool two-handed up into his throat, up through his mouth and into his brain. Blood spurted from his nose and from between his lips and spattered down the front of her already ruined dress.
Lorimar clutched at the brightly coloured plastic handle that protruded from just above his adam’s apple and tried to say something. But his voice was ruined and what emerged was something between a scream and a sigh. He lost his balance and fell back onto the ground. As he hit the yellow dust, it puffed up around him and settled on his body and the pool of red that pumped from his neck and soaked the earth.
I looked into Catherine’s eyes and in that split second knew that since I had seen her last she had gone through the barrier that separates the mad from the sane, and I doubted if she could ever return.
The ginger man took his chance and dived for his gun. As if on cue, the wide man took off for the clump of weed where his had ended up. I snapped off a shot at the ginger man and missed by a mile – I could never shoot lefthanded. The echo from the shot rang round the building site, bouncing back off every surface until it sounded like a hundred shots. I tossed the gun back to my right and fired double action at him again, and missed again. He had his gun and rolled behind the protection of the Rolls’s bonnet.
I fired at the wide man’s back and saw a puff of dust flower on the back of his jacket, high up on the left side. But he kept running and slid down beside the breeze blocks and I knew I’d done little serious damage. The ginger man popped up from his cover and pulled the trigger of his Beretta. I felt as if someone had clobbered me on the side of my head with a baseball bat. I dropped to the ground and rolled behind what cover the empty suitcase provided and hugged the dirt like it was a long-lost lover I hadn’t seen for years. I saw blood dripping from my head onto the ground and heard and felt two more bullets tear into the case as he fired at me again and again.
