Hell Is Always Today (4 page)

When they carried Sean Doyle into the General Infirmary escape couldn’t have been further from his mind. He was sweating buckets, had a temperature of 104 and his stomach seemed to bulge with pieces of broken glass that ground themselves into his flesh and organs ferociously.

He surfaced twenty-four hours later, weak and curiously light-headed, but free from pain. The room was in half-darkness, the only light a small lamp which stood on the bedside locker. One of the screws from the prison, an ex-Welsh Guardsman called Jones, nodded on a chair against the wall as per regulations.

Doyle moistened cracked lips and tried to whistle, but at that moment the door opened and a staff nurse entered, a towel over her arm. She was West Indian, dark and supple. To Doyle after two and a half years on the wrong side of the wall, the Queen of Sheba herself couldn’t have looked more desirable.

As she moved across to the bed, he closed his eyes quickly. He was aware of her closeness, warm and perfumed with lilac, the rustle of her skirt as she turned and tip-toed across to Jones. Doyle watched her from beneath lowered eyelids as the Welshman came awake with a start.

“Here, what’s going on?” he said in some alarm. “Is the Gunner all right?”

She put out a hand to restrain him. “He’s still asleep. Would you like to go down to the canteen?”

“Well, I shouldn’t really you know,” Jones told her in his high Welsh voice.

“You’ll be all right, I’ll stay,” she said. “Nothing can possibly happen—he’s still asleep. After what he’s been through he must be as weak as a kitten.”

“All right then,” Jones whispered. “A cup of tea and a smoke. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

As they moved to the door she said, “Tell me, why do you call him the Gunner?”

Jones chuckled. “Well, that’s what he was you see. A gunner in the Royal Artillery. Then when he came out and went into the ring, that’s what they called him. Gunner Doyle.”

“He was a prizefighter?”

“One of the best middleweights in the game.” Jones was unable to keep the enthusiasm from his voice for like most Welshmen he was a fanatic where boxing was concerned. “North of England champion. Might have been a contender if he could have left the skirts alone.”

“What was his crime?” she whispered, curiosity in her voice.

“Now there he did really manage to scale the heights as you might say.” Jones chuckled at his own wit. “He was a cat burglar—one of the best in the game and it’s a dying art, believe me. Climb anything he could.”

The door closed behind him and the staff nurse turned and looked across at the Gunner. He lowered his eyelids softly as she came across to the bed. He was acutely aware of her closeness, the perfume filled his nostrils, lilac, heavy and clinging, fresh after rain, his favourite flower. The stiff uniform dress rustled as she leaned across him to put the towel on the table on the other side.

The Gunner opened his eyes and took in everything. The softly rounded curves, the dress riding up her thighs as she leaned across, the black stockings shining in the lamplight. With a sudden fierce chuckle he cupped his right hand around her left leg and slid it up inside her skirt to the band of warm flesh at the top of her stocking.

“By God, that’s grand,” he said.

Her eyes were very round as she turned to look at him. For a frozen moment she stared into his face, then jumped backwards with a little cry. She stared at him in astonishment and the Gunner grinned.

“I once shared a cell at the Ville with a bloke who did that to a big blonde who was standing in front of him in a bus queue one day. Just for a laugh. They gave him a year in the nick. Makes you wonder what the country’s coming to.”

She turned without a word and rushed out, the door bouncing back against the wall before closing. It occurred to the Gunner almost at once that she wasn’t coming back. Add that to the fact that Jones would be at least fifteen minutes in the canteen and it left a situation that was full of possibilities.

It also occurred to him that with full remission he had only another ten months of his sentence to serve, but at that sudden exciting moment, ten months stretched into an infinity that had no end. He flung the bedclothes to one side and swung his legs to the floor.

An athlete by profession all his life, the Gunner had taken good care to keep himself in first-class physical trim even in prison and this probably accounted for the fact that apart from a moment of giddiness as he first stood up, he felt no ill effects at all as he crossed to the locker against the wall and opened it. There was an old dressing-gown inside, but no slippers. He pulled it on quickly, opened the door and peered out into the corridor.

It was anything but deserted. Two doctors stood no more than ten yards away deep in conversation and a couple of porters pushed a floor polisher between them, its noiseless hum vibrating on the air. The Gunner turned and walked the other way without hesitation. When he turned the corner at the far end he found himself in a cul-de-sac. There was a service elevator facing him and a door at the side of it opened on to a dark concrete stairway. The elevator was on its way up so he took the stairs, running down lightly, the concrete cold on his bare feet.

Ten floors down, he arrived at the basement, opened the door at the bottom and found himself in a small entrance hall. One door opened into a side courtyard, heavy rain slanting down through the lamp that was bracketed to the wall above the entrance. But he wouldn’t last five minutes out there on a night like this without shoes and some decent clothes. He turned and opened the other door and immediately heard voices approaching. Without hesitation he plunged into the heavy rain, crossed the tiny courtyard and turned into the street keeping close to the wall.

“So you were only out of the room for fifteen minutes?” Brady said.

“As long as it took me to get down to the canteen, have a cup of tea and get back again.” Jones’ face was white and drawn. “The dirty bastard. Why did he have to do this to me? God knows what might happen. I could lose my pension.”

“You’ve only yourself to blame,” Miller said coldly. “So don’t start trying to put it on to Doyle. He saw his chance and took it. Nobody can blame him for that.”

He dismissed the prison officer with a nod and turned to the young staff nurse. “You told Jones you’d stay in the room till he got back. Why did you leave?”

She struggled with the truth for a moment, but the thought of recounting in detail what had happened to the two police officers was more than she could bear.

“I’d things to do,” she said. “I thought it would be all right. He was asleep.”

“Or so it seemed. I understand you told the first officer you saw that there was only an old dressing-gown in the cupboard?”

“That’s right.”

“But no shoes or slippers?”

“Definitely not.”

Miller nodded and went out into the corridor, Brady at his heels. “All right, Jack, you’re Doyle in a hurry in bare feet and a dressing-gown. What do you do?”

Brady glanced left along the quiet end of the corridor and led the way. He paused at the lift, frowned, then opened the door and peered down into the dark well of the concrete stairway.

“On a hunch I’d say he went this way. A lot safer than the lift.”

They went down quickly and at the bottom Miller pushed open the outside door and looked out into the rain. “Not very likely. He’d need clothes.”

The other door led into a narrow corridor lined on one side with half a dozen green painted lockers. Each one was padlocked and carried an individual’s name on a small white card. They were aware of the gentle hum of the oil-fired heating plant somewhere near at hand and in a small office at the end of the corridor, they found the chief technician.

Miller showed him his warrant card. “Looking for the bloke that skipped out are you?” the man said.

“That’s right. He’d need clothes. Anything missing down here?”

“Not a chance,” the chief technician shook his head. “I don’t know if you noticed, but all the lads keep their lockers padlocked. That was on advice from one of your blokes after we had a lot of pinching last year. Too easy for people to get in through the side door.”

Miller thanked him and they went back along the corridor, and stood on the steps looking out at the driving rain.

“You’re thinking he just walked out as he was?” Brady suggested.

Miller shrugged. “He didn’t have much time remember. One thing’s certain—he couldn’t afford to hang about.”

Brady shook his head. “He wouldn’t last long in his bare feet on a night like this. Bound to be spotted by someone sooner or later.”

“As I see it he has three possible choices,” Miller said. “He can try to steal a car, but that’s messy because he’s got to nose his way round till he finds one that some idiot’s forgotten to lock and in that rig-out of his, he’s certain to be noticed.”

“He could always hang around some alley and wait his chance to mug the first bloke who went by.”

Miller nodded. “My second choice, but it’s still messy and there aren’t many people around the back streets on a night like this. He could get pneumonia waiting. My own hunch is that he’s making for somewhere definite. Somewhere not too far away perhaps. Who were his friends?”

“Come off it, he didn’t have any.” Brady chuckled. “Except for the female variety. The original sexual athlete, the Gunner. Never happy unless he had three or four birds on the go at once.”

“What about Mona Freeman?” Miller said. “He was going to marry her.”

“She was a mug if she believed him.” Brady shook his head. “She’s still in Holloway. Conspiracy to defraud last year.”

“All right then,” Miller said. “Get out the street directory and let’s take a look at the map. Something might click while you’re looking at it.”

