Deathly Suspense
John Paxton Sheriff
Contents
Title Page
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
By the Same Author
Copyright
PROLOGUE
Shockingly loud above the sound of rain beating against the windows, a door slammed. The woman sitting at the bottom of the stairs started violently. She turned her head, her eyes straining to see along the dark hall.
The tall man came through from the back of the house. He was wearing a brown fleecy jacket, jeans, Nike trainers. His face was wet. He was smiling. In hands covered by thin black-leather gloves he was carrying a stepladder and a coil of bright orange nylon rope. She turned to watch him, shock widening her blue eyes. In the faint light shining down the stairs from the open bedroom door her blonde hair was damp with sweat, strands plastered to her forehead.
When she saw the objects he was carrying, she began to tremble. She looked away. Conscious of her weakness, perhaps determined not to show fear, she pushed down on the filmy nightdress with her clenched fists and clamped her bound wrists between her knees. She made no sound. Above the crimson silk scarf tied across her mouth her nostrils flared white as she struggled to breathe.
‘Not long now,’ he said softly. ‘Be over soon. No more worries.’
He leaned the ladder against the side of the stairs. As he squeezed past her carrying the coil of rope he touched her hair with his fingers, lifting wet strands off her neck. She jerked her head away. He laughed deep in his throat. Then he climbed to the first-floor landing. He took one end of the rope and tied it tightly to the oak banisters. The rest of the rope he let fall into the stairwell. It uncoiled like a striking snake, hung swaying. The end, dangling five feet above the hall floor, was a heavy hangman’s noose.
The man thumped down the stairs. He was impatient now. His knee hit her shoulder, hard. She whimpered. Her eyes closed and her throat moved as she swallowed. Tears slid down her cheeks to darken the upper edge of the crimson gag.
Now the man was in the hall. More banging. She knew he was erecting the stepladder, but she refused to turn, refused to watch. So far she had not seen the position of the rope, the ugly noose.
Then he came for her. One gloved hand reached for the wrists clamped between her knees, the other grasped her upper arm. Unable to resist his strength as he pulled, she stood up, the soles of her bare feet squeaking faintly on the polished parquet flooring. He moved her away from the stairs and turned her to face the ladder.
Air hissed in her nostrils as she drew in a sharp breath. She reared backwards, suddenly squirming, fighting – moaning. Again he laughed, held her without effort. One arm was wrapped around her body, his hand holding her wrists. He lifted the other, clamped his gloved hand over her face and pinched her nostrils shut.
‘Still. Will you keep still?’
For a few moments there was no sign that she had heard. Then, as the seconds passed, she nodded. His hand came away. Her breath whistled rapidly, painfully. She sagged in his arms.
‘Just take it easy. This is not going to hurt.’
He took her to the big stepladder. When he pushed her against it and told her to climb, again she struggled.
‘Get fuckin’ well up there,’ he snarled – and she shuddered and lifted a bare foot, stood on the first rung with toes curling, reached for the second.
Awkwardly he climbed with her, behind her, his body supporting her soft warm weight. There was a small platform at the top on which home decorators would stand – perhaps a foot square. He forced her all the way up, went most of the way with her. She took the last step up onto the tiny platform, swayed, whimpered as he held her waist.
‘Turn around,’ he said. ‘No problem. Do it nice and easy, then stand up straight. Rest your back against the edge of the landing … while you wait.’
He held her until she was steady, then took his hands away. His grin was cruel as the hanging rope brushed her ear.
Then he backed down, just a couple of steps.
In his pocket he had more, thinner rope, similar to that binding her hands. He used this to tie her ankles. That done, he climbed up again. He was tight against her, both of them standing on the tiny platform. He leaned against her, forcing her shoulders back against the edge of the landing, and reached for the rope.
When he pulled up the noose and tried to put it over her head she jerked wildly, one way, then the other. He drew back his hand and, using his knuckles, slapped her face. Blood trickled from her nose. Breathing, already difficult, became impossible. Desperately she blew out through her nostrils. Her breasts rose and fell jerkily. She sagged, braced herself with the heels of her bound hands on her knees, elbows straining outwards. Her chin was up, nostrils pinching then dilating, her eyes desperate. When her breathing settled it seemed that all resistance, all fight, had drained away with the trickle of blood. Again he forced her upright. Then he dropped the noose over her head, settled it around her neck and drew it tight so that the big knot was on the bone behind her left ear.
Then he sucked in a deep, shuddering breath.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I told you what would happen. Warned you. Now it’s over – all right? But I told you it won’t hurt – and I was right. Don’t do anything. Don’t move a bloody muscle. I’ve worked it out. When the time comes you’ll drop – and your neck will snap. You’ll go out like a light.’
He stopped talking. His breath was hot on her face and she turned her head slightly, eyes again tightly closed. He leaned forward.
‘Goodbye, Lorraine,’ he whispered.
And he kissed her, very softly, very gently, on her damp forehead.
