Time to Kill

by Brian Freemantle

  The surgeon hesitated. ‘All right.’

  ‘And I have to make arrangements.’

  ‘We have grief counsellors who can help, afterwards.’

  Psychiatrically trained counsellors who would want background his-tories, thought Slater at once. ‘Thank you. But we’ll be all right.’

  ‘They’re very good. I recommend you talk with them. And with the vicar. I know he’s been visiting daily.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ avoided Slater.

  ‘You’re going to need a lot of help,’ insisted Denting. ‘Your wife particularly.’

  The man was right, Slater accepted. ‘I’ll talk to her about it when it’s over. Let’s get it over first.’ He was talking about his son, Slater realized, talking about letting his son die.

  ‘And speak to your own physician,’ advised Denting. ‘There’s medication, safe things, that can be prescribed. I can get something for you here, right away, if you think she’d take it. ’

  Ann was already hollowed out, Slater thought. How much worse was she going to be later? ‘I’ll think about it … see how she is.’

  ‘What about you?’ pressed the surgeon.

  ‘I’ll be OK.’

  Denting’s internal telephone sounded. The man responded looking at Slater during the short exchange and when he put the telephone down he said, ‘The policeman, Hannigan, is looking for you. I’ll let people know what you’ve decided about David …’ The man hesitated. ‘You’re doing the only thing you can.’

  The traffic sergeant was waiting by the nurse’s station, his uniform strained around him. There was another man with him, in plainclothes. Both rose at Slater’s approach. Hannigan said, ‘This is Homicide Detective John Stone.’

  ‘Homicide!’ echoed Slater, at once. ‘You got who killed David?’

  ‘We didn’t know David had died?’ frowned Stone. He was a short, slim, unprepossessing man in a conservative, waist-coated suit.

  ‘At the moment clinically. We’re going to turn off the life support machine,’ declared Slater, his voice catching as he finished.

  ‘We’re sorry to hear that,’ said Hannigan, professionally sympathetic.

  ‘Why is a homicide detective involved?’ said Slater, recovering.

  ‘You been reading the papers, Mr Slater?’ asked Stone.

  ‘No?’ said Slater, questioningly.

  ‘Forensics have come up with something … something we’re not releasing to the media at the moment. And can’t understand.’

  ‘What?’ asked Slater, holding back the irritation at not being told outright if whatever it was had something to do with David.

  ‘The 4×4 that was torched?’ picked up Hannigan. ‘The inside was saturated with petrol. And although they’re melted out of obvious recognition, our scientific guys think they found the plastic containers in which the gas was carried. At least five. And as I already told you someone was burned to death where it was dumped and set alight.’

  ‘Intentionally?’

  Hannigan gave a gesture of uncertainty. ‘And as I also told you, where it was dumped is a hang-out for winos and druggies. We haven’t identified the dead guy …’ He hesitated. ‘And then I remembered when we talked that you thought someone might have deliberately run David down …’

  ‘And I thought I should come and talk to you about that,’ finished Stone. ‘You have any cause to think your son was deliberately run down?’

  Slater didn’t reply at once. Never disclose yourself to be in a Witness Protection Programme or the reason for it, he remembered. It was inconceivable that Mason could have found them and in some way be involved, that he would run a child down. There’d inevitably be publicity if he told them who he was; create a situation in which Mason really could find them, from the media reports. If he was identified, he and Ann would have to run, start all over again. Start all over again without David. Ann couldn’t stand that sort of upheaval, after what had happened to David. Slater didn’t think he could, either. He shrugged. ‘It was instinctive … I wasn’t thinking. You working the theory that the dead man was murdered?’

  ‘At the moment we don’t have a theory, just some things that don’t fit together,’ said Hannigan. ‘There wasn’t enough time between when your son was hit and the fire for whoever stole the 4x4 to stop and stock up with gas for a long journey. And he couldn’t have refuelled anyway, although he wouldn’t have known that. The cap to the gas tank was locked and the owner still had the key, so it was obviously hot-wired.’