Brady had grown old on the streets of the city and had developed an extraordinary memory for places and faces, the minutiae of city life. Now he unfolded the map at the back of his pocket directory and examined the area around the infirmary. He gave a sudden grunt. “Doreen Monaghan.”

“I remember her,” Miller said. “Little Irish girl of seventeen just over from the bogs. She thought the sun shone out of the Gunner’s backside.”

“Well, she isn’t seventeen any longer,” Brady said. “Has a flat in a house in Jubilee Terrace less than a quarter of a mile from here. Been on the game just over a year now.”

“Let’s go then.” Miller grinned. “And don’t forget that right of his whatever happens. He’s only got to connect once and you won’t wake up till next Friday.”

When the Gunner hurried across the courtyard and turned into the side street at the rear of the infirmary, he hadn’t the slightest idea what he was going to do next. Certainly he had no particular destination in mind although the icy coldness of the wet flags beneath his bare feet told him that he’d better find one quickly.

The rain was hammering down now which at least kept the streets clear and he paused on a corner to consider his next move. The sign above his head read Jubilee Street and triggered off a memory process that finally brought him to Doreen Monaghan who at one time had worshipped the ground he walked on. She’d written regularly during the first six months of his sentence when he was at Pentonville, but then the letters had tailed off and gradually faded away. The important thing was that she lived at 15, Jubilee Terrace and might still be there.

He kept to the back streets to avoid company and arrived at his destination ten minutes later, a tall, decaying Victorian town house in a twilight area where a flat was high living and most families managed on one room.

The fence had long since disappeared and the garden was a wilderness of weeds and brambles, the privet hedge so tall that the weight of the heavy rain bowed it over. He paused for a moment and looked up. Doreen had had the top floor flat stretching from the front of the house to the rear and light showed dimly through a gap in the curtains which was encouraging.

When he went into the porch there was an innovation, a row of independent letter boxes for mail, each one neatly labelled. Doreen’s name was there all right underneath the one at the end and he grinned as he went in through the hall and mounted the stairs. She was certainly in for one hell of a surprise.

The lady in question was at that moment in bed with an able seaman of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy home on leave from the Far East and already regretting the dark-skinned girls of Penang and Singapore who knew what it was for and didn’t charge too much.

A member of the oldest profession in the world, she had long since discovered that its rewards far exceeded anything that shop or factory could offer and salved her conscience with a visit to the neighbouring church of Christ the King every Monday for confession followed by Mass.

Her sailor having drifted into the sleep of exhaustion, she gently eased herself from beneath the sheets, pulled on an old kimono and lit a cigarette. Having undressed in something of a hurry, his uniform lay on the floor beside a chair and as she picked it up, a leather wallet fell to the floor. There must have been eighty or ninety pounds in there—probably his leave money. She extracted a couple of fivers, slipped them under the edge of the mat, then replaced the wallet.

He stirred and she moved across to the dressing-table and started to put on her stockings. He pushed himself up on one elbow and said sleepily, “Going out, then?”

“Three quid doesn’t get you squatter’s rights you know,” she said. “Come on now, let’s have you out of there and dressed. The night isn’t half over and I’ve things to do.”

At that moment there was a knock at the door. She straightened, surprise on her face. The knocking continued, low but insistent.

She moved to the door and said softly, “Yes?”

The voice that replied was muffled beyond all recognition. “Come on, Doreen, open up,” it called. “See what Santa’s brought you.”

“Who is it?” the sailor called, an edge of alarm in his voice.

Doreen ignored him, opened the door on its chain and peered out. Sean Doyle stood there in a pool of water, soaked to the skin, hair plastered to his skull, the scarlet hospital dressing-gown clinging to his lean body like a second skin.

He grinned, the old wicked grin that used to put her on her back in five seconds flat. “Come on then, darling, I’m freezing to death out here.”

So complete was the surprise, so great the shock of seeing him that she unhooked the chain in a kind of dazed wonder and backed slowly into the room. As the Gunner moved in after her and closed the door the sailor skipped out of bed and pulled on his underpants.

“Here, what’s the bloody game?” he demanded.

The Gunner ignored him, concentrating completely on Doreen whose ample charms were prominently displayed for the girdle of her kimono, loosely fastened, had come undone.

“By God, but you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said, sincere admiration in his voice.

