The Reckoning (40 page)

‘Never mind me.' His face was twisted in pain. ‘Get after her.' He thrust his revolver into Lily's hand.

She hesitated.

‘Go on!'

Lily scrambled to her feet and was in time to see the woman vanish through a doorway at the far end of the lobby beyond the lift and the stairs. Reassured by the mass of blue-uniformed bodies pouring into the lobby now – they would see to Joe – she set off in pursuit.

The door was open. Beyond it was a long corridor. There was no sign of Alma, but as Lily raced down the passage, figures appeared in front of her suddenly, men in shirtsleeves and young women who might have been secretaries. They had heard the shots and come out of their offices to see what was going on. Gun in hand, she forced her way through them and continued down the passage until she came to the back of the building, where she saw a door to the outside standing open. There was a glassed-in cubicle nearby. An elderly man was just emerging from it; he was limping.

‘Did you see a woman go out of here?' Panting, Lily paused for a moment. He was staring open-mouthed at the gun in her hand. ‘I'm with the police,' she told him.

‘Opened the door herself, she did . . .' He found his tongue. ‘Never seen her before in my life. Who . . . ?'

The rest of his question was lost as Lily sped through the open doorway and out into a small yard wreathed in fog. The only exit she could see was by an alleyway and she ran down it until she reached a cross-street, a narrow lane, where she paused
to look both ways and caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure running away to her left. In the next moment it had vanished, swallowed up by the enveloping fog. Pocketing her revolver, she drew out her police whistle and blew a loud blast. Then she set off in pursuit.

The lane sloped downhill towards the river and Lily quickly abandoned the narrow pavement for the road. Here, near the river, the fog was rolling up off the water in dense billows and even the headlights of a car, which she saw ahead of her then and just managed to avoid, were only visible from a few feet off. She had lost sight of her quarry after that first glimpse, but there were no side streets Alma could have turned into, and if she had taken refuge in one of the boarded-up bomb sites Lily had spotted during her rapid passage, then she would be found when the area was searched, as it surely would be very soon.

Even as the thought entered her head she heard the clanging of a police car bell behind her and swerved off the road to avoid it. The car sped past. She was still running flat out, and when she came to the bottom of the lane she saw the car standing empty with one of the doors open. It had stopped at the very edge of the dockland area, now mostly a wasteland, at the mouth of an alley flanked by bomb-damaged warehouses. Gasping for breath, she blew her whistle again and heard an answering blast from somewhere down the fog-wreathed alley. She started down it, not running now, but picking her way carefully through the rubble strewn on the greasy cobblestones.

‘Hello, Detective.'

A blue-uniformed figure had materialized out of the murk in front of her. He was wearing a cap rather than a helmet, and Lily recognized the Flying Squad sergeant to whom Joe Grace had spoken earlier: Brady was his name.

‘You'll want to know how your sergeant is. He's on his way to hospital. He'll be all right. It was only a flesh wound.'

Another shape emerged from the fog behind him.

‘This is Higgs.' Brady nodded at him. ‘We saw you take off after Ballard and realized she might have come this way. We thought we saw someone running down this alley, but we couldn't be sure in the fog. By the way, she got Blount. Did you know?'

Lily shook her head.

‘She shot him, like the others. It must have happened while we were out there in the street.' He wiped his face with a handkerchief. ‘Will you look at that?' He held up the piece of dirtied cloth in his hand. ‘God only knows what's in this fog.'

Lily tried to pierce the gloom behind him.

‘Where does this alley go?' she asked.

‘To the river. There's a wrought-iron gate at the end of it, locked; probably to keep the public out. She couldn't have gone that way.'

‘What about these warehouses?' Lily gestured at the wrecked buildings on either side of them. ‘Could she have slipped into one of them?'

‘We saw a doorway as we came down.' Brady pointed back up the alley. ‘We were just going back to have a look inside.'

While they were retracing their steps a police whistle sounded from the top of the alley. Brady turned to his colleague.

