The Old Vengeful

by Anthony Price

  “’HE SHOT AN arrow in the air’—or, to be exact, in the correspondence columns of The Times, which for his purposes was very much better—and it came to earth in the remarkable memory of Miss Irene Cookridge. Which was not at all what he expected, but much more rewarding,” said Audley. “So you just read her reply for yourself, Elizabeth.”

  He reached down the table towards Elizabeth, and she took the letter from him. But although she also caught Paul’s eye between the silver candlesticks, with the flames sparkling on the glitter of the cutlery and glass between them—and Del Andrew’s eyes too (less cautioning, more frankly curious) in passing—she still felt like the little girl who had found the answers in the back of her book, but still couldn’t make her sums add up right—

  “Elizabeth—Detective Chief Inspector Andrew, Special Branch— ‘Del’ to us, apparently, according to my husband … Chief Inspector—Miss Elizabeth Loftus—Elizabeth to us.”

  First, he was too young—or not first, since she had never met a Chief Inspector of any sort, let alone of the Special Branch … So first, was this the type—more like the young gipsy who’d come up the drive last month, trying to sell a load of asphalt “left over from a job”?

  “Hullo, Miss Loftus.” The sharp gipsy look was there too, sizing her up unashamedly.

  “Chief Inspector.” She couldn’t quite expel the surprise from her acknowledgement, and was embarrassed to observe the flicker of amusement in his dark eyes.

  “And I’m Mitchell.” Paul drew the eyes away from her. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, Chief Inspector. But I’ve heard about you from Colonel Butler.”

  “No.” There was the merest suggestion of an East London naow there, just as there had been the slightest hesitation in the aspirate of hullo, and the eyes were frankly appraising now, with a hint of wariness. “And I’ve heard about you too, Dr Mitchell.”

  “Nothing derogatory, I hope?” Under the light tone Paul also sounded just a touch wary.

  The Chief Inspector smiled. “You’ve just given two of my sergeants a lot of paper-work.”

  “I think I’d better see to the ruins of dinner,” murmured Faith. “Are you staying the night, Del?”

  “I don’t know, madam.” The Chief Inspector glanced towards Audley, while Elizabeth envied Faith’s ability to handle eccentric situations gracefully.

  “I think he is, love.” Audley waited until his wife had departed before continuing. “To be exact, Paul … they’ve been tidying up your depredations of yesterday to make them fit for any god-fearing coroner.”

  “I wouldn’t call them ‘depredations’.” The Chief Inspector cocked his head at Paul. “In fact, I got some mates down my old nick who’d buy the first round for you, Dr Mitchell—and all the other rounds, and see you safe home when you couldn’t stand up straight. They’d reckon you done them a favour.”

  “Which reminds me—“ Audley moved towards an array of bottles in the corner of the room “—it’s Irish whiskey, isn’t it, Del?”

  “Thank you.” The Chief Inspector wasn’t overawed by Audley. “All the same, you chanced your arm with Steve Donaghue, Dr Mitchell. Very quick on his feet was old Steve—for a man his size.”

  “Steve Donaghue—“ Paul swallowed. “Was?”

  “Patrick Lawrence Donaghue—‘Steve’ to his friends, of whom there can’t have been very many, because he had a nasty temper … yes, we’ve lost him, Dr Mitchell—to your second bullet though, so we’ll count that as self-defence, because he’d ‘ave broken your back if he’d reached you. But he doesn’t matter—he was just a thick heavy, and somebody would have done ‘im sooner or later … And much the same goes for little Willie Fullick—someone would have done him sooner, rather than later, because he wasn’t nearly as good as he thought he was—lots of talk, but no bottle … He reckoned he was Steve’s brains—and God knows, Steve needed some brains … but he wasn’t.”

  “Willie … Fullick?” Paul repeated the name softly.

  “Thank you—“ the Chief Inspector took his glass from Audley, and sipped, and nodded “—very nice … yes … of course, there was no time for introductions—William Harold Fullick was the look-out man you put down yesterday in the garden … But at least he gave you the shooter, and that makes things easier for us to prove self-defence, like it made it easier for you with Steve.” Another sip, and a cold smile to go with it. “Funny really—Willie was warned not to carry firearms, that it’d be the death of’im … and it was … but it’d ‘ave been the death of you, Dr Mitchell, if he hadn’t—if old Steve ‘ad got ‘is hands on you.” He shook his head at Paul. “Very careless, you were.”

