Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

  There was for instance the question of his linguistic ability. In fact, he had an excellent ear for languages and could speak good colloquial Spanish, but he saw no reason to let people know that he’d got beyond basic tourist level – not even when the people happened to be his ‘niece’ and her friend, Chiquillo, and certainly not when they happened to be Jorge Casaravilla and Luis Romea.

  Hearing what people said, when they didn’t think it mattered you could hear, was a very useful aid in helping a man spin out his good fairy’s gift of luck.

  So he knew for certain what Kelly had guessed, that the two Cojos had no more intention of letting him walk away with the bag of coke than he had of joining the Orange Order.

  It was simply a question of when and where they decided to get rid of him. Jorge would have shot him at the CP in front of the women, no problem, but Luis had argued that it was better if he simply disappeared, no witnesses, no body. Then no one could contradict their report that he’d taken off with the grip, and there’d be no question of sharing the money from the drugs with any of the innumerable manazas or big hands reaching out of the murky swirl of political protection surrounding the Cojos.

  It was good reasoning and Jorge had been persuaded. But Popeye had a feeling that Luis, though no doubt ruthless enough in a good cause, i.e. his own profit and protection, lacked Jorge’s total indifference to, bordering on positive enthusiasm for, the use of violence as a first resort. He guessed that if he took the chance now of having a quiet word with the man and saying, ‘Look, I’ve been thinking, and on the whole, I reckon I’d be better off out of this, so what I’m going to do is help myself to one of the women’s cars and take off into the night and you and Jorge can do what you like with the gear back there, OK?’ he wouldn’t get an argument.

  On the other hand, he would be going home empty-handed when what he wanted to be going home with was his pension fund. This kind of stuff was very wearing and he’d been at it far too long now and he felt he deserved a few years in the sun some place where all the colours green and orange meant was leaves and fruit on the trees in his garden.

  So, a quiet word with Luis or not? In fact, just at the moment it wasn’t a real choice as the storm raging around them made any kind of word, quiet or noisy, a waste of breath. The only good thing was that the gale was at their backs, blowing them inland, like a pair of skiffs caught too far out at sea by a sudden tempest and driven landwards at such a speed and with such a lack of control the oarsmen do not know if the breakers ahead marking the shore signal their salvation or their grave.

  Not a comfortable thought for a good Catholic boy to be having, especially a good Catholic boy who hadn’t been to Mass for longer than a good Catholic boy in his line of work ought to regard as sensible.

  The storm wasn’t just affecting the way he was thinking, it seemed to have had a strange transmogrifying effect on the terrain they were crossing, changing it from the overgrown and extensive but nonetheless conventional garden they’d passed over not all that long ago to something more like an Amazonian jungle. Suddenly he recalled the Englishwoman, the policeman’s wife, the one who’d taken a leak on the terrace, saying something about her little daughter being loose in this. He hoped to heaven the child had found shelter. Her mother must be worried sick. On the other hand, if she was a sensible woman, and she looked pretty sensible, she’d have the wit to work out that the little girl was a sight better off out here in the rain than in there in the warm with mad, bad, dangerous Jorge who was definitely one Ave short of a Rosary.

  Through the driving rain and the surging shrubbery he glimpsed lights ahead and his heart hiccoughed in shock till he realized they must be the lights of the house. The women had been having a good time there, eating, drinking, laughing at the unimaginable kind of things women probably laughed at when left to themselves, then Jorge had come sweeping in like Cromwell and his Ironsides at Drogheda, and the laughter had to stop. There’d been a fine smell of cooking about the place and the memory made Popeye realize that he was extremely hungry. Maybe there’d be something left of the feast for them to forage. He plucked at Luis’s sleeve and gestured first at his mouth then towards the house, but the Colombian shook his head and forked off right towards the outbuildings where they’d parked the Merc and the truck.

