Dead Man Walking

by J F Straker

  “Well enough,” Johnny told him. The room had been re-decorated since his last visit, but otherwise nothing was changed. Whisper Pratt did not like change. He had said so many times. It was his main objection to prison. A bachelor, he liked to ‘do’ for himself. Prison denied him that.

  “And Mr Sherrey? Doing all right, is he?” Johnny nodded, and Whisper beamed his pleasure. “That’s good. A fine man, Mr Sherrey. Got me a five-stretch once. Did you know that?” Johnny said he did. “Couldn’t help hisself, really. Done bang to rights, I was.” Whisper bent to produce glasses from a cupboard. “But that was in the early days. Mr Sherrey was a diddy then. Just got promotion, as I remember.”

  Johnny accepted the proffered beer. He said, “Been busy lately?”

  “So-so. But not the way you mean, Mr Inch.”

  “No? In that case you’ll have had nothing to do with a burning job yesterday, eh?”

  “Me?” Whisper looked shocked. “I get my maggot legit these days.”

  “The superintendent will be chuffed to hear it. He reckoned this peter had your moniker all over it.”

  “He did?” Surprise turned to mild dismay. “That’s a puzzler, that is. The Boozer don’t often make mistakes. What job was this, then?”

  “You haven’t heard? It was on the radio.”

  “I got up late. And lunch-time I was down at the boozer.”

  Johnny told him. Watching the man’s cherubic face as he talked, it was his turn to be puzzled. Unless Whisper was a consummate actor — and Johnny had no information on that — his demeanour suggested that his denial of all knowledge of the crime was an honest one. Normally a tranquil man, by the time Johnny had finished Whisper had the fidgets: scratching his head, wriggling his shoulders, shuffling his slippered feet.

  “I never done it, Mr Inch, and that’s gospel,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know nothing at all about it.”

  “I believe you,” Johnny told him. “But others may be more sceptical. Suppose you tell me where you were yesterday? Just for the record, you understand.”

  “I was here.” He sounded mournful. “On me tod. I had a bad throat, see, so I stayed in bed.”

  “All day?”

  “All day, Mr Inch. Honest to God!”

  Johnny sipped his beer, letting the man sweat a little.

  “Not much of an alibi, Whisper, is it?” He put down the glass. “Not up to your usual standard.”

  “Of course it ain’t.” There were beads of sweat on his fore-head, the false teeth were more in evidence. Anger had been added to anxiety. “I didn’t know —” He stopped. “As God’s my witness, Mr Inch, I didn’t have nothing to do with it. Nothing.”

  “That’s nice,” Johnny said, and stood up. “I’ll tell the superintendent. Thanks for the beer, Whisper. And watch that throat of yours. There’s a lot of flu about.”

  Whisper Pratt did not answer. When Johnny had left he stood for a few seconds glaring angrily at the closed door. Then he banged a fist on the table and reached for the telephone.

  4

  Beryl Sinclair was big, blonde, and bosomy. Most men were intimidated by her size, but some found it attractive; they were excited by the sensuality it suggested. Yet the suggestion was false. In general Beryl despised men, her husband Mark included. Only one man appealed to her, and that was Jess Wheeler. But although Jess was not unresponsive he was not the amatory flame for which she longed. He fiddled, but he did not burn. She was beginning to fear he never would.

  So it was with a quick surge of hope that she answered the telephone when it rang that evening, and heard a low voice say urgently, “Beryl? This is Jess.”

  “Why are you whispering?” she asked.

  “Judith’s in the next room.” His voice sounded distorted, and she suspected he was shielding the mouthpiece with his free hand. “Listen. I have to see you. Is Mark there?”

  “He’s round at the pub. It’s his darts night. But what —”

  “Something’s come up. I can’t discuss it on the phone. I’ll be round at your place in a few minutes. Run out to the car when you see me pull up, and we’ll drive round the block. I shan’t keep you long. You’ll be back before Mark returns.”

  She would not greatly care if she were not. Except as a provider, Mark had long ceased to count. Now he was not essential even as a provider.