‘Sounds like the cavalry's arrived. Hop along up there, Harry, and tell them this alley's no go, but we're checking the warehouse. Come back when you've delivered the message.'

They had reached the doorway. Lily stuck her head inside. It was just a shell now, she saw. Most of the roof had been destroyed and, although normally that would let in a flood of light, the blanketing fog above had created a twilight effect that reduced vision and blurred the outlines of the twisted metal and broken masonry scattered about the floor.

‘What I wouldn't give for a couple of old-fashioned flares,' Brady muttered. He pushed past her into the building. ‘I can't see any other doors,' he added. ‘This looks like the only way out.'

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Lily had gone down on one knee.

‘What is it?'

‘I'm not sure,' she said. ‘Have you got a match?'

He produced a box from his pocket and handed it to her. She struck a light and bent lower, touching the dusty floor with her fingertip and then holding it up with the burning match beside it.

‘Look . . . blood.'

Brady whistled.

‘Your sergeant must have winged her.' He looked about him. ‘We're going to have to search this place.' He had dropped his voice, as though afraid his words might carry. ‘But we'll have to get some men down here first. I'll send Higgs as soon as he gets back . . . What?'

He saw the questioning look on her face.

‘You don't agree?'

Lily shook her head. ‘I don't think she's hiding in here.'

‘Why not?' He scowled.

‘Because . . . because she's not that kind of person.' Lily struggled to explain. ‘She had a plan coming here, she
must
have done. It hasn't come out yet, but she was one of our agents during the war. In France. She won a medal. The King wrote her a letter. She was a heroine.'

Lily couldn't believe she was saying these things about Alma Ballard.

‘The Jerries tried hard to catch her, but they never could. She was too clever for them. And she had nerve, too – all the nerve in the world.'

‘I see what you're saying.' He looked at her. ‘But what's your point?'

‘I don't believe she's lying curled up in here waiting to be caught. It's not in her to do that. She was always going to kill
Blount and she had plenty of time to scout the area while she was waiting for him to come back from America. She must have had an escape route planned. I think this is it.'

‘So where is she now?'

‘She was heading for the river. That means there has to be a way out of here onto the wharf – somewhere over there.'

Lily pointed to the end of the warehouse. Brady's frown had faded. He was grinning at her now.

‘Then what are we waiting for, Detective?'

He set off across the warehouse. Lily followed.

Picking their way through the rubble, they came to a part of the floor that was less cluttered and covered with a thick carpeting of dust. It was Brady who spotted the footprints.

‘There . . . going towards the corner.'

They followed the indentations, which were clearly marked in the dust covering the floor, and before they reached the end of them saw another bloodstain the size of a shilling beside the tracks. When they came to the corner they found a sheet of corrugated iron standing propped against the wall. Brady pulled it aside to reveal a flight of stone steps leading down. Lily bent to peer into the stairwell.

‘I can see a door.'

‘Just a moment.'

Brady looked back to see if Higgs had returned from his mission. The constable was just entering the warehouse through the doorway.

‘Run back,' Brady called out to him. ‘Tell whoever's in charge up there that she came this way. We think she's down on the wharf. Tell them to hurry.'

Too impatient to wait any longer, Lily was already descending the steps, which grew darker as she went down. Keeping her eye on the faint crack of light she had seen from above, she came to a door that was slightly ajar. When she pushed it open she
saw the stone paving of the dockside in front of her and beyond it, though only for a moment – dense fog blocked out the sight almost at once – the dark, flowing water of the river.

‘Here we are then.' Brady was at her shoulder. He spoke in a murmur. ‘You go downstream, Poole. I'll go the other way. If you spot her, blow your whistle. I'll do the same.'

