The Bright Face of Danger Read online

  ‘Psychology, George?’

  ‘She hasn’t got any doubts. She’s dead certain he did it.’

  ‘Them. Three murders.’ I glanced at him. ‘And the little woman, George? What does the wife think? Did she say?’

  ‘No. I don’t think she cares. But I’m sure she knows. I hope you’re not expecting any enthusiasm from me, Dave.’

  ‘You don’t have to be keen. Just do your protecting bit.’ I decided it wasn’t a good time to tell him about the other bit. ‘You know you’ll do it.’

  ‘I might be just that bit slower. Not being too keen.’

  He stamped back into the bungalow.

  Collis had it all worked out. I couldn’t help thinking of George’s claim that Collis was enjoying it. Every detail had been slotted-in with superfluous care. When we were to pick him up, how we were to follow him discreetly, where we were to park at his office block, even, by heaven, how we’d arrange our shifts.

  ‘Suppose you leave it to us,’ I said. George was sitting forward dangerously on the edge of one of the not-so-easy chairs, his face inscrutable, his eyes on Delia.

  ‘As long as it’s done,’ Collis conceded.

  ‘You’ll never be out of our sight — one or the other of us.’

  ‘I did say discreetly.’

  ‘Shadows,’ I assured him. ‘As inobtrusive as shadows.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ He cleared his throat. ‘If I anticipate long journeys, I’ll try to slip you messages.’

  ‘In code?’ George murmured, reacting.

  ‘It shouldn’t be too obvious we’re connected,’ Collis reproved him.

  George raised his eyes, but fortunately kept his comments to himself, at least until we were alone. We’d been alone for ten minutes, driving back to town, before he even spoke. Getting well clear, I suppose.

  ‘You can see why they charged him.’

  Collis wasn’t quite real, not as a protagonist in this situation. Somewhere along the line he’d rationalised it. Now it had the romantic savour of a lone struggle against adversity, with two doubtful assistants, and an eventual triumph. He couldn’t wait for it.

  The fact that what he saw as his triumph could arise only from another girl’s death preyed heavily on my mind. My conscience, even. I was a party to it.

  George’s comment was a mile back down the road when I admitted: ‘I can see. But perhaps he wasn’t so bad, then.’

  ‘He’s hovering on the edge of insanity, Dave. He wants putting away. Obviously he did in those three girls.’

  ‘I don’t know. If so, why’d he expect us to prove he didn’t?’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘Does he? There’s something you haven’t told me.’

  I explained what it was. I could feel him staring at me in disbelief.

  ‘And you agreed to help him with that?’

  ‘What else could I do? He’s probably right — there’ll be another.’

  ‘That’s real dandy. And we sit around, waiting for it to happen?’

  ‘That’s the general idea.’

  ‘You must be going soft. He’s conned you. Of course there’ll be another, because he’ll do it himself.’

  ‘Not if we watch him closely enough.’

  ‘He’s got it all planned! This time he’ll have an alibi, something crafty, and we’re the mugs who’re going to give it to him.’

  ‘If we let it happen like that.’

  ‘You’re so damned complacent, Dave. What’s got into you?’

  ‘Just a little bit of disgust, rumbling away in my guts. I don’t like the feeling, and it’s not going away until I know. So we wait and we watch, and we do a few quiet enquiries, and if we come up with proof that he’s conning us, then, George, he’ll wish he’d gone down for that life sentence.’

  ‘Enquiries!’ George was vehement. ‘Not me mate. I’m going to be watching that smarmy hypocrite. Do your own damned enquiring.’

  George is not subject to persuasion when he gets an idea in his head. To tell the truth, I wasn’t prepared to argue with him. I had been playing it down. I’d read the trial transcript, you see, and the plain truth was that Collis had not mentioned a tenth part of the evidence against him. All circumstantial, I admit, but as sound as a signed confession.

  George said: ‘You’re not thinking of staying in town?’

  ‘Where the action is. Where else?’

