The Jones had gone as far as it could go into the narrow roadway. From that distance, it was able, just, to lift the cab and its trailer. Under Marson’s direction, Marty was trying to thread the hook into the broken driver’s window, to support the cab and its load from the angle between the door and the windscreen. It was taking several attempts. The hook had already smashed the windscreen itself, showering the injured driver with chunks of broken glass. Marson was now shouting instructions as relentlessly as a boxer’s trainer shouts into the ring from his corner. Marty was trying to thread the eye of a needle. He had it. No, not quite. The hook swung again. Yes, he had it, Mr Marson, he had it.
Den’s strength was too much. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, thought Grey. And in Prescott’s chain, one link was now considerably weaker than all the others. Den’s grip and tug finished the job he had not had time to complete with the torch. The chain snapped, and with it snapped its partner. Den was forced to let go, and he plummeted, somersaulting once slowly in the air and then falling head first towards the river. Above him, the bridge dropped and the truck lurched. The platform swung down, hanger bars smashing around it on either side like slithers of broken glass.
On the west side, the crack finally gave way. Hundreds of tons of argillaceous rock broke free from the cliff and dropped into the river as though it had never been attached. The truck began to drop. The line on the Kato began to uncoil itself like a snake stabbed into action.
“I’ve got it, Mr Marson!” cried Marty. And all at once, neither of them knew what was happening.
The trailer and the cab began to fall into the river. It seemed like it was falling for an eternity, but it had no time to pick up speed. In an instant the line from the Kato twanged solid. A fraction of a second later, the line from the Jones did the same. The old hydraulic crane shook, sending Marty’s head into the controls, and Marson’s body flying into the side of the cutting. The bridge and the west cliff continued to fall. It shot down towards the river, towards the spot in the churning distance where Den had disappeared.
The bridge, chains, bars, platform and all, hurtled down and crashed into the surface. The white froth it created sprayed almost as high as the cliffs themselves. The crowd watched and waited. No one dared breathe. They listened intently to the sound of the river as it accepted its new gift. The cliff on the east side had stayed intact — only the chain had broken. And so there were hundreds — not thousands — of tons of rock and metal in the river. Slowly, the load began to sink, and the froth began to die down. The crashing eased, and the water appeared to begin to flow around its new obstacle. The level of the river on either side changed little, and soon settled back to its steady rush.
And in mid-air, lower than the level of the roadway and the bridge which had now disappeared altogether, hung an object little short of a miracle. With a thin line stretching from each cliff, one from the cliff top, the other from a cutaway, a forty-ton truck was suspended high above the river. It looked like a toy; a dinky car, flying magically with the aid of a child’s hand. Between them, the Kato and the Jones had somehow coped with the dual jerk of the tightening cables, with the brief acceleration of the load under gravity. A wagonload of whisky hung almost motionless in the air, halfway between the two cliffs.
The only sound over the flow of the river came from Marson’s Land-rover. A voice crackled, desperate and confused: “Laura? Laura?”
Laura ran over to the doctor, crying with joy. “He’s alive!”
Chris sat up, rubbing the back of his head. He put his arm round her. Down in the cutaway, Marson picked himself up. He paused for a moment, then began to calculate the best way to bring him in.
If you enjoyed reading Final Toll, you might also be interested in Face Value by Roger Ormerod, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Face Value by Roger Ormerod
1
The snow over the moors had been mostly unbroken, and I’d managed to plug along at a steady thirty, but heading down into the valley I lost it once or twice, and felt the tyres beginning to bite again only when the road began to climb. There was a feeling I was getting close. The slope down on the left was much as he’d described.
I saw his official Allegro first, then the constable himself, standing in the lay-by and staring down towards the copse, slapping his hands together vigorously. I drew in behind the police car. He came across and opened the door for me, his breath steaming.
‘You made good time, sir.’
I nodded. ‘Brason, isn’t it? I’m Detective Inspector Patton. What’ve you got for me?’