ONE
DAY ONE – MONDAY 31 OCTOBER
They were still playing five-card draw poker under the hot lights of the Sleepy Pussy night-club when I left at twenty minutes after midnight, drove out of the badly lit side street onto the main road and pushed the Quattro up to forty as it was buffeted by fierce cross winds.
An October storm that had flooded North Wales’ rivers was dragging its damp coat-tails. Two weeks ago its full force had battered a clapped-out caravan and sent it bobbing merrily towards the Irish Sea. Two murderers were trapped inside, two wet and bloody private investigators were rescued by a woman with forethought and a couple of handy red and yellow canoes.
That investigation had ended successfully. Now I was faced with what was really nothing more than a minor irritation but, after a truly frustrating evening, I had been feeling miffed long before the unexpected and vaguely intriguing phone call.
With his hand clamped over the telephone’s mouthpiece, the Sleepy Pussy’s barman had spotted me standing on my own, idly watching a woman in a headscarf reading the tarot cards, and asked if I was about to head home. He didn’t know me; I didn’t know him. I said yes. He asked me if I would pick up a man called Joe whose car had been stolen. He’d grinned as he told me I’d spot him easy, no sweat. ‘Medium height,’ he’d said, demonstrating by h
olding a hand level with his eyes. ‘Wearin’ jeans and a brown hoody, old Nike trainers, in this weather probably shelterin’ in a fuckin’ doorway.’
Unmissable.
Five minutes later I was on Breeze Hill pulling a cloud of spray through an area of cracked paving stones and boarded-up shops as, peering through the Quattro’s slashing windscreen wipers at rain sweeping across the sodium lighting, I looked for what might as well have been the invisible man.
I was not exactly fired with enthusiasm. This was a chore I could do without. A telephone call two weeks ago had brought me tonight to the Brighton le Sands night-club in north Liverpool on what turned out to be an abortive attempt to sell toy soldiers I design and manufacture to a man who hadn’t bothered to turn up. Now another telephone call had me searching streets I didn’t know for a man I’d never met, and ferrying a soaking wet stranger to his warm bed was beginning to sound like one good deed too far.
Many a true word….
The stark truth in that idle thought didn’t come screaming home to roost until almost twelve hours later, but when I did see the dark figure lurking in a shop doorway with a rusted iron grille and the man called Joe came splashing across the pavement to climb breathlessly into the car, I could already smell trouble. Maybe it was something about the way the wet clothing didn’t quite fit his thin body, the cloying smell of Old Holborn from the roll-up he’d managed to keep dry, or the way he kept his eyes fixed on the windscreen as he thanked me out of the corner of his mouth.
This was a man getting soaked to the skin walking anonymous streets at midnight in lousy weather, there was no smell of alcohol – stale or fresh – and he was as twitchy as a smack-head with chorea. Where had he been? What had he been doing? And what kind of trouble did these contradictions whisper to me? Well, the kind at the very least to make a suspicious PI start asking questions.
‘It’s Joe, right?’
He nodded.
‘I’m Jack Scott.’ Another nod. ‘Bad night to be out, Joe.’
For some reason that startled him. He flashed me a look.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Out. On the streets. Wet, cold, your car stolen.’ I shrugged, glancing sideways as I probed. ‘What was it, a night out with mates, the annual visit to your in-laws?’ I’d caught the flash of gold, third finger left hand. He was married, or had been.
‘A night out is right, first for a long time, but I’m short of mates so just leave it at that,’ he said in tones that told me to back off.
‘Fair enough. So, where d’you want taking?’
‘Home.’ For a moment nothing could be heard but the purr of the car’s engine, the hiss of tyres on the wet road, and when I glanced at him I was shocked to see raw emotion on the thin face outlined by the hoody’s cowl. Not young. Thirty, thirty-five, but dressed like a scally. He took a deep breath and his blue eyes had a wet shine as he smiled. ‘Off Druids’ Cross Road, opposite Calderstones park. Beech Crescent.’
I nodded. ‘I know it well. That’s a nice area.’
‘It was,’ he said enigmatically – and again he’d set me thinking.
At least I wouldn’t be forced to detour. I was already entering the Walton end of Queens Drive, and that venerable Liverpool ring road would take me most of the way to Joe’s place. From there it was an easy and familiar drive to the Grassendale flat where Calum Wick painted my toy soldiers, plotted ingenius scams I chose to ignore, and who would by now be looking at his watch impatiently.
Joe had gone quiet. Very little more was said, traffic was light and I drove without thought. After a while my passenger sent his roll up sparking out of the window into the slipstream. A police car with flashing blue lights screamed past going in the opposite direction. I flicked on Radio Merseyside hoping for the news, but the time was all wrong and I got the latest rock band and switched off. And then we were as good as there. I indicated at the roundabout, turned off Queen’s Drive into Menlove Avenue and a few minutes later we pulled into Druids’ Cross Road.
I slowed, glanced enquiringly at Joe.
‘The Crescent’s on the right,’ he said, ‘but before that there’s a narrow lane goin’ up behind the houses … yeah, there.…’ He leaned forward, pointing. ‘Take it easy, right. Nice and quiet. The neighbours’re old, they go to bed early.’
