The Lately Deceased (24 page)

‘See what I mean?' Walker said with an insane grin. ‘I really do mean it when I say that I'll shoot anyone who stands in my way.'

With Pearl's arm twisted behind her back, he propelled her across the room towards the door. Geoff took a half step towards them but was pulled up by a barked order from Meredith.

‘Let him go, Mr Tate. Don't anybody try to stop him. He's mad enough for anything. If you want to help, Mr Tate, see if you can do something for Masters, he's bleeding badly. Call an ambulance and get a doctor.'

As Geoff dropped to the floor beside the sergeant, Walker slipped past with Pearl. She had ceased to resist and ran obediently when he told her to.

Meredith waited until they had gained the corridor, then started after them. As he reached the door he saw Walker turn and fire at him, and the next instant a bullet embedded itself in the door post a few inches from his head.

‘That's the sixth shot,' he muttered to himself. ‘Not that it means very much, he's had plenty of time to reload if he wanted to.'

As soon as Walker's head disappeared below the level of the top stair, Meredith dashed along the corridor to the stair head. Walker was waiting for him halfway down the stairs, the gun aimed straight at his chest. The policeman threw himself down just as the killer fired again and the bullet flew harmlessly over his head.

‘That's seven, he's fired,' he said ruefully ‘So there's no knowing how many rounds are left.'

Near the front door, a terrified Morton-Smith was standing but Walker ignored him. He guessed, quite rightly, that he would meet with no resistance from that quarter. Walker opened the door and bundled Pearl outside. Then he slammed the door shut after them.

With the closing of the door, Meredith pounded down the stairs and across the hall. As he reached the front door another shot rang out and he dived again for cover but it was from outside. He was picking himself up when Stammers and the police driver ran over to him from the library where they had been ‘phoning.

‘Are you all right, Super?' Stammers asked anxiously.

‘Of course, I'm all right,' Meredith replied testily. ‘He wasn't shooting at me with that last shot. My guess is that he was shooting at your tyres,' he said addressing himself to the driver.

‘We were 'phoning through your instructions, sir,' Stammers replied indignantly.

‘What, the pair of you? Come on, for God's sake, get that door open before this maniac gets out of the county.'

Stammers flung open the door to see Walker standing by the driving door of Geoff's black Humber, the engine already running. Pearl was seated in the passenger seat, a look of fear betraying itself in her eyes for the first time. Walker levelled his gun at Meredith's chest.

‘Don't attempt to follow me, Superintendent, or I'll shoot her just as sure as God made little apples.'

With that he got into the car, and roared off in a shower of gravel as he fiercely let in the clutch.

‘Well, go on, man,' Meredith shouted to Stammers. ‘See if you can race him to the gate.'

‘But the tyre, sir. Look at it, it's flat.'

‘Of course it's flat. But for pity's sake do something. Don't just curl up and die. There's just a chance we'll get him if that old lodge keeper has locked the gates.'

Stammers and the driver reached the car at the same time. Sliding under the wheel, the driver opened the passenger's door for Meredith and the car was moving before Meredith was properly seated. Lurching erratically, the Wolseley set off in pursuit of the Humber with as much chance of catching its quarry as a tortoise has of catching a hare.

‘For God's sake, try to raise somebody on that radio,' said Meredith. ‘Or can't they get our wavelength in these bloody backwoods?'

‘I had no luck before, sir,' the driver replied stiffly. ‘That was why I was in the house, sir. Went in to report negative success to Inspector Stammers, sir. Had to let him know, sir.'

‘All right, all right, constable, I get the drift,' Meredith replied wearily. ‘Now, let's try again, shall we? Hello, what goes on here?'

The car had lumbered into the straight section of drive that ended in the lodge gates and as they approached they saw the old keeper, still clad in sou'wester and oilskins and looking like a lifeboatman lost in the heart of Oxfordshire, pushing the gates shut.

‘What do you think you're doing?' called Meredith through the car window as they drove up. ‘Leave those gates open; there'll be a lot of cars coming through soon.'

‘Mr Walker said to shut them and not to open them for anyone,' retorted the old man.

‘Well, I'm telling you to open them and to keep them open. Otherwise you'll be in right trouble. Now, where's your telephone?'

The lodge keeper looked stubbornly truculent.

‘He said I was to shut 'em, and shut 'em I'm going to, mister.'

Meredith got out of the car and took the refractory old man by the shoulder.

‘Listen, Dad. I'll get you locked up for life if you don't get these gates open and keep them like it! We're the police and I'm in no mood for arguing. Now where's your phone?'

‘I've got no phone, only one up to the house.'

‘Damn! Damn! Damn!' said Meredith quietly and the old gatekeeper grinned contentedly. He'd won the second round, even if he'd lost the first.

‘Any luck with that radio?' Meredith said to Stammers, putting his head into the car.

‘Not a thing, unless you want a taxi!'

‘We may have to settle for that at this rate. All right, Constable, heave this car round and let's get back to the house. The front tyre is pretty well off the rim, so take it steady.'

Chapter Twenty-one

Back at the house, everybody was gathered in the hall. Masters was sitting on the stairs, his coat off and his face chalky white. Lena Wright was doing things with clean handkerchiefs and a length of electric flex for a tourniquet. Meredith hurried over to him. ‘How is it, boy?' he asked with kindly brusqueness.

The sergeant was holding a cigarette between shaky fingers as Lena put the finishing touches to the improvised bandages. ‘It's my arm, sir. Not so bad.' he smiled weakly. ‘It doesn't hurt.'

‘We've rung for a doctor and an ambulance. He should be here in a few minutes. You sit quiet for a bit,' said Lena.

‘What happened to Al Capone?' asked Abe Franklin, coming out of the sitting room with a tray full of large whiskies. ‘I reckon he won't mind if we hit his liquor. We all need it, especially those two.'

He nodded towards the pair on the stairs; Masters and Eve Arden, who was sitting a little higher up with her head against the comforting bulk of Geoff Tate.

‘I'm afraid he's got away for the time being, but he won't get far. We're getting out a call to block the roads.'

‘There are a hell of a lot of roads round here to block,' said Geoff. ‘I'm still quite shattered by all this, Superintendent. Did he really kill Margaret? I can't believe it, even though I heard him confess it.'

‘He did – and killed Colin Moore.'

Stammers came from the phone and took Meredith aside.

‘I've been talking to the local boys,' he said. ‘They are going all out to get him. They didn't like it much when I told them he'd shot our sergeant. They're setting up blocks on all roads in a twenty-mile radius.'

‘You got the details of the car from Tate, did you?'

‘Yes, he reckons he had about six gallons of petrol still in the tank, so Walker can get a fair distance without a refill. It's a nasty position, with that woman as hostage. I suppose she really
was
unwilling, Super?'

‘It didn't look like a fake to me. There was no play-acting in what she did to his face. If you ask me he's quite capable of blowing a hole in his girlfriend if he gets cornered. I'd better get on to London.'

He went off to the phone and Stammers went over to speak to Masters.

‘How are you feeling now, lad?' he asked.

‘Better every minute, thanks to these “medical comforts”!' The sergeant held up a glass of Gordon Walker's whisky. ‘What hopes are there of catching him?'

‘We'll catch him all right; he hasn't a chance in hell of beating the rap. What worries me is that he may well take it out on the woman.'

If they had but known it, at that moment the same woman was taking it out on the man – and less than five miles away.

As the big Humber sped away from the lodge gates, gathering speed on the deserted open road, Pearl sat tensely in the nearside seat. Gordon had no clear idea of where he was driving. He wanted merely to get away from the house as fast as he could and have time to think. He drove as fast as the road and the darkness would allow, with the gun nestling between his legs.

The road opened out a mile beyond Long Manor and he put his foot down until the speedometer was hovering on the seventy mark. Soon they arrived at a junction and he turned onto a major road and headed west.

Pearl sat silently, her head bowed, but her eyes watching every move the man made. After a time, he glanced sideways at her and spoke.

‘Sorry about all that fracas in the house, Pearl,' he said soberly. ‘Regrettable but necessary.'

He reached out and gently took her hand in his. She offered no resistance and he went on.

‘Am I forgiven, my dear?'

A cold shiver ran down Pearl's spine; he had asked the question just as if they were making up a lovers' tiff. Playing for time, she turned her head and smiled at him, then moved closer to him and put her other hand on his knee.

‘That's more like it, darling,' he said relaxing. ‘I knew you'd understand … hey, you damned bitch!'

His voice changed to sudden fury as Pearl shot out her hand from his knee to the ignition switch and plucked out the key.

The car checked instantly – deprived of its power and with the dead engine braking it hard, it swerved and juddered until Walker slammed down on the clutch and brakes. Pearl took advantage of the seconds in which he was thus occupied to pitch the key into the back of the car. Then she dived for the pistol she knew was lying between his knees.

The next moment, she was wrestling for her life as Gordon abandoned the car to its own devices to fight for possession of the gun.

‘You little bitch!' he screamed. ‘This is where you get it once and for all.'

His fingers closed round the barrel of the gun and, with his overriding strength, he began to wrest it from her grasp. Desperately, she clung on as her hand was bent agonizingly back. Just when she knew she could stand no more, the front wheels of the car struck the grass verge. The heavy vehicle mounted the strip of turf and rolled head first into the ditch beyond.

In that moment, Gordon involuntarily released his hold on the weapon and Pearl acted without a second's hesitation. She raised the automatic and fired point-blank into Gordon's chest, and again and again, until the new magazine was empty.

The deafening noise of the shots and the smell of the explosive in that confined space, to say nothing of the appalling presence of the dead man, drove Pearl out into the night. She forced the door open and slid down into the ditch. The sodden undergrowth and a torrent of muddy water drenched her legs but she was beyond caring.

She clambered up onto the road and ran in the direction they had been going. She ran wildly for a few yards, sobbing into the wind and veering blindly from side to side, the gun still clenched tightly in her hand. Running and sobbing, she plunged on up the black abyss of the road, until she had covered several hundred yards. It was then she saw car headlights approaching from the far distance.

She quickened her pace until she was running madly towards them. The lights came rapidly nearer and soon were bathing her in their bright glare. The car lurched to a stop in front of her and two uniformed police jumped out to meet her.

‘All right, miss, we've got you. Everything's all right now!'

The first man put his arm around her shoulders while the other gently prised the pistol from her grasp. They led her to the car, where a plain-clothes man was holding open the rear door for her. She was shuddering like a terrified child. As she sank back gratefully into the cushions, the driver turned to his companion.

‘She must be the woman they described in that general call. I wonder where the bloke is?'

It was Pearl who answered the question.

‘He's down there,' she said. ‘In the car – he's dead! He tried to kill me, so I shot him.'

The big black car slid off to look for the remains of Gordon Walker.

Two hours later, the sitting room of Long Manor was thronged with people drinking coffee poured from a great steaming jug that Bodger had made. Masters was sitting next to the local doctor, who had dressed his wound and said it was the nearest miss to a large artery that he'd seen since he was in the Eighth Army. Meredith had undertaken to drop his sergeant off at a hospital on the way home for a further check-up.

Several uniformed Oxfordshire police were there, including a chief inspector and the two officers who had picked up Pearl on the road. They had brought her back to the house and she was now in bed with a large dose of a sedative, Mrs Bodger sitting with her.

The Leighs had assumed the duties of hosts, and Webster was revelling in the fascinating work of bartender. Geoff stood near the hearth with his arm around Eve, pressing Meredith for more information.

‘Come on, Superintendent, tell us the whole story. The man's dead so you can't fob us off with all that jargon about us being witnesses at his trial. Tell us the grounds on which you got a warrant for Gordon Walker's arrest?'

Meredith sipped his coffee while he considered this.

‘Well, there's a good deal in what you say, Mr Tate,' he admitted. ‘Not a lot of harm can come from filling in some of the details now, I suppose.'