  And where, also, at that small centre, but at the Crown? It was the only place that could call itself an hotel.

  We had come in to the square down a long hill flanked by large and obscured residences. They grew their greenery sufficiently tall to blunt the impact of the surroundings. The main square was barely large enough to accommodate an island where the five main roads met. The traffic was chaotic, with five sets of traffic lights and no apparent co-ordination. The shopping centre was dull and dingy. The Crown, the other side of the square, didn’t look any more encouraging.

  George remarked that they’d never find a room for us there. But they did, a double room over the public bar, so that there was no possibility of rest until after closing time.

  This fact was likely to be awkward for us. There would have to be shifts, one of us always sleeping at strange hours.

  ‘I’ve been in worse,’ said George, but when he sat down heavily on the bed I thought it was going through the floor.

  ‘Let’s see if we can get a sandwich and a drink,’ I suggested. ‘And then we toss to see who gets to Firbelow at six in the morning.’

  But there was going to be no doubt about that. I was the one with the car.

  ‘It’s your car,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Don’t imagine you’re getting out of all the work. We’ll get you a car.’

  ‘We’ll never hire one around here.’

  ‘Buy one, George. You’ll need a car, and we’ve got Elsa’s money.’

  ‘We can’t...’

  But we could. Elsa, my wife, who’s got all the money, had decided to diversify her investments, and had put some capital into our agency. It was not very complimentary, really, that she had done it as soon as George joined me in the firm. But it was all legal, with a contract and interest clauses, and heaven help us if we were a day late with the repayments.

  Logically, it was a sound investment to buy George a car. But he seemed to think I was offering him some sort of a bribe.

  ‘It’s our money, not mine,’ I said, annoyed.

  We were still arguing when we entered the public bar, which, I suppose, was the reason we failed to notice the impression we made. George was lifting a pint of bitter when he detected the silence. We looked round casually.

  At this early hour there were only about twenty in there, all men, the lonely perhaps or the unhappy, reluctant to part from workmates and get off home. They were eyeing us quietly, their glasses stilled. A bad sign, that.

  There was a rustle. ‘That’s them!’ Something like a sustained growl. They moved, fanning out and advancing.

  ‘You tell ‘em, Jonas,’ one of them said, the encourager, the one who remains at the rear, craning and grinning.

  They pushed Jonas forward. He was a big man, could even have been a miner in his youth; he would be in his forties, I thought. Now...well, a bricklayer, perhaps. He had roughened, red hands and the wind-bruised face of a man who works outdoors. He was wearing blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, with a donkey jacket over it. His chest was big, though with a barrel that does not denote strength but more likely weak lungs. Emphysema. Possibly a pit legacy. He moved ponderously, his mouth moving, pausing only to spit sideways.

  ‘Who’s this?’ said George quietly.

  Jonas? ‘It’ll be Jonas Fletcher,’ I said. ‘The girl Tina’s father. Or step-father, I think. She was seventeen, George.’

  ‘A strange, startled girl,’ he whispered.

  ‘What you up to?’ Fletcher demanded, spreading his legs. ‘We don’t want you around here.’

  They applauded with groans, half-empty glasses
being lifted in agreement, full ones being moved gently.

  I told him we were pleased to meet him. ‘I was going to look you up, anyway. Some questions...’

  ‘You can keep away from me. I’m warnin’ you. I got me a gun.’

  ‘You give ‘em a barrel-full,’ the encourager shouted.

  ‘What’ll I do, Dave?’ George asked softly. ‘Swat him?’

  But they’d heard. The one at the back had ears like garage doors. ‘What about that, Jonas. Think he can swat you?’

  ‘You buy him a drink, George,’ I said. ‘I’ve got business to attend to.’

  If you walk right at them when they’ve only got their solidarity to cling to, they part. They hesitate, and then it’s too late, because you’re in amongst them, and then through. They parted as though I was launching a ship. I reached the encourager and lifted the glass from his fingers, placing it carefully on a table.

  ‘I don’t think we need you, friend. How about taking a little walk outside?’

  He gulped, and poked at my chest. I think he only intended to emphasise something, but an extended finger is inviting. I seized it and twisted it, and his arm came round, then I took it to the outer door and tossed it into the street. He went with it.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘Where were we?’

  There was complete silence. The barman was drawing a pint, and he slid it towards Jonas Fletcher. He took it up with care, and deliberately poured it onto the floor. Then, his point made, he turned and marched out, searching perhaps for encouragement.

  ‘Rumble, rumble,’ they all said, nodding to each other, their honour satisfied.

  George shook his head. ‘It’s only postponing it, you know. He’s the sort that has to be thumped some time or other.’

  ‘But I wanted to ask him something. Quietly.’

  ‘Ask him what?’

  ‘Why his step-daughter, who sounds as though she was a nervous little thing, should be out on a dark February night on a dark February road. The police failed to raise even a hint of a boy-friend.’

  ‘Girls do funny things. They don’t have to have reasons.’

  ‘True,’ I agreed.

  But there had been a small gain. I at least knew the name of our encourager. It had been spoken, sarcastically, by his nearest neighbour when I grasped his finger. ‘You show him, Reuben.’

  He was Reuben Goldwater, the father of Madge, who had died on the 4th January. I should have kept hold of that finger. There were questions, too, for Goldwater, when I could get round to it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was quite a while before I did. Six days later I was sitting in the Porsche watching the office, and talking to George. George, at that time, should have been driving over to relieve me — but nevertheless I was talking to him. The money wouldn’t go as far as inter-car radios, once we’d acquired the Renault 20TL, so we had compromised on a tape recorder. It gave us something to talk and listen to during the long waiting hours, even if there was still, drearily, nothing to report.

  A parked car can become very cold in winter. The frost continued; the mists returned every evening. I wondered whether Collis was waiting for a specially thick one before trying to slip our leash. But there was no sign of impatience from him. In fact, he was treating the whole thing as a glorious adventure.

  I was backed into a parking space marked G. Plummer, to one side of the L-shaped parking area. G. Plummer, I understood, was fortunately visiting Brazil at that time. Directly opposite me was the yellow BMW 2500 that Collis used. Two floors up, and within my vision, was the window of Collis’s office, which he occupied alone. From time to time he would appear at the window and wave idiotically. A little to one side was the main entrance, and I could even see down the side of the building, where the side door opened onto a narrow alleyway. There were only the two office entrances — we had checked it. Two entrances to the actual car park, too, opening into adjacent streets, but no way out of the actual building without being spotted.

  It was the ideal spot, and the only one which afforded such an advantage, most of the car park being round the corner.

  On the seat beside me was the tape recorder. In the glove compartment was the fourth of Collis’s coy little secret messages, a sketch of Coventry Cathedral. I had been listening to George’s comments.

  ‘...another damned picture, and he had the cheek to tuck it into my top pocket. Is he crazy or something? I’d gone into the bungalow — you know how he invites you in, all secret glances up and down the road — went in and had a cup of tea with the missus, and he could’ve told me. Just said: Coventry today. But no. Not our Collis. I tell you, Dave...’

  I recorded for him:

  ‘Don’t let it upset you, George.’

  Snapped it off and thought, and added:

  ‘Just watch him that much closer’

  I didn’t think Collis was stupid. Whatever he had in mind would be subtle and carefully planned.

  Apart from the diversions of his messages, everything had been quiet. Still the watchers came at night, though we saw no positive evidence to bolster the eerie awareness. Still we were treated to animosity wherever we went. Everybody knew why we were there.

  All I could pray was that George would not relax. But George is a man of action, and waiting would be a strain. I had noticed that Delia was no longer the ‘little woman’. Perhaps she was not pleading for his help.

  He came at 4.30. It was George’s turn to follow Collis the twenty-five motorway miles back home, and stay there until I joined him at nine. We would patrol until the feeling of observation disappeared.

