Farewell Gesture

by Roger Ormerod

  I walked across to the door and went inside. The beams were original, and I was ducking at once. The smoke was more recent, but not fresh. What with that and the beams I nearly missed the three steps down to the black oak floor. The jolly jack tars had brought it in with them.

  I hustled my way to the bar, not wishing to be conspicuous by remaining passive, and shouted for beer. While it wasn’t coming I hooked my elbows on the hallowed old oak surface and looked round casually. Here were the modern mariners, as proud of themselves and their seafaring as Columbus; and here was a different group, this year’s crop of layabouts, centring on the romantic atmosphere of daring deeds and violence. Eight pints inside you and you were Black Harry, in from the storm with his brig loaded down with hooch and the bodies of customs men. Anything less than eight and you were just another thug.

  A pint tankard was slid beside my elbow. I took the top inch off, to save spilling any down a customer—a circumstance ripe for violence—and began to ease myself, shoulder first and tankard high, through the crush, weaving like a cyclist in a traffic jam and searching for Frenchie’s weasel face through the fugg. I located him in a far corner, looking set for the night.

  As he seemed to be surrounded by acolytes, not a happy face on any of them, I didn’t go over to join him. It would have been impossible, anyway, to hold any sort of conversation, and what we had to say to each other was best kept to ourselves.

  I stood still long enough for him to recognise me. There was no change in his expression, no surprise. I jerked my head, put down my beer at someone’s elbow—it was terrible stuff, anyway—and turned to commence fighting my way to the door.

  When I got outside the silence slapped me. Out there the sea murmured, and a wet breeze cooled my cheek. It was now fully dark, but enough light got through the dirty pub windows to show me how far I dared to move, and illuminated a finger post with a sign, Gentlemen, which pointed out over the sea.

  As I watched, two loaded customers stumbled out of a side door I hadn’t noticed, releasing a flood of sound. They headed for the sign, one each side of it. With interest, I watched them, one tall and thin, the other tubby and awkward. They stared out over the low wall and at the black, placid sea.

  Then I was aware that Frenchie was at my elbow. He always did manage to move quietly. Evidently he was in a reasonable mood, otherwise I’d have been a hospital case by then.

  “Well, Frenchie,” I said. “How long you bin out?”

  “Month.”

  “Keeping outa trouble?”

  “You bet.”

  Frenchie had protruding teeth, the upper set jutting beyond the lower. He didn’t seem to be able to speak without spitting. If he was half my weight I’d have been surprised, but his size had nothing to do with the menace he presented. His nobbly little body looked undisciplined, but he could move like a snake striking. His narrow and always slightly watering eyes gave the appearance of myopia, but he could detect an aggressive move at a hundred yards. I had to be smooth and relaxed with him. Nothing must be said to disturb his equanimity.

  “You’ve bin following me, Frenchie. You wanna tell me why?”

  “What you doin’ in Sumbury, Manson?” he demanded, his teeth clashing.

  “Lookin’ for a friend. Tha’s all.”

  “Yah!” He patted his lips. With his left hand, I noticed. It was his right you had to watch. Contempt dribbled from the corners of his mouth. “Y’re a bloody liar, Manson.”

  “Carl sent y’, didn’t he?” I asked evenly. “Remember Carl? A lifer. Don’ look so blank. Carl Packer, in fer life. I bet he sentcher.” I reckoned he’d feel more at home with the lazy prison vernacular. “But he didn’t send y’ to hunt me out,” I assumed.

  His patience went. You get a split second of warning, and I was poised for whatever he might attempt. But I’d made a mistake. The bladder-emptiers had been his heavies, and quietly they’d moved in behind me. I felt hands clamp on my biceps, and it was too late.

  Five

  Frenchie was a knife man. Even inside Gartree he’d always had something about him with a point to it. Outside, he was wearing his working clothes, always a loose jacket with once-white rollneck sweater. He had a thin pocket, leather lined, inside the left half of his jacket, housing a knife, and another up his left sleeve. Long and short, depending on the exigencies of the moment. But he was most deadly with the long, slim blade that lay vertically between his shoulder blades and down his back, in another leather holster. It explained his shoulders-back amble. Once the knife was out in the light his movements became more supple. I saw it glitter. He’d become too supple for my liking.

  This thing was his throwing knife. He could reach back and draw it and throw it, all in one movement. It spun in the air, the speed of rotation varying in accordance with the distance involved. However far away you were, whether running towards or away from him, you could bet that point would be there to contact its target.

  But at that time nobody was running. I was held fast. The thing was as close to piercing my flesh as I fancied. The tall one was to the right of me. I’d had time for a couple of quick glances before the presence of the knife kept my head still. This one was young, flabby, with a beer-gut just beginning to mature. On my other side was the shorter, fatter one. He’d perhaps been a middleweight wrestler a few years back, but his belly was now tumbling over itself to get out of his belt. His grip was viciously tight, but I guessed his reactions would be slow.

  The point of the knife was a fraction beneath my left nostril. The blade was slim enough to slide right up without drawing blood, and then a couple of inches further, by which time I wouldn’t be worrying about blood any more.

  Frenchie said, “You wanna go on livin’? Nod once for yes.” Then he cackled maniacally, though the point of the knife didn’t move a millimetre.

  I abandoned the vernacular. “You’ve got nothing against me, Frenchie.” My voice was tight.

  “Musclin’ in, that’s what.”

  He must have been referring to the business that’d brought him there. I shook my head. Started to, then remembered. Words not actions. “I’m here trying to locate a certain young woman. Not your affair at all.” I was finding it difficult to keep my eyes on him instead of crossing them down the length of my nose.

  “Saw y’ talkin’ to him in Gartree. You’re lyin’, Manson.”

  “You saw me talking to whom?” I asked meticulously.

  “Packer. You said it y’self. Carl Packer.”

  Packer had been our only link in Gartree. It was now confirmed that Packer, having approached me unsuccessfully about Philomena Wise, had later approached Frenchie.

  “So we talked,” I said soothingly. “Frenchie, think about it. If I’d taken the job on, she wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did. I’ve been out longer than you.”

  “It wasn’ me. Take that back, y’ bastard!” Anger vibrated the knife point.

  It was difficult to talk sense to Frenchie. The psychologists probably had a word for him. “Take what back? Did I say you’d killed her? Never, Frenchie. She was strangled. That’s not your line at all. You couldn’t have done that.” Psychotic, that’s the word.

  The more plainly I tried to put it the more he failed to understand. He still seemed to think I was accusing him, insulting him, even.

  “I was here, wun’t I! If I’d done it, I wouldn’t have bin here!” he howled.

  I couldn’t concentrate because his fury now had the knife point bobbing about. But I managed to follow his distraught logic. If he had killed Philomena he would have done it only if he’d already had proof laid on that he was somewhere else. But he’d been here, in the district, and he was still here. I wondered again why he’d not left, and rapidly.

  “I can see why you’re annoyed,” I assured him, trying to manage a conciliatory tone. “You came all the way here to do the job, and somebody beat you to it. So…no fee for you from Packer. But it wasn’t me, Frenchie. I really was somewhere else.”

>   “Lay off that!” he shouted.

  “I’m only trying to put you right.”

  “Keep y’r slimy tongue to yerself!”

  “No. Listen. She’s dead. Carl Packer sent you. Right? And they’ve got nobody for it, and it’s a complete mystery. So what’s to stop you going to Carl—or Carl’s moneyman—and claiming your fee? She’s dead. You were on the job. So you can collect. Easiest money you ever did see.”

  “You bloody stoopid or somethin’?” He seemed genuinely baffled.

  “I want to help you,” I told him. “You’ve spent good money on this. These two characters here—top talent—they must’ve cost a packet.”

  “Well…yes,” he said reluctantly, though not with enough conviction to affect the position of the knife point.

  “And with all that money,” I pointed out, “you’d be able to get away to Brazil or Mexico or somewhere like that. Exotic, Frenchie. Sun and sand and warm, soft flesh.”

  “What the hell!”

  Only by being jocular about it could I see any chance of seeing the next day in. I had to take a risk. Somehow, his unstable anger had to be turned in another direction from me.

  “You’d need to get away, of course, because the police might arrest somebody in the end, then Packer would have to invest in another hit-man, to track you down, Frenchie, for cheating him. And get his money back. If he had to open you up to find it.”

  His teeth meshed together, and he hissed past them. No sense of humour, that was his failing. I was a second or two from feeling that blade, and now I had to get it said fast.

  “Unless it’s you they arrest, Frenchie.”

  Life had never been friendly to Frenchie. Not with that face. As a child, kind ladies had offered him lollipops, and when he’d smiled they had snatched them away. Life was snatching things away again. He now raised a howl of animal despair, then he whirled about and expressed himself in his only possible way; he threw the knife. It stuck quivering in the thick oak door of the Stormy Petrel.

  But I was far from safe. There were two more knives to go. Not throwers, though. One slicer and one stabber. I had perhaps two seconds in which to do something positive, and Gartree training had taught me that you had to act fast, or you went under.

  I tramped down the shin of the one on my right. I wasn’t wearing boots, but the heel was hard. I finished the tramp on his instep. This was more telling. I felt his grip relax and before he got the howl out I had my arm free. Fatty, the other side, didn’t release my arm, but I used it as a fulcrum, swinging round with my right fist into his beer gut. Ten years before he would’ve laughed, and the fist would have bounced. Now there was only flab between me and the stomach inside. He grunted and bent over. My left knee met his nose, and then I was free.

  Frenchie was turning back to me. I saw his right hand flashing inside his jacket. I had to stop that knife from appearing. The movement of his arm projected his right elbow, so I kicked it. The knife was probably already out of its sheath, because he made a wheeing sound through his teeth as his arm jerked back. It was clear that the knife had done something unpleasant inside the jacket. His mouth opened and his eyes glazed, and I hit him in the mouth with all I’d got.

  Even as my fist was on its way I realised it was a mistake. I was going to break my knuckles on those teeth. I tensed for the pain, and to my surprise the fist went straight through, mashing his lips. The teeth were false. Why would anyone have false teeth shaped so revoltingly? I didn’t pause to ponder the question. He was choking and retching, bent over, and the two toughies still had to prove their worth. I ran.

  Two sets of feet pattered after me. I could outrun them easily, I reckoned. Having coughed up his denture, Frenchie managed to shout a choked command. It sounded like, “Tramp him!”

  So I ran into the dark and rutted lane, out into the light streaming from the windows of the hotel, then into the darkness opposite the car-park. I was outpacing them, but I couldn’t beat their car. They would surely have one. There would be little cover along the road.

  I dived into the darkness behind the shed, and fell painfully on the bike. Then I lay still.

  At this point the reaction set in. I was trembling, and sweat was drying chill on my skin. Nobody had ever deprived Frenchie of the use of two knives, except when they were both sticking in him. He wouldn’t be able to forgive that, and my luck wouldn’t protect me for ever.

  I heard a car engine start, gears bang in, the scream of revving tyres. It stopped at the car-park entrance. A door opened. Frenchie’s muffled voice gave urgent choked commands, and full headlights swept the road as they headed for Sumbury.

  When the pain became unacceptable, I eased myself off the bike. The main problem had been a pedal. I stood, motionless behind the shed, and tried to get my mind working. The shakes were still with me, and I could’ve slaughtered a double brandy.

  With the fact confirmed that Carl Packer had employed Frenchie to kill Philomena Wise, I still hadn’t progressed far. I didn’t know why, and I still didn’t know which Philomena. But the job had brought Frenchie to Sumbury. It was therefore a strange coincidence that she had died just at the time he was searching out his target. Yet Frenchie hadn’t killed her.

  Coincidences were pounding in from all directions. Phil had come to Sumbury, where there was already another Philomena Wise. Phil had said she had something to clear up, and the other one had died. Had this been what she had to clear up?

  And there was the question of the scarf, Philomena having been strangled by the very same scarf that Arthur Torrance had been bringing to her as a present.

  I wondered whether all these coincidences would ever present a logical pattern. So far, there was no pattern at all, and I still hadn’t managed to contact Phil.

