The Bright Face of Danger

by Roger Ormerod

  They were on their way. The sirens rose and fell in the still air, ghostly warning to the deer and other wildlife. George stirred. He looked round.

  ‘Where the hell do they think they are — New York?’

  He was angry, disturbed at the warning the sirens projected.

  Fortunately, Williamson was even more angry. He had missed the possibility. It would not look good on his record.

  He was so angry that he omitted to search our cars.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was days before I could get the chill out of my bones. We stood around and waited. Williamson and his mates searched the area and swarmed around the car, and later a Superintendent called Thwaites appeared, and seemed to do nothing but eye us with suspicion. We each made statements, and when they finally released us it had been dark for two hours. Walking away from that headlight-swept clearing, we were temporarily blinded.

  George wasn’t saying anything. The trip back down to the road was going to be tricky, but he didn’t seem to hear my warning. Before I’d manoeuvred the Porsche round, he’d gone in a cloud of exhaust steam.

  I caught him in the public bar of the Crown. He didn’t seem to be as hungry as I was, except perhaps for warmth and companionship — and congratulations.

  The news had preceded us. You know how these things flare across space like a forest fire. It was known that Adrian Collis had been removed from public danger. It was also known that George and I were the ones who had failed in our duties and allowed that to happen. They were buying George a drink.

  Sometimes you can’t tell with George. Generally speaking he is open and obvious, but sometimes his face becomes set, only experience tells you that he’s close to an explosion.

  I tried to get between them. ‘Let’s go and eat, George.’

  He looked at me, and through me. ‘There’s a drink for you, too.’

  ‘No, no. I did very little.’

  ‘True. All my own work. But drink it down, Dave.’

  ‘What I need’s a brandy.’

  ‘A brandy for my friend!’

  There was enough expression in his voice, now, to moderate the excited chatter around us. It tailed off into a murmuring uneasiness.

  I took my drink. It washed me with a temporary warmth, but the basic chill quelled it.

  ‘Aren’t you going to pack?’ I asked casually. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘What’s there to stay for? Our man’s dead. Surely you can’t expect paying for it. You go home, George. Leave the nasty bit to me.’

  ‘I thought we’d had that.’

  ‘There’s Mrs. Collis to see.’

  Slowly the chatter had grown again, with its centre moved away from us. It only takes a touch of reality to burst a bubble of hysteria. I waited for George’s eyes to soften. The mention of Delia worked.

  ‘Williamson said he’d go.’

  ‘That makes it easy. So there’s nothing to keep us here.’

  He looked away and grabbed at his glass. ‘I’d just like to meet him and shake his hand.’

  ‘Who’s that then?’

  ‘This public hero, the one that did him in.’

  I laughed. ‘You think he’ll stand up and be counted?’

  ‘In here, why not! He’s amongst friends.’ Then he peered over the edge of his glass, slowly turning his head, eyeing each one in turn. ‘If he’s here, and if he’s got the guts,’ he said flatly.

  It could have been that easy. Somewhere there was a pillar of the community who had deprived it of Collis’s company. It was a heady time for him. The temptation would be enormous. There’s many a murderer who’s confessed because his accomplishment remains hidden.

  There was a shuffle. The crowd parted to reveal Reuben Goldwater, half cowering, trying to grin, looking round in appeal.

  ‘Oh no,’ he whispered, and the tension dissolved in a roar of laughter.

  ‘Aren’t we going to eat now?’ I asked.

  ‘You eat if you want to. Me, I’m going out. Delia Collis is going to be very frightened and very lonely.’

  ‘So you’re going to comfort her?’

  ‘I’m going to fetch her sister.’

  Naturally, I went with him. We took a fistful of sandwiches and the Renault, in case we had to run Amanda over to her sister’s. George was quiet. The car ran well, apart from a strange hum. Then I realised it was George.

  ‘What you so cheerful about?’

  ‘Who said I’m cheerful? All right, cheerful then. It’s been lousy for me, Dave, these last few days.’

  ‘I haven’t been so happy myself.’

