The Bright Face of Danger Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I should have given it some thought, made a few phone calls perhaps, and consulted a map. But instinct takes over, and all I did was run for the Porsche and head out towards Filsby.

  It was snowing, those first languorous flakes that melt into the wet tarmac. But where I was heading it would be colder, with the snow lying. There had been enough in George’s voice to persuade my foot hard down on the throttle. We flew.

  He was waiting outside the phone box, stamping his feet. The snow was beginning to nestle in the astrakhan collar of his huge, midnight tent of a coat. I had run into and out of Filsby in five seconds. It was no more than a dairy farm on a bend and a low bridge over a stream down below, and three houses crouching behind a derelict church. We were completely surrounded by firs, which hissed as the snow lighted on them.

  George said: ‘He’s done it.’

  I slammed the door. ‘Done what? Given you the slip, is that what you mean? It’s what we’ve been waiting for. What happened?’

  ‘Plummer was back from Brazil, that’s all. There was me...’

  ‘From the beginning, George.’

  He waved his arm, but then restrained himself. ‘From the beginning,’ he agreed heavily. ‘The bungalow. I went there. The usual thing. Five minutes in his workroom and then on the road.’

  ‘No cute little messages?’

  ‘No. Just the twenty-five miles down the motorway to his office. I pulled in after him, and a red MGB was in Plummer’s parking place. Collis was in his own car, parked, and what could I do? I drove on, round the corner, looking for another slot. Get out, I thought, and go back, and stand by the MGB. But I didn’t get time. You can see past the building from round there, and along East Street, and what I saw was the BMW easing off and away. We’re wasting time, Dave.’

  ‘What’s another few minutes? Go on.’

  ‘So I said to myself, you cunning devil, Collis. Only ten seconds with my eye off him, and he’d acted. His brain must have been tuned in...Anyway, I drove back through the car park, and sure enough his card gone, and I pushed it a bit, thinking he’d be breaking his neck to get clear. But oh no, not on your life. There he was, a steady thirty, and not trying, Dave. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t intending to drop you. He’d maybe remembered an appointment.’

  ‘I figured that. It’d started to rain — the sleety stuff. He just tooled along, onto the motorway again, and back towards home.’

  ‘You were recording this?’

  ‘One hand on the wheel, yes. For the record. Anyway, past junction 6 we go, past 7, and I was beginning to think: the Airport. Gonna take a plane and rape somebody in Hamburg, or something.’ He shrugged. ‘I was plain baffled, and trying out any daft idea, and the visibility was getting worse. He was steadily speeding up. Sixty, then seventy. The Renault’s new, Dave, and stiff. I was dead worried. Then there’s these two long trailer jobs, tagging each other in the middle lane, with ten yards of spray each side, and he pulled out to overtake. Me, I eased back a bit. I wasn’t intending to ram him, in that lot. But then I got past and out in the clear, and there was no damn sign of him.’

  ‘He’d slipped inside.’

  ‘Dave, I knew. There were junction signs coming up, so he’d pulled over into the slow lane. I had to do the same, but damn it, I was in front. You can see the point.’

  I did. George had been manoeuvred. But it didn’t have to be deliberate. ‘You had no alternative but to pull off at the next junction.’

  ‘And stop, and wait for him, and watch him blind past in the outside lane, leaving me standing. Innocent, Dave, he could claim that.’

  ‘Perhaps it was.’

  He shook his head stolidly. His fury was well contained. ‘It was smooth. Fooled me. I got down on the motorway again, but he was way out of sight. I pushed it. Lord, that temperature gauge! But no sign of him when I got to the next junction, so I pulled off and started looking.’

  ‘Hopeless.’

  ‘No. I was dead lucky. A lad on a pushbike said he’d gone past, described the BMW, yellow car going like mad, he said, and heading south. Back here, Dave, back to the Chase where the others have been. I could’ve killed him.’

  ‘We don’t know...’

  ‘Of course we bloody know. I know, because I couldn’t just stand here, waiting. I phoned Plummer Associates, Dave. Plummer’s still in Brazil, and there was no MGB in his space when they looked out for me. That Collis is real smart. He used that ten second opportunity, when I’d got my eyes off him.’