  Shaking his head at this new evidence of Latin stupidity, Popeye followed. Thick sandwich washed down by a mug of coffee liberally laced with whiskey (or even whisky) would armour a man against this terrible night, surely even Luis must feel that? Could the poor bastard be so terrified of Jorge that he didn’t dare to deviate even slightly from his orders?

  Still grumbling to himself, he followed the other into the ruined barn where the truck was hidden and was still so absorbed in his grumble that it took him a long moment to realize that his question had just been answered. What Jorge decreed was law.

  Luis was standing by the truck with his automatic pointed straight at Popeye’s head.

  ‘Ah, come on now,’ said the Irishman. ‘This is a joke, isn’t it? Don’t muck about, let’s get the truck down to the pavilion.’

  ‘Stand still!’ commanded the Cojo.

  ‘I’m standing, I’m standing. Listen, if this is about the coke, forget it. I was going to suggest anyway, why don’t I just take myself one of the women’s cars and head out of here? That’s all I want really. I wouldn’t be here at all in the first place if Jorge hadn’t come looking for me and twisted my arm, you know that. I’m just a plain businessman, win some, lose some, cut your losses. I’d written the coke off as a bad deal till Jorge found me. He’s a persuasive fellow, that one, but that doesn’t mean he’s always right. So what do you say? Close your eyes for a minute and I’m gone. You can tell the man I ran off into the night, and to be sure, isn’t it a hell of a good night to be running off into?’

  He was getting to him, he could see that. He’d been right about Luis. Takes a one to know a one, and like himself the man was no natural born killer. He too had probably got into his line of business by chance and drift and a readiness to take the nearest way when no road led him anywhere he passionately longed to be.

  He smiled almost affectionately at the man and thought he saw the beginnings of a response dawning in his eyes and on his lips.

  Then there was a sound like a cough which someone couldn’t quite suppress in church during the holy silence at the Elevation of the Host, and it was as if dawn’s rosy fingers touched the Colombian’s chest and poked right through to his heart.

  He actually seemed to smile, or perhaps it was just a mortal rictus, then he let out a deep sigh, and Luis Romea, whose father ran cattle and bred fine horses on the llanos close where the Orinoco flings its wide curve towards the distant Atlantic, and who dreamt of wearing the gay tunic and bright braid of an army officer till consumption touched his left lung, leaving him ready prey for recruitment into the Cojos because this seemed to a young man just another branch of the public service he yearned for, but whose service later brought him many sleepless nights when he lay with damp and open eyes, remembering a young boy on a palomino pony making imaginary cavalry charges across the high grassy plains to bring relief and justice to long-sieged cities – this Luis Romea, who might have been a good man, heard his pony neigh somewhere near, and closed his eyes, and died.

  Popeye Ducannon span round and looked at the slightly built, thinly moustached figure who stood framed in the square of the hayloft loading window above him and cried, ‘Is it you then? I knew you must be near. Why the hell did you do that? I was getting to him!’

  ‘Too long, you took. Besides, it is one less. Come now, for there are others nigh. Come away. Come away.’

  With a last regretful look at the crumpled figure lying in front of the truck, Popeye scrambled up a pile of rubble and, following his rescuer through the gap, lowered himself into the turbulent darkness without.

  Two minutes later, united for once in impatience, the small party laying siege to the barn decided to investig
ate.

  Sempernel’s operatives, Cynthia and Jacobs, came first, crouching in the doorway and sending their torch-beams prying into the darkest corners.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jacobs when he spotted the body. ‘Cover me.’

  A moment later Cynthia came out and said to the trio pressed hard against the outer wall, ‘All clear. One dead. Romea. No sign of Ducannon.’

  If it is a mark of greatness to be able to react to any eventuality as if it were both expected and welcome, then Sempernel was great.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, striding into the barn and looking down at the shot man. ‘A falling-out among thieves. This suits us admirably.’

  Pascoe shook his head in mingled fury and wonder.

  ‘This suits us admirably?’ he parodied. ‘Would you care to parse that? No, don’t bother. Andy, we’ve got a wounded officer, Ellie’s a hostage, and now we’ve got a dead body. Isn’t it time we stopped letting this fucking idiot call the shots and took control?’