  ‘You know what I mean. You were fine. You’ve got a do-gooder streak in you. You’re the sort that thinks everybody’s innocent once you can understand ‘em, how they tick and what makes their wheels go round. Then you can excuse them.’

  ‘Understanding isn’t excusing.’

  ‘Come off it. You just sat back, all warm and happy. You told yourself there was just a chance he hadn’t done those three murders. It made it easy for you.’

  ‘But you, George—’

  ‘I hadn’t finished.’

  ‘You had, mate. Your bit. Now it’s my turn. You, George, were just as convinced he had done ‘em. And that made it easy for you. Watch the road, blast you. All you’d got to think was that somehow — if any girl was in danger — you’d got to be there, because Collis would be. And this time you’d get him. No, George, it’s you who’s had it easy. It’s now that things are going to get difficult.’

  Now...what?’

  ‘Because it isn’t going to finish with comforting Delia Collis and walking away. This partnership’s suffered enough. First we protect a convicted murderer. Then we fail to protect him. Now...how’ll it look if we just walk away from it? And make no mistake, George, you’re not going to split us up. That’d be the end of our reputation. And I intend to stay here and dig out who did it.’

  ‘I don’t care who did it.’

  ‘I know you don’t. That’s why it’s going to be difficult for you.’

  ‘If you think I’m—’

  ‘I do think it. Now shut up and let me concentrate.’

  ‘What’s there to concentrate about?’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  And ten minutes later, I had. I roused.

  ‘Collis wouldn’t do all that wangling with cars in order to meet somebody who hated him.’

  ‘You work it out, Dave. Me...I’m driving.’

  ‘So, if one of ‘em did it his enemies — then you’ve got to ask yourself how they knew where to go to wait for Collis.’

  ‘I don’t have to ask myself anything.’

  ‘As you wish, George. Any idea where we’re going?’

  ‘Flat 27, Riverside Court. You put it on tape.’

  ‘So I did. Don’t you have to look at a street map?’

  His fingers stroked the wheel. We took a fast bend with stability. There had been little snow here.

  ‘I looked it up,’ he said, and I glanced at him with curiosity.

  You couldn’t be sure if they were council flats or privately owned. Nowadays they’re building a quality of impersonality into everything, presenting a puzzle for future historians to type the seventies style. This architect had shied away from high-rise, and gently avoided a suggestion of uniformity. The block had the contours of a destroyer, all ups and downs and purposeful curves.

  Flat 27 was a ground floor one, where the building curtsied and swerved to avoid an oval of greenery and landscaping in concrete. Until my finger was actually on the button I had assumed that Amanda Greaves had been told. George stood at my side, his head thrown back.

  ‘Who’s going to tell her?’ he asked, and the door opened.

  She was in slacks and a polo-necked jumper and wearing no make-up. As it should always be, I thought, with those marvellous eyes, which closed and opened again, and blurred as she whispered:

  ‘What’s happened?’

  I glanced round. ‘Well..
.’

  ‘Come in. Do come in. I knew it, I just knew it. Oh, don’t tell me there’s another...’

  So it wasn’t going to be such a shock. ‘No, Miss Greaves, it’s not another girl. It’s Adrian Collis himself. I’m sorry. He’s dead.’

  She caught her lower lip in her teeth. ‘Oh dear God! How?’

  ‘It isn’t very pleasant.’

  She flashed her eyes at me. ‘You were supposed to be protecting Adrian. You let those morons get at him.’

  ‘One only, I think.’ We were still in the hall. ‘One person — moron or otherwise — reached him with a shotgun.’ Her breath was indrawn quickly. ‘It would have been quite sudden.’

  ‘Thank you for coming to tell me.’ She gave an awkward little wave with one hand.

  ‘It wasn’t why we came. Your sister...’

  ‘Poor Delia. How is she taking it?’

  ‘We haven’t seen her. We just thought you’d want to be with her.’

  Her little laugh was choked, biting. ‘Quite obviously you haven’t seen her. She’d have said she didn’t want me.’

  ‘You’ve quarrelled then?’

  ‘Nothing...oh dear, no. Nothing new. It’s always been the same. She resents me, and always has. I’m the elder. I suppose I’m bossy. Do I give you that impression? I see I do. But she was always foolish and stubborn. I’ve had to lead her and guide her, and advise her. But when we came to this...’

  ‘Came to what?’

  ‘How she insisted on staying with him...I pleaded with her, but this time...’ She threw up her hands in supplication. ‘Nothing would budge her. Not the danger — and she was in danger there, you can’t deny it. But no. I’m married to him, she said, as though somebody had chained them together.’

  George had been silent all this time. But now he spoke. George, the bachelor, rumbled warningly: ‘Some people take it seriously.’

  She looked at him. I read her thought: Ye Gods, what’ve we got here? She smiled sourly. ‘I’d understand if she loved him, because then she could be blind to it all and forgive it.’

  ‘All, Miss Greaves?’ I asked.

  ‘This business. You know! But it was all gone, whatever she’d felt for him. Oh, she didn’t fool me. It was sheer stupid loyalty.’

  ‘Very disturbing,’ I said comfortingly. ‘We’ve got a car outside.’

  ‘Do you really think I could go to her?’

  ‘If you tried not to say you told her so, and that you knew he’d come to a sticky end...yes. I think you could go, and even find her grateful.’

  She raised her chin. Her voice was sharp. ‘If I did decide to go, it’d be in my own car.’

  ‘Luxury car at your service,’ George cut in, his voice so mocking that I knew she’d have to take him up.

  ‘You’re a fool if you don’t realise I’d have to get back here.’

  ‘Oh, but we’ll be around,’ he said. ‘Quite a while, I reckon.’

  ‘What is he saying?’

  I explained to her. ‘I’ve persuaded him to stay with me. I’ll have to find out who killed him, now won’t I?’

  ‘If it gives you satisfaction.’

  ‘For everybody’s satisfaction.’

  Her eyes were blank as she turned from us, and we didn’t get to see the flat. Not that time, anyway.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ said George, as we got in the Renault. ‘You create situations, and now we’ve got no alternative.’

  ‘I’ve realised that. She’s only got to give herself enough time for self-justification, and nothing’ll keep her away from Delia. So we’ve got to go and warn her.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that.’ He sighed, with resignation, I thought.

  But things went wrong that night, all round. The bungalow was empty and dark when we arrived. Rattling the gate didn’t raise any protest from Major, so it meant that Delia had him with her. Ten to one at the Station, and for heaven knew how long.

  Just to make sure, we climbed the gate and went to ring the bell, in case she was weeping in the dark, but all that happened was that a fat, sleek grey cat rubbed himself against our legs. Major’s alleged meal was emerging in the dog’s absence.

  All was peaceful and quiet. It was as though the whole district had sighed with relief at Collis’s passing. The trees across the road stood straight and calmly dignified under their coating of snow, and the rustlings were innocent and wild.

  But you see how it left us. We had Amanda no doubt heading there, so we couldn’t just leave her to find the place empty. So we waited, half the night through, and it did not occur to either of us that she’d use her intelligence and phone before she left the flat. It did occur to us to phone the flat ourselves, and I walked along the road until I found a box, but there was no reply from Flat 27. Which was what put us off.

  Nevertheless, neither Delia nor Amanda arrived while we were there, and when we got back to town, getting on for two in the morning, we’d missed all the excitement.

  The evidence was still there in the bar. The lights were on and they were clearing up the mess. The police had come to collect Reuben Goldwater and his belligerent friend, Jonas Fletcher. They had arrived at a poorly-chosen time, when the bar was packed with well-wishers, who might not have proof that either of them had killed Collis, but were sufficiently drunk to wish themselves into believing that one of them had.

  It had taken half an hour for the police to winkle out their two witnesses — and that would have been only for questioning.

  Andy Partridge, we heard the following morning, had made a show of it for the public record, and had been chased across three counties before he took a corner too fast for two wheels. There had been no injury to vehicle or rider, except perhaps to his pride.

