Kiss Me Quick (37 page)

He was still the detective, and he still wanted answers. So Vince moved on down the passage and towards the door to another
storage
area. Another compartment in a building with so many, with so many things stored away, with so many secrets. Vince slowly opened the door. In the darkness beyond, he reached around to the nearside wall, groping for a switch. A light bulb fizzed into life, illuminating the room with a fierce magnesium light. The juice must have been running off a separate generator, because there was an uneven humming noise in the room, and the light seemed to wax and wane along with the irregular rhythm of a machine. The room was the size of an average family garage, windowless, with its walls painted gloss-white. Though it didn’t look freshly painted, there was a cloying, acrid odour. The harsh light made the surfaces reflective, like the inside of an ice box.

The room was empty apart from a naked figure crouching on the floor. The figure was that of Henry Pierce, sitting on his haunches, with his hands cupped before him as if in prayer. His eyes were closed – or at least one of them was. His lips rippled in mumbled prayer. His body looked old and decayed, pouches of flesh hanging off his arms, with a flabby, corrugated belly and wrinkled dugs. The skin hung over his once powerful frame like a crumpled dust sheet thrown over one of Jack’s opium-infused heavy black bureaus. It was colourless, almost transparent, so that his face, which had always struck Vince as pallid and bloodless, looked healthy and tanned in comparison with the rest of his body. In the white room, this had the effect of making his face and hands, the parts that normally emerged from the black sheath of clothing he was constantly encased in, look disembodied – or at least separate, as if he was wearing a balaclava and gloves.

And he stank. Vince now realized that the sickening odour wasn’t paint drying; it was Pierce dying.

And then there was the eye: the phoenix rising from the flames. The brooch that Bobbie had worn to cover an unsightly tear on her mother’s dress, which had once so caught his eye, was now caught in Pierce’s eye. And now covered his own unsightly tear. Vince could see the muscles above and below the ruined eye twitch, attempting to blink. But the lids were long gone, like torn and frayed curtains that gave no coverage to a bauble that needed no moisture. The muscle contractions were working on memory, the memory of eyes that needed lubricating; a lens that needed cleaning in order to maintain a clear picture.

Pierce, obviously under instruction, and working on blind faith that Jack would have done what he had said he’d do and have the young detective standing before him, stopped muttering his prayers. He sniffed the air.

‘Hello, Henry.’

‘Narcissist?’

‘So they tell me.’

Pierce smiled. ‘Good-looking boy, granted. Handsome, but not a narcissist.’ He stopped smiling. Pierce’s voice, usually varied and theatrical, was now one note only and raspy. It was, like himself, dying. ‘No, no, not you. You didn’t kill him.’

‘The projectionist?’

Pierce gave one slow nod.

‘What happened?’

Pierce’s shoulders rose and fell in an expressionless shrug. ‘They set you up when you was out cold. Duval killed him. They put one behind his ear. That’s what Eddie Tobin told me. That’s all I know.’

Vince considered this news. A burden lifted from his shoulders. Then, just as quickly, rested back on them. A false dawn? Vince was still a dead man. His killer waited outside. Vince turned towards the door.

‘There’s more.’

Vince looked around at Pierce, noting there was a fresh
desperation
on his face. Not just the desperation of dying, but the desperation of unburdening.

‘It’s about the girl.’

Again, Vince looked around at the door, saw there was no lock on it. For some reason he didn’t feel this was a trap; or any more of a trap than he was already caught in. He looked back around at Pierce and nodded for him to continue. Then he looked at the marbled and diamanté eyes, and remembered that Pierce really was blind now. ‘I’m listening,’ he prompted.

Henry Pierce then told the story of what happened that Christmas in 1939. He told his story exactly as he had told it to Bobbie. But slower and not so playfully. His delivery was altogether more deliberate. He wasn’t doing it for his own sadistic amusement this time. He was under orders from Jack, and it was killing him. Vince had to draw closer to him to hear the fading voice. Pierce only really sparked into life when it came to his own part in the drama. When Jack handed Pierce the knife and tasked him with the killing of the infant.

Vince listened intently, but he wasn’t playing for time, like Bobbie; instead his mind was rushing ahead. Still with the
conceit
of a detective, he didn’t want Pierce to finish the story or furnish all the answers. Vince wanted to solve the riddle and crack the puzzle himself. He wanted his brushwork to feature on the picture being painted, his signature added in the corner. So when Pierce got to his part of the crime: entering the infant’s room, throwing the turquoise dress over his intended target, and then raising his knife to kill the infant in the cot, Vince firmly ordered: ‘Stop!’

Pierce, compliant like an obedient robot, stopped.

‘That baby. The baby is Bobbie?’

Pierce nodded.

The puzzle almost completed, Vince put the last pieces together. Now he understood Bobbie’s new-found hatred of Jack. Now he knew why Bobbie was slipping away from him, slipping into another world. The world of innocence, the world of the photo album, make-believe and borrowed memories.

‘Jack killed her parents.’

‘Yes … and no.’

Vince had been here before with Pierce, and he didn’t have the time. He looked behind, checking for the Corsican, but the door was still closed.

‘I’ve no time for your riddles, Henry.’

‘It’s no riddle. Jack killed her mother, but he didn’t kill her father.’

Vince felt his legs give way. He crouched down, then sank to his knees, joining the noisome Pierce in a position of prayer. Vince’s head was now bowed, his hands rested on the floor, supporting his body. Pierce must have known that Vince was kneeling, because he adjusted his head, lower, towards him.

It all made sense to Vince now. The man cowering in the corner of the bedroom, with a knife in his eye, was not the main target of Jack’s anger. He could have been any one of her lovers. It was the woman …

‘The woman, she was Jack’s …?’

Pierce nodded.

‘And Jack is Bobbie’s …?’

Pierce didn’t nod this time, and Vince kept hoping there was another twist that would divert it all from its inevitable
conclusion
. There wasn’t, of course. As if a nod wouldn’t suffice, Pierce said, ‘Her father. And then her lover.’

Vince studied Pierce’s face for the truth. But Pierce had worn the same fixed death-mask expression since he’d started this story and, of course, Vince could tell nothing from his eyes. But Vince could sense that Pierce was working on something else now. His present admission was fuelled by a fear freshly instilled into him by a power greater than himself: Jack Regent. Pierce was doing as instructed, being rigorously honest and telling the truth. This was the get-out stake for the old gangster, that old monster from his past. Pierce knew he was dying, and confessing and
making
his peace now was lightening his load for wherever he was headed. Vince reckoned it was somewhere hot.

‘Jack’s wife was a real beauty. A passionate woman. Too
passionate
. She started cheating with other men when Jack went away. She made a fool of Jack. But she was his weakness. Once he found out what she’d been up to, he knew she had to go. That’s why he didn’t want anyone to know he was out of prison. He wanted to catch her at it, and I think he derived some pleasure from it. Pity the poor bastard who was with her. He got his … in the eye.’

‘What about Bobbie?’

‘She was born just after Jack went away. He’d never set eyes on her, so getting rid of her wasn’t such a chore. Jack did what he had to do: he cut out the weakness, the ties that bind. No
dependants
. That way, no one or anything can get at you again. He’d turned to stone, invincible, until
she
came along.’

‘Does Bobbie know all this?’

Pierce’s lips rolled inwards as he bit down on them, seemingly suppressing either laughter or pain. For his sake, Vince was
hoping
it was the latter.

‘Does she know this?’ he insisted.

Pierce wasn’t laughing. He was crying. But these weren’t tears drawn from the well of some deep emotion. They were from his body reacting against the carasite that was so closely attached to him. The brooch was only cheap costume jewellery, silver-coloured base metal, and it was clear that Pierce was suffering a reaction to it. His brow was beading up with sweat. His pallor, never healthy, was greying. Pierce was being poisoned. His brain, slowly, toxically, turning off. Vince almost felt sorry for him.
Almost
.

‘Bobbie … beautiful baby … she’s the image of her mother … almost the same face … same eyes …’ said Pierce, his voice slowing.

Vince looked at the brooch, which seemed to be losing its sparkle. If Pierce was reacting against the brooch, the brooch was also reacting against him.

‘You’re dying, Henry. You know that?’

‘Know it? I can
fee
l it.’

‘You want to make your peace with your maker, don’t you?’

‘Why do you think I’m telling you this? I’ve made my peace … and Jack knows it all. He knows why I did it. He forgives me. He forgives me … Jack is …’

Vince almost laughed. But he saw the look of beatification on Pierce’s face, as he uttered his false prophet’s name, and he couldn’t deny the dying man his faith. And Vince realized now that Pierce didn’t set Jack up to take over his rackets. He wouldn’t dare. He set Jack up simply to atone for the crime he’d committed all those years ago; the crime of
not
committing the crime of murdering Bobbie.

Vince realized that it was no coincidence that brought Bobbie to Brighton. She believed her mother was from the town, her only clue being a turquoise dress that she had been wrapped in,
bearing
the label ‘Penelope of Brighton’. And Vince also knew that it was no coincidence that she had met Jack. It was down to Fate. Like Jack said, they were all playthings for the gods.

When Pierce first met Bobbie in the Blue Orchid club, he knew instantly who she was. She was the image of her mother, and was wearing the turquoise silk gown. With the brooch
carefully
positioned to hide the tear where the knife had entered … and
missed
. It was soon after that Henry Pierce had gone into his ‘blind man’ routine.

A suitably poetic and dramatic gesture from the seasoned old performer, but it served a practical purpose: it retired him from Jack’s services. It gave him distance from the man. Because Pierce couldn’t bear to witness the crime that Jack and Bobbie were unknowingly committing. A crime that Pierce was responsible for. Henry Pierce didn’t act straight away, thinking it was just a crush between the older man and the ingénue and it would soon pass. But Jack fell further and further, deeper and deeper in love with Bobbie, and her fate was sealed. She had to die. And to do that, Pierce had to get Jack away from her.

And that’s where the projectionist came in. Pierce was asked by Duval to do for him what he’d been doing for Jack all those years: the dirty work. Dispose of the body. Did Pierce hold on to a knife that Jack had used in a previous killing, a knife that still had his fingerprints on it? Of course he did, either as a memento or an insurance policy. Vince suspected the former, but didn’t dismiss the latter. Pierce took the knife with Jack’s prints on it and planted it on the body of the projectionist, knowing it would soon be found. Pierce may even have kept the knife that Jack used on the woman who had betrayed him all those years ago. The very same knife that he gave to Henry Pierce to kill the baby daughter he’d never met. The knife that would bond them in blood. The bond that never happened, not that night anyway. But, no matter, there were to be plenty of other nights.

Vince stared back at Pierce, losing what little pity he had for the dying man. He was too incomprehensible, too twisted to deserve any real compassion. And if Pierce did have any remorse in his voice, it was for
not
killing. Vince repeated his question, ‘Come on, Henry, tell me. Does Bobbie know all this?’

A rictus grin spread across Pierce’s face. There was a halting rattle as he drew breath into his throat, and his toxic lungs filled for the last time. Fuelled by a fading breath, the words clawed their way out of him. ‘I was going to … but …’ Pierce raised his hand and rubbed his forefinger across the phoenix jewel. ‘I was going to tell her … but she got the better of me. I … I … lost my concentration … She knows only …
the half of it
…’

Then silence.

Vince looked up and saw that a thick tar-like substance was oozing out of Henry Pierce’s nose and mouth, a mouth that was now fixed in a rigor-mortic grimace. Vince couldn’t tell if the expression was one of joy or pain. It didn’t matter;
ask no man if he’s happy until he’s dead
.

The whirl of the generator slowed to a stop, and the light went out. Vince turned his head. Standing above him, framed in the doorway, was Jack, the light from the rooms behind throwing a halo around him. He held a long blade, which seemed like a natural extension of his arm. Hilt and hand welded together; imperceptibly extending and retracting, accommodating his every breath and movement. Maybe it was just an optical illusion, because the point was hovering and hesitating over Vince’s eye.

Vince blinked, adjusted his eyes, and looked beyond the blade, right up to Jack’s face. It was still obscured by the gloom and the brim of the hat, but he could make out the lower half of it. His lips hadn’t thinned with age, were still full, but dry. His jaw was solid, defined, cradling a chin that held a dimple, a deep line indent, as if someone had sliced a knife down it.

Jack noticed that Vince was paying too much attention to his face, and he leaned back into the darkness.

‘So you see, Vincent, we share a lot more than just being set up for murder with the same victim. We share the same woman … and just as deadly.’

‘Bobbie doesn’t know …?’

‘She must
never
know,’ said Jack. ‘I can live with her despising me, but not despising herself. She doesn’t deserve that.’ 

‘What have you got planned for her, Regent?’

‘Vincent, you think you love her?’

‘I’ll do anything to get her away from you.’

‘She
is
me.’

Vince could feel something pass through the blade like a
current
. The point moved, quivered. A tremble? Hesitation?
Nerves?
Vince stared up at the Corsican’s face. There was no smile, no cruelty, no emotion that could be attributed to it. Jack’s eyes were wide open, hungrily taking in the young detective.

Vince held his gaze. Jack blinked.

And in that blink, Vince’s hand shot up and diverted the blade away from his face. He was instantly on his feet, but with his head down, as he charged at Jack, driving him back out of the room.

Jack was trying to get a foothold, his hands grabbing at the shelves to his side, pulling them down. Vince felt the sharp and bruising clunk of heavy objects falling and hitting his back.

They were now on the gallery. Vince, still with his head down, worked at Jack’s gut with vicious jabs. Shovelling punches into his kidneys, his liver, his heart. As fast and furious as they were, they were almost scientific in their execution. Body blows to slow him, tire him and keep him busy and in pain. Vince didn’t know if Jack still held the knife, as he drove him harder against the rail, hoping it would give way and send him down into his pit.

Jack must have regained his footing. His body tensed as he soaked up the jabs to his stomach. There was no soft underbelly on the older man, and it was like punching a wall. Then Vince felt a blow to the back. The knife? No, too dull, just Jack’s balled fist in his spine, but powerful enough to send Vince back to his knees. Jack grabbed a hank of Vince’s hair, pulled his head back.

Vince now saw that the knife was gripped between Jack’s teeth, like a pirate; then the fist came thundering towards him. Vince closed his eyes to receive the blow, and it smashed into the bridge of his nose.
Crack
. He felt – and always worse – heard the bone splinter. On his back now, the sweet sickly taste of blood in his mouth became overwhelming. His mouth was filling up with it, leaving him gurgling, choking, drowning. He opened his eyes, only to see Jack remove the knife from his mouth, grip it ready to plunge. Vince spat a gobbet of blood straight into the older man’s face. Jack recoiled, withdrawing his head in order to wipe the blood from his eyes.

‘You fight well, Vincent. Shame that your mind is not so astute. Always the tiresome policeman with his pathetic quest for the truth. We haven’t any of us told the truth since the apple was taken from the tree. And what good would it do her now, anyway?’

Vince kept quiet, preserved his breath. He knew he’d need it. He felt their potency was equal – he could still win. He thrust himself forward and screwed his thumb into Jack’s eye. Jack’s head jolted back. Vince lunged his arms around to Jack’s side, enough to throw him off balance, then heaved himself up and pushed Jack away. He twisted over on to his front, lifted himself further and, like a sprinter out of the blocks, surged to his feet and gripped hold of the rail. He spun around and saw Jack lying on his back, his left hand covering one eye, his right hand still holding the knife ready to stab downwards.

Vince hurtled towards the Corsican, raised his right foot ready to stamp his nose into his skull. Just as the raised heel was ready to do the damage, in a flash Jack spun out of the way. Vince’s foot slammed down and, almost as soon as his boot hit the floor, he felt a burning sensation. The Corsican was up on his haunches, and with almighty force had driven the knife into Vince’s foot. Through the leather, the flesh, the tendons, the muscle and bone, pinning his foot solidly to the floor. Jack scuttled back like a satanic spider, then was back up on his feet.

Blinded with pain, Vince threw his head back and gave it voice. Then he crouched again and, feeling the blade inside his foot severing new tendons with each movement, he grabbed the ebony hilt with both hands, squeezed his eyes shut, pulled a face that was a dress rehearsal for the pain that was due to follow, and in one movement hauled the knife out of his foot. Burning hot blood began oozing through the black leather, like lava from a volcano. Now with the knife firmly in his grip, Vince stood up, ready to plunge into his enemy.

But Jack was gone.

Even with the knife in his hand, Vince knew he didn’t stand a chance against the Corsican in the darkness of the warehouse. This was his milieu, his web, and there were enough lethal objects sitting on the shelves for Jack to make use of.

On the floor, Vince’s eye caught a glint of metal and realized it was the gold lighter. He bent down and picked it up, flipped the lid and ignited it. As the flame burned, he rubbed his thumb over the cartouche containing the etched message, ‘
Jack, Pour Toujours
’. Vince silently translated it: ‘Jack, Forever’.

The smell of chemical vapours from below was strong, as he threw the lighter into the black pit. The flame met the fumes and it ignited immediately, sending a column of fire shooting up towards the roof. The wooden frame caught fire, the black plastic canopy instantly melting. It was an impulsive action, for the place was a powder keg, literally. Dynamite and petrol could be stored in the warehouse, for all he knew. But Vince didn’t give a damn, knowing he had to do it – to spite the Corsican, put a dent in his operation. And hopefully send him to Hell with Henry Pierce.

As fast as he could travel, Vince made his way along the
walkways
to the stairs. A left, then a right, another left, then straight on. The pain in the foot was gathering momentum. It advanced up his legs, kicked into his stomach, beat on his chest, then burned its way up his oesophagus. It was a quickening and sickening pain, each footfall more painful than the last. Vince wondered when the body’s natural defences would kick in, take charge and eject the invading trauma. He closed his eyes and imagined the cool flow of his natural anaesthetic washing over him, numbing the
burning
pain in his foot, freezing the nauseous acids in his gut, and soothing his buckled brow. The stratagem worked: he opened his eyes and the stairs were in front of him. He felt the heat behind him, and looked around to see a corridor of fire rolling towards him, greedily burning up everything in its path.

There were constant explosions as stored fireworks sparkled, banged and rocketed around. He choked on the spiky black smoke filling his lungs, finally dropped the knife and covered his nose and mouth with his hands, squeezed his eyes shut and
carried
on blindly along the corridor; as fast as he could manage until he finally reached the stairwell. The heat on his back seemed to propel him, guiding him onwards to freedom. It seemed the fire, like himself, wanted to escape into fresh oxygen so that it could breathe. Sensing his position, Vince groped around until he found the stair rail. One hand on the rail, pressure off the injured foot, he made his way down to the ground floor, hobbled over to the light switches and threw them. The huge light bulbs sparked up, throwing a light on the scene for the last time. Vince scoped the warehouse one last time.

No sign of Jack. Just fire.

He opened the door, and was standing in the forecourt. Rain beat down on his face, cooling and cleansing, getting rid of the musty smell of all the old things stored in the warehouse, of the chemicals in the black pit, and the deathly decaying stench of Henry Pierce.

The Cadillac was still parked outside. It was closer than his own car, and Vince could do with the ease of driving one-footed in an automatic. The keys were still in the ignition and Vince climbed inside. He sat for a moment, got his breath back and his bearings. He looked back at the warehouse, where the small round
window
at the top was aglow – like the spinning disk of the sun. He smiled.
Jack, pour toujours
?
Not any more.

Vince had never driven an automatic before, but it looked easy, like the dodgems, he decided. He adjusted the rear-view mirror to assess the damage to his face. The nose wasn’t broken, showed no blood or marks at all. The thick black hair had lost its lustre and was now peppered with grey. His brow was strong though, casting a shadow over his eyes. It gave him a somewhat
cadaverous
look, but this was because the cheekbones were so
pronounced
. His skin was strangely olive, and had lost the suppleness of youth. He recognized the shape of the mouth, like his own, but the lips were not as full. A hand went to the bottom lip,
forefinger
and thumb pulled it down, exposing twin rows of strong, straight ivory-coloured teeth. And there, on the inside of the
bottom
lip, in black ink, was a tattoo of the Moor’s head.

Vince felt an arm reach around and grip him. An ivory-handled open cutthroat razor was at his throat.

‘You know where to go, so drive,’ instructed the Corsican.

Vince knew exactly where Jack wanted to go – wherever Bobbie was – and he knew he could never let that happen. He dragged his eyes away from the Corsican, and got down to the job at hand. He turned the key and gunned the engine, put the
gearstick
into drive. Right foot down hard: the car jolted forward. The razor pressed into his throat. Vince looked in the mirror, blood on his Adam’s apple. Jack narrowed his eyes, the crow’s feet spreading into the gullies that ran along his cheekbones.

‘I’ve never driven one of these before.’ As true as it was, to Vince’s ear this excuse sounded so prosaic as to be almost
laughable
. Jack passed no judgement. As Vince edged back in his seat, the edge of the blade followed suit. He drove forward, building speed, while heading towards the quay. Then foot down hard, then a burst of speed. Vince slammed down the brake and the car screeched to a stop. The razor jolted forward, then jumped back to slice open Vince’s chin. The blade dropped to the floor. Jack fell backwards. Vince slammed down on the accelerator. Jack sprang back up, went to grab Vince around the throat. Vince bit hard into his hand – the soft flesh between thumb and forefinger – and tasted Jack’s blood in his mouth. Vince kept his foot pressed on the accelerator. The quayside was disappearing fast on both sides, just the black sea ahead of them. Vince opened the door at the last moment, and rolled out of the car. He hit the ground with a dull ache, a hammer blow to the head, burning white light, then stars. The car pitched into the sea.

Despite the pain, Vince rolled towards the edge of the quay, opened his eyes and watched the fins of the Cadillac disappear like those of a black shark diving into the murky swell. In two heavy gulps, the shark was swallowed up.

Vince got to his feet, and took on a heavy gasp of night air for ballast to steady himself. He put a hand to the back of his head, which felt warm and worryingly soft. Blood oozed down the back of his neck, warm and sticky and sickening. He turned to haul himself towards his own car, felt his foot wasn’t hurting so much now, perhaps because it was in stiff competition with the searing pain of his broken nose and sliced chin, while his cracked cranium didn’t even bear thinking about.

As his foot moved with increased ease across the tarmac of the parking lot, he heard exploding glass behind him. The fire inside the warehouse had finally punched its way through the top windows like a glowing orange fist. Vince would’ve loved to have watched the whole place go up, but he didn’t have time. He reached his car, took out his keys and climbed in. Taking a deep breath – and holding it – he peered in the rear-view mirror. No Jack. Just himself. Vince started the engine and drove slowly along the stretch of road leading out of the harbour and on to the coast road. Reaching the telephone box at the entrance, he stopped.

Ray Dryden was at home in bed, but he was still happy to take the call. Vince laid out the bare bones of the case, telling him how Duval and Tobin were responsible for the body on the beach. And how Duval had the killing on film. He told Ray that he suspected Dr Hans Boehm, Vince’s psychological assessor, had been in on it too; that he was the weak link in this case, who would give
everybody
up under the right pressure. Finally, Vince told Ray that Jack Regent was dead.

Ray wanted further details, but Vince was in a hurry, said he’d call in after he got home.

Vince put the phone down, then took a deep breath and called Bobbie as he had promised. He wanted at least to tell her that he was all right. He wanted to tell her … 

‘The Seaview Hotel.’

‘This is Detective …’ No, not any more, that was over, in another life. ‘Vince … Vincent Treadwell. The lady’s waiting for me in the bar. Can you tell her—’