by John Creasey
He staggered, slithered, fell.
He lay still for a moment, then slowly the pain receded, and he could think about the immediate things: the need to stop the bleeding; to get up; to call Division. If only Campbell had sent that man.
My God, how it hurt!
But he must get up. Must straighten—
He heard sounds of someone approaching softly; it seemed as if with stealth. Suddenly panic flared through his body at the fear of an attack, and he raised his head and opened his eyes, but still he could not see, and if he were attacked, he could do nothing to defend himself.
A woman said: ‘My God!’ It was Maureen O’Malley’s neighbour. ‘My God!’ she repeated. And then: ‘Don’t move.’ There was a ripping sound, as of material tearing. She placed a pad of cloth over his cheekbone and, lifting his hand, pressed it gently over it. ‘Now sit up,’ she said, and helped him until he was sitting with his back to the wall.
Another woman approached, cautiously.
‘Better get him along to the doctor’s,’ she said. ‘Can he walk?’
‘Must—call—Division,’ Pell muttered.
‘You can’t call no one until you’ve had that face seen to,’ the first woman said. ‘Try to get up.’
He hated the need, but he tried.
Slowly, supported by a woman on each side, he went towards Galbraith’s house. He could see out of his uninjured eye by the time he reached it. He heard the second woman say that the surgery was at the back, that the door was open. Soon, he was in a room but there was no Dr Galbraith. The doctor’s neighbour was calling: ‘Doctor!’ And Maureen’s neighbour was bathing his face with warm water. It was a blessed relief to find that he could see quite clearly out of the injured eye.
‘It’s laid your cheek bare to the bone,’ she said, ‘but the eye’s okay. A few stitches will—’ She broke off, quite abruptly, and Pell looked round and saw with misted vision that another woman, quite a beauty with brassy hair and glistening red lips and unbelievably long eyelashes, stood in an open doorway.
‘They’re asleep,’ she gasped. ‘They’re sitting at the dining table, fast asleep!’
Chapter Fourteen
The Fire
Pell was aware of both women staring at each other in disbelief, and he shared their disbelief as he stood up, slowly. He was holding a wet cloth against his cut cheek, and kept it in position as he went towards a doorway from which a shaft of light shone brightly. He stepped into a small room, and saw a table laid with lace mats on dark polish, lighted candles, a slender bottle of white wine standing in a silver bucket …
And Dr Galbraith, lying back in his chair.
And Ivy Mallows, lying forward on the table; asleep.
‘Asleep?’ gasped Pell. ‘If they’re dead—’ He turned round and saw the neighbour in the doorway, her eyes bright in alarm. Fumbling for his keys, he held them out to her. ‘Go to my car,’ he ordered. ‘Press the switch the radio-telephone hangs on—it’s on the right. Keep saying we need a doctor and a murder squad here. Say—’
‘I’ve got you,’ she said, and disappeared.
The house seemed very silent when she had gone; and he saw her and the other woman hurrying along the cul-de-sac towards his car. He needn’t worry, Maureen’s neighbour had her head screwed on. Maureen – the bitch. To poison this couple and they must have been poisoned.
What the hell was the matter with him? Were they alive or were they dead?
He moved towards the woman, who was nearer him, and studied her face; after a few moments he saw her lips moving very slightly. Thank God for that! Galbraith? He turned, so that he could examine the doctor’s face more closely. He had never studied Galbraith before, never realised what a delicate skin he had, and what finely drawn features, how thin and sensitive looking were his lips and nose. Never mind what he looked like – was he alive?
There was the faintest of movements at Galbraith’s lips.
Pell pulled back one eyelid, very gently, to see the pupil. It was fairly normal, so this wasn’t morphine. Then what? There were so many new fangled drugs these days. Maureen, the bitch, must have given them the drug in their food; just as she had given Mary Ellen a dose, she must have known all about it. But why do a thing like this? What purpose—
Pell heard a sharp, explosive sound from beneath the table. It was sudden enough to make him dart back and look downwards. Almost at the same moment he saw a cloud of smoke, and heard another explosive sound from the passage. He spun round. A stab of flame appeared beneath the table, and almost instantaneously the hem of Ivy Mallows’ dress caught alight.
