A Spider in the Cup (Joe Sandilands Investigation) (28 page)

“No need for buts. Just let us do our job, will you? We’ll take good care not to show our—what was it? Topgallants?” And, finally dropping all attempt at civility: “Now you and your bloody duster—dismiss!”

Scandalised and offended, Pearson opened his mouth and closed it. Then with a touch of truculence: “Very well, sir. Have a good day at the shoot. I’ll be getting back to my pantry. Fifteen minutes walk, that’s all.” He turned and started to make his way back down the path.

The men waited until he was out of sight round the bend then they took their revolvers from their holsters—Onslow his Colt, Cummings his Luger—and, holding them discreetly at the ready by their sides, moved off towards the small lake.

Onslow caught sight of him first.

He stayed Cummings with a hand on his arm and silently pointed ahead and to the left. They stared at the figure reclining in a patch of shade under a tall tree not far from the water’s edge, checking the details. Fishing tackle lay abandoned several feet away. He was lying on his back on a tartan rug beside a wicker hamper, bottle of wine in a silver chiller, wine glass at the ready, open copy of a yellow-backed French novel spread over his chest. “Huh! Very nice for some!” Onslow’s comment was expressed silently by his eyebrows in an exchange of glances with Cummings.

They surveyed the fisherman for a while, noting how very still he lay, his feet at an odd angle, his jacket and shirt unbuttoned. His face was completely covered by a fishing hat of ancient design.

Onslow made no move. His senses were telling him there was something wrong here. For a start, this didn’t look much like the American senator. It was a dapper figure he’d had a good close look at back in London. Well dressed. This was more like a tramp. It could be anybody. He took a neat pair of racing glasses from his pocket and focussed on the sleeping figure. Right height, he would have thought, though it was always hard to judge when a bloke was lying stretched out. He tracked along the body, did a double take, and ranged the glasses back again to the feet in disbelief. Were those carpet slippers on his feet? Surely not?… Bloody were! The glasses moved on. Lumpy trousers … top half like an unmade bed. Tweed hat for a face.

He turned his attention to the wine.
Rosé de Tavel
apparently. One glass drunk, judging by the level in the bottle. He checked the title of the novel on the man’s chest.
L’homme au masque de fer
, he made out. Dumas. So far the bleedin’ butler had it spot on. Still … Onslow had once made a mis-identification early in his career with disastrous consequences. Once. In his job, no one ever fouled up a second time. They watched on.

The sharp warning call of a blackbird very close by made the
men start. They shrank back into the shadows instinctively as the man they were watching pushed the hat away, grunted, sat up, moved his book aside and surveyed the tree-line—challenging, taking his time, searching for the source of the disturbance. He checked his watch and yawned. Reassured by what he saw or didn’t see, he rolled himself up in his rug, pulled the hat back down over his eyes and wriggled himself comfortable.

Onslow smirked with satisfaction and relief and slipped the glasses back into his pocket. This was Kingstone all right. No mistaking that ugly mug. He flashed a double thumbs-up to Cummings. Positive identification.

They spent some more time watching their target and his surroundings, looking, listening and sniffing the air with the quiet but tense calm of a predator. Waiting to allow any discordant notes to snag at their attention. None did. The sounds of the duck shoot—irregular crack of the guns, beaters calling—were reassuring to their ears. The idiots were providing perfect cover for their activities. One more shot ringing out would be neither here nor there and would be disregarded even if registered by the sportsmen down at the big lake. And if any nosey parker decided to follow it up—he would be … how far away had the butler said? Fifteen minutes? They’d be long gone by then. Firing up the Maybach, reporting success. Next stop the Bookie’s for a celebratory flutter.

They nodded silently at each other, satisfied that their quarry was in their grasp and this was the right moment to move in on him.

But the trickiest part of the deal was the guarantee that the boss had extracted from them—that they would arrange the man’s death to look like a suicide. The bloke had been under pressure, deserted by his girl, and this was a credible cause of death that would be seized on by the authorities. “No scandal welcome at a time like this,” they’d been briefed. “The powers in the land will
opt gratefully for the least sinister interpretation. They won’t even
want
to know you’ve been there. You can pin your calling card to the front door if you like—they’ll ignore it. You’ll be straight in and out, no questions asked.”