  He doesn’t mean we, thought Andy Dalziel, recognizing the desperate fear in the younger man’s voice. He means me. He wants me to pull a sodding rabbit out of the hat. Only I’ve looked in my hat and there’s nowt there but sodding rabbit shit.

  If this hadn’t been personal, if Ellie hadn’t been one of the women imprisoned in the pavilion, he’d probably have said, ‘Listen, lad, it were you who skived off to go on that hostage-negotiating course, you’re the sodding expert here, why don’t you read your notes and tell us what we ought to do now?’

  But sarcasm wasn’t an option. He knew what he ought to do. He ought to get through to Mid-Yorkshire Control and ask for every Armed Response Unit within hailing distance to be dispatched hell for leather out to Gunnery House. That would keep his nose clean whatever happened. But as a lad, to his mother’s vast irritation, he’d never seen much point to using a handkerchief when his gansey sleeve was so much more handy.

  He stopped, picked up the dead man’s baseball cap and tried to fit it on his head where it lay like a tea cosy on Ben Nevis.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘They’re obviously expecting a truck. Let’s take them a truck. Jump in the back all them as is coming.’

  ‘Superintendent, this is stupid,’ said Sempernel at his most commanding. ‘I absolutely forbid it.’

  ‘What’re you going to do? Shoot me? Pete, you coming?’

  ‘Not in the back,’ said Pascoe, plucking the cap from the Fat Man’s head. ‘Anyone sees me in the cab might just about take me for this guy. You’ve not got the figure for it. Sorry.’

  He didn’t wait for a reply, but climbed into the cab, and Dalziel didn’t try to offer an argument but lowered the tailgate and scrambled in with surprising agility.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Any more for the Skylark?’

  The two security operatives looked at their leader, who once again displayed his capacity to ride the wind even when it was blowing a gale.

  Smiling benevolently, Sempernel said, ‘Looks like you’re calling the shots, Superintendent. Come on, you two. Give me a hand here, will you?’

  And pushed from behind by his underlings, and pulled from above by Dalziel, Gawain Sempernel mounted with some difficulty and prepared to ride forth to do battle.

  xvii

  a formal complaint

  Ellie’s nose was split, not broken, as Feenie established by taking a firm hold of its bridge and waggling it around.

  ‘Je-sus!’ exclaimed Ellie. What a break would feel like if this wasn’t one, she didn’t care to imagine.

  She accepted the offer of a smudge of Mrs Stonelady’s yarrow ointment because it seemed silly to miss the chance of being anointed with the same salve that had, allegedly, done such good service under the walls of Troy, though from her memory of the flesh-ripping, bone-shattering, gut-spilling injuries described by Homer, the sight of Achilles approaching with a small jar of gunge can’t have been all that reassuring.

  It had a pungent peppery smell (good, her nose was still functioning) and stung a little at first, but quickly established a mild local anaesthetic effect.

  As these ministrations were taking place, part of her mind was glad of the distraction from the pictures another part was running of what might be happening to Kelly, and her ears still strained for the sound of screams, but no sound came, or at least nothing loud enough to penetrate the din of the storm which was now beating its giant fists unrelentingly against the plate-glass window.

  She couldn’t take any comfort from the absence of cries. Maybe Jorge had taken Kelly down to the cellar, or simply gagged her, though this would be a bit counterproductive if he was attempting to get information out of her about the disappeared Chiquillo.

  ‘What are we going to do about Kelly?’ she whispered to Feenie as the old woman examined her dressing critically.

  ‘Whatever we can,’ said Feenie, glancing significantly towards Little Ajax, who had seated himself on the single rickety chair which spread its legs under his bulk, like a weightlifter taking the strain. ‘And preferably without any more amateur heroics, please.’