He was hesitant, slightly embarrassed. For a burnt-out car he’d probably expected to get a DC, or at the best a sergeant. On a Sunday, particularly. But the test day was mine, and it was none of his business.
‘Snow’s bad over the moors,’ he commented. He was eager, reaching for an explanation. I smiled, then went to stand by the gate, and let him work on it.
The air was clean and crisp, the view spectacular. Farm buildings were spread on the other side of the valley, almost beyond the far rise. The copse was snuggling low, immediately below us, and there was a dark flash of water between the bare trees. Up along the road, the farmer had cut back his layered thorn hedge for fifty yards and erected an angled pine fence, then stuck his five-barred gate in the middle. It made a lay-by that just held the two cars.
I got out the old, knobbly black pipe and ran my thumb over it. ‘Was the gate open?’
‘Not when I got here, sir. The kids would’ve shut it, anyway.’
‘Kids?’
‘The ones who found the car. They’d been tobogganing. See...’ He pointed to the right. There were footprints, and lines of sled runners down the slope. ‘That was this morning. The snow came last night.’
I was fumbling flake into the bowl, my fingers already aching. I looked down to check they were working, then up again. The slope had been skimmed by the wind, leaving ridges and tufts showing through.
‘You’ve been down?’ I asked hopefully.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No sign of anyone who could’ve been in it when it went down?’
‘No footprints. But it would’ve gone down yesterday, before the snow, ‘cause there’re no tyre tracks.’
‘Hmm!’ I thought. ‘Anybody touched it?’
‘No, sir. The kids just looked, then came running to me.’
I glanced at him. He seemed complacent about that. ‘They run to you, then? In town they run away.’
‘I wouldn’t know about the town.’
I raised my eyebrows at his touch of pride, then jerked down my cap brim in case he noticed. ‘Why’re you sure it went down yesterday? What’s the matter with the day before — Friday? Thursday, even?’
‘The schoolkids from Neaton Prior short-cut past the copse. They’d have spotted it, sir.’
I had to turn and lean back against the bitter wind, and tent the flap of my camel-hair coat to get the lighter going. The tobacco tasted sweet in the clear air, and blue smoke was tossed away over my shoulder. I stared down the slope. The car was a black, scarred wreck, nose-in to the trees. I hoped that Brason was as bright as he sounded, because I didn’t fancy scrambling down there and back up again.
He was as big as me, and nearly as broad, but he was well over twenty years younger. The cold was beginning to get through to my bones, and there was a strong urge to get back to the warm car, but Brason seemed to be enlivened by it. He stuck his chin out at the wind, and pulled off his peaked cap to let it play around with his fair hair. Showing-off, when he could guess I always had to wear a hat or cap to stop the cold eating away at my balding patch.
‘Did you get the registration number?’ I asked.
He had. He passed me a bit of paper. I didn’t glance at it, but fumbled it into my pocket. Hell, there was just no point in standing out there and freezing, staring down at a heap of twisted metal.
‘Any thoughts on it?’ I asked hopefully. If not,
I’d just have to go down myself.
He hesitated. You could see the idea seeping into him. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself to a DI, but there was a chance that he’d make a good impression.
‘Assuming the gate was open,’ he said, raising his face to the wind, ‘it’s just possible somebody lost control and headed for the gap as an escape road.’
‘Possible.’ I blew down the pipe and sparks flew back into my face. ‘If the gate was open.’
‘It’d be unusual, sir.’
‘And?’ I prompted.
‘The gear lever was in neutral, the ignition key still in, and the engine turned off.’
‘Ah!’ The lad was bright.
‘I did think, sir, that it could’ve been pushed off the road and down the slope.’
‘What made you think that?’
‘You don’t take a car down a slope in neutral, do you, sir? I certainly wouldn’t. No engine and no control. It’d get kind of hectic. If you see what I mean.’
Oh, I did, I did. What had seemed to be simple and straightforward, suitable for a Sunday afternoon jaunt, was beginning to sound too blasted interesting for my liking. Just at that time, I wasn’t keen on facing an interesting case, not facing it full on, anyway. I shrugged, not meeting his eager eye.