I grunted. Early? It was way past midnight.
I swung off the lighted road into an up-market back alley where wheel ruts ran either side of a central grass ridge and, as I drove by in low gear and without haste, the warm lights of expensive houses could be seen flooding across wet lawns bordered by designer shrubbery.
‘Just here,’ Joe said.
‘Why the back way?’
‘Because the patio doors’re open.’
‘Isn’t that risky?’
‘Not always, just tonight.’ He smiled. ‘I’m expected.’
He opened the door and stepped out into the rain, trainers slipping on wet grass, and I waited as he recovered his balance and wondered how a man wearing a hoody and dirty jeans and smoking roll ups held in a cupped hand could own a big house in an exclusive area of Calderstones. And why, tonight, the patio doors were open and he was expected. If this was his house, what the hell did that mean?
The car door slammed. Rain was drumming on the roof. Drips shaken from overhanging shrubs sparkled in the headlights like a shower of splintered glass as he opened a white picket gate and entered a garden that dipped steeply towards the rear of the house.
I watched him go then sent the Quattro rocking and sliding backwards down the lane’s rain-slick ruts. I backed onto Druids’ Cross Road, hesitated, then for the hell of it swung the wheel sharply with the intention of reversing slowly all the way up the sloping curve of Beech Crescent to what I judged was the front of Joe’s house.
After thirty yards I was stopped cold.
A police car was parked in the area of darkness between two pools of subtle street lighting. No sign of the uniformed officers. I held my breath, eased my foot off the brake, knocked the stick out of reverse and dowsed all lights. Then, like a ghost, I coasted silently back down the slope.
I took it easy all the way down Druids’ Cross Road. Back on Menlove Avenue I switched on the lights and stayed within the speed limit as far as the crossroads at Beaconsfield and Yew Tree Road. There I was held up by traffic lights, my fingers nervously tapping the steering wheel, my eyes locked on the rear view mirror.
The dash clock told me it was just after one. I switched on the radio. Once again I’d missed the news. Behind me a horn blasted. I looked up. The lights were on green. I lifted a hand in acknowledgement, turned into Yew Tree Road and headed towards Aigburth Road and Grassendale.
And what I couldn’t get out of my mind as I drove to collect Calum Wick for the journey to my home and workshop in Wales was the mystery of the scruffy man I’d dropped off in the lane behind the house he’d said was his, and the police car waiting patiently at the front.
Joe had said the patio doors were open, and he was expected. There was one obvious question I hadn’t bothered to ask.
TWO
By nine the next morning rain had given way to sunshine and, as I walked under the oak tree and down the yard to my workshop, the high mists were clearing like strands of windswept cotton torn from the peaks of Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach. Autumn was closing in. The clear air was cool and larded with the rank smell of damp vegetation, the swollen waters of Afon Ogwen were rushing across shiny black rocks under the stone bridge and the undergrowth on the slope down to the river was already thinning and taking on the colour of wet straw. A Land Rover trailed blue smoke down the main road towards Bethesda, the rattle of its engine carrying in the morning stillness. A green car was crowding it from behind, waiting for the chance to overtake that I knew would never come.
The workshop’s doors were wide open. I stepped inside to be met by a wave of heat from the melting pot, the dull whine of the centrifugal casting machine as it slowed
and stopped, the gratifying sight of gleaming tin-alloy military figures in ranks on the rough wooden shelves.
Immensely satisfied with the empire called Magna Carta that was my creation, I turned to the tall figure of Calum Wick. He was looking at me with amused speculation. The lenses of his wire-framed glasses were filmed with the talcum powder he was using to dust the inside of another black rubber mould. His hair was dishevelled, the wiry salt-and-pepper beard jutting as he used his chin to point.
‘I take it you saw Willie Vine’s car tootling down the road?’
‘Tootling?’ I grinned. ‘I saw a green car.’
‘Aye, well, in about three minutes’ time you’ll be getting a close up of a well known rusting Mondeo.’
‘Vine’s in Liverpool and you’re hallucinating.’
‘Maybe – but I’ve good cause because you never did get around to telling me what happened last night.’
‘Fat chance. You snored all the way here.’
‘So? Are you going to tell me?’
I walked over to watch him as he took the metal-filled mould out of the casting machine and set it aside to cool before removing the new figures. He put the two halves of the next talc-dusted mould together like a circular sandwich without a filling, placed it on the casting machine’s turntable and dropped the heavy metal plate on top. He stood holding the hinged lid, not closing it. He was watching me and waiting.
‘So nothing,’ I said. ‘I went to the Sleepy Pussy, the new client didn’t turn up, I left. That’s it.’
‘Pull the other one,’ Wick said, and lowered the round metal lid. ‘If I know you, that’s just a wee part of it.’
The machine started with a whine, reached the selected speed and settled to a high-pitched drone. Calum dipped an iron ladle into the melting pot, poured molten tin alloy through the central hole in the lid, bent over to squint inside. He nodded his satisfaction. The machine continued to spin. Then he lifted the lid, the power cut off and the machine slowed and stopped.
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