Cart Before The Hearse (David Mallin Detective Book 14)

by Roger Ormerod

“Did you hear what he called her, George?”

  “Montague.”

  “Which is how a sergeant would address a woman constable. Do you realise what that means?”

  He cradled Poole’s head tenderly. “That she was here undercover,” he said negligently.

  “She was here as a prostitute! Damn it, I’ve heard of some way-out covers, but this is the wildest — ”

  “She found her vocation,” he comforted me. “They’ll never get her back on the beat.”

  “She’ll be on the beat.”

  “Ha!” He was disgusted. “Don’t break his other arm.” If it were true, then it had been Flossie’s most magnificent bluff. He had planted Pat in The Penguin, and had no doubt informed Wally accordingly. Then, to top it, he’d claimed she was his girl, had put her name on his windscreen, had almost shouted to the world that she was his colleague. And so — no one would accept it. Even Wally would only half accept Flossie’s claim that she was a detective constable. He would watch her, though, and keep from her all the most incriminating secrets, whilst Flossie would use her, not as a police spy, but as his personal spy, keeping tabs on Wally for him, in case he strayed to another supplier.

  “I’ve got to have words with Fyne,” I said, easing the bottom half of Poole onto the steps.

  While we sat and waited for the ambulance and police cars, I told Fyne what I’d worked out regarding Flossie being the big man. He didn’t look surprised, but his face became hard and stiff as I came towards the end.

  “I guessed,” he said. “There was something I couldn’t quite tie down. But now… a dozen little things fall into place. I’m glad he’s dead. You can’t spend three days with a young woman, in the way I did with Mia, without becoming very close. I’m glad he’s dead. Yes.”

  He looked at his cigarette, and threw it from him.

  “So perhaps you know of the double-bluff he was pulling with WPC Montague?”

  He looked at me sharply. “You know about her?”

  “You’d hardly have let her have your gun, unless you could trust her.”

  “Of course I can trust her. We’re going to be married. She was my girl, not Flossie’s.”

  “Oh.”

  “What d’you mean by that?”

  “Only… well, it seems a bit much… your own girl here as… chief hostess, I think she called it.”

  His eyes were like glass. I put it down to the pain in his arm. “Go on.”

  “Well, she’d have to take men up to her room, to keep up the cover. Think how that must have amused Wally, knowing that she was really a policewoman.” Fyne was cold and still. I went on: “God, you’re a bitter man, Fyne, subjecting her to that. Your own girl!” No response. I was determined to shake him. “Unless, of course, she really enjoyed her work.”

  “It has cost the department a fortune,” he said, his teeth barely parting. “A stream of men, carefully chosen, all plainclothes operatives pretending to be clients. We had to hand over the cash. You can sec that, surely! And Wally got his percentage. But they were our men. Every one. Never once… not once, damn you… did she take anyone else to her room.”

  “I see.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Just — well, I was thinking I’d have volunteered for that job myself. Fyne, are you sure they only passed on through the room? Eh?” I grinned at him.

  He leaned forward and poked me with his good finger. “One man, friend, didn’t pass on through. Me. I took my turn — it was only fair. But I tell you…”

  “Did you have to pay?”

  “Damn you!”

  I laughed. “I know… she loves you. What a beautiful thing it is.”

  I had struck a chord. He smiled placidly at Pat, who was now on one of the bar stools. At that time she was not a beautiful thing, with a sodden bar towel across her shoulders, dress torn and bloodstained, hair tangled with dried blood, and her face haggard with pain. But love is notoriously blind, and he smiled at her with fond confidence. Once more he was addicted.

  By that time George had had a good look at his car, and he was not happy. There would be awkward explanations to his insurance company, and how they’d get it back on dry land I couldn’t guess.

  “You’ll have to give us a lift,” I told Fyne.

  But it was clear that Fyne and Pat Montague would be travelling in the ambulance, along with Poole and Toombs. Which made it all a little crowded, because George and I went along with them. We had an assortment of bruises to show, if anybody questioned us.

  It gave George the opportunity to argue his way out of the difficulty over the gun.

  “Sorry I fired it,” he said, his big head hanging contritely. “But you’ll understand… I just had to see why Wally didn’t blow Flossie’s head off.”

  “Yeah.” Fyne was looking sick from reaction and shock. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, but it does.” George was earnest. “It really does, because I’ve buggered up the fingerprints.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t go on about it. It’s obvious that Connolly — ”

  “Oh no,” said George. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Fyne was impatient. He was in pain, and not in the mood. “But he took Flossie’s car. Why would he do that, unless he wanted to show…”

  I interrupted. “Wally told me he phoned the police. Did he?”

  “Yes, yes. We had that logged. But there’d been a radio call first. As you said, Flossie didn’t really want her to die.”

  “Hmm!” I said doubtfully, and George picked it up again.

  “Connolly didn’t take Flossie’s car. That’d assume he did a two hour drive in it back home, and stuck it in his garage. But when he came to drive it away from there, he couldn’t handle the gears. His Sceptre’s an automatic. He’d never driven a gearbox job. Damn it all, he bashed-in my car. In two hours, you’re telling me, he hadn’t learned to use the clutch and gearbox?”

  u I don’t know. Light me a cigarette.”

  I fished out my lighter. George had got his teeth into something.

  “It’d be natural for him to take his own car. The man’d been beaten insensible. He’d do the things that were habit.” “All right!” Fyne glared. “So he would, if he hadn’t killed Flossie.”

  “With the gun?”

  “What else?”

  “You see,” said George, producing it from one of his pockets, “it’s got blood on it. Flossie was clubbed to death, not shot. Go on, tell me that’s strange. It is strange.”

  “Why don’t you leave him alone!” said Pat angrily.

  “Because he’s got to get it right for his report, madame,” said George naughtily. “I’m saying that it’s strange that a fully-loaded automatic, with one up the spout, should’ve been used as a club. Why should anybody do that, unless he was convinced it wouldn’t fire? But poor Connolly was beaten unconscious by Wally, before Wally ran out with the gun, and he was still on the floor when Poole ran in later. Isn’t that so?” he asked Poole.

  But Poole was unconscious, and was at least out of the discussion.

  “So Connolly,” George went on, “could not have seen Wally’s little act with the gun. He wouldn’t know it apparently would not fire. And even if he’d known, he could not have seen where Wally threw it before driving off in Poole’s car.”

  Fyne stared at him in a mixture of agony and disbelief. “But you’re saying…”

  “I’m telling you that Connolly drove away in his own car. I’ve already said, it would be his natural act.”

  Fyne thought about it. Pat reached out and clutched his hand. Fyne at last spoke.

  “But that would have left only Flossie’s car. When I arrived, it was Connolly’s Sceptre that was there.”

  “Are you sure?” asked George, grinning.

  Quite frankly, in this, George had been ahead of me. I hadn’t seen where it was leading. But now I did. Flossie’s car was a Hunter Super, and Connolly’s a Humber Sceptre. Both Chrysler cars, and they’
d used almost the same bodies on both.

  “You flashed a torch on it,” I reminded Fync.

  “It wasn’t Flossie’s.”

  But it had been. Fyne was so conditioned to the Flossie car that he’d expected to see what he always did — the plastic strip decoration in yellow, red and black, the plastic tyre tread over the top, the flag, the FLO 551 E number plate. But how long would it have taken to strip the visible portions away? How long to remove the screen legend of FLORENCE AND PAT? (And later replace them backwards at PAT and FLORENCE). How long to take out the stickers and the pendant monkey from inside the rear screen? Two minutes? There was the number plate, of course, but there was also plenty of black and yellow adhesive strip. With a black on yellow number plate, he could use yellow strip to blank-out parts of black letters, and black strip to adapt other letters. It might’ve been a bit crude, but it5d be good enough to deceive a quick look, and there was no reason why anybody would make a closer examination. So FLO 551 E could become LEU 854 H, or some such variation. All in, perhaps, another couple of minutes, because there would only be the rear plate to worry about.

  George explained. He chose a conversion to a different number, EFO 351 L, but the principle was the same.

  “But it must have been changed back,” Fyne pointed out.

  “Of course it was. But over that part of it he could take his time. He could take the car away from there and work in seclusion, or even do the job on the spot. It’s as near dammit deserted, up there. But, you see, it’s possible.”

  George beamed. He was proud of it.

  “I’ll give you that,” said Fyne reluctantly. “But the killing would have to be done by somebody who hated Flossie enough. There was Wally, but he’d left, and there was Connolly, but you’re now saying he had left. So who could hate him enough…”

  “There’s you, for instance.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Except for one thing,” George said comfortingly. “How far’ve we got, Dave?”

  But you can’t see much from ambulance windows. “Just hurry it up.”

  “One thing,” Fyne reminded him, a little anxiously, I thought.

  “The gun. You remember, I said that the odds are that Flossie was struck down with it, and that meant it had to be somebody who believed it wouldn’t fire. Didn’t even try to fire it, in fact. Now Wally, he hadn’t fired it, but only because it wasn’t in his script. So… for anybody else we’ve got to look for somebody who had seen where Wally threw it. And you, sergeant, although you might have hated Flossie enough, just could not have been there, even assuming you sneaked back, because you wouldn’t have let Mia die. So you’re out, I’m afraid.”

  Fyne grimaced. “But the only one…” He broke off, looking down at Poole. “The only one who saw it is also the only one who didn't hate Flossie. His only damned fan, that was Poole.”

  “Ah well… you see… that’s the point,” said George, running his hand down the back of his neck. “Motive. There’s been so much hatred of Fossie going around, and so much reason for it, that we’ve been automatically thinking on those lines. But Poole had an entirely different motive, if you think it out.”

  “Yeah, I get it!” said Fyne eagerly, then he flinched at the pain of his enthusiasm. “Flossie had worked it on Poole, too. He’d conned him, so that Poole’d seen him as a kind, thoughtful type, only concerned with Mia’s welfare. Poole’s gullible. He’d gone along with it. Flossie had probably told him that Mia would be completely cured after all this. But he wouldn’t have told him that the plan included an overdose of heroin. All Flossie needed Poole for was a witness.”

  We stared down at Poole. Down in the depths of his unconsciousness he stirred uneasily.

  “Poor man,” murmured Pat.

  “He saw Wally dash out,” said George, picking it up again, “and the impression must have been that something had gone seriously wrong. Then he himself ran up to the flat, and what had gone wrong was that Mia was dying. What could be more wrong — when Flossie had probably told him that he’d cut the phone line as part of the pressure on Wally?”

  I snapped my fingers, wondering why it hadn’t occurred to me before. “And Poole — “

  But George cut in, determined to tell it himself. “And Poole already knew that the phone box down by the quarry was out of order, because he’d helped wreck the thing. So that the only reasonably quick method of getting help was Flossie’s car radio. Then imagine what’d go through his mind, after seeing Wally’s unsuccessful attempt to force Flossie into using the radio. But there was the gun, and even though it wouldn’t fire, it was a weapon, and a good one in the hands of a frantic man.”

  I was getting a clear mental image, now that George had cleared away the dross. It was the motive that’d fooled me; so many people around hating Flossie’s guts that the obvious motive was hatred. But Poole, dashing out of the flat, had only one thought in his mind… that car radio. And Flossie stood — or sat — between him and the radio. He’d whip up the gun. Flossie would see him do that, would stick his head out of the window for another of his contemptuous laughs, and discover he had laughed once too often. I could see Poole attacking him with a savagery which would take Flossie completely by surprise. A single vicious blow with the barrel of that heavy gun, or two, or three, and Flossie would be finished. Poole would jerk open the door, because there’d be no time even to run round to the other side, Flossie falling out at his feet, reach over to the radio, and make the emergency call…

  The ambulance drew to a halt, the rear doors were jerked open, and from then on our individual lives were completely subjugated to the orders of an army of men and women in white.

  George and I didn’t get further than Casualty, but the others disappeared to various operating theatres. Because of this, I didn’t lose sight of George the whole time. It was daylight when they allowed us to leave, and by that time we knew that all four, Fyne and Pat, Toombs, and Poole, were out of danger. I called for a taxi, intending to go directly to the motel.

  “And then what?” asked George.

  My wife would drive over in the Dolomite Sprint and take us home. “I’ll phone Elsa.”

  “I was wondering when we could go and have a look at the river,” he said casually.

  George does not usually have sentimental thoughts, and was not likely to want to consider the drifting water with sad memories.

  “What for?’ I asked suspiciously.

  “To get rid of the gun.”

  So it had been a sentimental thought, of a kind. The gun was the only tangible evidence against Poole.

  “But you can’t do that.”

  We were standing in the lobby. His face was quaintly decorated with plaster. One piece lifted its edge as he raised his eyebrows.

  “Don‘t see why not. I offered it to Fyne — you remember, just when things were getting chaotic in Casualty. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s forgotten whether or not he had it, when he’s conscious again. I could say he’d taken it. Things get mislaid in hospitals. Forceps and swabs and things.”

  “It’s hardly likely they’d sew a gun inside him.”

  He considered me with gentle concern. “You know what I mean, Dave.”

  “Sure I do, and it’s a nice thought. And you’d get away with it, I’m sure. The thing is, though, that I don’t think I’d approve.”

  “Gerrout! You and your bloody fancy — ”

  “No. It’s just that we didn’t carry the reasoning through to the end. We know now why Poole faked the car. He’d made his call for assistance, and all of a sudden there he was with a policeman he’d just killed, and he himself had sent for more policemen. The feeling of self-preservation’s very close to animal instinct. Somehow, he’d manage to get the body into the boot. Out of sight at least, But then what? The police’d come, and there was no explanation of where Flossie had gone, apparently leaving his car behind, and suddenly Poole was in a fix. The faking of the car as Connolly’s stalled that off, because then it l
ooked as though Flossie and Connolly had driven off together, in Flossie’s car.

  “I know, I know. The poor bastard…”

  “That poor bastard, as you call him George, had theoretically landed Connolly with responsibility for Flossie’s death. Some time, it’d get round to Connolly. And what did Poole do? He restored all the decoration to Flossie’s car, drove to Connolly’s, and switched them. He’d have to wait for Marcia to go out. Yes. But if he was spotted around there, he could always say, and quite logically, that he was visiting Mia’s parents, as their son-in-law, at such a sad time. But he wasn’t seen. The Flossie car was there for us to pick up.”

  George had got his stubborn look on. He snorted. “What else could he have done?”

  “George, where do you think Connolly was heading in the Flossie car? And don’t say the quarry.”

  “To the flat. Where Mia died.”

  “To commit suicide there? To recover his own car? Nonsense.”

  “The gun’d be there,” said George hopefully. “I mean, if he’d wanted to shoot himself.”

  “That sounds better. The gun that hadn’t fired. Marcia told him the story, and there was mention of a gun. It hadn’t fired, but Connolly didn’t know much about guns. Only that they did kill people, and there was one person Connolly would want to kill. I wonder, George, what time he arrived at the flat, when Mia was dying. Did he arrive in time to see Wally injecting her last heroin shot? That’d make it nice, wouldn’t it! Connolly had tried to prevent any call going out to help her. He’d in fact, as far as he was concerned, killed her himself. It was his own eternal punishment for rejecting her. But he’d had several days in which to suffer it, and the mind only accepts so much. When Marcia told him the full story, it would be clear to him that Mia’s real killer had been Wally, And, if Connolly himself could kill Wally, then the actual act of that killing would formalise Wally’s guilt, and free Connolly.”

  “Fancy stuff.”

  “Sure. I’m only saying that Connolly had a reason for heading towards that gun.”

  “I did say that — he was heading for the flat. Where’s that taxi got to?”

  “But he didn’t go directly there, did he! He’d have to go to Poole first, because Poole, according to the story, was the only one who could say where Wally had thrown the gun.”