‘Somebody dumping an old wreck,’ I tried hopefully.
‘Hardly that, sir,’ said Brason happily, raising himself to his toes and sniffing at the challenge. ‘You’ll see from its number…it’s only three years old. A Cortina.’
I cursed to myself silently. I had to turn and tap out the pipe, not letting him see my expression. I’d slipped up. My memory wasn’t what it used to be. In some report or other, recently, there’d been mention of a three-year-old Cortina, and nothing jumped to my mind. I stuffed the dead pipe into my pocket and got out the piece of paper, frowning it into focus as it fluttered —and still nothing. The number did not prod a single idea.
‘Too much of it on the tele, sir,’ Brason was saying.
‘Sorry. I missed that.’
‘Cars going over cliffs, plunging down slopes, turning over on fast bends — and every damned one of ‘em goes up in flames. People get to think it’s the thing they all do. But...I bet they don’t. I never see statistics, though. But that car’s still sitting on what’s left of its tyres, and there’s no reason for the tank to have split, and the ignition was off. I’d say the thing was fired deliberately, if only in imitation. Wouldn’t you...sir?’
He said it anxiously, as though he thought I might not have been attending.
‘Fired down there, you mean?’
‘It’d be the easiest way of doing it.’
‘But...no footprints?’
‘The ground was hard. Frozen.’
I couldn’t help laughing. You hold it in as long as you can, and then it bursts out. Like fury. I never could control either of them for too long. He stared at me, but I couldn’t stop it. How the devil could he know I was laughing at myself? There I’d been, driving out in such lousy weather to find something totally unsuggestive of interest or involvement, and I’d run into it at the end of the journey! He stared, then grinned tentatively. I controlled myself.
‘You’ve got an answer for everything, haven’t you, Brason?’
‘Sorry, sir. But it seemed logical.’
‘No, no. Go ahead. The next step. Why fire it deliberately?’
‘To hide it?’ he tried.
I had to carry it on — no good backing out now. ‘There’d be plenty of better places than here. Why leave the number plates on it, in that case?’
I was pushing him a little at that stage, but he rallied neatly. ‘Fingerprints, sir? If it’d been used in a robbery, say. There’d be none left now, for sure.’
A robbery. Was that where I’d read about a Cortina? No, that wasn’t it. I was furious with myself. ‘But you could be right,’ I said. ‘Except that it wouldn’t be done here. It’s too open. You’d expect that sort of thing to be done secretly and quietly. Isn’t there a quarry around here?’
‘Yes, sir. Baggott’s End. About four miles from here.’
‘Well, then.’
I turned away. Suddenly I was feeling tired, and Brason’s eagerness only made it worse. I reached the Stag and had the door open. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Brason.’
He couldn’t leave it alone. ‘Perhaps it was intended to be found.’ Nothing ever happened on his patch. His open, friendly face was brushed red by the wind.
‘I’ll send somebody to have a look at it,’ I promised. One foot was in the car, one cheek sliding onto the seat. ‘There’s one other thing you can help me with. Rennie’s farm. Do you know it?’
‘On the edge of my district. I know Rennie.’ And it didn’t seem as though the knowing gave him any pleasure. ‘What’s he done, sir?’
‘He’s reported a stolen shotgun.’
‘Not to me he hasn’t.’
‘Then perhaps you can lead the way, and you can ask him why he phoned Central and not you.’
That was another little mystery solved. I’d decided to take in the trip to Rennie simply because it seemed to have no overtones, apart from the single fact that he’d phoned direct to Central. Now Brason had explained that. The two men jarred on each other. I relaxed. It left nothing to worry me.
Brason to-and-fro’ed the Allegro and led the way. He took us along the flank of the hill and through the village, then turned left through a slough of muddy, patched lanes and eventually to the river, which he followed north for three miles before swinging away from the water. I got the impression he was pressing it a bit, trying to shake a car he considered a bit sporty for a man old enough to be his father. I hugged his tail. He flicked his braking lights, testing my nerve, but I’d come across that one before. He drew up at the entrance of Rennie’s farm, Borton Fall, got out, and walked back to me.
