Cart Before The Hearse (David Mallin Detective Book 14)

by Roger Ormerod

  But I checked for him, as Toombs had requested, and there was one last shot in the gun I held. It took the pistol and one finger from his hand, and sat him down, howling, against the wall.

  George raised his hand for a chop, intending to put him out. I stopped him, and bent down.

  “Wally,” I said. “We want him.”

  He was sullen. “I told you, I was looking…”

  “But that was a gag,” I reminded him. “The truth please, or George’ll jump on your hand.”

  George grinned, and nodded down at him. The ruddiness had gone from Toombs’s face. He gulped.

  “The roof. You’ll never be in time.”

  I looked at George. “Helicopter,” I said.

  “Oh no,” put in Toombs, stopping us almost in full flight. “You don’t understand Wally. A weak character. I’ve met’em in India. He’s gone up there to throw himself off. I knew he wouldn’t last long, not with his Mia dead.”

  I stared at him. The voice had been rational. I wasn’t understanding Toombs, either. But we couldn’t waste any more time.

  “The roof,” I shouted, and we dashed out into the corridor, and blast Toombs, but he’d been telling one truth at least. Niki’s body was sitting in the corridor, her back against the wall. The knotted tights had been decently hidden with a green silk scarf, skilfully chosen to match her sheath dress.

  “Come on, George!”

  We ran one way, and found only a comer leading into the long, rear corridor. We turned and ran the other, and found a straight staircase leading only upwards. Now we were more silent, steadying our pace so as not to startle Wally, if Wally was still there to startle.

  The stairs opened by way of one of those little huts, through a door onto the flat roof. It was the only break in its flat surface, so that we wasted no time searching around.

  There was Wally, at the far end, standing on the two foot high parapet. For one moment we hesitated, instinctively separating. And then it was clear that Wally was not intending to throw himself down into the lake. No such sordid idea had entered his head. He had a large cardboard box beside him on the parapet, and he was emptying it, two handfuls at a time, of all the amphetamines, barbs, speed, hash and heroin he had, tossing it into the wind, to be carried down to the water below.

  Wally was covering his bets. Shooting had broken out, he would claim innocently, and he knew nothing about it. Drugs? What drugs? And yet here on his premises, and probably in that filthy room we had discovered, I now guessed, he had packaged his poison for delivery, doctored his heroin, rolled his bloody reefers.

  “Stand very still, Wally,” I said, and we walked towards him. Or rather, we waded, the drainage not being too good, so that there were two inches of water on that roof.

  He was very still. Rigid. A handful remained poised. We halted, one each side of him, our artillery accurately aimed. He turned, his back now to the lake. I saw that there was an eighty foot fall to the water behind him.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” I said.

  “Let’s just shove him over,” said George in disgust.

  “There’s time for that.”

  I looked with interest at Wally. He had been our enigma, and I had never been quite certain what part he had played. Certainly he had played a part. He was doing it again, the bit about the cowed, cringing villain, facing the crashing of his kingdom, and pitifully searching our faces for any sign of compassion. On George’s he would see nothing encouraging, because Niki’s body was too close. On mine, I hoped, he’d detect a stem regard for the truth.

  “It’s the matter of the gun,” I told him. “The gun that didn’t fire.”

  The moisture running down his face was not sweat; it was rain. His mouth was not flexed in a smile; it was a grin, like a death’s head.

  “I want to sit down.”

  “Then sit. On the parapet. That’s it. The gun, Wally, the gun you stuck in Flossie's face. You cursed at him, because you’d just realised you’d given Mia an overdose of heroin. That was why you were so mad, you told us, because that was his final twist of the screw. You were furious. You were going to kill him there and then. And the gun didn’t fire. You said that. You claimed he’d put blanks in. You suggested he’d found the gun — because how could he have missed it? — and put blanks in, or dud cartridges.”

  He hissed between his teeth, shaking his head. “Bastard!” he kept saying. I hoped he meant Flossie.

