No Ordinary Killing

by No Ordinary Killing (retail) (e

  On the wall, was a pegged board which bore the room keys. There were five guest rooms and five keys present. It seemed unlikely that everyone would be out at the same time, leaving their keys hanging there. The rooms must be vacant. Could Du Plessis’s business have even been shut down as a consequence of the investigation? It seemed horribly unjust.

  Finch took the key hanging on number three and directed Annie to the stairs. The boards creaked as they ascended.

  Du Plessis’s room was next to Cox’s. It bore no number. He knocked but there was no answer. He hoped that she was okay; that she had merely been on a visit somewhere, perhaps a friend or relative. He tried again. Nothing.

  They unlocked Cox’s room. The bed had been put back in place. Finch set down the paraffin lamp and took a match to the bigger one on Cox’s bureau. With a mirror reflector it threw good light.

  “So what now?” asked Annie.

  “We leave no stone unturned. Every nook, cranny. Every seam, every panel.”

  He pointed for her to start at the door. He would begin at the window.

  “Must be something here … some clue to Moriarty.”

  While he worked his hands, feeling around the window frame and Annie did the same with the mattress and bedstead, Finch turned the various conversations over, pausing only to seek points of clarification from Annie.

  Within the last few hours, a number of people – MFP lawyer Franklin, Payne and Rideau himself had enquired as to Moriarty’s whereabouts. Rideau, Shawcroft and Lady Verity had also alluded to the fact that the elusive Moriarty had yet to be found. Cox had had documents of some importance that he had been stashing away but then, according to Rideau, before embarking for the Front, had passed them on to Moriarty.

  Over the next half hour they combed scrupulously through the room and every crack in the walls, every gap in the window surround and skirting boards. They didn’t have the tools to lift up the floorboards and had to take it as read that the ‘insurance investigator’, clearly now Payne, had found nothing when looking there.

  “Come on,” sighed Finch. “Let’s go.”

  He extinguished the main light, grabbed the lamp and opened the door for Annie. He followed her and, at the bottom of the stairs, replaced the lamp on the dresser and began rooting around the various letters and bills that were stacked there, one of which was addressed to Lieutenant Ives of the Royal Artillery, presumably the officer he had met the other day.

  In the two drawers immediately below were a battered wooden chess set, a ball of string, some stationery, envelopes and stamps. In the cupboard underneath sat a jumble of old crockery, knitting wool, table linen and, curiously, a small pile of Bibles – spares for the rooms, Finch pondered.

  Was stealing them really a hazard? Maybe the war had driven the agnostic towards God.

  “No use. Nothing here,” he said, rising from a crouch and flexing his accursed knee.

  But Annie was not listening. She was staring, wide-eyed.

  “Look!”

  “What is it?”

  Amid the assorted chintzy knick-knacks, including what appeared to be a collection of porcelain thimbles set upon a lace doily, the wood-carved, cross-eyed spaniel leered back at them, tongue panting.

  “What you call eclectic taste,” sniggered Finch.

  But Annie’s arm was outstretched still, index finger jabbed forward. And then he saw it, carved across the plinth on which the dog sat, the single word:

  ’MORIARTY.’

  “It was never a person,” yelped Annie.

  Finch prodded at the ghastly ornament. It was about 18 inches high, heavy, made of a low-grade reddish wood and roughly hewn, the kind of thing one would pick up on a market or receive from a mischievous relative on the knowledge that the recipient would be compelled to put it out on display every time they visited.

  But when he rapped his knuckles on it he could hear that the dog was hollow. He turned it round on the dresser, scattering thimbles which clinked and clacked. In the back was a flap set on two small hinges. And set in that was a keyhole.

  He pulled out his key. This time it fitted. The little door opened. There, within the back of the dog, wedged in upright, curled in half upon itself, was a foolscap manilla envelope.

  It was been jammed in good and hard, the top of it wedged up inside the pooch’s head. Finch yanked it out. It contained what felt like a quarter-of-an-inch thickness of papers. The envelope bore stamped postage – Cape Town, October 15th, 1899 – just before Cox would have moved north, Finch knew. The flap was still gummed. And, the address on the front, that of the Esperanza Guest House, had been written in Cox’s own recognisable scrawl.

  “Clever bastard,” he exhaled. “That’s how he kept it out of circulation. He posted it back to himself.”

  *CRASH! *

  There was the smash of glass and a tinkling of shards. It came from the back of the house … the kitchen.

  “Quick!”

  Finch grabbed the envelope, took Annie’s hand and in one frantic movement undid the front door, pushed the fly screen open and bundled her onto the stoep.

  They ran down the path, opened the gate, then Finch tugged Annie, sharply, back down behind the orange blossom bush that ran along the side of the house.

  He pressed his finger to her lips and reached into his suit pocket for the revolver.

  In an instant the red-haired man – Payne – had burst out of the front door, careered down the front path and, seeing the front gate open, continued out into the street. They heard his feet flying across the dirt, the footfalls receding down the incline.

  Finch looked up. They had missed it, but there, nailed to the veranda’s upright post, was a notice. He could make out two bold words: ’POLICE – CLOSED.’

  They had shut her down. He felt for Ans Du Plessis.

  “Least obvious route. Remember?” said Finch.

  Behind the row of houses and the alleyway lay the rubbled slope of Signal Hill. In the dark it was a great, grey wall.

  He pointed. “We go up, towards the battery.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not really. But it’s better than heading off down the street.”

  The small wall at the end was, by their recent experiences, an easily surmountable obstacle.

  Not so the hill itself. In the dark it was heavy going. Finch estimated the summit to be 200–300ft feet up, its gradient about one in two. For every solid foothold, another would give way, sending stones and scree rubble thudding down behind them.

  Finch took as much weight as he could on his right leg and extended his hand to Annie. Her skirts were again a hindrance. He pulled her, willed her after him.

  “Follow the contours. Longer route but easier.”

  They wound back and forth and, eventually, up ahead, over to the right, they could see the silhouette of the Lion’s Head, the great Sphynx-like rock that oversaw the harbour. Below, the other way, were the big naval guns of the battery. They had been in situ, in one form or another, since the British arrived during the Napoleonic War.

  At the summit they sat and paused for breath. The air was cleansing and cool. Annie had a brief moment to catch the view. It was spectacular – the lights of buildings and ships all around, twinkling in every direction. On any other night …

  “Christ!” blurted Finch.

  “What?”

  There, 100 yards, maybe 150 yards down behind was something moving, tacking left and right.

  They threw themselves over the ridge and began scuttling down the other side. Perversely it proved more tricky than going up. Finch remembered some schoolboy fact about a hare and how it ran faster uphill than down.

  “Don’t brake against the momentum,” he urged Annie, recalling his own training as a cross-country runner.

  “Go with it. Use it.”

  “Bloody easier said than done,” she groaned as they ran, stumbled, rolled and slid on their backsides.

  Halfway down, Finch threw a glance back. He could see Pa
yne up on the ridge, outlined against the night sky. He was closing. Then Annie squealed as she lost her footing, her control and tumbled forward, head over heels.

  “ANNIE!”

  For a moment she was a blur, a ridiculous rag doll whirl of limbs and skirts.

  She came to a rest, still.

  He scrambled down. She was flat on her back, winded.

  “Right, we make our stand,” Finch said and pulled out Brookman’s revolver. He turned to face uphill. If he had to shoot the man, he would. There was no choice.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” Annie wheezed and eased herself up.

  There were buildings below … homes. They were not far off Bo-Kaap again.

  As they descended, the cobbled streets began to trickle down the hillside like watercourses.

  “Does he know about the envelope?”

  “The dog … Moriarty … the back was left open. He’ll have put two and two together. Know that something was in there. This time we’ve got what he wants.”

  They lurched down through the steep suburban streets till the roads began to level. It was not far to the centre of town. They dashed across Buitengracht with its chaos of trams, Tommies, drunken Tommies and ones even drunker than that.

  This time it was Annie who looked back. She yelled. Payne had narrowed the gap. Less than 100 yards. He exploded across the road with little regard for the traffic. There were shouts from the angry drivers of buggies and wagons.

  They pushed into a narrow side-street. It had several pubs, the air thick with alcohol, smoke and profanity. The thoroughfare was jam-packed with soldiers. Amid a flurry of apologies, they forced their way between hot, damp, alcohol-reeking, khaki bodies. Payne, meanwhile, had been caught in human quicksand.

  They heard a ‘Steady on pal’, and abuse aimed at him.

  Annie turned. There was a flailing of fists and a surge that swept behind them and forced them onwards like a breaker rolling ashore. But they were Payne’s fists. He had taken somebody on.

  More shouts.

  BANG! A gunshot.

  Panic.

  Men ducked and dived. A gaggle of female hangers-on, rough and overly made-up, screamed. Payne was charging on, unchallenged, his smoking pistol raised in the air.

  Someone aimed a kick. It tripped him. He staggered. A boot swung towards his head but he dodged it and wheeled round, delivering an expert pistol-whip to his assailant.

  Finch and Annie pressed on. They crossed another thoroughfare. Quieter this time.

  BANG!

  A bullet whistled past.

  Finch pushed Annie round a corner. He raised his Webley and returned fire. The recoil jarred his wrist. He had had merely a token session at a range in Aldershot before departure.

  My first shot of the war. In a city, at a civilian.

  Payne ducked behind a pillar box.

  They ran on. Finch saw the dark mass of the Parliament Building, before it the Company’s Garden where he had strolled so peacefully the other morning.

  The traffic was picking up again. They weaved between pedestrians and crossed between carts and buggies.

  “Watch out!” screamed Annie.

  There was a crackle of electricity and the clang of a bell.

  Finch had not seen the tram. It was right upon them.

  Annie threw herself at him, pushing him out of the way. As it passed it masked them momentarily. She grabbed the pole and helped him up onto the tailboard.

  They cruised for only a few seconds, 200 yards or so …

  “Oi!” yelled the conductor.

  … before leaping off again.

  Payne. Where was he? They’d lost sight.

  “The Theatre District,” remarked Finch. “We’re in the Theatre District.”

  Above them were the bright lights of a marquee. They were completely exposed.

  “Quick!”

  Finch grabbed Annie’s hand and they pushed straight past a queue of well-heeled attendees, barged aside the astonished commissionaire, charged past the box office, through the foyer and battered open the double doors straight into the auditorium.

  The brushed red velvet and smell of flowers was in contrast to that of the Gaiety Theatre. On the stage was a full orchestra, the string section in the hum of tuning to the thin reedy tone of an oboe’s ‘A’. The conductor, rifling through sheet music, turned. But Finch and Annie were already down the raked aisle and, in what only induced stunned silence among the musicians, clambering onto the stage and an exit into the wings.

  They plunged through a knot of stagehands tugging on a rope, whatever it was in the rafters counterbalanced by a bag of sand; then they forced their way on, down wooden steps, a corridor, past a dressing room where a male tenor was practising scales within, and out through the stage door into a dark, damp alley. The door was heavy and metal. Finch slammed it behind them. Leaning against the wall was a broom. He thrust the shaft through the pull-handle and the bar on the jamb, blocking it from the outside.

  “Did you see him? Did he follow us in?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Annie.

  They were in a narrow alley between theatres. It smelt of sweat, showbiz, refuse and urine. Behind them was a dead end. Up ahead on the left, a few yards down, was the stage door to another theatre. Fifty yards ahead lay the glow and hustle-bustle of the street. And they could now hear police whistles.

  “Right, let’s get into the crowd.”

  But, as they moved forward once more, there he was, silhouetted against the gaslight, gun in hand, staring right at them. They were in a cul-de-sac, cornered.

  Finch forced Annie behind him in order to shield her. He reached for his own gun but it was snagged in his jacket pocket. The more he pulled, the more entangled it became. Payne was walking towards them, slowly, his pistol raised and pointed.

  There was a row of large dustbins to the right.

  Payne aimed; Finch gambled and, as quick as he could, flung Annie behind them.

  BANG!

  In the dark, the shot missed, the crack reverberating deafeningly around them.

  But Payne would not err a second time. He walked forward, walked closer.

  It happened quickly and unexpectedly. The stage door to the other theatre was thrust open, whacking Payne on the arm, throwing him off balance. His pistol was sent skittering across the cobbles.

  Standing before them, cast in the light flooding from within, was the bearded, bear-like bouncer Bonzo, the man-mountain minder in his battered bowler hat.

  The Gaiety. They were at the back of the Gaiety.

  “You!” he was yelling, though not at Payne, at Finch. “I thought I told you never to show your face here again!”

  Payne was on his knees, feeling for his weapon. He found it.

  “And you,” Bonzo added, suddenly noticing him, “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Payne stood up. He looked at Finch.

  “Give it to me. Give it to me … Or I’ll take it.”

  He raised the revolver again, the other hand extended. Finch saw the blooded bandage round it.

  “Oh no you fucking well don’t,” mocked Bonzo and whipped from his person a handgun befitting his size, with a 12-inch barrel and a calibre the likes of which Finch had never seen.

  CRACK!

  Before he knew it, Bonzo had loosed off a shot. It struck on the ground between Payne’s legs, leaving a small crater.

  “The next one’s in your fucking head.”

  The police whistles were getting louder, closer, easing inevitably towards them. There was banging from within against the door Finch had jammed.

  Payne turned and fled.

  The bouncer’s scrawny sidekick, Stevie, was poking his head out into the alleyway. He was eating a sandwich.

  “What’s up, Bonz’?”

  Bonzo pointed at Finch.

  “Him.”

  The sidekick spluttered.

  “Is he fucking stupid or what?”

  Annie hauled herself out from
behind the bins. The men softened. But the police whistles were almost upon them. Upon all of them.

  “Right, you two …” snapped Bonzo, “… in here.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  It was early but the light was already slanting in through the windows, the glass of the roof kissed by the blooming glow of daylight. Not that Finch had slept. He lay close to Annie amid the huddled bodies on the concourse. The concrete was cold beneath.

  So fatigued was Annie that she fell into a near narcoleptic unconsciousness as soon as they had lain down, his jacket pulled over her, partly for warmth, partly for cover. It had since slipped off. Finch wrested it up over her shoulders and continued to scan his surrounds, his sore eyes dry and prickly from tiredness.

  The Cape Town railway station was the safest place they could think of, hiding amid the hundreds dossing down for the night – the human flotsam waiting for trains or connections amid the 24-hour transport circus, around them the great wall of khaki as soldiers embarked for the Front or were delivered battered and broken from it.

  The great fug of steam and Woodbines was rent by the shriek of a whistle, the clank of couplings and a hiss of steam as another locomotive was dispatched. Finch watched an ambulance and its RAMC personnel loitering, waiting for the wounded. He was reminded of his true purpose.

  Annie stirred. He saw her take the few seconds necessary to come to, and watched the awareness of her environment settle. Though she tried not to betray it, the concern was etched into her face.

  “We’re still alive then,” came her attempted quip.

  The rows of the sleeping and stirring stretched off right across the concourse. There must have been 200–300 people, Finch estimated. Human nature being what it was, they had arranged themselves in rows with haphazard walkways in between, some erecting little makeshift dividers with their suitcases.

  A few bodies along, a mother was trying to comfort a restless babe of about six months. It, too, put Finch in mind of the poor souls at Camp Eureka. He thought about the white mother and daughter, the natives who had sheltered them and their epic trek, of the proud black man who had protected them so.