  For a second, Ellie’s pain was blanked by angry resentment. Not to be backed up in her gesture of defiance was bad enough, but to be rebuked for it was past bearing.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she hissed. ‘We can’t just sit here…’

  ‘Yes, we can,’ said Feenie. ‘We can sit and look defeated. Let our friend there get used to the idea that as a group we offer no threat, then it will be even harder for him to imagine that any single part of the group can be remotely dangerous.’

  This sounded like total defeatism to Ellie. She wanted to reply angrily, then pulled herself up. Feenie was very old. She looked at her now and for the first time saw just how old. She’d got so used to seeing her as the energetic embodiment of positive action against the world’s injustices that to adjust the focus and glimpse the ancient bag lady that others saw was a disjunctive shock. Worse, that lined and sunken face was now smeared with tears and her whole body seemed to be caving in, like a worked-out mine with the tunnel props decayed or removed.

  Wendy Woolley put a protective arm around her and pressed the ancient head against her shoulder, glaring accusingly at Ellie, then murmuring comforting words in the old woman’s ear. After a while Feenie whispered something back in tones too low and broken for Ellie to catch, then Wendy looked towards Little Ajax, raised her free hand in the schoolroom manner Ellie had noticed before, and murmured, ‘Excuse me.’

  Either he didn’t catch it or, like a sadistic teacher, preferred to ignore it, sitting on his chair of authority, looking straight ahead.

  She repeated slightly louder, ‘Excuse me. Please.’

  Now she had his attention. They knew this because the pistol dangling from his hand came up to cover them.

  Wendy said, ‘Miss Macallum needs to go to the toilet.’

  Little Ajax stared at her blankly. Was he foreign? Alien? Or just thick? wondered Ellie.

  Wendy went into the English middle-class speech mode which does for any or all of the three.

  Speaking very loudly and distinctly she said, ‘Old lady want toilet. You understand toilet? To relieve herself. Pee-pee. Understand pee-pee?’

  Little Ajax shook his head, whether to indicate he didn’t understand pee-pee or didn’t give a toss wasn’t clear.

  Wendy slowly rose, lifting the almost strengthless figure of the old woman with her.

  ‘Toilet,’ she said firmly, pointing to the door. ‘Pee-pee.’

  Now Little Ajax understood something and didn’t much care for it. Angrily, he shook his head and the gun started waving with increased menace.

  ‘It is necessary,’ declared Wendy, beginning to move forward.

  To Ellie’s eyes, the man seriously considered shooting her but finally compromised by putting his impassable bulk between the advancing couple and the door.

  Wendy urged the old lady another step forward, paused, studied the gun which was now aimed unwaveringly at her chest, and said, �
��All right. But she must go. Over there in the corner then.’

  As she spoke she did a little mime which managed to be at the same time explicit and as delicate as the circumstances permitted.

  Oh God, thought Ellie, recalling her own experience on the terrace. What indignities our bodies put us to.

  It was hard to read any emotion on Little Ajax’s face other than the aggressive menace for which it seemed specially cast, but a look of which might have been relief at the reaching of an acceptable compromise touched his eyes as he nodded agreement.

  Wendy led Feenie to the corner by the window furthest away from the sitting group. Feenie squatted down, gesturing Wendy away with a last pathetic attempt to preserve some of her dignity. Wendy came back towards the group, stopping as she passed the guard and angrily indicating that he shouldn’t watch with another mime, this time shielding her eyes. Almost shamefaced, Little Ajax averted his gaze.

  Wendy walked on another pace, then halted again and swung round to face him, her body stiff with indignation.

  ‘I just want to tell you that this outrageous behaviour will not go unreported,’ she said. ‘I shall take the first opportunity offered me to write to my MP and make a formal complaint on behalf of Miss Macallum and the rest of us. You may rest assured that any further inconvenience which may be visited upon us will be added to the already lengthy list of matters for redress. Do you understand me, my man?’

  Was the woman stark staring mad? wondered Ellie. Her own heroics might have been futile but this was positively surreal!

  Then she saw what she hadn’t noticed at first because all her attention was focused on Wendy.