They parted and almost at once Brady's footsteps faded as he moved away. Alone in a silence unbroken except for the dismal hooting of foghorns out on the water, Lily went cautiously forward trying to pierce the mist in front of her, but keeping a weather eye on the river to her right. She could see it, but only in glimpses, and each time it disappeared from sight she slowed her pace, keeping her eyes fixed to the ground so as not to wander off-course and tumble into it. She had been moving forward at this slow, steady pace for several minutes when she heard the sound of men's voices behind her and stopped. These must be the officers alerted by Higgs, she thought, and for a moment she hesitated, thinking it might be better to wait until some of them had caught up with her. At that moment the bank of fog in front of her parted and she saw Alma Ballard.

She was standing on a pier jutting out into the river less than a dozen yards away. She had her back to Lily.

‘Alma Ballard!' Lily dragged the revolver from her coat pocket. ‘Stay where you are. Don't move.'

The woman turned slowly to face her. Lily saw she had a rope in her hand.

‘Drop that!' Lily pointed the gun at her.

Alma stood motionless. For a long moment her gaze met Lily's. Then, as though indifferent to the order, she turned away, dropping to a crouch as she did so, and at the same instant the fog descended like a stage curtain and she vanished from sight.

Lily pulled the whistle from her pocket and blew a loud blast . . . then another.

‘
Here!
' she shouted. ‘
She's here!'

Still blinded by the fog, she ran along the wharf until she judged she had reached the jetty. Raised voices came from behind her, accompanied by the beat of hurrying feet. But they were drowned out by the sudden shock of a woman's scream.

It came from close at hand – from right in front of her now – and was followed by a loud splash.

Stumbling forward, Lily found the pier, but had hardly taken a step along it when she tripped over a lump of concrete and fell to her knees. Scrambling to her feet – and grabbing hold of the revolver, which had slipped from her grasp – she went on and saw a short flight of steps at the side of the pier. They went down to a landing stage. It was empty.

Another cry sounded – this time from further away downriver. A second later it was repeated. Then there was silence.

‘
Lily . . . Lily . . .'

The call came from behind her and, looking round, Lily caught a glimpse of Billy Styles's stocky figure. He was following in the wake of a pair of helmeted officers. He waved to her. She pointed downstream.

‘She's in the water,' she shouted to them. ‘She fell in. She's wounded.'

The two constables carried on down the wharf. Billy stopped at the jetty. Picking his way through the rubble, he joined her. Together they peered downstream, but there was nothing to see: only the fog that hung like a curtain before their eyes, motionless in the still air. Just then a foghorn sounded nearby on the river, then another and another . . .

‘Like a dirge for the dead.' Billy muttered the words to himself.

‘I had her in my sights.' Lily felt the weight of her failure. ‘She was just a few feet away.' She showed Billy the revolver. ‘I could have shot her.'

He studied her face. Then, after a moment, he put an arm around her shoulders.

‘Don't fret, Lil,' he said. ‘Maybe it's just as well.'

‘But you don't understand, guv.' She was despairing. ‘I couldn't do it. I couldn't pull the trigger.'

‘And if you had, what then?'

He looked into her eyes. Lily shook her head. She didn't know what he meant.

‘You'd have had to live with it.'

32

‘I
T
'
S FINISHED THEN? CASE
closed?'

Secateurs poised, Angus Sinclair reached forward into the flower bed. Their summer splendour only a memory now, his rose bushes were ready for pruning.

‘I would say so.'

Madden frowned. Aware of his former colleague's interest in the investigation – and grateful for the help and advice he had offered earlier – he had stopped off at the chief inspector's cottage on his way to the farm, to fill in the last pieces of the puzzle for him. And as though to mark the occasion the fog that had hung like a pall over much of the countryside as well as London had vanished, blown away overnight by a fresh westerly breeze. For the first time in days the sky above them was clear.

‘They haven't found the body yet, but that's not unusual. Sometimes bodies wash up on the bank when the tide's out; at other times they sink, and then surface again a few days later. But the river police have picked up her rowing boat. They found it some distance downstream – past Wapping in fact. It was empty . . . drifting.'

He paused, as though to capture the image in his mind.