  “I’ll be waiting,” she told him.

  She ran upstairs to change, slipping out of her woollen jumper as she went. Jess had once told her that he went more for bosoms than for legs. That had pleased her. Her own legs were thick and lacked curves, but her bosom was magnificent. The trip round the block might be short, but she meant to ensure that if there were time for dalliance the lure was not only available but visible.

  She put on a low-necked blouse and left the top button unfastened. Then she went down to wait, watching the darkening street from the front-room windows. It was an unattractive street. Victorian in origin, the semi-detached houses were depressing in their uniformity; little boxes with two down and three up, a front garden too small to cultivate and separated from the pavement by iron railings on a brick base, with a railed gate at the end of a narrow concrete or gravel path. Beryl hated it, as she hated most aspects of her life. That was why she had agreed to do what she had done. That was why ...

  She heard the Mini Cooper before she saw it. It came roaring down the quiet street, slid through the pool of light cast by a near-by street lamp, and pulled up with a jerk outside the house. She did not wait for it to stop. The Cooper’s exhaust note was distinctive, and she hurried into the hall. The night was dark — dry, with an overcast sky — but the street lighting softened it sufficiently for her to see the familiar yellow jersey of the driver as she opened the front door. Closing it behind her, she ran the few yards to the gate. Next door her neighbour was talking to a man on the worn step, and Beryl knew that she was about to provide the woman with yet another item of gossip. The knowledge did not trouble her. The nearside door of the Cooper was open, and without pausing she ran on to the pavement and slid into the passenger seat. Almost before she had slammed the door shut the car was moving away from the kerb, the engine revving furiously as the driver accelerated.

  The couple on the step ceased their conversation to watch it go. The man was the first to speak. He said sadly, “Damn! They were next on my list; I’m working the street that way. Any idea when they’re likely to be back?”

  “Before her husband gets home from the pub, if she’s any sense. Which I doubt.”

  “Oh! That wasn’t her husband, then?”

  “Not him. Her husband drives a Morris. That’s her — her friend. I don’t know who he is, but I’ve seen the car and that yellow jersey here before. And usually when her husband’s out.”

  The disapproval in her voice was tinged with envy. She had reached an age when possible male ‘friends’ belonged to the past.

  “Well, that’s life,” the man said. “One comes to accept these things. But about the election. There are no questions you’d like to ask?”

  The woman shook her head. “We’ve always voted Liberal. I doubt we’ll change now.”

  “Lucinda Bollender has Liberal views,” he told her. “She’s standing as an Independent because she’s against Party Whips and Party discipline. She believes members should vote according to their consciences and the will of their constituencies, not follow the Party line willy-nilly. Don’t you think that’s the right way to vote?”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  He left her then. Outside the Sinclairs’ house he paused, looking at the darkened windows. Then he turned and strode away, and she went in and shut the door.

  5

  Johnny had bought Muffin the Mule from a friendly sports car enthusiast who had outgrown her. Basically a Ford Corsair with a hotted-up engine, the Mule had a sleek fibre-glass body enamelled in British racing green, and boasted the numerous gadgets and improvements dear to the enthusiast’s heart. She
was not outstandingly fast; but she looked and sounded fast and had good acceleration, and Johnny revelled in her performance. Hours were irregular and leisure scarce with SIN, but he devoted what time he could to constant checking, greasing, cleaning, and polishing. No mechanic, he reluctantly left the more intimate and intricate aspects of her care to a garage.

  Karen had expressed proper admiration for the Mule. She had been somewhat startled when first introduced, and had decided that perhaps a scarf and a warmer coat would be more suitable for an open sports car. But once en route for London, with the Mule roaring her way up the highway, she had assured Johnny that this was quite an experience. To Johnny that admission had only one meaning. “Kind of gets you, doesn’t it?” he had shouted happily above the noise of the wind and the exhaust. And Karen, both hands clutching her scarf, had replied truthfully that it most certainly did.

  The suburbs had cut down the speed. Conversation had become easier, and in response to his inquiry she had told him that she was a freelance fashion model who occasionally acted small parts in films and on television. When she was resting she helped out at the hotel in any capacity that was needed. Ideally she should be based in London, she said. But she preferred the hotel. It was more pleasant than fending for herself. It was also cheaper.

  When she had persuaded him to talk about himself he had said modestly that there was little to tell. Brought up on a Kentish farm, he had gone to the local grammar school, and from there into the Metropolitan police as a probationer. His mother, now a widow, lived in a cottage near Mayfield, in Sussex. She was still a beautiful woman, he told Karen with unabashed pride. Maybe she’d marry again. He hoped she would.

  That had been on the way up. On the return journey, however, he lacked his customary absorption in the Mule and her performance. Even Karen’s glamorous presence did not fill him with the same delight. It was not only the problem of Whisper Pratt’s obviously genuine reaction to his visit that troubled him. On leaving Whisper he had made a detour to visit the family of a man named Franks who, four months previously, had been sentenced to five years for house-breaking. That had been SIN’s responsibility, and it was a responsibility Johnny had not relished. He had had no sympathy for the man; Franks was a hardened criminal who had deserved his sentence. But the wife had been left with five young children and no provision for them, and Johnny had felt mean about that. He had had them on his conscience since. Yet when he had called that afternoon at the insalubrious tenement which had previously housed them it was to learn from a neighbour that they had moved; and on visiting their new address he had found them installed in a modern flat and apparently enjoying, if not luxury, considerable comfort at least. They were cheerful, well-dressed, and obviously well-fed. Johnny found this quick transition from poverty to comparative affluence disturbing. It suggested a possibility he did not like. The Boozer, he thought, would dislike it too.

  There had been rain earlier in the evening, and the road was greasy. Johnny kept the Mule’s speed down; she could be skittish on wet macadam. He was also in a mood for reflection; and although he had bestirred himself at dinner to be entertaining, he talked little on the journey. After a while Karen too was silent, aware of his mood if not its cause, but sufficiently sure of her feminine appeal to know that it was unconnected with herself. The Mule was not a car in which to relax. But it was a refreshing experience to drive at night with a man who was not constantly seeking some secluded spot in which to park.

  They still had some miles to go when they rounded a bend in the tree-lined highway to see a tangle of lights by the roadside and a signal warning them to slow. Obediently, Johnny slowed. Karen eased herself up in her seat and peered round the low windscreen, narrowing her eyes against the wind.

  “What is it?” she asked. “An accident?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Several cars, together with an ambulance and a red fire wagon, were parked by the verge. A uniformed constable waved the Mule on, but Johnny ignored him and pulled in behind the fire wagon. By the lights of the stationary cars he saw that a grey Morris Minor had torn its way through the low hedge to flatten its nose against a tree. From the far side of its crumpled body came the glow and hissing roar of an oxyacetylene burner.

  Johnny slid from the driving-seat. “Shan’t be a minute,” he told the girl. “Don’t go away.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  Temporarily no traffic was moving on the road. The constable came over to the Mule, prepared to be officiously severe. The sight of Johnny’s warrant card appeased him, and he went back to his post without thinking to ask why a member of the Crime Squad should concern himself with a traffic accident.

  Johnny forced his way through the hedge. The off-side door of the Morris hung open, askew on its torn hinges. The bonnet had reared up, blanketing the shattered windscreen. Beyond the buckled steering-wheel Johnny saw the form of a man in the passenger seat, his body slumped forward, his head propped by the facia board at an impossible angle.

  A uniformed sergeant came to bar his way. Johnny introduced himself.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  The sergeant shrugged. “No other car involved. She must have taken the bend too fast and run out of road.”

  “She?”

  “Woman driver.” The sergeant pointed to beyond the tree. “She’s over there. Thrown clear on impact. The doctor’s with her, but there’s nothing he can do. Nothing anyone can do. They were both dead when we arrived.”