  All this thinking in cool and salty air had left me calm again, and reasonably in control of my nerves. I needed to decide what to do in the immediate future.

  I couldn’t see how I would be able to use the bike to get back to The George. It wasn’t so much the lack of lights, as the sky was clear and there was enough light for me to see the road surface. But I knew Frenchie wouldn’t give up easily. He would soon realise that I had to be hiding back at Port Sumbury. They would return, and if I was on the road their headlights could sweep round a bend on me abruptly, and I would have no chance of diving for cover off a bike.

  In circumstances like this, the thing to do is the unexpected. Go where you would least likely go. I therefore slipped quietly and circumspectly back to the Stormy Petrel. When I got there, it seemed that nobody had gone in or come out, unless they’d used the side door to patronise the whistling post. I knew this as soon as I approached the main door. Frenchie’s knife, as I’d hoped, was still sticking in it. Nobody could’ve gone through that door without having it brush his nose.

  I levered it out. This entailed a certain amount of effort, as it was embedded a good inch into the ancient and matured oak. But at last I had it in my hand, and could examine it. The maximum width of the blade was less than half an inch, both edges were razor sharp, and the point was like a needle. Its handle was two thin slats of hardwood.

  I now had a weapon, though not one I would care to use. More importantly, I had deprived Frenchie of his number one, an encouraging thought when I had to consider he would inevitably come looking for me, even if I managed to get through the night.

  Slowly, carefully keeping to the heavier shadows, I began to move back towards the car-park. What I didn’t know was now more important than what I did. One thing was that there had been time for the car to return, and I didn’t know whether they were waiting for me. Another was that I didn’t even know that Frenchie had gone in the car. He could be lurking, with mud smeared on the blade of his number two to avoid reflections. I had now completely abandoned any thought of using the bike, so it would have to be on foot. I would have to hug the verges, prepared to dive for cover during every treacherous yard of the two miles.

  But first I had to be certain ab
out the car-park. Frenchie didn’t know I’d come on a bike. He could be waiting for a shadow, Paul Manson size, to creep up to one of the vehicles. The first poor sloshed bugger…no, I didn’t dare to allow myself to think of that. First, I had to reconnoitre the car-park—if I could only reach it safely.

  I was running out of the better sort of shadows. Ahead and on my right was the hotel, my side of the road. The lobby light was dim, but I dared not cross it. One upstairs light was on, casting a pallid gleam across towards the car-park. Crouching low, moving slowly with my knees protesting, I slid across to the other side of the road. The overpowering impulse was to run, but this was one impulse I had to ignore. It’s movement that’s most easily spotted.

  Gaining the poor cover of the four-foot surrounding wall of the car-park, I crouched for a full two minutes to recover my poise, breathing quietly through my nose. The throwing knife was now clammy in my right fist. I listened. Somewhere there was movement, but I couldn’t place it. A cat yowled in miserable sexual endeavour. I edged towards the entrance. Just inside was the shed, and I felt I dared to straighten to my full height in its shadow. I could hear each tiny wave on the rocky beach, but nothing else. A shadow moved to my left.

  Had he seen me? Was he circling round? The hair stood proud on my neck. Sweat dripped from the end of my nose. I could almost hear it, and didn’t dare raise a hand to dash it away. I couldn’t stay there; it was too dangerous. Slowly, my eyes not moving from where I’d seen the shadow moving, I slipped into the shade of the nearest car. There, feeling safer, I edged round, moved between two more, slid across the backs, round the next, always skirting towards the same point. And pausing to survey the complete prospect. Nothing. A star was reflected from the roofs of the better polished cars. It began to annoy me, following me round, pointing at me.

  Then I saw the shadow again, over by the shed I’d recently left. I had him. The advantage was mine…but to do what? The best method of defence? Why not! I attacked, having not the slightest idea of what I would do if I reached him and confronted him. But not being too foolhardy, I chose the safest route, along the narrow lane between the noses of the parked cars and the side wall. I stumbled, jumped, aware that I must now have revealed myself, if only by sound. And then I fell sprawling beneath the wall.