  Slater stood looking steadily between the two police officers. ‘Whoever ran David down bought at least five cans of gas – gas he couldn’t use to refuel the vehicle – before he stole it?’

  ‘That’s how it looks,’ agreed Hannigan. ‘Preparing to destroy any evidence.’

  ‘Evidence of what?’ persisted Slater.

  ‘Something else we haven’t got around to answering, unless it was just traces of the thief when he finished with the car.’

  ‘How many cases have you ever come across of something like that being done?’

  ‘None,’ admitted Hannigan. ‘Stolen cars torched, certainly. Happens all the time. But not having the gas already in the vehicle, ready. Normally it’s just using what’s already in the tank.’

  ‘Where was the body, inside or outside the car?’

  ‘You ever been involved in detective work, Mr Slater?’ asked Stone. ‘You kinda think like a cop.’

  ‘I’m a security consultant.’ Was he being asked to explain himself?

  ‘I know. That didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘No, I’ve never been a cop,’ said Slater, his voice rising with his anger.

  ‘How’d you get into security?’

  Slater wasn’t sure whether the heat he felt was anger or apprehension. He hoped it wasn’t showing on his face. There was no reason to become uneasy about his being properly identified. There’d been protective provisions built into the creation of his new life. ‘Drifted into it, really, after the marines. Did some embassy security work and decided to stick with it.’ The government was responsible for military and diplomatic employment, as they were with the CIA, making it easy to fabricate official although false biographies for people they were protecting.

  ‘Where’d you serve?’ persisted Stone.

  Enough, decided Slater. ‘At the US embassies in Paris and Rome,’ he recited, letting his voice rise again and knowing there were entries confirming that on army records. ‘But what the hell has my army service and my job got to do with the running down of my son and the burning to death of some guy in a wino dump – both presumably by a guy you’re nowhere near catching!’

  ‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Hannigan, hurriedly.

  ‘We asked ourselves the same question, about whether the body was in or out of the car,’ said Stone. ‘If the body, already dead, was inside along with all that gas, torching the car would be a good way of disposing of it, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘And David?’ demanded Slater, still loud voiced.

  ‘A complicating accident. If the guy’s killed somebody he’s hyper, wanting to get rid of the body, driving badly. He can’t stop, after hitting your son, can he, not with the cargo he’s already carrying? That’s why he drives away. If he’s decided how he’s going to dispose of the body he’s also chosen where to do it. Which is another inconsistency because it’s part of a traffic system, not somewhere you’d easily find, in the dark. He leaves David, without even stopping to see what he’s done, goes to his pre-arranged spot and torches the vehicle.’

  ‘So the body was inside the car?’ pressed Slater. If the scenario was as they were describing it there couldn’t be any possible connection with Jack Mason.

  Hannigan shook his head. ‘Impossible to determine. It was found outside the wreck. But it blew up when the heat got to the gas that was in the tank – the owner had just filled it up. The body could have been inside but blown out. There were some physical fractures as well as burns.’

  ‘I
don’t see how I can help you,’ said Slater, suddenly caught by the unreality of discussing hypothetical murder just yards from where David lay, murdered very much in reality if not by technical definition.

  ‘We’re sorry to have troubled you,’ said Stone, without any regret in his voice. ‘And I’m sorry if I upset you with some of my questions.’

  ‘And we are very sorry about your son.’

  ‘You’re not even close to an arrest, are you?’ challenged Slater. ‘Whoever killed David isn’t going to be caught, is he?’

  ‘The case is very far from being closed,’ insisted Stone.

  ‘It’s never going to be, for my wife and I,’ said Slater, turning away from both men. ‘I’ve got a funeral to arrange.’

  Jack Mason let two days go by after picking up the Pennsylvania prison authority’s dismissal of his civil action threat from Patrick Bell’s computer, patiently letting the lawyer read to him over the telephone what he’d already seen on his illegal entry. When Bell finished Mason said, ‘So, it’s who blinks first?’