  They walked over to where the doctor stood beside the woman. She lay on her back, eyes closed, her body tidily arranged under the summer coat that enfolded it. Johnny guessed that this tidiness was the doctor’s handiwork; she would not have looked so composed after the crash. The lights on the road spread only faintly into the field, yet it seemed to him that her face was not badly marked. There were traces of blood at mouth and nostrils, and a gash in the forehead which vanished amid the blonde, almost white hair. He had expected to see more.

  “Multiple injuries,” the doctor said, in answer to his question. “Chest and abdomen, and both legs broken. Probably lived only a few seconds after she hit the ground.”

  The woman was young, and to Johnny vaguely familiar. He wondered where he might have seen her before, and then decided that he probably hadn’t.

  “Who is she?” he asked.

  “A stranger to me,” the sergeant said. “And nothing to identify her. Maybe we can trace her through the car.”

  “No handbag?”

  “We haven’t found one. There’s a medallion round her neck with the initials C.C. That’s all.”

  The acetylene burner was silent, its noise replaced by that of rending metal as firemen tried to prise the bodywork apart. The car’s engine had been forced back by the impact, pinning the man’s legs. Slowly and carefully they freed him, and laid him on the grass. The doctor knelt to unbutton his raincoat.

  “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed the sergeant. “Look at that, then!”

  Johnny looked. Under the raincoat the dead man wore only a pair of short pants. No vest, no shirt, no coat or trousers. Only the pants. But there was more than his near nudity to intrigue Johnny. He had recognized the man. He had seen him only once before, but the face was too distinctive for mistake.

  This was the foreign-looking man who had flirted with Karen in the hotel bar that morning. What had she said his name was? Wheeler. Jess Wheeler.

  6

  Mark Sinclair enjoyed his Monday evenings at the pub. He adored his wife, but he was also a little afraid of her; a small man married to a large and domineering woman, he had known both the sharpness of her tongue and the ugliness of her temper. Even at the pub she was seldom absent from his thoughts. But the beer and the comradeship reduced the tension and softened her image, and he would return home in a happier and more optimistic frame of mind. Optimism was never justified, but it was always with him. Give her a few years, he kept telling himself, and matters between them would improv
e. People mellowed with age. Not that he wanted Beryl to age. It would be sad to see her hair turn grey and her face and body wither.

  Events did not go well for him that particular Monday evening. Perhaps because of the new excitement that possessed him his hand was less steady and his aim less true, so that his usual accuracy at the dart-board deserted him. His team lost, and he knew that they blamed him for their defeat. His vexation increased when, on leaving the pub, he found that his Morris had gone from the car park. His first thought was that it had been stolen. Then, perhaps because the prospect of informing the police daunted him, he concluded that Beryl must have taken it. If she had suddenly decided that she needed the car she would not let the thought of his own embarrassment and disquiet deter her. And there was a spare ignition key in the sideboard drawer.

  He walked home. The car was not outside the house, which was in darkness, and he let himself in and went through to the kitchen for food. Beryl’s absence was both a relief and a worry. It confirmed his belief that it was she who had taken the car. But why had she taken it? Where had she gone?

  Munching bread and cold sausage from the fridge, he went into the hall. It was then he noticed the envelope in the wire letter-box. It must have been delivered by hand, for there was neither stamp nor postmark. Typewritten, it was addressed to him.

  “Dear Mark,” he read. “This will be a shock to you, but Beryl and I have decided to go away together. It’s been on the cards for some time; Judith and I don’t hit it off any more, and I guess you and Beryl aren’t exactly soul-mates. We didn’t go before because we hadn’t the cash. Now we have. We’ll probably go abroad; some place where there’s loads of sun and the living is high. We’ve both had our fill of monotony.

  “As we’re doing the dirty on you anyway, we may as well go the whole hog. Without Beryl you’ll have little use for capital — the old bookshop will see you through — but I’m going to need plenty. There’s Judith and the kids to provide for, as well as Beryl and myself. And you know how Beryl likes money. So we’re taking your share in addition to our own. She says if you really love her you’ll want her to have it. I hope for your sake she’s right.”