The Second Woman, page 29
The woman looked shocked. ‘I never used the telephone in my life. I couldn’t.’
‘Yes, you can. You must. Look, all you do is pick up the earpiece and say “Ready”. Then listen, and then talk into the tube that sticks out.’
‘No, I couldn’t. Machines frighten me.’
‘You have to! This is an emergency. Come downstairs with me; I’ll show you how to do it.’
She said she couldn’t, she’d do it wrong, she’d break it, but he had her by the hand and was pulling her down the stairs. At the telephone, he explained it again and lifted the earpiece and mimed listening and talking, and then he made her do it. He might have been trying to kiss her or fondle her, given the fuss she made. Then when they had both turned away from the instrument, she to head to the stairs and he out of the door, it rang, and she tottered to it and shouted, ‘Present! Present! What?’
Denton was back by then. He took the earpiece from her and said, ‘Ready’, and heard Atkins’s voice.
‘They’re moving!’
‘Oh, Chri—cripes! Where are you?’
‘Ampthill Square ABC, where I been for hours!’
‘Which way are they going?’
‘Don’t know! They aren’t out of the square yet, and I can’t see from here. But they headed on.’
‘North?’
‘Is that north?’
‘Oh, Judas! Follow them, Sergeant. Just follow them! I’m getting the motor and I’ll come after you. Can you hear me? I’m coming after you. Stay where I can see you. All right? Stay on the pavement! Left hand as you go on. All right?’
‘You don’t have to say everything twice, General. I’m on my way!’
Denton threw the earpiece at its hook and started out. The nurse, halfway up the stairs, sent him a scared look, as if she thought he might knock her down for not doing the telephone correctly.
The Barré was in its carriage shed, just as he had left it. He had to push it out to have enough room to crank it, then to handpump petrol to prime the engine. Until then, he’d had somebody else to crank while he advanced the spark; now he worked the spark, then jumped down and ran to the front to crank. It didn’t start. He cranked again, getting a rap on the knuckles when the compression sent the crank backwards. He swore. He did the spark again and ran to the front and cranked and the engine barked and blew a cloud of black smoke, and the crank hit him another whack.
The engine died.
‘Come on, come on—’ He cranked, putting extra strength into it and saying, ‘Ouf!’
That seemed to do it. The vehicle shook as the one-cylinder engine took up its noisy banging, loud in the morning quiet. The car began to roll backwards.
Oh, Christ, the brake—
He grabbed the bonnet, then the side of the driver’s cowling, and stopped the rolling, scrambled in and grabbed the wheel and felt the car start to roll backwards again. He engaged the gear; the car shuddered and lurched forward, and he wrenched the wheel around and aimed the bonnet at the street. Coatless, he found he was shivering in the early-morning cold, despite the vigorous cranking.
Traffic was never heavy on the streets behind Lamb’s Conduit, even less so now, but he was driving as fast as the little car would go; steering around a hansom and then around the other side of a wagon that took up the middle of the way was more risk than he liked. He raced across an intersection where he would have been wiser to stop, frightened a horse and turned down Janet’s street with his narrow tyres skidding almost to the opposite kerb. A cab was pulling up in front of her house; as Denton braked, Guillam stepped down and looked around.
‘Get in! Get in—they’re on the move—!’
Guillam was paying the driver, hesitating over coins in his hand. Denton shouted, ‘Give him the lot!’ and squeezed the bulb of the horn. The cab jerked forward; Guillam chased it to hand up a coin, and Denton accelerated the moment that Guillam’s foot was inside.
‘What the bloody—?’ The car had jumped forward, started to stall, then caught again. Guillam was thrown back in the seat, one foot still outside. ‘Goddamnit, Denton!’
‘We’re in a hurry.’
‘This had better mean something.’
‘I told you—it’s the woman!’ He glanced at Guillam, swerved into Lansdowne Place and then swerved the other way into Hunter Street. ‘The one who called herself Shermitz! Your murderess!’
Guillam was holding on to his hat with his right hand, his left trying to steady himself in the car. ‘The one your Mrs Striker took to her house, you mean.’
Denton started to react to ‘your Mrs Striker’ and checked himself. He had troubles enough with Guillam as it was. He said, ‘She’s up ahead someplace with a man. Atkins is following them.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s a witness, isn’t she?’
‘You said “the woman who killed Mrs Alken”. You know that for a fact?’
‘She’s with a man that Special Branch say is an anarchist bombmaker.’ This wasn’t quite accurate, but close enough; Guillam knew nothing about Charrington Street and Gorman’s and Barth’s. ‘They’re pushing a barrow, and God knows what’s in it. He’s rigged a tarpaulin over it.’
‘Heading where?’
‘If I knew, we’d be there already.’
He came out of Judd Street into the post-dawn chaos of Euston Road. He had to stop, a seemingly endless train of empty buses clopping and rumbling by on their way to serving the hordes now waking in the city. When a gap appeared, he shot through it, squealed left and accelerated. ‘What’s the best way to Ampthill Square?’ he shouted.
‘Hampstead Road.’
‘You sure?’
Guillam clutched his hat and stared ahead. He was offended.
Denton thought they were going too far west, but Guillam was of course right; it was a case of ‘long way round, short way home’, if only because Hampstead Road was wider and he could drive in the centre and pass the horse-drawn traffic. Then Guillam was shouting, ‘Here, here!’ and gesturing, and Denton took a shallow right, and they were going along a row of shops on their left, the grassy half-oval of Ampthill Square on their right.
‘An ABC!’ Denton said. ‘Atkins was in an ABC!’ He reached the end of the row and turned a very hard right to take them on the curve around the plot of green, the ugly bulk of the rear end of the London and North Western station looming over them.
Guillam growled, ‘I see it.’ He pointed; Denton turned right again and started up the row of shops a second time. ‘Here, here—stop.’ Guillam jumped out and ran into the tea shop, was out again in thirty seconds. He climbed in, the car leaning to his weight. ‘Not there.’
‘He’s following them.’
‘Where?’
‘North,’ he said. He didn’t add that Atkins hadn’t been very convincing about the direction. ‘North. You’ll know Atkins when you see him? Of course you do. He’s wearing a black bowler and a light grey coat.’
‘Oh, that helps.’
Denton turned into Harrington Square and then they were in Hampstead Road again. Denton turned the car right into Crowndale Road.
‘This isn’t north!’ Guillam bellowed. It was, in fact, east.
But Denton was thinking about Charrington Street. ‘Keep an eye out for him.’
‘You want to tell me why we’re going the wrong way?’
Denton chewed what remained of his moustache. ‘They might be going to Charrington Street. There’s something there an anarchist might—’ He shot across the mouth of Charrington, tried to look down it and, swearing at pedestrians in his way, cut hard down Goldington Crescent and back to Charrington Street, where he swung left and slowed. ‘They may be along here.’ He didn’t feel confident of it. In fact, he was beginning to feel helpless, perhaps hopeless.
‘I don’t see your man.’
Nor did Denton. He passed Gorman’s, the greengrocer’s closed and shuttered, drove the short length of Charrington, turned left and left again and went up Goldington Street, thinking he would see Barth’s, but he found that he was in fact a street too far east, the short street in which the former baths stood not visible to him. He had to hunt for it, losing more time, and then drove past it and saw nothing, not even anybody going in or out whom he could have warned. And why would they have believed him?
‘North it is, then.’
He drove up College Street as far as the canal and then cut over and came back along Camden High Street. Shops were opening, the foot traffic getting heavier. When the High Street didn’t produce Atkins, he began to search up and down the north-south streets east of it.
‘Bitched,’ he said as they came out of Camden Street to Crowndale Road again. He was shivering. He was thinking of what lay north beyond Regent’s Canal, a maze of streets. Gowarczyk and the woman could be anywhere by now—
‘There!’ Guillam roared. ‘There, there—!’ He was pointing at the entrance to Charrington Street. Denton dared to take his eyes off the traffic in time to see Atkins, who seemed to be walking remarkably slowly, loitering southwards. He was one street north of the part of Charrington Street where Gorman’s stood.
‘Hold on!’
Denton pushed the one-lung engine to its limit and cut off a goods wagon, darted into the middle of Crowndale Road and brushed the kerb with his tyres as he swung across the westbound traffic into Charrington Street. He braked; the tyres squealed; Guillam rocked forward and almost hit his nose on the cowling. ‘Atkins! Atkins! Christ, is he deaf? ATKINS!’
‘Oh, Crikey—it’s the Royal Marines, come to save the day! Good Cripes, Colonel—’ Atkins was climbing into the rear-facing third seat. ‘I thought you wouldn’t find me. Hello to you, Sergeant Guillam. D’you see them, sir? Up ahead. You can’t miss that flag—’
Denton was almost standing, one hand on the wheel, letting the car shudder forward at a child’s walking pace. Indeed, it would have been hard to miss the flag on Gowarczyk’s barrow. It was waiting to cross Werrington Street; Gorman’s lay seventy yards beyond. He saw the woman’s shoulder and her little hat; Gowarczyk was only a black shape bent over the barrow. ‘They’re slow,’ he said.
‘Slow!’ Atkins said. ‘I thought they was crawling. But that barrow’s heavy, General; I could tell from the trouble they was having with it. Moving gold bullion, are they?’
Denton tried to steer the car out a little to have a better view, but the street was narrow and the other drivers didn’t care to give an inch to him. ‘We’ve got to be able to see what they’re doing. They’ll be there in a couple of minutes.’
‘What are they doing, then?’ Guillam said. ‘And be where?’
‘I told you, there’s a possible target in Charrington Street. Special Branch—some kind of hush-hush thing. They’ve taken over the building above a greengrocer’s. I’ve got to get closer.’
Atkins keened, ‘They’ll see you! After all my work!’
‘They’ve gone over the cross street,’ Guillam said. He was craning to the left, halfway out of his seat. ‘Oho! they’re pulling in to the kerb.’
Denton tried to stand again. ‘Where?’
‘Get down, they’re looking around.’ Guillam had sat again, was peering ahead with his body leaned out the left side. ‘Doing something to the barrow. There’s some sort of covering—’
‘It’s a tarpaulin.’
‘The woman’s doing something—hold on. What the hell—she’s getting out a bloody suitcase! Cripes, Denton, is this all about moving house and nothing more?’
Denton had reached a cross street. His way was blocked by a goods wagon and an omnibus. He stood and tried to see. ‘A yellow suitcase?’
‘Yes, looks like she just got off the boat. Now the fellow’s pushing the barrow on down the street by himself. Now she’s walking away—’
‘Stop her!’ Denton was squeezing the ball of the horn; its squeal was drowned by the noise around them. ‘It could be a bomb. Oh, shit!’
Guillam was out of the car before he had stopped shouting; an instant later, Atkins followed. They dodged between the wagon and the bus and were lost to him. Denton tried to force a gap between the other vehicles; the driver of the bus wouldn’t let him through and sat there, grinning at him over the rear end of his horses. Denton squeezed the horn. He tried to go backwards; his way was blocked by a beer dray. The goods wagon in front of him moved. He changed gear but was too slow for the omnibus, which came right across the front of his motor, the bright green sides only inches from the bonnet, and then moved with deliberate and murderous slowness until it was past him.
For an instant, Denton had a view of Charrington Street, caught for him in a sudden shaft of sunlight as if it were a photograph. Nothing seemed to move: people froze in the act of walking; birds hung in the air. Atkins and Guillam were statues on the left-hand pavement. And then, partway down, where the awning of a greengrocer’s jutted out over the pavement, flame erupted and the entire front of the building’s lower storey became dust and ballooned into the street, and above, the façade of the upper storeys crumbled and began to slide downwards, to disappear in a rising, billowing cloud of dust. The roar of the explosion came later like a huge hand. A horse hurtled up the street towards him, dragging a hansom blown on its side.
Denton accelerated across the intersection, meaning to go towards the explosion, but everything there seemed to be moving too fast: people were running; the horse with the fallen hansom was pounding for Crowndale Road; what he could see of Charrington Street was crowded with people and wagons and screaming, kicking horses. He turned left into Medburn Street but he was thinking about the people he had failed. I killed them. He hadn’t got there in time. And he hadn’t warned them. And he might have killed Guillam and Atkins, too.
For Janet.
Gowarczyk.
He powered the car right, shot past Barth’s and turned left and then right again at the next corner, then right down Goldington and right again, tipping on two wheels as he screamed around the corners, now heading for Charrington Street at its lower end. The roar of the explosion seemed to go on and on, perhaps only something inside his head. He could hear screams now. Smoke was climbing with the dust, and when he stopped, because Charrington Street was blocked with panicked horses and running people, he could hear the crackle of flames. A woman was supporting a man with burned clothes, blood dripping from his left hand. A man without a jacket led a horse that had only three legs.
Gowarczyk and the barrow were on the opposite corner. He was staring up Charrington Street at what he had accomplished, his mouth open. His face looked astounded and ecstatic.
‘Gowarczyk!’ Denton was out of the car and running. He’d never have got the car across that terror-crowded street. He dodged, jumped aside, went between people, fending them off with his hands. Gowarczyk saw him coming when he was halfway across. He burrowed under the tarpaulin, came out again, his hands working at something. Denton dodged behind a running woman and was at the kerb.
Gowarczyk ran.
He was younger. They started only half a dozen feet apart; by the time he reached the next street, Gowarczyk was twenty feet ahead. He turned to the left. Denton pounded after him, cursing the gawkers now hurrying towards the column of smoke and the chaos of Charrington Street. When he turned the corner, Gowarczyk was looking back, slowing to do so, then turning. His right hand came forward. Denton saw a flash and a cloud of black smoke.
Black powder. My derringer! His own hand went to his side, where the Smith & Wesson should have been. But he had forgotten the overcoat. He had raced to get the car and had forgotten the coat. The revolver was still lying on the bedside table.
He had dodged instinctively when the derringer had gone off; Gowarczyk made up what he had lost and was moving away. He looked back again and then dived to his left into a passageway between two buildings.
Denton ran past the mouth of the passage but looked down its length. Gowarczyk was halfway down. A wooden fence rose behind him. I’ve got to get him before he can reload. He has one shot left.
Denton stopped, raced back, then burst into the passage with his suit jacket held open and flapping at his sides, making his silhouette four feet wide. Gowarczyk fired as soon as he was in the alley. The shot buzzed somewhere to Denton’s left. As Gowarczyk tried to take more cartridges from a pocket, Denton ran straight at him, turning his momentum into a kick that caught the smaller man in the left side and drove him backwards, to fall so that Denton had to leap over him.
Denton caught himself against the board fence, turned and pulled Gowarczyk to his feet and spun him around and into one of the blackened brick walls of the passage. Gowarczyk squealed and started to fall again; Denton propped him up, put his arms behind his back and pushed his hands high against his spine.
‘You piece of shit,’ Denton growled. ‘You’re going to hang.’ He forced Gowarczyk down again so he could pick up the derringer, which was lying in the angle of the stone paving and a wall. Dropping it into his pocket, he began to march Gowarczyk back to the street.
Gowarczyk surprised him by laughing. ‘I do it! I trick them! They are such intelligent men!’ But the laughter was false, faked. It stopped. He said, ‘You are hurting me.’
‘I mean to be hurting you.’ At the mouth of the passage, Denton slammed him against the wall and searched him. He found a long-bladed flick knife. When a hurrying woman stopped and looked at them, Denton said, ‘Police!’ and she backed away. He began to march Gowarczyk back the way they had come.
A cluster of people had formed at the next corner. Several of the injured were there and had collected a crowd. Somebody was running towards it from a chemist’s, bandages held against his chest. Denton looked for constables, saw none. He heard the bell of a fire engine, then another at a distance, then the hooves of the first one’s horses.
He turned the corner. The outer fringe of the crowd watched him.
‘What’s this now?’ a man said. He and another began to walk parallel to Denton.
‘I’m taking him in. Don’t come too close.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘Committed an outrage.’
