The Reckoning (39 page)

‘Grace, is it?' A thickset man, he wore a sergeant's stripes on his arm. ‘Brady's the name. We got a message to get here as soon as possible. The dispatcher said it was to do with the shooter – this Ballard woman. Are you expecting her to show up?'

‘Not necessarily.' Joe shrugged. ‘But we reckon the head of this firm here could be on her list. This is DC Poole, by the way.' He gestured towards Lily and the sergeant's eyebrows went up in surprise. It was obvious he wasn't expecting to see a woman there. ‘There'll be other officers arriving soon, but for the moment we're it. I don't suppose you're armed?' he added.

‘Not a chance.' Brady grinned.

‘Well, if you happen to run into her, remember that she is.' He reflected. ‘I think you'd better stay in your car. You'll be
less conspicuous there. But don't try to stop any women you might see entering the building. Leave them to us. We'll check their identities.'

Lenny sat down heavily behind his desk. He took a couple of deep breaths.

Christ! What next?

Watching Blount open the envelope was supposed to have been a lark. But it hadn't turned out that way. And now there was this call from Scotland Yard. What was that all about? He hadn't got a clue. But it smelled of trouble.

He was still trying to get his thoughts in order when the phone rang.

‘There's a female police officer down here asking for you.' Raikes's grating voice set his jangled nerves on edge. ‘She's a detective by the name of Poole. Are you in trouble with the law, Loomis?'

‘I'll give you trouble, Raikes. What have you been saying about me behind my back?'

The commissionaire chortled.

‘Got it in the neck, did you? And about time, too. What about this detective, then? Do you want to talk to her?'

‘No, send her up.'

Lenny sat fuming. He'd have to think of some way of dealing with Ebenezer Raikes. The bastard was out to get him. But right now there were more immediate concerns to worry about. He watched as the lights over the lift flickered. The doors opened and a fair-haired young woman stepped out.

‘Mr Loomis?'

‘That's me.' Lenny rose to his feet. ‘You must be Detective Poole?' He broke off, grinning. ‘Didn't I see your picture in the paper yesterday? You're the plucky policewoman. That's a corker of an eye you've got there.'

‘Thanks, Mr Loomis. I've heard all the jokes.'

She was a sight all right, with the liverish bruise blacking one eye like a cartoon character's. Her blonde hair was cut across her brow in a straight line and the jacket she wore gave her a mannish look.

‘I need to see Sir Percival right away.'

‘Yes, I know. I spoke to your Mr Styles.' Lenny paused. He nodded towards Blount's door. ‘Listen, a word in your ear: he's in a filthy mood. Like as not you'll get the rough side of his tongue. I'm just warning you.' He came round the desk to join her. ‘What's all this about, anyway? Is he really in danger?'

‘I can't talk about it.' Her voice was tight. She seemed nervous. ‘Just let him know I'm here. Tell him I have to speak to him.'

Lenny knocked on the door and put his head in.

‘Sir?'

‘What now?' Blount loured at him from behind his desk at the other end of the room.

‘There's a police officer to see you, sir – a detective. Can I send her in?'

‘Did you say
her
?'

‘That's right, sir. Name of Poole. She says she needs to speak to you.'

‘For God's sake, they sent a
woman . . .
all right, bring her in.'

He sat with folded arms as Lenny ushered his charge into the office and escorted her to Sir Percival's desk. About to take his leave, he paused. Blount was speaking.

‘What's the matter with your eye?' he asked.

‘Someone hit me, sir.'

‘Christ Almighty!' Blount shook his head as though it was all too much. ‘Show me your warrant card then.'

She took a piece of white pasteboard out of her jacket pocket and handed it to him. He examined it.

‘What happened to your inspector . . . what was his name?'

‘Styles.' It was Lenny who supplied the answer.

‘Styles?'

‘I'm acting for him, sir. I'm supposed to ask you a question.' The words tumbled from her lips, the urgency behind them palpable. ‘It's something we
have
to know.'

‘Well?' Blount scowled.

‘Are you the man – he was a Major Blount – who presided over a court martial at the village of Saint-Bertrand, near Arras, in June 1917?'

Astounded by the question, he stared blankly at her.

‘Are you out of your mind?'

‘I'll explain why in a moment, but it's vital you tell us,' she pressed him.

‘This is incredible.'

Furious, but unsure now exactly what was at stake – Lenny could read the uncertainty in his face – Blount flushed a deeper shade of red. Breathing heavily, he considered his reply.

‘Very well.' His resentment was plain. ‘Yes, I was the officer in question. Now would you tell me what bloody business it is of yours?'

His cold eyes bored into hers and for a moment she seemed to wilt. Her head went down; she seemed to sag on her feet. It was as if all the strain and tension she had exhibited moments before had drained from her in an instant. But she rallied quickly, straightening. Her hand went to her jacket pocket.

‘Look at it.' She pointed to the photograph on the desk.

‘I beg your pardon . . .' Blount was incredulous.

‘
Look
at it.' Her voice was like a whiplash.

Lenny's glance had shifted to his employer and he saw his jaw drop. Blount wasn't looking at the photograph, though; he was staring at the woman. Lenny saw she had a gun in her hand. He wasn't more than a few feet from her, but for a second he couldn't move. He seemed stuck to the spot. Then he broke the spell, lurching towards her, but as he did so she turned and with a swift, scything motion struck him hard on the temple with
the butt of her pistol. Stumbling, he fell heavily to the floor. Blood poured from the gash in his skin.

‘Stay there. Don't move.'

As though in a dream, he saw her circle the desk until she was standing at Blount's side. She slid the photograph across the desk.

‘Look at it,' she repeated.

‘I'm damned if I will.' Blount all but choked on the words. But his voice carried a note of desperation. ‘Who the devil are you?' He had paled.

‘For the last time, look at it.'

She put the pistol to his temple, cocking it as she did so, and at the sound of the oiled click close to his ear he bent his head and peered at the photograph.

‘I expect you've forgotten his name. It was James Ballard. He was twenty-three years old.'

She spoke in a monotone.

‘You found him guilty of desertion in the face of the enemy. The verdict carried an automatic sentence of death, something you were well aware of. The proceedings lasted less than a day.'

Blount's mouth hung open. Lenny saw that he was trying to speak.

‘Get up.'

She stepped back and after a moment he obeyed, using the desk to lever himself to his feet. She indicated with the barrel of her pistol the direction he was to take. As he moved haltingly around the desk the telephone rang. She reached for the cord and, with a sharp jerk of the wrist, tore it from its socket. Looking up, Lenny took her in properly for the first time and gasped.

‘
You!'

He was stunned by his failure to recognize her. True, she looked different from when she had brought the envelope; but he saw now who it was.

Blount had come to a halt. He was standing with his back to
the desk, watching the woman who had positioned herself to one side of him, out of reach, but with the gun steady in her hand. His eyes were glazed.

‘Kneel down.'

Seemingly deaf to the command, he stayed standing.

‘This is your last warning.' She levelled the gun at his head.

With a whimper Blount sank to his knees. Lenny saw the glint of tears in his eyes. The woman moved to a new position behind him. She spoke again.

‘I expect they tied him to a post. Isn't that what usually happened?'

Even now her voice was without expression. There was something inhuman about it – the deadness in the tone. Lenny felt his blood turn to ice.

‘They probably offered him a blindfold, but I don't think he would have wanted one. He was a painter; the visible world was what he loved, what he responded to, and I think he would have wanted to fill his eyes with it, with whatever was there to see, even if it was only the faces of the men he had served with before they shot him. Because that was the practice, wasn't it? You had to be killed by your own comrades-in-arms, so as to drive the lesson home.'

She was silent for a beat, as if wanting the image of the firing squad and the bound man to form in her listener's mind.

‘But no matter . . . you can't answer these questions because you weren't there. You had done your part and it was left to others to finish the business. I won't ask if you ever thought of James Ballard in the years that followed, if you ever pictured what was left of him rotting in the earth. I won't ask if you ever felt guilty, because we are past that point now. You will think this unjust. Perhaps he felt the same. I am here to remind you that justice lies in the hands of those who dispense it.'

She moved, bringing her gun down to a point just behind Blount's neck.

‘In your report on James Ballard's trial you said he gave no explanation for what he had done and, if we are to believe your account, no single word was spoken in his defence, or none that you thought worth recording. So be it. Let there be no word uttered on your behalf, either.'

‘For the love of God . . .' The words seemed torn from the broken figure, slumped on his knees now, head bowed.

‘I was coming to that. There is still time to make your peace with him.'

In the silence that followed, Lenny could only watch with horror as her finger tightened on the trigger. Some part of him still believed that she would relent in the end; that, having reduced her victim to a cowering heap, she would leave him to his shame and depart.

But then the shot rang out and Blount's figure jerked forward and collapsed like a doll, face-down on the carpet only inches from where Lenny was crouching. Smoke rose from the singed hairs at the back of the dead man's neck. The smell of burned flesh was in Lenny's nostrils.

Turning, the woman picked up the photograph off the desk. With the gun still in her hand, she looked down at him and he thought he saw his fate in her cold gaze. Like her voice, it had settled on him without expression.

He shut his eyes. There was nothing he could do. No prayer came to his lips. His mind was a void.

When he opened them again she had gone.

‘Are you trying to pull my leg, young lady?' The commissionaire fixed Lily with a ferocious glare. ‘
What
did you say your name was?'

‘Poole. Detective-Constable Poole. I told you.' She fumbled in her pocket and drew out her warrant card. ‘See?' She showed it to him.

He'd been giving her a strange look, and that was even before she had reached his desk. Just a minute or so earlier, as she and Joe Grace were about to enter the building, a police van had arrived in the lane outside with a squad of uniformed officers aboard and Joe had stayed behind to deal with them.

‘You go ahead,' he had told Lily. ‘I'll be with you in a moment.'

She had crossed the marble floor to the back of the lobby, aware that the commissionaire, an elderly bloke with closecropped grey hair and a spread of medals pinned to the pocket of his funereal black suit, was observing her approach with narrow-eyed suspicion.

‘We're from Scotland Yard,' she had announced when she got there. ‘My colleague and me. Has your Mr Loomis told you about us?'

‘Loomis?' At the mention of the name, the old boy's face turned purple. ‘
Loomis!
I might have guessed . . .'

Now he was glaring at her warrant card.

‘Well, if you're really who you say you are, I've got some bad news for you both – you and Mr Bleeding Loomis. I've just sent a woman up to see Sir Percival Blount who said she was you. What's more, she had a warrant card – and a black eye to go with it.'

‘Jesus Christ!' Lily was dumbstruck.

She saw his glance swivel away from her. He was pointing at the lift.

‘In fact, there she is now.'

31

A
S THOUGH PARALYSED
, L
ILY
watched as the woman walked across the lobby towards the entrance. Her heart was pounding, but she kept her head. Joe Grace was outside with a squad of police, and as long as Alma Ballard continued on her course she would walk straight into their hands. They would arrest her before she had a chance to run.

Her only fear was that she herself might alert the woman to the danger she was in. It only needed Alma to glance her way and she would probably remember Lily's face from the hotel; and even if she didn't, she could hardly miss her black eye. Obliged to look away, Lily was reduced to listening to the sound of the footsteps as they crossed the marble floor. It was only when they stopped that she turned her head to see what had happened.

Alma had come to a halt in the middle of the lobby. She was facing the entrance, and Lily saw that Joe had entered the building and was standing there just inside the glassed doors. He was staring back at Lily. She saw Alma's hand go to her pocket.

‘
Sarge, look out!'

She screamed the warning, but Joe already had his gun out and, when the shots sounded, they came so close together they might have been one. He staggered and went down. Alma turned and ran.

Lily sprang into life. She raced across the lobby to where Joe was lying. A spreading stain on one of his trouser legs showed where the bullet had struck home. He had managed to hoist himself up on one elbow and, as she reached him, he fired another shot after the fleeing figure. Lily dropped to her knees beside him.