Plan A had been to brazenly address themselves to Sandilands and deliver a message to Kingstone, the man he was covering. Flush him out, get him away from the Yard man and into the car. Then take off fast and do what you have to do, where it’s safe to do it. That simple. The alluring message was so compelling, the American bloke wouldn’t be able to resist taking the bait, apparently. Onslow had his doubts about that. He’d taken the trouble to read it. Not an invitation that would have got
him
hot under the collar. Still, it took all sorts … He was expected to use his initiative and he was, with some pride, beginning to fancy himself the angler in this murky little pool. The lure remained in Onslow’s breast pocket, unused. In reserve.

He wasn’t put out. Plan B was working out very well. Better. It had the advantage of not requiring him to lock horns with Sandilands. He’d never had the pleasure but he didn’t care much for the man’s reputation. And this way, there’d be no risk of blood all over the Maybach’s cream leather upholstery.

No need to check his gun, all was well prepared in advance. He’d practised with the American model the senator was known to possess. A Colt Pocket Hammerless .32. Easily concealed. Onslow, who always used a Smith and Wesson .38, rather despised it. Still, if it was good enough for Al Capone and John Dillinger and several army generals, it should do the job. And it only seemed right that a Yank should be killed by a Colt. Pity the papers would never get hold of the story. Just up their street. Onslow was holding the gun that would fire the killing shot and be left—after a quick going over with a hanky—clamped in the senator’s hand. Then they’d search the body and remove the victim’s own gun. Chuck it in the lake.

Onslow smiled as a further sweet touch occurred to him. He’d pour the remaining wine into the lake and leave the empty bottle by the body to tell its tale. “Dutch courage,” they’d call it. Drank himself stupid to get up the nerve to top himself. He thought for a moment. Pity it wasn’t scotch. Could anybody polish off a whole bottle of that pink stuff? Was that believable? He decided that since it was June and a hot day and the feller wasn’t English it would probably wash.

With a final confirmatory nod the pair moved silently down the path, glad of the cover of fifty yards of thick rhododendrons that shielded them perfectly from the senator’s sight and hearing.

Coming out into the dappled sunlight of the lake shore, they paused, sparing a few moments to allow their vision to adjust to the new light, then, eyes to the ground watching out for tree roots, they moved a few yards distant from each other and approached the still recumbent figure. He hadn’t moved. Flannelled legs wrapped in his rug with his feet sticking out … couldn’t be better. He wasn’t likely to spring up and grab them by the throat from that position. Hat still over head … he wouldn’t see them approach. Not until the moment Onslow snatched it off and shoved in his gun barrel. Kingstone’s last sight of the world would be four inches of blue-steel gun barrel ramming into his eye socket.

Cummings moved up, poised to throw his weight in a restraining hold on the victim’s legs the moment Onslow’s left hand dropped its signal.

It dropped. Cummings sank down sideways across the shins and grabbed the feet. The tweed hat whirled across the glade, thrown with pent-up energy by Onslow’s left hand. The gun barrel in his right dropped to the victim’s left eye at the same moment. Onslow’s coarse oath was obliterated by the blast of his gun as the bullet ripped through the face below.

“Bloody hell! What have you done?” Cummings struggled to his feet, spluttering, to find Onslow cursing and fighting for
breath, his face and head covered in dust and fragments of straw whirling from the destroyed features. They gazed down in disbelief at the mess. And sucked in deep breaths as, with a second shock to the nervous system, each man felt the cold application of a gun barrel, grinding into the nape of his neck.

“Drop it! Well, what do you know! We carry the same gun!” said a cheerful American voice. “That was quite a demonstration. Text book assassination! My left eye was that? Ouch! Don’t tell me—I guess I was meant to have just killed myself?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “After all that sound and fury I don’t need to impress you with an explanation of what will happen if I pull this trigger. Flesh, blood and bone will join the sawdust in the atmosphere. Yup, sawdust! We found our battered friend here on duty scaring crows in the pea field and enlisted his help. I think with a bit of attention, some needle and twine, he might just live to fight another day, but you won’t if you so much as twitch an eyebrow. How’s your feller, Sandilands? Coming quietly?”