  Mind you, he’d probably recover his pride when he discovered that they actually thought him capable of murder.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sgt. Williamson joined us for breakfast. That’s to say, he sat with us while we ate, and emptied our teapot.

  ‘The Super’s intrigued,’ he said. ‘Pass the sugar, will you.’

  George and I chewed.

  ‘It’s your part in this affair,’ he went on. ‘You do see why, I’m sure. There’s been a most strange and garbled story from his wife, but of course it can’t be true. Tell me it’s not true.’

  George looked at me. We did not speak.

  ‘Something about being around when the next girl was attacked. He can’t have hired you for such a thing, to be there when he actually did it.’

  He poured his second cup. I cleared my throat, and he looked expectant. George said: ‘Have you found the weapon?’

  ‘You’re not being co-operative. Now me — I’ve never seen any point in hiding things. So I’ll tell you. No, we haven’t found any weapon. As I was saying, if that was your idea, to catch him in the act, so to speak, how’d you come to let him get away? No...I’ve heard the story sorry, your evidence.’ He laughed, stirring vigorously. ‘What I meant was that we can understand you’d want to let him think he was slipping you. But how the hell did you come to bungle it so...well, so stupidly?’

  George reached for the pot a second too late. ‘Any footprints?’ he asked with interest, his hand in the air.

  After you two — what d’you expect?’

  ‘But the weather forecast says milder,’ I pointed out. ‘When the snow melts, it could reveal something.’

  ‘When’re you leaving?’ Williamson asked. ‘You’ll have to let us know.’

  ‘We’re going up to see Delia Collis,’ George said. ‘I take it she’s home now?’

  ‘Her sister came to the Station. There was a scene. The Super sent them both away. Oh dear, there’s no more tea.’

  I watched him leave, wondering what he’d been fishing for. ‘Did you mean that, about going to see Delia?’

  ‘Not at the time I said it. But I’d love to hear about that scene. Let’s go ask her.’

  I wondered what George was fishing for, too, but I went along
with what he wanted to do.

  The gate was wide open, with Major lolling his tongue at us just inside. Two cars stood in the drive, Amanda’s Morris Minor and a Mini, which I assumed to be Delia’s.

  Amanda let us in. She had taken control. There was an aura of protectiveness about the place.

  ‘How you’ve got the nerve to come here, after what’s happened...’

  ‘Is she resting?’ I asked.

  ‘Resting be damned. She’s sorting out her recordings.’

  Anything to keep the hands busy and the mind occupied, I decided. Delia was in the long room, wearing a nylon housecoat.

  ‘Good of you to come,’ she said politely. Her gaze wandered from me, sought out a vase, and she went to adjust its position. Amanda took it from her, shooing her to a seat.

  ‘Have you had breakfast?’ Delia asked. She was smoothing, over and over, the surface of the housecoat across her knees.

  ‘Breakfast...but no tea.’

  ‘I’m sure Amanda would only be too pleased...’ The sentence faded away as she met Amanda’s gaze.

  ‘We’d like that,’ George said.

  ‘Dying for a cup,’ I agreed.

  Amanda left the room with long, tense strides. Delia stared at a far corner of the room.

  ‘I shall go quite insane if she stays here another hour,’ she murmured.

  ‘We thought you’d like company.’ I glanced at George, who was impassive. ‘Perhaps we made a mistake.’

  ‘I’d like to be alone. There’s really no danger, now. I shall insist. It’s my home...I can insist?’ She looked the question at me.

  ‘Legally, yes. What was the upset at the Station?’

  Her hands fluttered; her lips tried to smile. ‘She insisted that they must release me. It was embarrassing because they were being so kind. They were not holding me, you understand.’

  ‘But for a long while,’ I pointed out. ‘Why were they so dissatisfied, I wonder?’

  ‘It’s so strange. Adrian...’ She used the name casually; just somebody she used to know. ‘Adrian went to that place, so who could have known where to find him? As simple as that.’

  Amanda clattered a tray in, deliberately dispersing the intimacy. I waited for the atmosphere to settle. Amanda sat and poured tea. George sat opposite her, but I walked my cup around.