  George hoisted the green Renault up the slope from East Street, and I eased out of the space to allow him to back in. I leaned against his lowered window.

  ‘What’s she done at you, George? It’s his missus all of a sudden.’

  ‘I asked her — you know, kind of slipping it in...’ I nodded; he can be as subtle as an avalanche when he tries. ‘I asked her if she believed he’d killed those girls.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She just stared at me as though I was mad and said: “That isn’t the point.” What sort of crazy answer is that?’

  ‘A woman’s answer, George.’

  ‘They’re both crazy.’

  I laughed and left him to it. There was just time, before they left, to get to the Council Offices.

  This was one of the reorganised offices which had resulted from the shuffling of boundaries. It had caused young Andy Partridge to buy a motorcycle in order to get to work, when previously he had had only a ten minute walk to his local office. Andy Partridge was the widower of Marilyn Partridge, the third young woman to die, and it had seemed a good idea to intercept him as he left work.

  Up to that point he was an enigma to me. All my information was of his quiet disposition, his calmness, and his patience. If he had wept over his wife’s murder, he had done it alone.

  The car park of the old red brick council office was down a side street. There were six motorcycles in the park, either of two Honda 200s being possibly his. But when they all streamed out, the owners of both bikes were nothing like the description I had. It seemed I had wasted my time.

  But not quite. My passenger’s door opened and a slim, lithe shape slid in beside me. I turned to him politely.

  ‘I take it there’s a reason for this.’

  ‘Partridge is sick,’ he told me. ‘Been on the box for more than a week now.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Williamson,’ he introduced himself. ‘Just thought I’d save you some trouble.’

  ‘It’s very good of you.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He was polite, but not looking at me. ‘You can take it easy, Mallin. We’ve got it in hand.’

  ‘Got what in hand?’

  ‘The Collis business.’

  ‘Police protection?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Only like it. You can’t touch him again, and you know it. Not even if he g
ave a full admission to the Sunday papers.’

  ‘The Super was annoyed, losing him like that.’

  ‘But there’s nothing you can do to him.’

  ‘Perhaps not. Not for the first three, anyway.’

  And with a nod and the nearest he could get to a smile, he slid out and walked back to his own car. As I watched him in the rear-view mirror, an old Morris Minor crossed behind, and turned away.

  Her surname was Greaves, I had discovered. Amanda Greaves. I had not seen her since that first meeting, but something Collis had said indicated that she had been to see her sister twice. But he had not told me she worked for the council.

  I was doing some fast to and fros to get round after her. It could be useful to know where she lived. As I got the car turned, Williamson stood out in the street and waved me down.

  I wound down the window, the better to curse him.

  ‘Riverside Court,’ he said. ‘Flat 27. She’s secretary to the County Planning Officer. Save you the trouble.’

  I took him at his word — I had lost her, anyway — and went to see whether Andy Partridge was sick enough to be home.

  Six days, and I haven’t found time to chat to anybody. What with the organisation and all the detail work, and buying the Renault for George, there had hardly been a spare minute. The trouble with George is that he’s so big. I am five feet eleven, and no scraggy object, but he makes me look puny. So it had to be a sizeable car, and though I hadn’t said so, we were left with two fast cars — my Porsche and Collis’s BMW — and George’s Renault, which was still being run in. As I saw it, if Collis was intending to give one of us the slip, one misty night along the motorway, it was going to be George. So it had been six days of worry for me, and with none of the background filled in.

  Andy Partridge was cleaning his motorbike in the yard, a 200 Honda, as I’d been told, which is a nice, cobby bike. His thin face was peeked with the cold, his eyes watering.

  ‘I’m Mallin,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ He considered me, slowly straightening. ‘You people will do anything for money.’

  ‘Within reason. I heard you were sick.’

  ‘I get this catarrh.’ He gestured with his oily rag towards the Honda. ‘I need fresh air. All I can get.’