Having had time to take in the Gunner’s bedraggled appearance, the sailor’s alarm had subsided and there was an edge of belligerency in his voice when he spoke again, “I don’t know who the hell you are, mate, but you’ll bloody well get out of it fast if you know what’s good for you.”

The Gunner looked him over and grinned amiably. “Why don’t you shut up, sonny?”

The sailor was young, active and muscular and fancied himself as a fighting man. He came round the end of the bed with a rush, intending to throw this rash intruder out on his ear and made the biggest mistake of his life. The Gunner’s left foot slipped forward, knee turned slightly in. The sailor flung the sort of punch that he had seen used frequently and with great success on the films. The Gunner swayed a couple of inches and the punch slid across his shoulder. His left fist screwed into the sailor’s solar plexus, his right connected with the edge of the jaw, slamming him back against the far wall from which he rebounded to fall on his face unconscious.

The Gunner turned, untying the cord of his dressing-gown. “How’ve you been keeping them, darlin?’ he demanded cheerfully.

“But Gunner—what happened?” she said.

“They had me in the infirmary for a check-up. One of the screws got a bit dozy so I took my chance and hopped it. Got any clothes?”

She opened a drawer, took out a clean towel and gave it to him, an expression of wonder still on her face. “No—nothing that would do for you.”

“Never mind—I’ll take this bloke’s uniform.” He turned her round and slapped her backside. “Find me something to drink, there’s a girl. It was no joke out there in this rig-out on a night like this.”

She went into the kitchen and he could hear her opening cupboards as he stripped and scrubbed himself dry. He had the sailor’s trousers and shirt on and was trying to squeeze his feet into the shoes when she returned.

He tossed them into the corner in disgust. “No bloody good. Two sizes too small. What have you got there?”

“Sherry,” she said. “It’s all I could find. I was never much of a drinker—remember?”

The bottle was about half-full and he uncorked it and took a long swallow. He wiped a hand across his mouth with a sigh of pleasure as the wine burned its way into his stomach.

“Yes, I remember all right.” He emptied the bottle and dropped it on the floor. “I remember lots of things.”

He opened her kimono gently, and his sigh seemed to echo into forever. Still sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled her close to him, burying his face in her breasts.

She ran her fingers through his hair and said urgently, “Look, Gunner, you’ve got to get moving.”

“There’s always time for this,” he said and looked up at her, his eyes full of grey smoke. “All the time in the world.”

He fell back across the bed, pulling her down on top of him and there was a knock on the door.

Doreen jumped up, pulling her kimono about her and demanded loudly. “Who is it?”

The voice that replied was high and clear. “Mrs. Goldberg, dear. I’d like a word with you.”

“My landlady,” Doreen whispered and raised her voice. “Can’t it wait?”

“I’m afraid not, dear. It really is most urgent.”

“What am I going to do?” Doreen demanded desperately. “She’s a funny old bird. She could make a lot of trouble for me.”

“Does she know you’re on the game?” the Gunner demanded.

“At fifteen quid a week for this rat-trap? What do you think?”

“Fair enough.” The Gunner rolled the unconscious sailor under the bed, lay on it quickly, head propped up against a pillow and helped himself to a cigarette from a packet on the bedside locker. “Go on, let her in now. I’m just another client.”

Mrs. Goldberg called out again impatiently and started to knock as Doreen crossed to the door and opened it on the chain. The Gunner heard the old woman say, “I must see you, my dear. It’s very, very urgent.”

Doreen shrugged and unfastened the chain. She gave a cry of dismay as the door was pushed back sending her staggering across the room to sprawl across the Gunner on the bed.

Nick Miller moved in, Brady at his side, the local patrolman behind them, resplendent in black crash helmet and foul-weather gear.

“All right then, Gunner,” Miller said cheerfully. “Let’s be having you.”

The Gunner laughed out loud. “Another five minutes and I’d have come quietly, Mr. Miller, but to hell with this for a game of soldiers.”

He gave the unfortunate Doreen a sudden, violent push that sent her staggering into Miller’s arms, sprang from the bed and was into the kitchen before anyone could make a move. The door slammed in Brady’s face as he reached it and the bolt clicked home. He turned and nodded to the young patrolman, a professional rugby player with the local team, who tucked his head into his shoulder and charged as if he was carving his way through a pack of Welsh forwards.