  ‘You want me formally to file?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘The State’s got more money than you. They want to string it along, they can clean you out with potential costs before it ever gets to court. It’s the oldest ploy in the book.’

  Peter Chambers was being released in six weeks, thought Mason; everything was working out just fine. ‘Can’t we file for a stipulated hearing time?’

  ‘That shows our hand, as far as costs are concerned.’

  ‘Doesn’t it show our determination, too?’

  Instead of directly answering Bell said, ‘How’s the job hunting going out there?’

  ‘Moving along. One or two possibilities,’ lied Mason, easily.

  ‘Another defensive ploy is their knowing that your anonymity is blown when – and if – we get to court.’

  ‘We’ve been this way already!’

  ‘And I want to go this way again. You think you could keep a job if you hit the headlines like you did before?’

  ‘That’s intimidation!’

  ‘That’s reality. Which I want you to face.’

  ‘Whose side you on?’

  ‘Yours. And don’t be offensive, Jack.’

  ‘I can use my inheritance.’

  ‘I know what your inheritance was. You going to put all that at risk, all that and a hell of a lot more, public notoriety all over again as well as the financial cost if we lose!’

  ‘We can’t lose. Everything’s stacked in my favour.’ For the first time Mason fully realized what he was going to achieve. The prison authorities were going to rack up a big bunch of costs, which he wasn’t going to be around to pay because he wasn’t Jack Mason any more. OK, it wasn’t going to be a financial penalty Frank Howitt was going to have to pay but the motherfucker would pay in every other way.

  ‘I told you before, you’re starting from the back. No matter how justified you might be in court you’re the ex-con and traitor to this country.’

  ‘Go ahead and initiate proceedings,’ insisted Mason. ‘And send your bill to the PO box you’ve got.’

  ‘You don’t have anything permanent yet?’

  ‘Still moving around. You can send any papers I need to sign to the box number, too.’

  ‘I’ve got a responsibility to give you my best advice. And my best advice is to accept the offer they’ve already made and move on.’

  ‘Issue whatever you’ve got to issue,’ instructed Mason. ‘Let’s see what balls they’ve got.’ And lose yours in the process, he thought.

  Beverley arrived back at the apartment by 5.30, as she had done every day since his return to San Francisco to live with her, and as he had done every one of those working days, he greeted her in an immaculate apartment (‘You must have thought I was a total slut when you first walked in!’) with a table and chairs set out in readiness on the minuscule balcony. While she showered he mixed the martinis, the glasses frosted, for when she came out on to the balcony which still had a better view of the bay and the Golden Gate bridge than his original hotel. It had become another ritual for her to be naked beneath the thin shift in which she emerged, bare foot.

  ‘How’s your day been?’

  ‘Slow,’ he said, as always prepared. ‘There was a lot of stuff waiting for me at the post office and I managed to track down some employment outlets in Los Angeles and San Diego. I thought I might make a quick trip to register. If I caught the first flight I could probably cover San Diego and Los Angeles in one long day.’ He did have the names and addresses but no intention of bothering with any of them.

  ‘What about the agency here?’

  ‘I checked today, of course. There’s nothing.’

  She sat opposite, her nakedness obvious through the thin material as she knew he liked. This time, however, she was not looking directly, invitingly, at him as she usually did, but studying the glass in front of her. ‘I’ve got to make my first report soon. I’m going to need names, stuff like that. And I had a call today from Glynis, asking how things were going.’

  ‘Call?’ queried Mason, who’d checked for email exchanges less than an hour before Beverley’s arrival home. He didn’t for one minute like the idea of their changing the way they communicated.

  ‘She’s thinking of another trip out here.’

  Keep it easy and cool, Mason decided. There hadn’t been any reference to David Slater in the Frederick News-Post in the past three days from which to decide his return east, to finish what he’d started. Which wasn’t really a serious obstacle to his moving on. ‘She’s determined to get you between the sheets, isn’t she?’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, darling.’

  ‘When’s she coming?’

  ‘She didn’t say. It was just a casual conversation.’

  ‘I’d have to move out while she was here, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I wouldn’t let her come here.’

  Mason shook his head. ‘We couldn’t take that chance. I could use the time going down to San Diego and Los Angeles.’

  She looked down again into her almost empty glass. ‘I’ve got to make that report in the next few days. Glynis isn’t coming that soon.’

  Mason got up, took the pitcher from the refrigerator and replenished both their glasses. ‘We’ll work it out. But talking about Glynis reminds me. I owe you some money. I spent a while on the phone – your phone – myself today, talking to my lawyer about the compensation claim.’

  ‘Glynis asked me about that,’ disclosed Beverley. ‘Asked me if I knew what was happening.’

  The walls were definitely closing in, thought Mason. ‘Why did she ask you that, as if she knew we’ve come as close as we have?’

  ‘I raised it with her,’ admitted Beverley. ‘Asked her if she knew what was happening about it back there.’

  Mason sipped his drink, to gain time. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘Because it could affect us. I don’t want anything to affect us.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That the prison authority is going to face you down, make you back off.’

  Beverley Littlejohn would definitely lie and cheat for him if he asked her, Mason decided. He really had to think this through, maybe even change his mind about walking away from her as he’d originally intended. Whacking the kid had been easy. Whacking Slater and Ann wasn’t going to be and there was no way he could anticipate the alibi he might need. ‘That’s what my lawyer told me.’

  ‘Back off then!’ pleaded Beverley, urgently, coming up from her drink. ‘What’s more important, you and I and what we could have together? Or screwing an asshole of a prison guard and his employers by getting a few bucks?’

  Three million dollars was hardly a few bucks, thought Mason. ‘Put like that there really isn’t a choice.’

  ‘You going to do it then?’ Beverley asked, anxiously. ‘You going to abandon the whole thing?’

  Why was it so important both to Beverley and the dyke in Was
hington to know whether he was going to pursue his civil action? wondered Mason. ‘I’d do anything for you. Anything and everything,’ tested Mason.

  ‘And I’d do anything and everything for you … for us,’ said Beverley.

  ‘I need time to think … work things out,’ said Mason. Most importantly of all to work out the benefits of keeping you on the leash you’ve put around your own neck, he thought.

  ‘One more day!’ she pleaded.

  ‘No, Ann.’

  ‘Just one more day!’

  ‘We decided. You’ve talked to Denting. To the vicar. You know.’

  ‘I want to be with him, when it’s done.’

  ‘We’ll both be with him.’

  Slater waited for her to break down but she didn’t. She said, ‘Tell them we’re ready.’

  Twenty

  Ann leaned, stumbling, upon him so heavily that Slater was practically carrying her, one arm supportively tight around her shoulders, his other hand cupping her nearest elbow to keep her as close as possible and to remain upright. Ann was entirely in black, her face completely covered by an encompassing black veil into which Slater hunched, because he had not only to prevent her collapsing, but also to use as much of the veil’s shadowing concealment against the cameras he hadn’t anticipated, local television as well as press photographers. There was a lot Slater hadn’t expected. Jeb Stout was there representing the University of Maryland – their wreath a basketball-sized sphere describing David as a star – along with Victor Spalding and two other teachers from David’s school. So was Peter Denting with the two nurses permanently assigned to David throughout his hospitalization. Andre Worlack’s exhibition designer came down from New York and there was a wreath from the San Jose company with which Slater had negotiated the large contract. Slater wasn’t aware of the homicide detective John Stone until they left the church at its rear. Throughout the service, conducted by the hospital vicar, Ann still needed Slater’s supportive arm around her shoulders, rising and sitting at Slater’s urging, unable to sing – unable even to hold a prayer or hymn book – and seemingly oblivious to the sermon or to the eulogy in which David was referred to as a sports prodigy and an outstanding scholar, emptily embellished with phrases about God’s mysteries and brilliant, short-lived blazing comets.