  ‘But he didn’t try to ditch you. It was too casual.’

  ‘I know, I know. Don’t you think I’ve been driving myself mad, trying to make sense of it. But however it is, he’s on the loose, and here. This is the Chase, Dave.’

  ‘They found Tina down by that little bridge.’ I didn’t think I’d said it aloud.

  He took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go and get him.’

  ‘It’s daylight. He’d have to wait. Sit and wait. It doesn’t sound like a sex thing to me. Do they wait...hours...sit in the cold all day?’

  ‘How the hell would I know what they do?’ And I’ve got an idea where he’d go, anyway.’

  ‘How can you?’

  ‘He showed me, George. He couldn’t have had any other reason, because there’s no chance of starting work on it again.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘His log house. Let’s have a look at a map.’

  We spread it on George’s bonnet, because it’s flat. The engine was ticking as it cooled. Ordinary road maps are no use with areas like the Chase, and we had brought Ordnance Surveys. The roads were marked as sinuous snakes, and there were large areas with none. The Rides were dotted double lines, straighter and more direct, and apparently purposeless. I studied it.

  ‘There,’ I decided, prodding a pencil at the intersection of two Rides. ‘Now, let’s see where we are now.’

  ‘But...what’d he gain? The whole point was to use us as his alibi. Otherwise it’s all insane.’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand him. Can you see Filsby?’

  We didn’t get the chance. A white and duck-egg green patrol car eased in gently behind us, and Sgt. Williamson unfolded himself from inside.

  ‘You take off like a rocket,’ he complained. ‘And leave my men standing. We’ve hogged the air for half an hour, tracing you up here.’

  ‘Very flattering,’ I said.

  ‘So he’s on the loose!’ But he was smiling. ‘He’s somewhere.’

  Now it was almost a laugh, with his teeth showing and his eyes dancing. ‘He’s got himself a right pair, I must say. You know where he is? I’ll tell you. He’s where he’s supposed to be...back at his office.’

  ‘There’d be no point...’ George’s voice was rising angrily. I caught his arm.

  ‘Do you know that?’ I demanded.

  ‘He phoned the Station to report his car had been stolen. I was there at the time.’

  George roared: ‘I followed...’

  ‘There’s something fishy here,’ I put in. ‘He could have used a tape, on that phone. Timed it.’

  Amused, pursing his lips, Williamson was slowly shaking his head. ‘He answered questions. Said he’d got up to his office and saw it going off down East Street, with the big, dumb oaf tailing it.’

  George moved. I trod on his foot.

  ‘His words,’ the sergeant assured him, but the smile had gone sour.

  ‘But you’re not going to use up half an hour of radio messages over a stolen car,’ I said softly.

  ‘Well now...’ He pulled his ear lobe. ‘We’ve got an image to keep clean. The neutral coppers. We don’t want anybody saying we’re hounding him, because we’ve always got one man in the offing.’

  ‘So you think you’ll recover his car for him,’ I suggested.

  George cleared his throat. ‘Just as though he’s not a triple murderer, and you’re all mad that he slipped the net.’

  Will
iamson’s eyes bulged at him. ‘Something like that. And seeing you two were hot after the BMW...’

  ‘We lost it,’ I said.

  ‘So I see. And now you’re looking for the road back.’ He nodded towards the spread map. ‘Follow me. We’ll give you a lead.’

  ‘Get stuffed,’ said George.

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ I translated.

  Williamson hesitated, then shrugged. ‘The roads are gonna get bad.’

  Then he got back in the patrol car, and they U-turned away.

  ‘You weren’t polite, George.’

  ‘I got rid of him. You do the phoning. It’s murder for me, getting in the box.’ He looked at me in massive wonder. ‘Don’t you see!’

  I saw. Neither of us had the change, but as George had guessed, it was not necessary. There was no reply from Collis’s office.

  I felt cold. We stood by the box, in the misty hollow where two deserted roads crossed. A hundred yards away, smoke rose vertically into the cold air from a squat, mournful cottage. The black clouds seemed low and the snowflakes were larger. The trees melted into the sky.