In the kitchen, the Gunner tugged ineffectually at the window, then grabbed a chair and smashed an exit. A second later, the door caved in behind him as the patrolman blasted through and sprawled on his face.

There was a fallpipe about five feet to one side. Without hesitation, the Gunner reached for the rotting gutter above his head, swung out into the rain and grabbed at the pipe as the gutter sagged and gave way.

He hung there for a moment, turned and grinned at Miller who leaned out of the window, arm outstretched and three feet too short.

“No hard feelings, Mr. Miller. See you in church.”

He went down the pipe like a monkey and disappeared into the darkness and rain below. Miller turned and grinned at Brady. “Still in his bare feet, did you notice? He always was good for a laugh.”

They returned to the bedroom to find Doreen weeping passionately. She flung herself into Brady’s arms the moment he appeared. “Oh, help me, Mr. Brady. As God’s my judge I didn’t know that divil was coming here this night.”

Her accent had thickened appreciably and Brady patted her bottom and shoved her away. “You needn’t put that professional Irish act on with me, Doreen Monaghan. It won’t work. I’m a Cork man meself.”

There was a muffled groan from under the bed. Brady leaned down and grabbed a foot, hauling the sailor into plain view, naked except for his underpants.

“Now I’d say that just about rounds the night off,” Miller said to the big Irishman and they both started to laugh.

Mrs. Goldberg, seventy and looking every year of it with her long jet earrings and a patina of make-up that gave her a distinct resemblance to a death mask, peered round the door and viewed the splintered door with horror.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “The damage. Who’s going to pay for the damage?”

The young patrolman appeared behind her, looking white and shaken. Miller moved forward, ignoring Mrs. Goldberg for the moment. “What happened to you?”

“Thought I’d better get a general call out for Doyle as soon as possible, Sergeant, so I went straight down to my bike.”

“Good lad,” Brady said. “That’s using your nut.”

“They’ve been trying to get in touch with Sergeant Miller for the last ten minutes or so.”

“Oh, yes,” Miller said. “Anything important?”

“Chief Superintendent Mallory wants you to meet him at Dob Court, Sergeant. That’s off Gascoigne Street on the north side of Jubilee Park. The beat man found a woman there about twenty minutes ago.” Suddenly he looked sick. “Looks like another Rainlover killing.”

There were at least a dozen patrol cars in Gascoigne Street when Miller and Brady arrived in the Mini-Cooper and the Studio, the Forensic Department’s travelling laboratory, was just drawing up as they got out and moved along the wet pavement to Dob Court.

As they approached, two men emerged and stood talking. One was Detective Inspector Henry Wade, Head of Forensic, a fat balding man who wore horn-rimmed spectacles and a heavy overcoat. He usually smiled a lot, but now he looked grim and serious as he wiped rain from his glasses with a handkerchief and listened to what Detective Chief Superintendent George Mallory of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad was saying to him.

He nodded and moved away and Mallory turned to Miller. “Where were you?”

He was forty-five years of age, crisp, intelligent, the complete professional. The provincials he had to work with usually didn’t like him, which suited him down to the ground because he detested inefficiency in any form and had come across too much of it for comfort on his forays outside London.

He thoroughly approved of Miller with his sharp intelligence and his law degree, because it was in such men that the salvation of the country’s outdated police system lay. Under no circumstances would he have dreamt of making his approval apparent.

“Brady and I had a lead on Doyle.”

“The prisoner who escaped from the infirmary? What happened?”

Miller told him briefly and Mallory nodded. “Never mind that now. Come and have a look at this.”

The body lay a little way inside the alley covered with a coat against the heavy rain until the Studio boys could get a tarpaulin rigged. The constable who stood beside it held his torch close as Mallory lifted the raincoat.

“From the looks of it her neck is broken just like the others,” Mallory said, “but the first thing we’ve got to do is find out who she is. Typical of a lot of these girls these days there isn’t any kind of identification whatsoever in her handbag.”

Miller looked down at the waxen face turned sideways awkwardly, the eyes staring into eternity. When he spoke, it was with difficulty.

“I think I can help you there, sir.”

“You know her?”

“Her name is Packard, sir,” Miller said hoarsely. “Grace Packard.”