Armitage cursed, as violently as he knew how.
*
Armitage stared through the sitting-room window whose curtains were not drawn, even though it was long since dark, and he dully wondered how Gwen was getting on?
Fred Letts. How in the name of hell could she have gone off with him? Fred was a clown, the perpetual juvenile with hot hands, always trying to drop things down the front of dresses, watching every mini-skirted woman who looked as if she might bend over because he’d once been told that some did not wear pants.
He reached over for the gin and tonic and drank it quickly, aware that he was already slightly tight. He’d often rowed with Gwen, but this was part and parcel of life and marriage. He’d never had an affair with another woman, although there had been clear opportunities. Yet she’d been ready to believe he’d been having an affair, even though she’d no proof whatsoever. Or was this the excuse she’d been searching for, to cover her own affair that had been going on for weeks, months?
What was she doing now? He looked down at his watch and initially had difficulty in making his eyes focus. It was just after eleven o’clock. Probably they were in bed together. Sometimes she displayed the kind of uninhibited lust that made a man crazy…He finished his drink and poured out another, as he cursed his vivid imagination.
*
The wages snatch from the supermarket, carried out to supply cash for running expenses, was as meticulously planned as were all Weir’s jobs.
Farnes and Kirk, hired for this one operation, burst into the manager’s office as the day’s takings were being counted out and placed in night-safe bags. The manager and his assistant were brave but stupid: they tried to fight, even though the money wasn’t theirs and was covered by insurance. Farnes and Kirk used their coshes with vicious skill and when they left both the manager and his assistant were unconscious and seriously injured. Days later, a specialist was going to have to tell the manager’s wife that it was possible, perhaps probable, he’d suffered permanent brain damage and there might be little chance he’d ever be able to work again.
*
Detective Inspector French was conscientious to the point where there were times when he despaired of ever being able to do his job properly. With the division short of manpower, work initially became a question of priorities — which crimes were serious enough to be properly investigated? — and he’d never felt himself capable of deciding priorities because, unlike many, he did not see any crime as capable of being measured solely by the value of the goods stolen or the injuries inflicted: he could enter the grief of an old woman swindled out of her laboriously saved few pounds, a crime not serious enough to rate a separate statistical mention.
One of the two telephones on his desk rang. Dabs at county H.Q. identified the murdered man from the motorway as Brian Healey, aged forty-seven, married but separated, not long out of prison. How had he, no true criminal, become mixed up in something vicious enough to end in his being murdered? French sighed. This case was going to be a real bitch.
*
“Forty cylinders of oxygen and eight of acetylene?” The old man scratched his bald head. “That’s a whole lot of gas.”
“How much would it weigh?” asked Weir.
The old man scratched his head again, reached into his pocket and found a stub of a pencil, picked up a scrap of paper from amongst the confusion on the mantelpiece. Very laboriously, occasionally speaking aloud, he worked out the figures. “Forty at one and an ‘alf hundredweight…‘Alf again…Sixty…And another eight makes…No, it don’t. Twelve…Just over three and a ‘alf ton, Lofty.”
Weir hadn’t been expecting so high a figure. “So how much would it cost?” he asked, in a disgruntled voice.
“A thousand quid.”
“You’ve got to be joking!”
The old man didn’t bother to answer. He was too old to joke any more.
*
Weir stared at the electric fire. There was a bank. At all times it had in its strong-room at least a million in notes. There was an alarm system, some — or all — of the wires of which ran through the floor, very close to the bottom surface. It had three foot reinforced concrete walls, that could not be blown or cut through in the time available. It had a door which could not be blown, but might be burned if sufficient oxygen could be provided, but the bottles of gas weighed over three and a half tons and where could the carrying vehicle be hidden during the unloading?
He finished his whisky. Why go on belting his head against a brick — concrete — wall? But even as he decided that the job was impossible, another part of his mind said that the more impossible it was, the greater the reputation of the man who did it.
CHAPTER VIII
April began by living up to tradition, being totally unpredictable weather-wise, with days starting fine and warm and ending with heavy showers, or vice versa. Hermione Grant’s gardener was a morose individual who seemed to scorn the vagaries of weather and who often muttered darkly to himself. He had reason to. She was constantly wanting the garden altered, never content to let any part rest and establish. He continued to work for her only because she paid him a very good wage and because he was a character who needed some major grievance in life against which he could rail. It had just stopped raining and she was having a row with him when Patricia entered the drive in her red Morris 1300. Hermione stamped over to the car. “Come on in and have a drink. The bloody man’s planted the wrong bulbs yet again.” Her powerful voice carried to the gardener: he shrugged his shoulders and returned to work in a state of pleasurable gloom.
“I can’t really stop,” said Patricia, through the opened window. “I’ve just come for some money.”
“For one of your collections? Well, you won’t get anything out of me unless you come in for a bit.”
Reluctantly, yet conscious of the fact that Hermione could be very generous, Patricia climbed out of the car and followed Hermione into the house.
Hermione poured out a sherry for Patricia and handed it to her. “I suppose you know about George and Gwen?” she asked, abruptly.
Patricia shook her head and looked worried. “No. I haven’t heard of either of them for days. What’s happened? Nothing terrible, I hope?”
“She’s left him and gone off with Fred Letts.”
“Gwen’s left him? What on earth’s caused that?” Hermione sat down, a gin and tonic in her hand.
“Surely you can guess?”
“Why should I be able to?”
“I just thought you might.”
Patricia spoke in what, for her, was a sharp voice. “Are you suggesting something?”
“Suggesting something? For God’s sake, Pat. Can’t I speak without your jumping down my throat?” Strangely, there were times when Hermione’s directness deserted her and she’d never speak her thoughts. “Have you ever met Fred Letts?”
“No, I don’t think I have.”
“How any woman could go anywhere with him! Still, he’s rich, through no fault of his, and that’s what interested Gwen.”
“How terrible for George.” Patricia fiddled with her large solitaire diamond engagement ring. “Have you spoken to him since it happened?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I wonder how he’s taking it?”
“Pretty badly. Underneath he’s really terribly softhearted. If he weren’t, he’d have belted that silly bitch of a wife of his and brought her to heel years ago.”
“We must go and see him, in case there’s something we can do to help.”
Hermione drank. “There’s no point in my going,” she said finally. “He won’t be interested in seeing me.”
“What do you mean? He’ll be interested in seeing anyone who can take his mind off what’s happened for a bit. You’re not scared, are you?”
For once, Hermione looked uncertain of herself.
*
Farnes arrived at five in the afternoon, just after a heavy shower had given way to sunshine. Water dripped fro
m his raincoat as he went through to the kitchen. “Lofty,” he said excitedly, “I’ve found a bloke what’s for us.”
“Great,” said Weir, through a mouthful of bread and butter. “You’ve done great.”
Farnes was clearly pleased by the praise, as scant and as patronising as it had been. He took off his mackintosh and threw it over the back of one of the wooden chairs and then took the lid off the teapot to see if there was enough tea for him. “’E’s a bloke called ‘Arry Jenson and ‘e works for the Buckland Security firm.”
“How d’you get on to him?”
“’E visits one of the local Toms, regular.”
“Is he married?”
“Yeah, with two kids. I ‘ad a shufty round where ‘e lives and saw ‘is missus. Looks a nice lay: funny she don’t give ‘im all ‘e wants.”
Weir shrugged his shoulders. “So what about the Tom?”
“She’ll play for an ‘undred. Tried for more, of course, on account of us doing ‘er out of a regular, but I persuaded ‘er.”
Weir could imagine the vicious threats which had been used.
*
Armitage very soon appreciated there was a limit to the self-pity he could allow himself. Life went on and he had to go with it. He resumed work and was surprised to discover that the writing was no more difficult than it had been before. Cooking was a time-consuming business, but he began to think himself not at all bad at it and to try more advanced dishes. Even mental pictures of Gwen’s making love to Fred began to take on a certain dream-like quality so that their capacity to hurt was very much lessened.
He was helped in reconciling himself to what had happened by both Patricia and Hermione. Patricia called occasionally, always during the day and for a short time, though her visits tended to lengthen; Hermione came more frequently and often stayed until late at night, clearly finding as much pleasure in the visits as he did. They had fierce arguments, over nothing of the slightest importance, and discussed anything and everything except marriage, an exception which suited them both.
It was Hermione who told him about the flat. “You know you’ve been talking about clearing out of this place?” she asked, as she settled back into, and overflowed from one of the armchairs.
He nodded. “The present lease runs out very soon and although I like the area out here, I’m sure I’ll be happier somewhere different.”
“Have you thought about living in town for a while? There’s a pleasant little flat in the High Street in Ethington that’s going to be free very soon. Friends of friends have been living there, but the husband’s being moved up north somewhere.”
He far preferred the countryside, but living in the town would be one more way to cut himself off from his previous life. “It sounds all right, but what’s the level of rent? Some places in Ethington these days are up in the millionaire class.”
“It won’t be one of those because Ramsey certainly couldn’t afford it. I’ll see if I can find out for you. Oh!…By the way, it’s on top of a shop, but I don’t suppose that’ll worry you?”
He smiled. “My pride lessens as the rent drops.”
*
The photographs were taken when Harry Jenson and Pam were on her bed, both naked, and he was aware of nothing but his lust-filled body and the fact that she was not refusing even his most outlandish requests.
Incredibly, he first thought it was some kind of perverse joke. Then the two men, brutally self-confident, coarsely amused by what he’d been doing, gave him the facts very simply. The photographs could be sent to his wife, with copies distributed round his home town, or he could find out full details of the security equipment installed by his firm in three banks. He discovered he was a coward and agreed to co-operate.
He was a man with a conscience and after he’d carried out their orders he hated himself for what he’d done. He worried so much that on Friday, a wet and windy night, with the roads in a treacherous state, he drove into an S-bend thirty m.p.h. too fast. The car skidded and hit a telegraph pole.
A post-mortem showed no alcohol in the blood and no heart attack, an inspection of the car showed no discernible mechanical fault, and the police report stated that the real cause of the accident was impossible to ascertain beyond the obvious fact of too great a speed.
*
Weir looked down at the detailed plan of the bank and its defences he had drawn out on a very large sheet of white cardboard. He stood up and eased his back and briefly stared out of the window as he told himself it was time he finally admitted the bank job was impossible.
He’d coloured the alarm systems in red. There seemed to be red lines everywhere. The outer windows and doors were connected up to contact alarms, the walls to sensor alarms, the strong-room had a separate and far more sophisticated system. Within the strong-room was a master unit with time clock. There were contact and heat sensors in and around the door and vibrational sensors in the walls and ceiling. There was a vacuum alarm: ten minutes after the strong-room door was shut for the night a small air pump drew off air into a container until there was a discernible drop in pressure and then any subsequent rise in pressure triggered an alarm. And finally, as if these defences weren’t enough there was the closed circuit TV camera focussed on the door, transmitting to a receiver at street level which was normally covered with a shutter like a night safe. A patrolling constable had only to find the screen dead or, more dramatic, someone in the act of attacking the door, to sound the alarm.
Weir left the table and poured himself out a really strong whisky. He felt a bitter, grudging admiration for the firm of Buckland Security. They could never have imagined circumstances would so jell together that anyone would learn there was a chance of cutting off all electricity to the vault and so immobilise the alarms, yet they’d clearly accepted the possibility because they’d installed the TV camera. So now it didn’t do a goddamn bit of good to know it might be possible to break through the floor and cut the wire in the conduit…Either the TV watched the break-in or the TV screen was blank — in either case, the alarm would go out.
He threw his empty glass against the wall.
CHAPTER IX
The rent of the flat, on two floors above a car accessories and electrical appliances shop, was low because it had never been modernised and was in need of considerable decoration. Armitage was unworried by such matters. Unless there was particular reason to do so, he seldom noticed much about the ordinary things around him, and in any case the flat had a restful, pleasant atmosphere which turned it into a home immediately.
When Patricia first visited him there, she carefully explained that she had just called to see how he was settling in and if there was anything she could do to help. The next time, several days later, she did not bother to give a reason for her calling and she stayed so long that she was late for a hairdressing appointment. On her third visit he tried to lift their friendship on to a more intimate level, but failed, though in a way that left him hope for the future.
Hermione became a very frequent visitor, often bringing the food for dinner. With no reputation to lose, in the sense that no one could believe any man would find her remotely sexually attractive, she was careless about how long she stayed and how late the time when she left.
He’d delivered his first manuscript since Gwen had left him to his publishers and he received the usual letter of acceptance, neither praising the script nor criticising it. He had lunch with his editor — an eagle-eyed, middle-aged woman of indeterminate sex — and didn’t really enjoy it because she told him that a writer he knew well was now selling over ten thousand copies in hardbacks. His agent, who could have been dead for months, wrote to report three foreign sales, one of which, to France, was of some financial consequence.
He heard from a woman who’d always disliked him that Gwen and Fred were in Mallorca, staying in the White Suite at the Formentor Hotel. When he showed indifference to the news, the woman disliked him even more.
*
Weir drove his Merced
es down the M1 to Newport Pagnell and the service area and parked in one of the lines of cars behind the restaurant and shops. After only ten minutes, Lou Dunder joined him in the car. Dunder was a broad, cheerful man, with a very noticeable squint. “How’s life, then, Lofty?” he asked.
For a short while they exchanged news, then Weir said: ”I’ve a job, Lou, a big one. Only it means burning through a door what’s watched by telly with the law looking in on a screen whenever it wants to during the night. It ain’t no good smashing the camera, because if the law sees a dead screen up top it’s the alarms. So how do we get at the door?” His voice expressed a little of his angry bafflement.
Dunder lit a cigarette and, after the first draw, fiddled with it. “What’s the camera doing? Is it panning backwards and forwards? Seems to me, Lofty, if it was still then maybe there’d be time to use a second camera to take a shot on tape of the door, splice the tape up to give continuous running, and show the pictures on the screen so the law don’t see nothing different.”
It was so simple a solution that Weir wondered how he’d ever missed it. Dunder must think him soft in the head.
*
Although Ethington High Street had changed so much in character over the past years, there were still a number of flats above the shops and offices. Weir hired a front man to go round the local estate agents to try to find a flat immediately and this man succeeded because the owners of one building were trying to get a higher rent than was reasonable. Weir put two men in the flat to keep watch. Tony Ricard, of direct Italian descent and very Italian in looks, and Bert Smith, as English as fish and chips in vinegary paper, who’d once been a professional boxer of small skill but great strength. They got on well together and during all the time they kept watch there was not one serious argument between them.
The Colour of Violence Page 6