Pell didn’t think and hardly breathed. He pulled the woman’s chair back, as the flames ran up to her thighs. In sudden panic, he unzipped the dress at the neck, forced himself to act carefully and deliberately, eased the dress off her shoulders and then slid it down her arms. He ripped it off, peeling it away from her, aware of the pain of burning at his hands, then hoisted her up and turned towards the passage.
It was a mass of flames.
All he had been taught about fire came back to him. Don’t cause a draught. Smother flames with a blanket – It didn’t help.
He staggered towards the window, saw that it was open at one side, and pulled it wider. He lifted Mrs Mallows through feet first, and as he did so he saw that her hair was catching fire.
He smothered the flames with his arms, using his coat sleeves, then let her fall. She was now lying, clothes and hair smouldering, on a small patch of lawn, bordered by dwarf roses, some in full bloom. No one was in sight. Pell, clothes burning, hands burned, hair singed, eyes and nose and mouth dry from the awful heat, turned towards Galbraith.
The doctor’s clothes were on fire.
The whole room was on fire. So was the hall, so was the house.
Pell did not, could not think. It did not occur to him to return to the window and climb out. That way he could have saved himself, but it did not enter his mind.
Galbraith was a flaming torch. God! His hair –
Pell struggled to take his own coat off, but could not. There was such pain at his fingers. There was nothing here, flame on the floor, climbing the fireplace, the mantelpiece, the door. He heard a sound a long way off: a ringing. That would be the fire-engine. About time, the bloody layabouts. If he could get Galbraith to the window, just to the open window –
He felt a surge of red hot pain up his spine. His own clothes were afire.
He couldn’t breathe properly, just gasped. He could see nothing but red tinged smoke. He couldn’t even see Galbraith. Not Galbraith, nor the table, only fiery smoke, biting, tearing, agonising smoke.
The bells seemed very loud.
There were other noises. There was something big and red outside. There were the figures of men in the street. There was the figure of a man at the window – two, three men, lifting, carrying something. There were –
His knees bent under him, and he collapsed. Out of the red furnace of the room there came blackness, and over his pain racked body there came the blessed mercy of oblivion.
He no longer felt anything at all.
He could not even hear the crackling of the flames.
It was late when Roger West reached Links End. In the short culde-sac itself there were two fire tenders, and at least ten hoses were spraying the smouldering mass of blackened rubble that had been Dr Galbraith’s house. Half a dozen other cars, police, fire brigade’s and a doctor’s, were parked near. Twenty uniformed policemen kept a crowd of sightseers at bay. On one side of the street into which Links End ran were a dozen or so people, including children, being shepherded into a mini van.
As Roger got out of his car, fifty yards away, Campbell came towards him from the cordon. He had a strange feeling that Campbell had aged ten years; he seemed an old man.
Unexpectedly, he put out his hand; when Roger gripped it, the fingers and palm were ice cold.
‘Handsome,’ he said huskily, ‘Pell’s dead.’
Roger felt th
e ice entering his own veins.
‘Quite sure?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Positive. Pell and Galbraith. And if I—’
Roger sensed an emotional crisis without understanding why, and he fought against the result of the shock. Policemen died, soldiers died, firemen died, but you carried on, you didn’t allow a tragedy to put you off your stroke. Why had Campbell?
‘Burned to ashes,’ Campbell went on.
Several newspapermen and two photographers were closing in, obviously hoping to overhear what was said, and to take a picture. He kept his voice low.
‘What about Mrs Mallows?’
‘She’ll survive,’ Campbell said. ‘He got her out.’
‘Who got her out?’
‘Pell. Pushed her through the window and went back for Galbraith. A neighbour saw it. Invalid. Opposite.’
A reporter, young, freckled, eager, broke in.
‘Did I hear you say that Detective Sergeant Pell saved the woman and went back for Dr Galbraith?’
‘Later—’ Campbell began.
‘Yes,’ Roger said. ‘That was quite a thing to do.’
‘It was—bloody heroic,’ Campbell said.
Flashlights dazzled Roger momentarily. He didn’t object, just hustled Campbell past the cordon, asking: ‘Who are the people in that van?’
‘Had to clear the neighbouring houses,’ said Campbell. ‘The fire took a hold so fast there were fears it would spread. The Fire Officer says there’s not much danger now, but when I first saw it, it was like an inferno.’
‘I can imagine,’ Roger said. ‘Arson?’
‘No one can be sure yet.’
‘Almost certainly,’ a youthful looking man in a fire officer’s uniform said. ‘I don’t believe a place would burn so quickly if there weren’t several fires at once. If will be some hours before we’re sure, of course.’
‘How soon were you here?’ Roger asked.
‘Within ten minutes of getting the call.’
‘Who called?’ asked Roger.
Campbell, still badly affected, was nevertheless sufficiently composed to answer.
‘We did. A woman called us on Pell’s radio, said he’d told her to. Then she started screaming: “It’s on fire, it’s on fire!” Heard it myself, happened to be in the Information Room.’ He eased his collar. ‘Oh, we didn’t lose any time then, when it was too late.’
‘Where’s the woman who called you?’ asked Roger.
‘At the station. There were two of them.’
‘Have you questioned them yet?’
‘No. I—’ Campbell eased his collar again.
‘Is there anything more we can do here?’ Roger asked the Chief Fire Officer.
‘No—except make sure the crowd doesn’t get through the cordon.’
‘We’ll see to that,’ Roger said. ‘I’ll need a report just as soon as you can let me have it tomorrow. Do you know anything about a chemical which impregnates clothes and furniture and ignites on exposure to the air?’
‘Stuff called Phosphol,’ answered the Chief Fire Officer promptly. ‘Developed as a delayed action flame thrower, and in a weak form used in fireworks. This could well have been—’ He broke off. ‘You will get our report as soon as possible. Superintendent.’
‘Thanks.’ Roger turned to Campbell. ‘I’d like to get back to your office as soon as possible.’
The Divisional Chief Inspector nodded and led the way back to the other street. The stench of burning was acrid on the warm night air. Two newspapermen asked questions but were ignored. Someone in the crowd called: ‘That’s Handsome West.’ Someone else called: ‘Got O’Hara’s killer yet, Handsome?’ and a third growled with deliberate offensiveness: ‘Bloody coppers, they never get anyone who matters.’ Roger opened the door of Campbell’s car, saying to the driver of his own car: ‘Wait at Divisional HQ, will you?’
He climbed in after Campbell, who was taking a whisky flask out of his pocket. He took a long drink, gasped, and asked: ‘You want one?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Roger.
‘I needed it,’ Campbell said. As the car moved off, he went on bleakly: ‘It was my fault, Handsome. Pell said he needed another man. I didn’t send one. A gang of bingo hall thieves was on the prowl, I meant to catch ’em. Used every chap I could spare. That left Pell to manage on his own. If I—’
‘Shake yourself out of that nonsense,’ Roger said briskly. ‘You guessed the wrong priority. Who hasn’t?’ He gave Campbell a minute to recover, then asked in a more normal voice: ‘Just what do you know, Jamie?’
Campbell, startled, looked at him as they passed under street lamps, and said: ‘Pell called on the woman who lived next door to Maureen O’Malley, and learnt from her that O’Malley was cooking an evening meal at Galbraith’s. He waited until she came out and followed her. He must have spoken to her or contacted her in some way, and she slashed him across the face. Cut his cheek right open.’ By the time they reached Divisional Headquarters, Roger knew most that there was to know. In a small room, one drinking coffee and the other beer, were the two women: Mrs Adams and Mrs Fairley. The blonde Mrs Fairley said, as if she were seeing ghosts: ‘Asleep, they were—sitting at the table fast asleep.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ Roger asked Mrs Adams. She was an attractive woman in a rather severe way, and had the most direct blue eyes he could remember seeing. ‘Anything at all?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you the lot.’ There was a kind of defiance in her manner.