  “But they weren’t dud, Wally. We found the gun, and it was full of very good shells. Stop shaking your head, damn you, and listen. It would have fired. The only reason it didn’t was that you failed to pull the trigger. That must be the only reason.”

  “You’re lying,” he shot at me with sudden and furious sincerity.

  “But, as I said, Flossie wouldn’t have missed that gun — whatever happened. So… he left you a fully-loaded Russian pistol, when he knew you’d be rushing out widi murder on your mind. Can you imagine why he’d do that?”

  “He said…”

  “Yes, I know, he’d told you it would have duds in. But he was Flossie, and he was playing with you.”

  He snarled. “He didn’t say dial.”

  “Flossie told him, Dave?”

  “Yes, George. Listen, will you. Wally, there was something else you did. Part of the scene. You threw the couple of other sachets of heroin in his face, and they fell inside the car. And when we checked…”

  George nodded, noting my collective noun.

  “… we found it was pure heroin, Wally.”

  “I told you,” he said frantically. “I knew, as soon as Fd given it to her.”

  “Oh Wally,” I said, shaking my head solemnly, finding some last morsel of sympathy for him. “He played with you. Pure heroin, Wally. Where the hell would he get the stuff? Oh sure, they had the odd pick-ups, but that was the pushers, and it’d always be the cut stuff. Flossie never got to the main supplier. That was what he always said he wanted, to haul in the big man. That was you, was it, Wally? Is that what you’d got in the box — raw heroin?”

  “No, no,” he protested wildly.

  “Then you ought to thank us for stopping you before you dumped all the evidence. You mean, Flossie didn’t pick up that raw stuff here, at the club?”

  “Of course he didn’t…” He stopped.

  “Yet he had it. He left it for you to find in the flat. I wonder where he got raw heroin! And I wonder why he was so confident you wouldn’t shoot him! That was why he laughed in your face, Wally. Because he knew you hadn’t got the guts to shoot your big boss. Flossie was the big man.”

  “You’re sure of this, Dave?”

  “I can’t prove it, but it fits what we know. Darn it, George, Flossie’s personality tells us the truth. He was all bluff. His screaming car, shouting out that he was Flossie, the terror, the scourge. And yet, quietly, he could go undercover and be the silent, elusive Flossie. The bluff and the counter-bluff. And above all, and I think this was the centre pivot of all he ever did, was this psychotic obsession with the effeminate connotations of his name. Flossie. And PUF. I think he went half-crazy, proving he was tough and fearless. And half of his craziness was a rejection of a lifetime of law-enforcing. The other half was the deliberate operation of a drugs importing racket, which he wildly claimed to be trying to crush.”

  “I get it, Dave. He grew up fighting the stigma of Flossie…”

  “And he had to prove he wasn’t, mainly to himself.”

  “So that it became an obsession to never be what he seemed, and never do what was expected…”

  “And never,” I said, “let on what was in his mind. You poor fool, Wally, he laid it on for you, and all the time he was laughing behind your back.”

  He stared from one to the other of us. Perhaps he’d thought we’d forgotten him, but I’d got him back into it, and he wasn’t happy.

  “I didn’t want her to die,” he whispered, licking the rain from his lips.

  “Of course you didn’t,” I agreed
. “I’m going to go along with that, the fact that you loved Mia. But if so, why did you agree to allow him to torture her? Yes!” I shouted. “You’d know. He’d have to tell you what he was laying on, such as Sergeant Fyne preventing Mia from getting any drugs. You agreed to that, knowing what it would mean to her.”

  “He said… said he’d withhold my supply. I’d be finished.”

  “Oh… lovely. I withdraw what I said. Your feelings for Mia must’ve been a bit empty.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “You make me sick,” said George, putting a hand against Wally’s chest.

  Wally screamed, and I said: “Not now, George. He wants to hear what we know.”

  The rain still streamed down, caught by the wind up there to a shallow angle. The cold was eating through to my soul.

  “It was Fyne, Wally, who started it all. He’s too bright and too dedicated. And Fyne’s mate had been killed on the docks. More than likely Flossie did that, or had it done, but it meant that Flossie found himself working with Fyne, and that couldn’t have been too comfortable. Fyne was going to see through him in the end, and Flossie knew it. I think Fyne was becoming suspicious, and then he saw a sachet of heroin in Flossie’s car, and Flossie hadn’t told him anything about it. And here — the club — was the perfect centre for drug addicts, and Flossie was only fooling around with the case. So Flossie laid on a scene for his sergeant, something that’d convince him that he’d go to any lengths to break you, Wally, even to the point of bringing about the girl’s death. Though maybe that wasn’t intended, because after all the ambulance was called out, and you didn’t do that, did you?”

  “I did!” he croaked. “I did do it. I had to search for a phone box — ”

  “All right.” But it had shaken my confidence a little. “The fact remains that you disappeared with Flossie for three whole days, pretending you were being held forcibly, when all the time you and he were sitting quietly and amicably, guzzling whisky and watching the tele.”

  “I never touch whisky!”

  “And all the rest was arranged — Poole, because fie was bogged-down by Flossie's personality, to fetch Mia home; you to drag her from there and back to the fiat, you to find the heroin, and you to dash out and pretend he’d fooled you with it. Then, you see, Fyne would accept that Flossie had pushed you to the limit, even way beyond the law, and you hadn’t cracked. His suspicions, if any, of Flossie would fade, and also, as a bonus, Fyne would be convinced that you really knew nothing useful.”

  “Nobody could be such a slob,” George protested.

  “You mean Flossie?”

  “No, this bugger here. It’d work as far as Fync was concerned, particularly as he was involved in it himself. Oh yes, I can see that Fyne’d finish up hating the very guts of Flossie. But that wasn’t going to be any worry. But you see, Dave, Mia would have to be given an overdose, otherwise Fyne wouldn’t accept that this rotten bastard here had been pushed to the limit. It would have to seem that the creep had been conned into giving her an overdose. It wouldn’t work unless he did. Blast it, Dave, this filthy swine must have known he was shooting her full of poison. Jesus Christ…”

  Wally screamed and put up his hands. George could barely restrain himself.

  “Flossie was playing with him,” I said. “He knew Wally trusted him, and he wanted the genuine anger for Poole to witness. But… the gun, George. That was a beautiful touch. He’d tell Wally to pretend to try to fire it, and apparently discover it was useless. He was banking everything — his life even — on the fact that Wally would do exactly that, even though, now, it wasn't an act any more. Poor Wally, who had to be furious when he discovered that he’d loaded his precious Mia with poison, when all the time he must have realised, perhaps subconsciously, that it would have to be that way… poor Wally, he must have been confused and furious, and even then Flossie could laugh in his face. That took some doing. It shows how much Flossie relied on the strength of his personality. But when the gun was found, as Flossie intended it should be, it’d be capable of firing at the touch of a finger. Then imagine Fyne’s reaction. He’d hate Flossie, believing he’d used Mia to pressure Wally, but somewhere behind it would be admiration for Flossie’s guts and determination. If it’s worked out, he’d have had Fyne in the palm of his hand. What a pity he died.”

  “A pity!” George shouted.

  “A pity he’s not left for you, George. Now ail you’ve got is this lump of garbage.” I looked from George to the nearly empty and soggy cardboard box. “I’ll take the box.”

  At that time we each had a pistol in our right hands, George the Magnum and me Wally’s .32 Walther. Wally must have realised that the future wasn’t very promising for him, and I was just about to pocket my weapon in order to handle the box when I realised that George was advancing on Wally. Sometimes, George is beyond control, and then he’s too big for me to handle.

  Wally screamed, and then a woman’s voice cut through it calmly.

  “Stand away from him.”

  We turned. Pat was lying with her top half projecting from the doorway. How she had managed the hazardous journey I couldn’t imagine. I didn’t know how long she had been there, but the struggle, over the bar counter and up the two flights of stairs, had taxed her severely. Her voice had been clipped, and Fyne’s big Colt was unsteady in her hands. She had picked it up on the way.