“Disarmed and quiet enough.” The voice was calm with a thread of amusement. “The pistol I’m holding under his ear is my Browning. It makes an even bigger hole than a Colt. I think Mr. Cummings knows that.” Joe had listened to Kingstone’s outburst with relief. If ever a man deserved his short moment of triumph, this one did. It had taken some guts to stake himself out yet again there on the forest floor, depending on a bunch of ill-prepared and untested new friends to step in at the right moment. Joe called into the shrubbery: “Marcus! Cuffs!”

A third man emerged from the shrubbery. He kicked both guns away to a safe distance and with steady hands slipped police cuffs on to both men, their arms behind their backs.

Kingstone went to peer into Onslow’s face. “Not often a man gets to see the expression in the eyes of his killer as he pulls the trigger. There wasn’t one, Joe. He could have been filleting a fish. Can we get rid of this garbage?”

“It
was
him and then it wasn’t him. They did it while we were behind those bloody bushes … Swapped over!” Cummings’ voice was rising in hysteria. “You thick shit! They knew we were coming! Place is swarmin’ with ’em! You led us straight into it!”

“Shut your face!” Onslow advised.

Angry, near to panic and non-plussed by the sudden reversal in their fortunes, the two agents stood panting and glowering at their opponents. The un-dead American was grinning at them, the second man—the butler—still wearing his cleaning smock, now appeared to be answering to the name of Sandilands. What the hell? This figure collected up the discarded pistols carefully by the barrel using his duster and slid them into his capacious front pocket.

“You know, Kingstone,” he said amiably, “I really must get myself one of these garments. They cover a multitude of sinful protuberances. Speaking of which, I’ll have your bunch of keys, Mister Onslow. I’m looking forward to passing a fine-tooth comb over your upholstery. And may we also relieve you of your wallets, gentlemen?” He patted down both men with practised hand, removing their possessions. “Not much to go on. Two warrant cards of some interest, racing glasses, small change and two fivers each. A meagre haul.” The objects went into his pocket. “I’d call it a professional pre-hit strip-down. Nothing incriminating. What’s this?” He extracted a folded piece of paper from Onslow’s inside pocket and passed it to Marcus. “Take a look, will you?”

Marcus unfolded it. “It’s the racing page from the back of the
Daily Mirror
. Tips for today’s races. He’s drawn a circle round the four twenty-five at Manchester.” Marcus laughed. “His selection’s called “Gun Law,” apparently! Inside information or sense of humour, I wonder?” He glanced at Onslow’s stony face.

“Probably going to blow his ill-gotten gains on a horse. Huh!
I’m not going to ask what my skin was worth,” was Kingstone’s cheerful comment.

“Well now. I think we should all be making tracks for home,” Marcus said. “I’ve laid on an armed escort. And we don’t want to keep the local constabulary waiting. They should be arriving at the house with the paddy-wagon any minute for the journey to Guildford nick where we have two cells reserved. Ready lads?” he called.

A dozen men and boys, from grey-beards to not-yet-shaving, all carrying shot guns and rifles, appeared soundlessly from the bushes. They stood and stared round-eyed at the scene.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Kingstone burst out laughing at the sight of them. “Is this the shooting party or is it the Merry Men?”

Marcus smiled and went to stand with the group. “Foresters all—excellent shots … birdcalls and tracking a speciality! I think, if you want a label, you can just call us the Yeomanry. Good old English word for good old English Men at Arms.”

Understanding and sharing his elation, Joe wasn’t going to quibble with the pride and the sentimentality. Half of these blokes—the older ones—had already done their bit in the last lot so that the rest—the young lads—would never have to. He stood to attention and snapped off a salute in their direction. Six of the men grinned back and their saluting arms shot up in a spontaneous and well-remembered response.

“T
hey shot Mister Tattie Bogal, is that what you’re telling me?” Lydia asked in disbelief.

“Lydia, I’ve explained—they thought they were shooting Cornelius. Vanessa and Juliet can always make another when they get back from school.”

“Yes, yes, Marcus! I understand that. What I can’t accept is that this pair of killers—experienced, sophisticated, the worst that London has to offer—would fail to recognise a scarecrow when they saw one. I mean, he was lovingly made and all that—a prince among scarecrows—but not even the girls would say he looked remotely human at close quarters. Certainly not to a lynx-eyed killer.”