Say Goodbye to the Boys (16 page)

‘Not Mr Ellyott,' I said, hoping it was true.

For the first time the twelve bore pointed away from me. He cradled the gun in the crook of his left arm. ‘You know who it was, Philip?'

‘Certainly. It was Mrs Edmunds who sent you that photo.'

It nearly knocked him over. ‘Never,' he snarled. ‘Never, never, never. Sent it for that big talker MT, you mean? Oh, never, never, never! It was Mr Ellyott who told you to say that!'

And the gun went off.

A twelve bore going off is best appreciated if it is fired inside a corrugated iron garage. I thought the roof had blown out. Pellets whined around me, rebounding off the ancient car. And in the middle of it all there was the terrible crackle of broken glass. The car's windscreen had blown out.

I had gone down on my knees, arms up to protect my face. When I looked up it was the deathly quiet after thunder. George Garston was standing over me, and he was blubbering, broken. ‘It was an accident, Philip. An accident, an accident.' He went blundering past me, making no effort to see if I was all right. And the sounds coming from him were of an animal in pain. He had a struggle with the door, then he charged out into the fog and the door slowly swung back into place.

The silence was deafening. I stood there and waited for the rush. Surely to God the entire neighbourhood must have heard the gun go off, but no one came running to the door, and inside the lift the rope hung stiff and still.

I had blood on my cheek, a trickle running down to the corner of my mouth. I wiped it away, more blood on my handkerchief than I had expected. I went over to the lift, broken glass grinding under my shoes. Only one way to go now, up a dark shaft to where there was a faint chink of light. I tried not to guess who would be up there. Not Ridetski, for sure. I climbed in. You sat with the rope running free between your legs. One way to go, and I admired myself for being so calm, blood on my face and all, until I began to pull on the rope. How easy it was, so little effort required to rise into the darkness, the wheels drumming above. Then everything closed in on me. How did you stop the bloody thing? But the time I drew level with the chink of light I was in a panic and pulling too fast. I yanked up on the rope and came to a lurching halt. And then I was scratching feverishly for the catch to the door, sweat breaking out on my forehead. My fingers found the catch. The door opened and I stumbled into the secret room. Two hurricane lamps on a table. Amos behind the table. A stranger in a white raincoat sitting at one end. Empty chairs in front of the table. Amos wore a hat with a wide brim. He had a black automatic in his hand, pointing at me. A night for cowboys, I thought. A night for a showdown.

 

XVI

 

 

 

 

‘Ah,' Amos said, ‘Philip Roberts. Come up to the light.' He placed the pistol carefully on some papers in front of him. ‘You are the first to accept Mr Ridetski's invitation.'

The stranger was a big man with awkward movements, broad in the shoulder but not perhaps as broad as the raincoat suggested. A fancy dresser, he had a long lean face with dark, swarthy skin. Cheapened by a two piece moustache which made him look like a city con man. He had a gold tooth, a gold ring on his left hand. ‘Pleased to meet you,' he said, smiling. ‘Got a bad leg – excuse me.' He sounded more cockney than Polish.

‘Mr Ridetski broke a leg some years ago,' Amos explained. ‘It was set very badly.' He pushed back his hat. ‘You have blood on your face. Did someone try to shoot you?' With a wave of his hand he indicated that I was to sit next to him, at the opposite end of the table from Ridetski. ‘I take it you haven't seen Mr Ridetski before?' I shook my head. ‘Philip,' he told the stranger, ‘distrusts me because he is in awe of my mental powers – is that not so, Philip?'

‘Just tell me what the hell you're doing up here.'

‘Philip found the war tolerable only if he stopped thinking.' He did his cackling laugh. ‘Where were you all day? Emlyn was asking for you. Have you seen him?' Again I shook my head. ‘There's blood on your face. We heard a noise which we took to be gunfire...'

‘Garston's cracked up,' I said. ‘He shot his car down there. You've overdone it. Scared the bugger off.'

The old man made irritable noises. ‘This is a grave matter,' he responded sharply. ‘We are here to conclude it. The end justifies the means.'

‘That's a load of fucking bullshit, Amos. You want to be the main man, don't you? Playing God. That's why you picked this place and got your lanterns out and delivered your invitations and made sure nobody can come up here except by that bloody lift. That's why you've had the police running around in circles.' My voice echoed back at me from the outer darkness, hollow and mocking.

It brought on a silence that lingered. The stranger shuffled his feet and made silent appeals to Amos and let me have the benefit of some heavy staring.

‘I see,' the old man said at last. ‘You disapprove of my methods, but you may yet find that I am not some avenging angel. May I ask you to describe your encounter with Mr Garston?' He smiled. ‘Please, Philip?'

I went through it with them, and Amos nodded and didn't make a single interruption. When I had finished he said, ‘The police have not found his son?'

‘I wouldn't know. He called at your lodgings, wanted to talk to you.'

‘That sounds promising. You got the impression that George Garston thought you were Ridetski?'

‘Yes.' I glanced at the stranger. ‘But you've scared him off.'

‘We shall see.' Amos picked up the pistol and held it out to me. ‘Philip, I would regard it a favour if you would have charge of this weapon.'

‘No chance,' I said.

‘Please?' I shook my head firmly and stuck my hands deep into my pockets. ‘But – it is possible that an attempt will be made on my life.'

‘Not before bloody time. There's nobody I want to shoot, you understand. Except you, maybe.'

Amos did his ticking noises then slipped the gun into his pocket. He appealed to the stranger. ‘You see what I have to put up with?' Ridetski nodded and looked hard at me across the table. And a silence fell over us. It was totally quiet except for old men's noises – groans and sighs and creaks – coming from Amos. In the distance I thought I could hear the sirens from the ships in the estuary. The stranger kept on turning the gold ring on his finger. It was twenty minutes past seven, assuming my watch was behaving itself.

Then we heard the lift go down. ‘Ah,' Amos said, ‘the invited.' We listened for it to rise again, and the wheels rolled and we looked towards the door. The lift halted. Fingers scratched on wood. The door opened. Emlyn's grinning face. ‘Second floor? Any more for the basement?'

 

He came into the light. He was wearing a pair of cord trousers, a white polo neck sweater under his RAF jacket which he had dyed black. ‘What's all this, are we going to have a séance, or something? Hullo, Philip. That old bugger's been dragging me round all day. Who's that?' He pointed at the stranger. ‘Is it the original Mr Ridetski in person?' He went over to the stranger and crouched and stared. ‘Where did you dig him up from, Amos?' he said as he straightened.

He came over to sit next to me. ‘Philip, I've been wallowing in bullshit all day. Smell me.' The old man cackled softly. ‘I had to have three baths when I got home.' He smiled broadly at each of us in turn. ‘Good evening,' he said. ‘Good evening. Good evening.' And very softly, out of the corner of his mouth, started to trumpet ‘Night and Day'.

‘Desist,' Amos hissed at him. ‘That damn noise – he's been making it all day.'

‘You should have asked Philip. Five o'clock this bloody morning, Philip! Can you imagine? Silly old bugger!' The lift began to move. ‘Ah! What light from yonder window breaks, I wonder?'

‘Please be quiet,' Amos said wearily, but Emlyn was sitting up straight and saying ‘Hark! Harken! Who can this be?' The lift had reached the bottom. The stranger fingering his moustache. The lift began to rise, and even Emlyn was quiet until the door opened.

‘Oh, my God,' he said, ‘father's been at the wine cellar again!'

Idwal Morton had a foolish, lopsided, brilliantly white grin on his face, but he looked better, his great forehead glistening, his eyes bright. He closed the door behind him. The lift began to move again. ‘MT's on his way,' he said. He waited there in the outer darkness. ‘MT,' he said again as the lift came up. When the door opened he nearly fell over as he bent to help MT Edmunds into the room. ‘Good old MT,' he kept saying, ‘steady as she goes.'

They came into the light, Idwal holding on to MT's arm and punching him gently. ‘Thank you for your message,' MT said. ‘What a terrible fog. The worst in living memory. Did you know there's a ship on fire in the estuary?'

‘Gentlemen,' Amos said, ‘may I introduce an old acquaintance of yours – Mr Andrei Ridetski.' The stranger looked uncertain, watching Amos as if he expected a signal.

MT looked at the Pole blankly. ‘A freighter on fire in the estuary,' he said. He was wearing a black bow tie. I could see his fists clenching. ‘There must have been a collision in the fog you see. Worst fog in living memory.'

But Idwal Morton went over to the man and resting both hands on the table looked down at him and said, ‘Will you look at the way this one's filled out, MT. By God, you bloody old crook, Andy!'

‘Please sit,' Amos ordered.

‘Certainly,' MT said. ‘Of course.' He kept his head rigid and stared straight ahead.

Idwal took the chair next to him after giving him a questioning glance. And now that they were in the light and seated they slumped suddenly, MT somehow punctured, Idwal ravaged, and both of them exhausted.

‘You old piss pot,' Emlyn said to Idwal. ‘You should be in your bed.'

‘I do not want any idiotic remarks from you two,' Amos said, a steely note in his voice. ‘I may lose the thread. I want no distraction.' He had a tattered bundle of notes in front of him. Most of them on the backs of envelopes. ‘May I say at the outset that I respect your decision to accept Mr Ridetski's invitations. There should be three of you, but perhaps the third may yet change his mind. Only truth is on trial here, our purpose to make an enquiry into it, nothing more. I am pleased that you were able to greet one another without bitterness, more especially since you two gentlemen had it in mind, some years ago, to kill Mr Ridetski.'

‘The photos were fakes,' Idwal said, his eyes shining.

‘But you did not know that then, Mr Morton. Unlike the third man.'

‘Comes up behind me, silent like a cat,' Ridetski said suddenly. ‘One push and I'm down that lift shaft with a busted leg.'

‘If you don't mind, Mr Ridetski,' Amos broke in.

‘All right, all right – but I crawl away. I get a lift on a convoy out of this damn town, thank God. Too damn dangerous.'

