The Reward Game, page 19
part #2 of Keith Calder Series
‘How?’
‘You can put the finger on Archie Curran. I’m surprised he left you alive.’
‘So was I,’ she said and shivered again.
‘There’s an inspector here from Glasgow. Curran killed his mate. If you could shop Curran for killing Wallace, I think I could get him to promise you immunity. You did see Curran do the deed?’
She nodded. ‘He hit Peter – Peter Wallace – from behind with a pipe from one of those water-trough things. But I was in the bushes and he didn’t know I’d seen him. When they caught me watching them last night I pretended that I still wanted to know what had happened to Peter. I think maybe that saved my life. Curran made out that he’d scared Peter away. He said that he was leaving me alive for the moment in case he found that he wanted a hold over Dad, but that if he didn’t he’d leave me in the water-butt when he came back for wee Noddy.’
‘Did they search you?’ Keith said suddenly.
She hesitated for a second too long. And then she nodded. ‘Beasts,’ she said. But it was a lie. Keith was sure that Archie Curran had never known of the existence of a second pistol.
‘Will you testify against Curran?’ Keith asked.
She stared at him whitely and bit her lip. ‘Nobody, but nobody, clypes on Archie Curran without something awful happening to them.’
Keith sighed. ‘But something awful, like prison, is going to happen to you if you don’t. Think about it. Your father’s going up the river for a few years. Well, with his money and connections I dare say he can arrange to pass the time without too much misery. But don’t tell me that he doesn’t have money salted away abroad where you can get at it. The shops could run themselves for a while, and the other business is finished for now anyway. And if Curran goes down, you’ve nothing to worry about for years.’
‘I’d rather just beat it out of here now,’ she said.
‘Go on, then.’
She pulled against the ropes. ‘Untie me, you sod,’ she snapped.
‘Not yet. We’re laying a trap for Archie Curran. You could say that we’re doing you a favour. You can wait and think about it for that long.’
‘I’m bloody uncomfortable,’ she said coaxingly. ‘Untie me, Keith. Just for a few minutes.’
Keith nearly laughed. ‘Not just yet a while,’ he said. ‘You’re too slippery by half. I don’t see myself getting your hands tied again without losing some skin, and I’ve been dunted on the head once already in the last few days. You stay as you are and I’ll see if I can’t make you a bit more comfortable.’ He got up and walked round her. ‘Your bra’s hurting you, isn’t it?’
She fought the ropes, Keith thought, like a trapped mink. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said between her teeth. ‘You leave me alone, Keith Calder, or I’ll have you up for indecent assault.’
Keith slid down the zip at the back of her dress and unhooked her bra. She tried to beat him off by striking backwards at his chest with her head, but he slipped his hands down her front and round her generous breasts. ‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘You looked just a little bit too smug when I said that we knew the whole story.’ He brought out two packages that crunched when he fingered them.
‘Keith, please,’ she wailed. ‘I’ll give you half. That’s better than you’ll get from the insurers.’
‘They’re not yours to give, sweetheart,’ he said. He weighed the warm packages in his hands before slipping them into his pockets. ‘I’ll just have to make do with ten per cent. I envy those stones, but they can’t have been comfortable for you.’
She managed a small laugh. ‘For that money, I could have stood the pain a little longer.’
‘Look on the bright side. You don’t have to stand the pain any longer. Shall I kiss the place and make it well?’ Keith thought that, with her clothes in disarray and her hair flying, she looked . . . irresistible. He put his hands down and weighed her heavy breasts in his hands. They were beautifully shaped, soft and as exciting as lips.
She squirmed as much as she could. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said in a very small voice.
‘You never used to say that.’
‘You never had me tied up before.’
‘If you were free, would you really fight me off?’
Mary gave no answer except to stop struggling and lean back against him. Quick shudders ran through her.
‘This is more like old times,’ Keith said.
He could feel her laughter. ‘You always could get more out of me than I meant to give you,’ she said. ‘They were good times.’
‘We went well together.’