‘This is it, sir.’
‘You took it easy, lad. The snow worry you, did it?’
He grinned, and I turned back to look at the farmhouse. It was a new building, large and solid, and built close to the road.
‘Where’ll he be?’ I asked.
‘Sunday morning. He’ll be in his office, round the back.’
There’d been a forced lack of expression in his voice. I reckoned it hid contempt. ‘A gentleman farmer?’ I suggested.
‘It’s how he’d put it, I’m sure,’ he said with prim precision. ‘Never put a hand to a plough in his life, but he’s been swallowing up one farm after the other around here. Swallow’s End, Mere Borton, Andrew’s Fall...opening out hedgerows and woodland…’
‘It’s called intensive farming,’ I told him soothingly.
‘All the same...the countryside’s littered with empty and rotting farmhouses and cottages, where my friends — my father’s friends — used to live.’ He suddenly stopped and stiffened his shoulders. ‘Perhaps you’d care to go ahead, sir. I’ll wait here.’
I shrugged, looking away, suddenly ashamed of being there at all on a purely domestic incident. I was imposing myself on Brason’s patch for a selfish reason — my wish to keep a low profile.
‘It’s your patch, Brason. Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.’
He’d got himself in hand by the time we got to the office. It was an outbuilding behind the house, with an exercise yard beside it and stables behind. No sign of manure, so he probably didn’t ride, except in the Bentley I saw crouching in the garage at the end.
Rennie was at a bench desk, working on figures. They seemed to be giving him satisfaction. Brason had tapped on the door and walked right in, running his hand down the lintel to draw my attention to the line of splintered wood.
‘Good morning, Mr Rennie,’ he said, his voice neutral.
Rennie lifted his head and regarded him sourly. I might not have been there, the uniform taking precedence. Rennie was a slim man with a florid face, and a small, sandy moustache that partly disguised a loose mouth. There was a hint of jowls softening
his aggressive chin.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘I phoned —’
‘Yes, sir, so I’ve been told,’ Brason cut in. ‘Or I’d have been here sooner. It’s a shotgun, I believe. Perhaps you’ll just show me…’
Rennie waved an arm towards the rear wall. There was a whole row of racked guns along there. I saw two .22-bore rifles, and a dozen assorted shotguns. One rack was empty.
‘Take a look,’ he offered. ‘If it helps.’
‘Show me, sir.’ Rennie was standing with his shoulders lax, the car keys swinging in his left hand.
There was a pause, then Rennie got to his feet, his chair rattling angrily on the bare wood floor.
‘Can’t you see? The empty rack.’
Brason drew close, with me nudging his shoulder. He was doing all right so far. He said: ‘All twelve-bore, I see. Was the missing one the same?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
Brason raised his eyebrows. ‘Of course?’
‘Then you’ve only got to buy one gauge of cartridges.’
‘That’d save him a bit of trouble. I suppose he helped himself?’
‘There’s a box missing.’
‘Anything special about it?’ Brason was refusing to react to Rennie’s terse tone.
‘It’s a Remington over/under model. Damn it, it looked good. They’d go for that at first glance.’
Apart from a couple of single-barrelled ones, the rest of the shotguns were the more standard type with the two barrels side-by-side.
Brason turned away. ‘We’ll do what we can, Mr Rennie. But really — with such poor security, you’ve been asking for it, you know.’
‘I didn’t ask for any lectures.’ Rennie was tossing his chin. ‘And when I phone your Central people I expect something a bit more positive. I shall certainly report your attitude.’
It was about time to introduce myself. I did. I told him his remark had been noted, added a bit on the aspect of security and his responsibilities regarding that, and turned to leave. ‘Oh!’ I remembered just in time. ‘When exactly did it go?’
Final Toll Page 16