‘Mr Ridetski, please. I am very grateful to you for coming forward – but I must ask you to wait until I ask you to speak.' The Pole raised both hands, palms outwards, and nodded. ‘You did very well from your experiments in the dark room. A venture not without profit, although one gentleman soon refused to pay. What a greedy man you were, Ridetski. Three men...'

‘The war wasn't going to go on forever, Mr Ellyott. War is a greedy business.'

A silence followed the Pole's remark. Amos looked as if he had already lost the thread and was shuffling his papers. Six of us around a table, the oil lamps flickering. Idwal and MT stared fixedly ahead, the Pole with an injured look on his face, Emlyn working away at yet another trumpet break which I could not identify. A stranger coming upon us might well think that we were a secret society, or bank robbers met to divide the loot. I kept my mind on fancies in order to keep reality away.

‘To resume. Ridetski increased his demands. Two men decide on the short answer.' I could see sweat breaking out on Idwal's forehead. ‘Ridetski is summoned to a meeting here, in this room. Here among the bags of sugar, the tinned meats, the jars of coffee, spirits in bottles, tobacco and cigarettes by the box. The currency of war. The currency still in the piping days of peace. Ridetski arrives early, to hand over negatives he might claim now, though I would doubt it.' The Pole raised his shoulders in a non-committal shrug. ‘But let that pass. What matters here and now is that he was standing, crouched perhaps, over the door to that lift shaft, waiting and listening. And someone...'

‘Garston it had to be,' Ridetski broke in.

‘Someone.' Amos raised his voice. ‘Someone kneed you in the back and sent you down the lift shaft. By some miracle, Mr Ridetski's injuries were limited to a broken leg. But he was trapped there at the bottom of the shaft. And on the way were two men.' Ridetski nodded sombrely. ‘A predicament indeed. Was it fear that gave you the strength to drag yourself out to the inspection pit?'

MT stood and raised a hand.

‘Sit down sir,' Amos ordered. ‘There will be time for questions later.' MT nodded and resumed his seat. And I knew it all then.

‘When the two gentlemen arrived there was no one here. Mr Ridetski crawled away, secured a lift out of the town...'

MT was on his feet again, ‘With the court's permission I would like to point out...'

Once again Amos waved him down. ‘When I have done,' he went on. ‘Mr Ridetski left in chilling circumstances. He deserted. Began a new life, leaving behind him photographs and negatives, some of which poor Mrs Edmunds was to discover and remove when she paid a visit to a hairdresser's establishment on a fateful night.' Amos blew his nose into his handkerchief, a sound that made echoes in the room. ‘Mrs Ridetski had left in a hurry, her door ajar, to keep a most fearful appointment...'

Now MT was up again, standing to attention. This time the words would not come out, and all he could manage was to raise both arms to Amos, a gesture of surrender.

‘Tweedledum,' Emlyn said softly. ‘What about Tweedledee?' But Idwal made no move to stand. He was looking up in wonder at MT and with shaking hands tugged at his coat. MT came down heavily on his chair, his mouth moving, no sound coming out. And there was a silence that seemed to last forever.

Then Amos cleared his throat. ‘Not consistent with the facts, Mr Edmunds? No one left the town nursing a broken leg? No one pushed down a lift shaft on that night in October 1942?' MT staring ahead again. ‘My apologies for the charade. I was at a loss, I must confess. Someone concealed a body that night. Mr Garston, Philip tells me, expected to see Ridetski tonight. I accept that. You, Mr Morton, imagined a likeness in our friend here.' He looked at the stranger at the head of the table. ‘But you, Mr MT, knew quite well it could not possibly be Ridetksi, did you not?' MT rose once more, Idwal staring at him aghast. Amos motioned him down with a gentle wave of his hand. ‘You, Mr MT alone.' Why didn't you just ask the man, I wanted to say? Why did he have to piss about like this? But he wasn't done yet. He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. I hated him then. It was a brass button. It did a spin on the scarred table top. It came to rest.

The silence stretched on. The whole room surely could hear the hammering of my heart. Then the man who had played Ridetski said, ‘Where do we go from here, Mr Ellyott?' And at that moment the lift began to move and we sat in a burning silence waiting for it to rise.

It was David Garston who came out of the lift. David Garston, so pissed he fell out of the lift. ‘I've come to confess,' he said, ‘actually.'

 

David's legs were made of jelly. He took a couple of wobbly steps and decided that there wasn't much point in doing that. He had a smile on his face which did not belong there, and which he found an annoyance, and could do nothing about. He stared at us through a curtain of hair, blinked rapidly and tried again, fighting to keep us in focus. We were too much for him. His head sagged. His knees gave way. He crumpled slowly and came down heavily on his bum and found the wall against his back a comfort. His feet came up briefly, came down again with a thump. And he was gone. Out for the count.

‘Oh, very well done,' Emlyn remarked. He went over to him and examined him with interest. ‘What a lovely condition,' he said. ‘What with shortages I didn't think there was that much booze left in town. What, do you suppose he came to confess to?' He lit a cigarette and had a spell of coughing and stubbed it out angrily. David Garston began to snore.