  As I recalled it, there was only one shot left, but I hadn’t told George that. He lifted his head, peering under his heavy brows at her.

  “You,” she said. “Fatty. Drop that gun and stand to one side.”

  He glanced at me. “Do it, fatty,” I advised him. He did it. I was about to move in the opposite direction.

  “No…” Her voice was slurred. “Give Wally his pistol. Give… it… to… him.”

  The Colt wavered, but she had it in a quite professional two-handed grip, and behind it she presented a minimal target.

  I was reluctant to do it. A glance at Wally confirmed what I had guessed. His smile was there again. Shining out.

  “Do it!”

  Slowly I held out the gun to him, aware that I’d probably be his first target.

  “Stand to one side, Dave” said Pat with difficulty.

  Then I knew what she was doing. I moved slowly. The only light up there was coming from the well of the stairway behind her, blushing the flesh of her bare shoulders and ringing her disordered hair, catching dark shadows where Carl’s blood had dried.

  She couldn’t continue to support that heavy pistol much longer. The voice was harsh when she spoke directly to Wally.

  “Fire the thing, Wally, blast… you!”

  She had only one, whereas Wally had a nearly full clip. I glanced sideways at Wally. The smile had gone sour and sweat stood out on him. I remembered his surprising technique with karate. With his hand casually resting on his knee, he displayed his equal ability with a gun.

  The flash caught his face in a wet smile, and a red score appeared along Pat’s beautiful shoulder. She jerked, and he fired again, but this time wildly, because a black hole had appeared between his eyes. A gun like the Colt throws a heavy bullet, and he went over backwards, down to the lake.

  I ran towards her. For all I knew she’d managed to o re-load the whole cylinder. But there was no trouble. She was unconscious.

  Chapter Ten

  George took Pat, because she was the heavier, and I carried Niki. We left the box on the roof in the rain, for Fyne, when he got round to it. The building seemed to be clothed in grand silence. The only sound was from the car park, the revving of revived engines, and the disappearing roar of de-camping thugs.

  Toombs was still sitting in the bar tenders’ rest room. The spirit had gone from him. We herded him in front of us down the spiral staircase, and out onto the rotating bar.

  It was no longer moving. At first I thought that somebody had found the switch, but when I scrambled over the bar I saw that something had wedged itself between one of
the fixed stools and a comer of the gambling hall, where the passage began to the dining hall. I bent and looked. All I could recognise of humanity was a mangled ear.

  George had Pat Montague sitting on the counter, and was coaxing her to drink brandy. Not perhaps the best thing with a wound along your shoulder. He was staunching the wound with a bar towel.

  “Carl’s dead,” I told him.

  Pat thrust away the brandy glass. “Served him right. He killed Niki.”

  “You know that?”

  She winced, and flashed a quick, angry glance at George. “He was proud of it.”

  “You do believe in retribution, don’t you!”

  “I believe in justice.”

  “Justice may not let you get away with killing Wally. It’ll be a fine point of law… whether you fired in self-defence, when you forced him to it.”

  “I think not.”

  All the smooth, inflexible polish had slipped from her features. She was a fierce, bristling cat.

  “Where’s Poole?” said George.

  “I think he got hit,” I told him.

  Then Sergeant Fyne came from one of the phone cubicles beneath the shadows of the balcony. One arm was limp, but he walked with his shoulders back.

  “They’ll be here in a few minutes.” He looked about him. “Not much to pick up now, though. You all right, Montague?”

  “I’ll live,” said Pat.

  It held me for a second, the thought, then I remembered Poole, and went to investigate. This wasn’t too easy, as the bar wasn’t rotating any more and we were in the wrong half of the building. But a circuit of doors did it.

  The Renault looked as though it was going to be a writeoff, as there wasn’t much of the bodywork un-dented. I had to fight open the rear door. Gregory Poole had passed out, his experience with Connolly having been supplemented by a bullet through the shoulder. I shouted for help, and George appeared at my elbow.

  While we wrestled to extract Poole, without too much distress, while our heads were together, I whispered: