Killer in the Shade

by Piers Marlowe

  He pocketed the gun with the bulging snout, removed from the pockets of the man he had just murdered his money and few possessions, including sheath-knife, cigarettes and lighter, and the map.

  He stood for a short while squinting with his weak eyes at the map. Behind the thicket of young trees the sunglare was kept to a green gloom and in the shade his headache was no more than a troublesome warmth which he knew he had to cool quickly.

  He took out the bottle of white pellets, tipped a couple into his hand and swallowed them.

  His eyes were squeezed almost shut when he returned to the beige Viva and climbed into the driver’s seat. Before he meshed the gears he put the map beside him on the passenger’s seat.

  On the outskirts of Chichester he pulled on to the forecourt of a petrol station and ordered four gallons. While the attendant was serving him he sat and listened idly to a radio chattering in the glass-enclosed office. An announcer was saying, ‘Since the arrest yesterday of Brian Christopher Haswell, long sought by the police, and a coloured companion who was with him there has been no further news of — ’

  A heavily laden lorry drove by, drowning the announcer’s words. The attendant appeared at the open window beside a man slumped against the back of his seat.

  ‘Anything wrong, sir? You feeling all right?’

  A couple of pound notes were pushed at him.

  ‘Just something I ate last night. Nothing really. I’ll be all right in a minute.’

  The attendant walked away to get change.

  The announcer was saying, ‘A report just received from Cairo confirms that Mr Sadat will — ’

  But Humphrey Peel wasn’t listening. He had something else to listen to. A sound that was locked in his head.

  Chapter 10

  ‘You don’t scare me, Whitey, and I ain’t squealing to the pigs. They can do their own squealing.’

  Jackson Rennie wasn’t a big man, but he tried to talk big. He wanted to make the big sound because it was reassuring, and he needed reassurance. Very badly — and fast.

  Somehow the grin on Frank Drury’s face made him more scared than the angry contempt on the square features of big Bill Hazard.

  ‘Oh, I can scare you, Rennie. Scare you so that you’ll wither up inside just like a zombie’s gone to work on you, and, come to think of it, that’s just about what will happen if you don’t keep a civil tongue and let it tell the truth to a lot of questions to which I want answers. You know what I mean?’

  Drury’s smile seemed to be growing in confidence, like the man was sitting in this game with a whole stack of aces up his sleeve. Jackson Rennie showed his chalk-white teeth that belied the rot in his gums that made women turn their heads unless he chewed goddamn mint pellets all the time.

  ‘I don’t talk sweet to the fuzz, mister.’

  ‘No?’ Drury leaned across the desk in his room at Scotland Yard, scanning the challenging black face opposite as though anxious to decide what kept it in one piece. ‘You will. Oh, you will.’

  ‘You threatening me, pig?’

  Bill Hazard’s shoes squeaked as he went up on his toes and came down again. Both his ham-sized fists were knotted. The seated coloured man frowned. He was only getting through to the wrong man. That wasn’t good.

  ‘I asked if you were threatening me, pig?’

  Drury laughed at him. He knew what laughter would do to Rennie, how it would churn inside him until the bitter flavour almost made him choke on his own bile.

  ‘I don’t have to threaten you, Rennie, to get you to talk. In fact, you’ll spill your guts. But first I want you to know what you’re going to do. You’ll squeal louder than any pig I’ve heard. Hang on to that.’

  He laughed again, happy that the coloured man was hating him with his eyes. Rennie became sullen, held back the next abusive words, and grew suddenly cautious. There was something here he didn’t reach and that was bad, too.

  ‘Give me a reason, man.’

  ‘I’ll give you two,’ Drury said magnanimously. ‘First, an LP record with your prints, found in a house where a murder was set up. Think about it.’

  The white teeth vanished in the dark, evil-smelling cavern of a mouth. Jackson Rennie didn’t have to think about it. He remembered the redhead and her bold eyes and his stupid promise to lend her the calypsos, even though he knew she didn’t want the records, but was using him to needle that bank manager, her husband.

  ‘I love that bongo beat,’ she had lied, hating him for his colour. That had been no lie. It was in her eyes, mixed in with the rest of it.

  ‘That don’t prove a thing,’ he retorted. ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘Think about it,’ Drury invited for the second time.

  Jackson Rennie sat like an image carved from ebony and grotesquely clothed in raiment that didn’t fit him or suit him because it was made by a world that was not his, a world he despised without knowing why, though he could always find a spur-of-the-moment reason.

  He said, ‘How about the second?’

  ‘Let’s keep with the first, Rennie,’ Drury said as though referring to something pleasant. ‘You’ve run with Peel ever since you were released. We’ll get Peel for murder unless he kills himself first. But you won’t ever do that. You’re a big mouth, Rennie, who clings to life. That’s why you left home and came here. You wanted to live.’

  For the first time there was a flash of something wild in the watchful dark eyes. Drury knew what it was. Fear. It had to be. He also knew why.

  Rennie said nothing.

  ‘Because of the LPs we’ll tie you in with Peel and his killings. Peel is through.’

  That was when Jackson Rennie made a mistake. A bad one. He opened his mouth at the wrong time. What he said was addressed as much to himself as to the Yard man because he was the one who wanted to hear his own words.

  He said, ‘Peel, I don’t admit I even know the man, and if I did I’m sure he didn’t set up a murder in that house where you caught me with — ’

  He hesitated over the name.

  ‘Brian Haswell,’ Drury supplied. ‘Let’s keep to real names. Not the one given to an estate agent. Brother of Beryl Weddon.’

  ‘We hadn’t even broke into the house. Just in the garden.’

  ‘Unlawfully. The garden has a fence so it’s still enclosed premises. So with a record you’ll go to jail.’

  Rennie shrugged, but he had to force his muscles to make the gesture. It didn’t come easily.

  ‘Anyway, you’ll go to jail. The best lawyer in the country won’t be able to prevent that. The question is how long. For being mixed up in murder it could be a long time, and that isn’t all, is it?’ Drury smiled. ‘You’d be sent back where you came from. Oh, yes, we know there is a group waiting to deal with you in their own way. When you arrive back among them you’ll have how long before they catch you? A month? Three?’ Drury shook his head. ‘More likely a couple of weeks is my guess. Then they’ll do more to you than you did to that girl you convinced the court with a white judge you’d never seen.’

  Jackson Rennie’s head went down on his chest, came up slowly, fearfully, and the fear in his eyes was a naked, ice-cold flame.

  ‘You know I didn’t mix with murder,’ he protested in a sibilant hiss.

  ‘Here or back home?’ Drury asked relentlessly.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘What I know doesn’t count. What I can prove does. I can prove you helped a killer, if only because Haswell will talk. And you know why. He’s done too much to come out a loser, with nothing. But he’s talked to you, too. I want all he’s told you, what you know about Peel. We couldn’t stop him holding up that van with the money being taken to the Upper Borley branch of the National City Bank and beating up the two men in it. But he has to go somewhere with the money, and that somewhere won’t be in this country, Rennie. He’ll skip with the lot. When Haswell knows that he’ll talk fast, especially as I’m certain he was the mug who set up how Peel should get away. Once more — think about it.’


  This time Drury’s advice was taken.

  Rennie’s chin went down on his chest again. His breathing became audible. Drury signalled to Hazard, who went out and came back with some coffees. The coloured man was given a cigarette. He sat smoking it and flicking ash on the floor. He gulped down the coffee, banging the cup against the saucer as though he had a grudge against it. No one spoke. Drury was watching for the first signs of capitulation. They came when Rennie began shooting half-veiled looks of inquiry across the desk, trying to gauge the opposition.

  Drury began talking in a different vein. This time he was persuasive.

  He said, ‘You can fill in the gaps for us. We know Peel used you as a contact man. You found the Weddons when you were sniffing out Clayson. Did you know Cecil Weddon tried to warn Clayson that he was to be murdered, but arrived too late?’

  Rennie sat woodenly, saying nothing.

  ‘Peel wanted Brian Haswell because the man was hiding from the police and could advise him about money. But Haswell was sticking close to his brother-in-law, who ran a bank. When Peel knew the full score he saw how he could use it, and the power workers’ strike was a real bonus. He stepped up the action, especially as he had a strong-arm type to make sure there were no rebels. Micky Hanlon. With the Weddons in the net and the chance of lifting a quarter of a million or thereabouts at one go his first partner, Vince Pallard, was no longer important. In fact he was a liability because he had arranged the lease of Thaxstead High Barn. It wasn’t hard to check back, Rennie.’

  Drury waited. There was no word from the other, who sat glowering and dejected on the far side of the desk.

  The Yard man continued in the same light, conversational tone, ‘So Vince was out for keeps, like he planned for you and Haswell to be out after Haswell had done the same as Vince Pallard, and fixed up another place for him to go to. Only this time not to operate from at a distance, but to escape from with the loot. Right?’

  Still silence save for the hard breathing on the other side of the desk. Across the room Bill Hazard, smoking and listening, was wearing the look of someone hearing important facts for the first time.

  There were times when the way Frank Drury operated was a revelation to the assistant who had worked closely with him for years. This was one of those times. It was also a time to remain dumb.

  ‘Then you and Haswell made it easy for him by getting picked up. I bet Peel laughs like a sink when he finds out. No, his danger lies in another quarter. The Weddons. Cecil Weddon went into this because he thought the return would be worth it. He gave up a good position with the National City Bank and status in the community — for what? Not peanuts, Rennie.’ Drury’s head shook again. ‘He knows where his wife’s brother arranged for the getaway. Somewhere on the coast, with either a boat or a light aircraft. My guess is a boat because light aircraft, while faster, are more easily traceable. Also, when something happens to them it’s apt to be over-dramatic. Less chance of a boat coming to grief, even accidentally. So there will be double-crossing, be sure of that. Your share of nothing will remain nothing, Rennie, whatever big promises you’ve been given.’

  This time the baited man spoke.

  ‘There’s Micky.’

  ‘Good with a cosh or a knife. We know Hanlon’s weight. He’s a thug, by upbringing and instinct. That makes him very conservative. He won’t change his preferences. He’s hidebound, like most bullies. When the time comes he’ll end up like a swatted fly. Most likely with a bullet in the head, because Peel loves firearms. We know that. Pushing that knife into Vic Clayson was just bragging, like hiding the key of a cabinet in the man’s clothes, a key with his own fingerprint on it. Only he’s officially dead, isn’t he? That’s what got you all interested in him in the first place. He first set things up so that he wasn’t existing any more. He had died in a fire. Well, we can alter the record when we charge him with the murder of that plastic surgeon, Anthony Arbuthnot. You see, Arbuthnot’s murder preceded the fire in which Humphrey Peel was supposed to die.’

  Hazard knew this was a crude bluff, but he could see his chief’s words wreaking havoc on the coloured man’s now unsettled mind. Jackson Rennie had been brought to the state when he did not know what to believe, so began thinking of what was best for himself. That reduced him to a level where he forgot all the advice drilled into him by his associates in crime.

  Drury didn’t pause for long. He was reaching towards his climax.

  ‘So you’re out. You’ll get no help, Rennie. You’ve blundered and will be left to take what’s coming to you. All you can do is co-operate to save yourself. We’ll soon know where the Weddons have run to and where Peel will make for.’

  ‘How?’ The word was wrung from the coloured listener.

  ‘It’s reasonable that Haswell took that house he lived in through an estate agent and he used an assumed name. We found evidence of that, and the estate agent will soon be calling to give us the information we want. But what is surprising is that when the house was searched early this morning we didn’t find anything additional pointing to this place wherever it is. Now that’s odd. It will be a well-hidden place. You’d think there might be maps of how to get there — ’

  ‘Two maps. Peel had one. Haswell had the other in a bureau.’

  Hazard coughed to cover a choking sound of surprise.

  Drury said, ‘That’s the sort of thing we want to know if you want to recover your LPs, Rennie.’

  Five minutes later Hazard took Rennie out of the room to where his statement could be taken down, typed out, signed and duly witnessed. Drury lit his pipe and sat staring at the telephone nearest his right hand, as though willing it to ring. He hadn’t disclosed to Rennie that the bureau in Haswell’s house had been forced open and not by a professional cracksman. There was no map inside. He looked at his watch three times in the next few minutes. He had given the estate agent’s a time to ring him, judging when he would be through with Rennie. It was nearly six minutes past the agreed time.

  The phone rang. A man named Stevens told him that they had arranged through a Chichester estate agent’s for their client to lease the house of a man who was abroad with his family for nine months.

  ‘There is a boathouse with a power craft, part of the leased property,’ Stevens explained. ‘I’m a bit late getting through because we had to get on to Chichester about details.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Drury. ‘But first tell me the exact locality, Mr Stevens.’

  When he hung up he relit his cold pipe and stared at what he had written down on his pad. He had finished his pipe before he rang Dr Cadman’s home and spoke to Carol Wilson. Afterwards he rang the Morning Gazette.

  He asked for Rollo, who wasn’t in. He next asked for Joe Murphy, to be given the same answer.

  On the spur of the moment he decided Dan Simpson might be able to tell him what he wanted to know. He was put through to the news editor, who was reluctant to answer questions, but finally told him enough to make the Yard man swear.

  The quality and luridness of the swearing made Dan Simpson scowl at first. Then the scowl changed to a grin.

  He said to the angry man in Scotland Yard, ‘Sounds like that pair of lads are out to collect a scoop, Superintendent.’

  ‘They’ll have the chance to tell it in jail if they get in my bloody way,’ Drury told him.

  When he hung up there were two smiling men, one in Fleet Street and the other in Drury’s room in Scotland Yard. Dan Simpson had high hopes. So did Frank Drury. The latter realized that it wasn’t himself who could be tripped by Joe Murphy and Rollo Hackley, but Humphrey Peel.

  But he wasn’t happy about Micky Hanlon. In fact, Micky Hanlon remained a dubious quantity until his body was found three days later by a schoolboy looking for cobnuts.

  ‘For God’s sake stop worrying, Rollo boy,’ Joe Murphy complained. ‘I tell you we’re not in trouble.’

  Rollo manoeuvred around an articulated lorry that was drawing in to the side of the road. He didn’t respond to
the other’s advice until the car was again picking up speed.

  ‘No trouble, not for breaking and entering?’

  ‘Not if the owner or the rightful tenant, and that’s Brian Haswell, doesn’t bring a charge against us.’

  ‘What about that bureau we broke open?’

  ‘I broke open, not you. I came provided with a chisel, you didn’t.’

  ‘I’m involved, Joe. Not that I’m complaining about involvement per se, if you understand me.’

  ‘I might,’ Murphy growled, ‘if you spoke English instead of Latin.’

  ‘But forcing open that bureau labelled us housebreakers,’ Rollo insisted.

  ‘Burglars, not housebreakers,’ the Irish crime reporter pointed out. ‘We operated in the hours of darkness, not during daylight.’

  ‘Be serious, Joe.’

  ‘All right. Haswell is the only one who could complain. Well, he can’t. Because what we’ve taken, that map, with the piece of paper holding the address and phone number attached to it, is right now something he’s glad to have out of the place. Anywhere out, Rollo. Even in my pocket.’

  ‘I’m still not convinced.’

  ‘You’re an obstinate cuss, Rollo, which makes me marvel at my liking you at all, for you can be the devil’s own trial to a man’s temper. Have a cigarette and stop worrying. I tell you it’s all right.’

  Rollo took the cigarette and accepted a light and drove for three minutes in silence before he said, ‘I’d feel better about it if we called the Yard and let Drury know.’

  The shrewd Irishman looked at him from under squeezed eyelids.

  ‘You’re thinking of your girl, aren’t you?’

  ‘Among other people. You included.’

  ‘Me!’ Murphy’s utterance was a soft scream. ‘Why in the world include me? I’m a sinner, maybe, but, hell’s bells and bananas, Rollo boy, I’m not a criminal. I’m not wearing high-priced gear for a start and I haven’t got a fancy woman installed in a luxury flat. Look at me if you can without taking your eyes off the road. Do I look like a crook with money to burn? I do not. I’m a poor man. I damned well look a poor man. I’ll die one, that’s for sure.’