  Paul said nothing.

  “But they don’t matter—no one’ll cry over those two … though no one’ll buy you a drink for them, either.” The Chief Inspector stared at Paul for a moment, and then turned towards Elizabeth. “But Julian Oakenshaw—Julian Alexander Carrell Oakenshaw—Bachelor of Arts … You are a very lucky lady, Miss Loftus, if I may say so—a very lucky lady.”

  For the first time ever, Elizabeth wished she had a strong drink in her hand, like yesterday.

  “But I think you probably know that—I shouldn’t be at all surprised—“

  “She knows it,” snapped Paul. “So what?”

  “So I shouldn’t explain to her how lucky she is?”

  “If she knows it—no.”

  “Ah! You’re worried because he didn’t have a shooter—“

  “I don’t give a damn what he had—“

  “He didn’t need a shooter.” Suddenly Chief Inspector Andrew was all chief inspector, and a thousand years older than Paul Mitchell. “Steve Donaghue maybe killed a couple of men in his time—he certainly crippled a few … and Willie Fullick never killed anyone most likely, because he couldn’t break the skin on a rice pudding— though it wasn’t for lack of trying, and ‘e’d ‘ave managed it sooner or later … with some poor old nightwatchman, or a sub-postmistress maybe … But Julian Oakenshaw killed seven people—six men and one woman—and he killed them slowly, and he enjoyed every minute of it … And each time we couldn’t even prove he was in the same county when he did it, because he was a Bachelor of Arts and he was smart—and that’s why my two sergeants are going to fix that report so you’ll come up smelling sweeter than the biggest bank of roses you ever saw at Kew Gardens, Dr Mitchell—okay?”

  The fact that it was all delivered unemotionally, like a traffic report on a Bank Holiday, served to silence Paul.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Loftus—“ Del Andrew’s dark eyes clouded sympathetically as he saw that, where Paul was merely silenced, Elizabeth was actively terrified “—but Dr Audley here wants me to make this plain, so you don’t misunderstand anything: this … this man Oakenshaw was a real bad bastard—a psychopath of the most dangerous kind—not just hard, but bad, and crafty with it… Not just your ordinary villain, like I was brought up with, but one of your maximum security throw-away-the-key swine, if we could ever have got our hands on him. So you were lucky, Miss Loftus.”

  She nodded. “Yes … I think I do understand that, Chief Inspector.”

  The eyes—the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen—almost black-brown—darted towards Audley, and then back to her. “Ye-ess … he said you would … So what you want to know now is that for his daily bread Julian Oakenshaw specialised in getting information— like, sometimes, where the really tricky burglar alarms were, an’ the electronic gear … and industrial espionage, that was up his street too—he had a good analytical brain, and when he was briefed right he always knew what to look for … The only thing wrong with ‘im was that, when the moon was full like last night, he preferred people to be difficult, so he could burn a pretty pattern on them first, before they told him what he wanted to know, before he cut their throats—“ Del tensed suddenly “—sorry, dear—but that’s what he would have done, when you’d sung for him. And you would have sung, believe me—that was his stock-in-trade, gettin’ results for carriage clients who we
ren’t fussy about how he got them, just so they weren’t involved: information was his business, an’ that always came first. But inflicting pain was his pleasure, an’ he liked to mix pleasure with business when the opportunity presented itself and the moon was full, an’ he had a clear run.”

  “And was that well known?” asked Paul.

  “In the trade it was—we knew about it. But he was too fly to let anyone pin so much as a charity flag on him … like he never used the same talent twice to watch his back, and do his heavy work for him. That pair he had yesterday, that you sorted out… that was their first time as well as their last—an’ the first time he picked two dud ‘uns too, thank God!”

  Mitchell looked at Audley. “Then that doesn’t fit, David.”

  “You don’t think so?” Audley seemed to know what didn’t fit, but it evidently didn’t worry him.