‘Why did you follow the detective sergeant?’ Roger asked. ‘That was a bit unusual, wasn’t it?’
‘It was unusual for me,’ Mrs Adams answered.
‘Then why did you, tonight?’
She answered without the slightest attempt to evade the question; and he felt quite sure she was telling the truth.
‘I decided to warn Maureen,’ she said.
‘Why didn’t you telephone Dr Galbraith and warn her that way?’
‘I don’t have a telephone, and the one at the corner is out of order. Maureen came out of the house sooner than I expected, and I saw it all—everything,’ she added with a helpless kind of shrug. ‘Maureen was scared out of her wits, and swung her bag at him. Then she ran. And she’d laid his cheek right open, the blood …’
She told her story again, somehow able to keep her voice steady despite her obvious distress. She answered other questions: she was married, her husband and only son worked a night shift at the local power station, her only daughter was married, and lived in South-West London. So she had been alone. Mrs Fairley was a stranger, a neighbour of the Galbraiths …
‘Will you be all right on your own tonight?’ asked Roger at last.
‘You’ll be watching Maureen’s place, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I’ve never been frightened of a policeman yet,’ she said, and then suddenly her face seemed to quiver, her eyes creased at the corners and tears filmed them. ‘My God,’ she said, ‘he was the best looking man I’ve seen in years. And if you’d seen his face afterwards—’ She broke off, suddenly burying her face in her hands. As Roger stood by, knowing there was nothing he could do, the blonde who had seemed so empty headed suddenly came to life.
‘I’ll look after her,’ she said. ‘I’ll take her home with me. Lay on a car, will you?’
Roger arranged for a car and arranged to have Mrs Adams’ house watched at the same time as Maureen O’Malley’s. Then he checked, through Campbell, with the hospital where Ivy Mallows had been taken.
‘She won’t be able to talk to anyone until tomorrow morning,’ a sister told him. ‘There is a policewoman with her, as you no doubt know.’
‘Yes,’ said Roger. ‘Thanks.’ He put down the receiver, and looked across at Campbell, without speaking. It was now after midnight, and the sensible thing was to go home. He couldn’t quicken the arrest of the Irish cook, he couldn’t help in any way simply by sitting up all night.
&nb
sp; And in the morning he might even have time to think.
Chapter Fifteen
Questions
In fact, Roger went back to the Yard, studied reports which confirmed the details of the search for Maureen O’Malley, showed that Raymond Greatorex was still unable to be interviewed and was now on the danger list, and covered details of the search for James Donovan. There was nothing in from Sandell; but then, there had hardly been time. He put the file into his briefcase, left a note for Watts telling him what he had done, and went home. The hall light was on, but all the rooms were in darkness. He opened the door quietly, very alert for the slightest sound. He could almost hear Janet, sobbing.
It was imagination.
In the kitchen there were some sandwiches under a plastic cover, beer, coffee and milk, so that he could have what he liked. He ate a couple of ham sandwiches and drank a glass of milk, then went upstairs. No lights were on at the back, where the boys slept. The moment he went into his bedroom Janet stirred, but did not wake. But as he began to slip into his own bed, she started up.
‘Roger! Are you all right?’
‘Of course I am.’
‘How’s your head?’
‘I’d almost forgotten it.’ He went across and kissed her forehead. ‘Goodnight, love.’
‘Are you in a hurry in the morning?’
‘Not wildly, unless something turns up.’
‘That’s good,’ she said.
She was asleep again almost at once, and he soon dropped off.
He awoke in the morning completely alert as he usually did. He could hear Janet’s even breathing as he glanced at the bedside clock. It was half past seven, so he’d had five and a half hours’ sound sleep. Soon, he was getting out of bed. Janet was often up by now, this liein would do her good. He closed the door with great care, and started.
Richard, so tall and lean and almost hungry looking, was coming out of his room. Both father and son were tying the sashes of their dressing-gowns, both were tousled, both unshaven. Richard was dark-haired, Roger very fair and hiding the grey; neither of them realised, in that moment, how much they were alike.