  ‘He grabbed the opportunity,’ I agreed. ‘But not the one you said. It all sounded wrong, George, the BMW not trying to outpace you. But the opportunity he took was when you followed it. He reported his car stolen. It placed him in his office with no car — damn it, Williamson believes he’s still there — and he was free. Free, George, and God help us he could be anywhere.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t last long.’ George was hunched up, his hands in his pockets, his hair white with snow. His eyes burned beneath it. ‘Whatever he intended, it’d have to be quick. Reasonably.’

  ‘It smells rotten.’ There was something I should be interpreting, and it was just out of reach.

  ‘So we should still be in time.’

  ‘We don’t know where...’

  ‘We don’t know where he’s gone, but we can have a guess at where his car’s gone, Dave. You said — the log house. And it’d be a big coincidence, coming this direction...’

  Still the thought eluded me. ‘It’s too wild.’

  ‘But it’s all we’ve got. Where’s that bloody map?’

  A snowflake fell on Filsby, melted darkly, and gave us a solid starter. There would be no more than two miles in it, but the contour lines were close and some of it looked steep.

  ‘I’ll lead,’ I said. At the worst, it would be a shortcut back to the motorway.

  ‘Don’t make it too fast. I want this car in one piece.’

  I could feel the Porsche breaking away on the corners. The metalled road was winding and tricky. George, for all his weight, has a tender foot. He stuck stubbornly on my tail. I found the turnoff. Stripped logs were stacked beside an old, rusting saw bench. The Ride plunged into the trees, white against the black, protected pine needles beneath the massed firs. It looked dark in there. I put on my heads and plunged at it. The Porsche throbbed and leapt to the challenge, and still the Renault followed behind, bucking and swaying.

  There could be no chance of pausing and considering. Wheelspin was getting worse as the climb grew steeper, and in places the space between the trees was tailored for clearance of no more than a Landrover. George fell behind. I eased. The track breasted a rise and for a hundred yards turned right along the brow of a level arc, black towering pines on my left, bracken down there in the hollow on my right. The wipers flung the snow sideways as it streamed back at me. I stopped, cut my engine, and listened. The whine of the Renault, rising and falling, was coming up behind.

  Getting out, I could see a cut-away ahead, where the trees had been cleared. I slid back in and eased over to it, then waited for George.

  He wound down the window and shouted.

  ‘Nobody’s going to come up here if he didn’t have to, Dave. I’ll bust the springs...’

  ‘It was easier coming in the other way. It couldn’t be far, now. You pull in here, and I’ll try the next bend on foot.’

  He watched me, his head out of the window, as I trudged on. The snow was lying an inch thick, and my shoes were soaked. When I got back, his head was still out.

  ‘I was listening,’ he said. ‘It’s dead out here.’

  ‘The BMW’s there.’

  He looked at me.

  ‘It’s parked by the log-house,’ I said.

  ‘Why’re you looking like that?’

  ‘Adrian Collis is in it. His chest’s been blasted in with a shotgun.’

  He was struggling to get out. I said: ‘Turn the car round and go and phone, George.’

  ‘I want to see.’

  ‘I can’t get the Porsche past you. Get Williamson.’

  He’d have walked me into the ground if I hadn’t stood aside. ‘You get him. I’m gonna take a look. It’s me you’re doubting...’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think I’m off my head or something. I’m just going to take a look. That’s all, Dave. All I want.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do. And nobody says you’re crazy.’

  ‘I do,’ he growled. ‘Go and do your phoning.’

  And he stumped away.

  I got the Renault back to that phone box and asked them to locate Sgt. Williamson. Then I drove back, and how George had got it up the Ride I didn’t know. Twice I got stuck and had to back down and try again. The Porsche was silent and deserted when I reached it. I discovered George standing by the BMW.

  ‘I gave ‘em the map references,’ I said.

  ‘Good thinking.’

  I looked at him with suspicion.

  ‘There’s a tape in the Renault,’ he said dully. ‘I mentioned the time when this car drove away from his office.’

  ‘Yes George, I’m sure.’

  ‘The call to the Station will’ve been logged.’

  ‘It probably was. But it’s unnecessary. He described you heading off after his car.’

  ‘Fairly accurately.’

  ‘Don’t start blaming yourself.’

  He turned furiously. ‘Don’t you condescend to me, Dave. I can do my own reasoning.’

  ‘All right.’ I looked away. His eyes were dangerous. ‘You lost the car, and it was bloody careless, and now he’s dead. So go ahead and blame yourself as much as you like, you big fool.’

  He walked away a few yards. The light was grey and without direction. ‘I’ve been looking around.’ Now he was quiet. ‘Don’t worry about footprints, the snow came after he died, and there were only yours. I wasn’t thinking, Dave, not reasoning. What I really wanted to do was cry. Funny that. But not for him, mate. I felt all hot with it, because I’d had a feeling, a premonition like, and I’d expected some poor, foully-assaulted girl...and it was only him. I’m glad somebody did it. And now it’s all over, and he’s gone.’

  ‘Is it all over? You say you weren’t thinking, George. What didn’t you think?’

  He laughed. Steam gushed with it. ‘You’re slow — and I’m older than you. But I saw how it was. He took advantage? Rubbish. He made the opportunity. The MGB was planted there. Otherwise it’s all too cosy and coincidental. A little red sports car in Plummer’s slot, and Collis’s car gets pinched! In a few seconds? Never. And you know it. You’d seen through it.’

  I’d had the uneasy feeling, but not George’s perception. ‘I didn’t like what we had, I’ll admit that.’

  He stood by the BMW. The driver’s door was open, with snow on Collis’s lap and on his right leg. He was sprawled in the driving seat, his head back and his face unmarked. A charge of shot had blasted into his chest, the front of his leather motoring coat black with it and torn away in a hole four inches across. The seat belt was looped over his chest, but not fastened. It was unmarked.

  ‘He arranged it,’ said George, and now his voice was toneless. ‘The MGB, the taking of the BMW, and his phone call. His alibi, Dave. I know it’s loose, but so are all the best alibis. Unforced and natural. He’d be pin-pointed there at the office, with his car leading me away, and be free to dive into the MGB. A f
ast little car, Dave. It’d take only seconds for somebody to slip from the MGB to the BMW, and drive away, with me after them.’

  ‘And drop you casually, George? Was that on the programme? You’re telling me he had some young girl—’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Let me take it on logically. He’d arranged it, you say. An accomplice, who’d agreed to lead you away, then drop you...’

  ‘That could’ve been unrehearsed.’

  ‘…and then meet him here, when he arrived in the MGB. Some girl he fancied, perhaps, who’d never heard the name of Adrian Collis, rapist and murderer, and drove here happily, on a rotten February day, to be raped, and subsequently strangled, like the rest.’

  ‘Anybody can make things sound ridiculous.’ He was hot and angry.

  ‘But it was what you expected to find.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘I was pleased to find him. Anyway, it’s all confirmed.’

  ‘Is it? As simple as that?’

  ‘The seat belt, Dave. Look at it. His chest blown in, and the belt untouched. He wasn’t killed in this car.’

  ‘He wasn’t driving it. We know that.’

  ‘So what’re we arguing about? It all fits — the MGB gone from the car park, everything.’

  I didn’t know what we were arguing about. There was simply a background of illogicality about it.

  ‘I’d just like to know who you followed in the BMW, that’s all.’

  I looked at what was left of Adrian Collis. I didn’t know what I was feeling. I had not been convinced of his guilt; I haven’t George’s direct and untrammelled view of things. George makes up his own mind. I envied him.

  Then, as I watched, Collis moved. I felt the skin tighten across my cheeks, although I knew it was a trick of rigor, a muscle tightening in the low temperature. Then he moved again, the head fell forward, and stiffly, as though impelled, he fell forward over the wheel.

  ‘Not this car.’ I cleared my throat. ‘He died elsewhere.’

  There were no bullet holes in the back of the seat squab, although the emerging shot had torn the rear of his motoring coat.