  “I know so.” Paul caught Elizabeth’s eye, but almost without seeming to see her. “The KGB would never sub-contract an important job to a psycho—not in a thousand years.” He focussed on her suddcnly, “It’s just not their style, damn it!” He swung back to Audlcy. “And with Novikov sitting in his car, trailing Elizabeth? It never did fit, David—Novikov careless is bad enough, but Novikov there at all cancels his connection with Oakenshaw.”

  Audley shrugged. “Maybe he was watching over his investment to check on the dividend. Who knows?”

  Mitchell frowned at him, then at Chief Inspector Andrew. “Is that what you think?”

  “What do I think?” Del Andrew finished his drink. “About this Novikov I don’t think, because I don’t know ‘im well enough … an’ the same goes for ‘style’, ‘cause I haven’t been playin’ this game long enough to suss it out. But Oakenshaw would have put his grannie through it if the money was right—that was his style … Only, having said all that, it wasn’t Comrade Novikov who put the money up for is—you’re spot on there, Dr Mitchell.”

  “Then who was it?” Mitchell brightened.

  “It was a right little villain named Danny Kahn—“

  “Dinner’s on the table,” said Faith Audley through the doorway. And you still haven’t opened the wine, David—“

  Danny Kahn?

  The meal, whatever it was like—over-cooked or not—was purgatory for Elizabeth.

  Danny Kahn?

  HM Frigate Vengeful, 36 guns, 975 tons—

  A right little villain, Danny Kahn?

  Lieutenant Chipperfield, Mr Midshipman Paget, Gunner’s Mate Chard … Danny Kahn—?

  It was purgatory because, by apparent convention, they didn’t talk shop in front of Faith Audley during the meal—that was plain from the start, from the way Faith controlled the conversations at both ends of the table—

  Why should a man she had never met hire another man she had also never met to ransack her home and threaten to do such unthinkable things to her—?

  “Peckham, Mrs Audley—“ Del Andrew obstinately refused to call Faith anything but “Mrs Audley”; Elizabeth had become Elizabeth, and although Drs Audley and Mitchell remained Drs Audley and Mitchell Chief Inspector Andrew plainly wasn’t overawed by either of them; but Faith he kept at arm’s-length “—Peckham’s the real world, all the rest is just a figment of my imagination—‘pound note’ country—“

  Purgatory.

  But in the end it came to an end, although not at all the way she expected.

  “Very well.” Faith gathered them all. “Now I’m going to stack the things, and then I’m going to bed. And Elizabeth ought to go to bed too.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Elizabeth dutifully, not wanting to help her, but only wanting to hear about Danny Kahn.

  “I’m only going to fill the dish-washer, Elizabeth dear. Mrs Clarke will sort things out in the morning—“

  “We need Elizabeth,” said Audley. “And in the morning you’re both going to be busy—you too, love.”

  “Oh yes?” Faith looked at her husband suspiciously. “How busy, exactly?”

  “You’re going to Guildford—or wherever you go to waste my substance—and kit her out for travelling from top to … ah … bottom—clothes, shoes, baggage to put ‘em in, what she’s not wearing—hair—everything, love.” Audley peered at his wife over his spectacles and the candles. “Start at dawn, and Paul will meet you at twelve.”

  “He will?” Paul sounded mutinous. “Will he?”

  “I can’t possibly do that, David.”

  “Cancel your engagements.”

  “It’s the time, not the engagements, David. And I go to London for my clothes, anyway.”

  “There’s a smart place in Guildford. I’ve seen the bills, by God!” Audley gave a snort. “But don’t worry about the money—Her Majesty will pay—“

  “I can pay,” snapped Elizabeth.

  “Hold on, Elizabeth!” exclaimed Paul Mitchell. “With Novikov on the loose—never mind … never mind anyone else … you’d better think twice about going anywhere, damn it!” He swung towards Audley. “And where is she going? And come to that—where am I going?”

  Elizabeth looked at Audley. “Where am I going?”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said Paul. “Because nowhere outside this house is safe.”

  Audley looked at Elizabeth. “She’ll go where she wants to go— right, Elizabeth?”

  “Now you’re being devious, darling,” said his wife disparagingly.

  “I hope so, love—that’s what I’m paid to be … But I know if I say there isn’t the slightest danger that will only offend you, even though it’s true … so Aske and Bannen will accompany you tomorrow for the sake of reassurance, if for no other useful purpose, while you make your purchases, until Mitchell arrives to take her from you.”

  “And then?” Paul sounded unreassured.

  “Then, all being well, you shall both go Vengeful-researching somewhere even safer, in so far as that is possible. And you can still keep Aske, if not for protection then as a chaperone.” Audley came back to Elizabeth. “Well, Elizabeth—are you game?”

  “Don’t agree,” advised Paul. “He put the same question to me once—“

  “And look at you now!” murmured Audley. “But I’m not going to argue with you, Elizabeth. You have a mind of your own, and can make it up for yourself.”

  And that was true, thought Elizabeth—true now as it had never been before, even though she was still her father’s daughter … And, in any case, the incentives hadn’t changed.

  But that, of course, was what David Audley was relying on: he knew his mark better than Faith or Paul did.

  She looked from one to the other of them apologetically. “I can’t stay here for ever, can I?” she said. “And I do need some new clothes.”

  “No, it doesn’t start with Danny Kahn,” said Del. “It only finishes with him. It starts with our doing-over your place, Elizabeth—what we sniffed out as maybe of interest, after Dr Mitchell had finished with it … which was mostly a lot of junk and dead ends that wasted our time … But there was this quarterly account from this taxi firm in London for journeys right across town—Victoria all the way to Whitechapel, north of the river—regular journeys, costing a small fortune … an’ that was when I first thought ‘aye-aye—something not quite right here’ … so I got on to the firm, an’ they remembered your dad—good customer an’ all that—an’ routed out his regular driver. And after I’d talked to him I dropped everything else, because I’d got this lucky feeling then.” He sipped his port and almost winked at her, she thought. “Whitechapel tube station, that’s where he was let off, an’ picked up an hour later each time. And there’s only three directions you can go from there—like, back where you came from, or on into deepest Essex … Barking, Upminster, Ongar … or you take the line through to New Cross Gate, under the river—which is the oldest tunnel under the Thames, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunei—Rother’ithe, Surrey Docks … all my old stamping grounds when I was a kid, but not the sort of place your dad’d go to, except maybe further on
to Greenwich and the Royal Naval College … But he wouldn’t go that way, see?”

  “But that’s where he went?” said Paul.

  “Sssh!” said Audley.

  “An’ that’s where I really started to get lucky—lucky it was me, an’ not someone who didn’t know the area—but lucky first because his driver used to worry about him … nice old gentleman limping along alone, with his stick, down into that tube station, with his little brief-case—“

  “Heavy little brief-case,” murmured Paul, looking at Elizabeth.

  “So one evening he was late back, an’ the driver went and inquired in the station … and he was told that there’d been a breakdown at Shadwell, which is the back-end of the East End, just before Wapping, where the tube dives under the river, an’ comes up in South London at Rother’ithe. Which meant, of course, that he was doubling back across the river, just as a routine precaution, because he didn’t want anyone to know where he was going—clever, but amateur, like you’d expect. But I knew I was on to him then, an’ not wasting my time … Apart from being lucky, that is.”

  Elizabeth observed the rapt expression on David Audley’s face, half admiring, half smug, and knew that Chief Inspector Andrew hadn’t been lucky at all; or, if he had been lucky, it had been the deserved luck of the clever man who takes the right path at each intersection out of that rare blend of intelligence and experience and instinct which passed for luck among lesser mortals.

  “So … to cut a long story short… I ended up at the Jolly Caulkers pub right opposite Surrey Docks station, on the edge of all that rundown docks area, where there’s a bloke behind the bar I used to be at school with. An’ they know I’m a dick, of course, though I’ve been mostly up Bermondsey, Peckham way, out of Catford divisional nick … but I’m still nearly one of them, all the same. An’ because this is a rush job, I flashed your father’s picture around. An’ someone says for old times’ sake ‘Yeah—I saw ‘im with Lippy once’, an’ I said ‘Lippy who?’, and he says ‘Harry Lippman, what used to fence gear out of Redriff Road—but ‘e’s dead now’… Which was the only reason why he’d even said that much, of course—Redriff Road’s just nearby, little 1920s council flats, just square boxes with iron railings in front— because Lippy was where I couldn’t touch him.”