She sighed under his hands. ‘We never should have split up,’ she said. ‘It was when you stopped doing business with Dad, wasn’t it? You were just a wee bit priggy and holier-than-thou. Dad didn’t like that. He thought that you might be a danger, but I said that you might not want to play his games but you’d never grass, and anyway, I said I never talk in my sleep.’
‘Doesn’t he mind?’
‘Me having a lover occasionally? No. He knows I’m as careful as he is, and it makes him feel better about his fancy women. But then you didn’t come round any more. I thought perhaps you were afraid that Dad was using me to persuade you round.’
‘Perhaps.’
She twisted her head to look at him. ‘That’s one thing I wouldn’t do.’
‘Accept my apologies.’
‘This is hellish uncomfortable,’ she said, moving uneasily. ‘Let me stand up for a minute or two.’
‘I’m not letting you loose,’ Keith said. ‘I’ll let you up for a minute if you want, but that’s all. You’ve got too many tricks.’
‘That’s almost a compliment,’ she said.
Keith unwound the many turns of climbing-rope and pulled her up. With her ankles still tied she swayed against him for balance. ‘That’s a bit better,’ she said. ‘But my bum has gone to sleep and now I’ve got pins and needles.’
‘A rub might help,’ Keith said. He rubbed. ‘Just for old times’ sake, of course.’
‘Yes, of course. I hate to spoil the mood but I’ll need to pay a little visit in a minute. You’ll have to untie my hands.’
‘What can you do for yourself,’ Keith asked, ‘that I can’t do for you? And that I haven’t done before?’
*
But later, as they lay on Gerry Reynolds’ bed, Keith said, ‘I’ll untie your hands if you like.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ she said. ‘This is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me . . . Keith, if I give evidence and then go out to a place Dad’s got near Benidorm, would you come and see me sometimes?’
Keith stilled his movement for a few seconds. ‘I’m a married man now,’ he said stiffly.
Chapter Fifteen
When Keith came yawning out of the cottage, the sun was quite gone and the moon was brilliant over the frosted scene. He held his face up to the cold air to drive away sleep before moving round the corner of the cottage. There was black shadow under the cliff, but the gable was almost floodlit. Ronnie and Cathcart were chatting softly, squatting in the shadow of the water-barrel.
Keith crouched beside them. ‘You should be over in the bushes,’ he told Ronnie.
‘When I’m good and ready,’ Ronnie said. ‘If you’re so worried you go over there. How come you’ve been so long?’
Keith spoke to Cathcart. ‘I’ve been doing some more investigating,’ he said, ‘and I’ve got a witness who saw Archie Curran kill the Englishman, Wallace.’
Ronnie gave a low whistle. ‘What did you do? Wave your magic wand again?’
‘Something very like that.’ Keith smiled secretly in the shadow. ‘The point is, this witness will only testify in exchange for immunity in respect of a minor part in the fencing of the jewels. Can you swing that?’
Cathcart hesitated. ‘I’m not allowed to make promises in the name of the Procurator Fiscal,’ he began.
‘Who’s this witness?’ Ronnie asked.
‘Never you mind just now,’ Keith said. ‘Inspector, shouldn’t we be getting into position?’
‘We needn’t hurry,’ Cathcart said. ‘It could be a long wait. They’ll probably stop for a meal and time themselves to get here after the traffic’s died away. And we’re not too badly placed as we are. We can scatter in a second or two if we hear their truck pull up.’
‘All right. Molly appointed you our nanny,’ Keith said. ‘So what about the immunity question?’
‘It’s tricky,’ Cathcart said. ‘Wallace’s murder took place over here. But the theft of the jewels was in Strathclyde, and the fence was arrested there, so any offences in connection with those same things would almost certainly be tried in Glasgow. I won’t know for sure until I’ve spoken to both Fiscals, but I could promise your witness a ninety per cent, chance of immunity. You’re sure he can bring Curran down?’
‘I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,’ Keith said. He slanted his watch to the light of the moon. ‘Ronnie, I think you’d better be moving over the other side.’
‘And I think he’d better not,’ said a high and fluting voice, and Archie Curran came round the front corner of the cottage. He was carrying a shotgun, sawn off at barrels and stock, and Keith thought that even the worst shot in the world could hardly miss with such a weapon at ten feet range.
Hughie Spence came round the other corner.
*
‘Put your guns on the ground and stand up.’
Ronnie had already laid down his gun while he chatted to Cathcart. Keith’s gun, a Winchester Super X, was under his wrong arm and Cathcart was in the way. With a sick sense of doom, Keith lowered the weapon. Even in such an emergency it was too expensive a gun to throw down. He leaned it carefully against the wall and stood away.
When he had the three men backed against the cottage wall, Curran gave a mirthless snort of laughter. He switched the sawn-off gun to his left hand and from under his coat he pulled out the silenced automatic. ‘If you feel like trying something, go right ahead,’ he said. ‘I’d rather not make loud bangs just yet, but if I miss with this –’ he hefted the automatic ‘– I’ll blow you apart with the other one and we’ll be gone long before the police get here, if they bother to come at all to investigate a shot or two on the hill. And if somebody stops their car to see what all the noise is about, it’ll be too bad about them as well. So, if anyone prefers to die sooner than later, and slowly rather than quickly, who am I to say them nay? Hughie?’
‘Yes, Boss?’ The hoarse whisper was almost drowned by the rumble of a heavy vehicle climbing the hill overhead.
Curran waited until the rumble died uncaringly away. ‘Calder was talking about a witness. He must mean the girl. Go and see if she’s still there. And if she is . . .’
‘I’ll fetch her out here?’
Curran paused and, suicide or not, Keith prepared himself for a running tackle. Then Curran shrugged. ‘All right, bring her out. Time enough when we’re sure that we don’t need her any more.’
Hughie Spence nodded, and moved off with his curiously light step round the front of the cottage. They heard him try the door, grunt and put his shoulder to it. Wood splintered.
A vehicle coasted to a halt above them with no more sound than a faint groan of brakes. A door was gently closed and the driver’s feet gritted on the road. A figure appeared against the stars.
‘Let down your cable,’ Curran said, ‘and put your lamp on.’ Seconds later a light shone down from the vehicle’s roof, filling in the shadows and putting an end to Keith’s hopes that a sudden cloud over the moon might give him a chance.
Cathcart cleared his throat. ‘Don’t be a fool to yourself, Curran,’ he said. ‘My colleagues know where I am, and they know that I’ve been keeping tabs on you all day. They told me the minute you left Glasgow. You might get away with what you’ve done so far, but you know how we react when one of our own gets chopped. They’ll be after you with everything they’ve got within minutes.’
‘Within minutes of putting the pieces back together and making sure it’s you,’ Curran said. Under the stark light of the moon, his face, with its inky shadows, belonged in the darkest corner of hell. ‘And then they’ve got to catch me. And I’ll be long gone.’
‘Leaving Frank Hutch and the others to whistle for their shares in the jewels?’
Curran glanced up. As if in answer, the truck’s starter whirred. ‘Along with anyone else who thinks that they can cut themselves a piece,’ Curran agreed. ‘But you try to suggest that when they come back and I’ll cut you in half before you can get three words out.’
Spence came back with the girl under one arm. He carried her as easily as a pillow, and as casually dropped her near Keith’s feet. She was weeping through a fresh gag. ‘She’d been moved to the bed,’ the big man whispered, ‘and her gag was out. She wanted to scream, so . . .’
‘Somebody helped himself,’ Curran said. ‘I wonder what else he got out of her.’
‘She didn’t have anything to say,’ Keith said quickly. The two packets of stones seemed to be grinding into his thighs. ‘Can’t I at least untie her now?’
‘Leave her,’ Curran said.
A cable came snaking down the cliff and the big man dragged the end across the flat ground and round the barrel, shackling it back on itself. He waved, and they heard the drum of the crane start to turn. The cable moved, began to lift off the ground. The driver returned to watch from the cliff’s edge. He was holding a sub-machine gun that looked to Keith like a wartime Beretta, and he seemed to be holding it with comfortable familiarity.
‘For God’s sake,’ Cathcart said, ‘it’s going to fall on the girl.’
‘I don’t suppose it’ll matter,’ Curran said almost without interest. ‘I was saving her up in case I wanted a bargaining counter against her old man, but we’re past that point now. The only reason that any of you are still breathing is that there’s no point making a lot of noise before we have to. There are occasions when it would be foolish to leave live witnesses around, and this is one of them.’
The cable tightened and the vehicle’s exhaust became louder as the strain came on. The barrel groaned and shifted. Keith’s growing fear for himself was swamped under the horror of waiting for the massive weight to topple onto the girl beneath.
The barrel moved an inch, and another. It moved in jerks and wobbles as the bricks beneath it shifted or rolled. Futile as the gesture would have been, Keith wanted to throw himself on top of the girl – to protect her from the irresistible weight, or to die, crushed into her in a final consummation. Then a brick slipped, the barrel groaned and hesitated and toppled sideways, away from the girl, to land with a crackling of timber and a thump that shook the frozen earth for an acre around.
Mary Bruce whimpered. Keith, seeing her body shake and feeling his own fear flood back, thought that the real horror of death was not death itself but the knowledge of its imminence and inevitability. This time, it was really going to happen. Well, he thought wryly, his last hour had been good, but he would rather have died with the memory of Molly in his loins.
Where the hell was Hamish?
The cable tautened again and the barrel began a slow, ponderous slither over the hard ground. Several of its staves projected like broken limbs. Curran and the big man stood facing the cottage wall and the three men ranged against it, just too far away to be rushed until the last, desperate moment when there would be nothing left to lose.
Hamish, for God’s sake!
Or had Hamish already been spotted and dealt with? If so, surely the fact would have been mentioned. But no, Curran was subtle enough to realise that, once the hope of Hamish was gone, so also was gone any reason for not trying to rush him. The vital question might be just how good a shot was the man at the top of the cliff.
‘When you meet your maker,’ Curran said conversationally, ‘you might just mention that I did warn you. But you failed to heed the warning, and leaving witnesses around is not one of my bad habits. So present my compliments to the Almighty and tell him I sent you.’
The barrel climbed slowly up the short slope of grass and began the ascent of the cliff. The note of the vehicle’s engine became louder again. Had Hamish been waiting for extra noise to cover his movement? Keith made up his mind that Hamish was already dead.
Curran was still speaking. ‘It was a bit simplistic of you to think that we’d come roaring down with all our lights blazing. Elementary logic suggested that you’d be waiting here if anywhere. In fact, I had a higher opinion of your intelligences. I looked damned carefully before I came down the cliff half a mile away, just in case you’d anticipated me. But no . . .’
Keith braced himself. His tongue rasped dryly against the roof of his mouth. There was a knot in his stomach, and the air in each breath seemed to be spiced with an alien element. He leaned forward slightly, ready for his leap. It might be hopeless, even suicidal, but even that was better than waiting to be blotted out, casually, when Curran took the whim.
At that moment Curran glanced up, checked and looked again. They followed his eyes. A shadow had appeared behind the man at the roadside. One frozen instant passed while life and death were in the balance, and then the man squawked like a seagull and like a gull took off into space. The gun fell in the bushes and fired once, so that a bullet struck a rock and wailed like a cat into the night sky, but the man thumped down on the barrel with a whoosh of expelled breath. The barrel rocked in its sling and the man half-rolled and half-slid into a position between the barrel and the rock wall. Since the barrel was still moving upward Keith had time to think that the man’s position was unenviable.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Hamish said. ‘The bugger kept looking around. Keep those guns pointed at the ground, Curran, or I’ll blow you to hell.’ The shotgun in his hands glinted.
Curran froze, uncertain of his ability to outshoot Hamish but reluctant to lower his guns and lose his advantage. Hughie Spence, a quicker thinker on the physical plane, dived at Keith in the hope of using him as shelter.
