Chapter Twenty-Two

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said Mercer.

“Waiting for you.”

“Why here, for God’s sake?”

“I went to the pub. Willoughby was propping up the public bar. He’d have seen me if I’d gone in.”

“Would that have mattered?”

“He’s been in such a foul temper about us. He’d have made a row.”

“He did,” said Mercer. “Look Venetia, you’ve got to get out and go and stay home. Right now.”

“That’s a nice way to talk. I should have thought the least you could do was drive me there.”

Mercer looked down at his watch. He said, “I haven’t got time. Don’t argue. Do what I say. Just this once.”

“I’m damned if I will. I’ve been waiting for an hour. My feet are blocks of ice. You can drive me home and keep your next girlfriend waiting for five minutes.”

“It isn’t a girl. It’s a job.”

“I should have thought it was the same thing with you.”

“Do you want me to throw you out?”

“If you touch me, I’m going to scream. And I warn you. I can scream. I’ve won prizes for it.”

“All right,” said Mercer, in tones of sudden cold anger. “You can come to the party. Only don’t sit in the back. Come in front with me.”

“Oh, yes,” said Venetia, “and when I get out, you’ll drive off and leave me.”

“Then climb over the bloody seat.”

As he spoke, Mercer was engaging gear. He nosed the car out into the High Street. Venetia settled in the seat beside him, and slid an arm through his.

“That’s better, Bill,” she said.

“There’s one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“When the party starts, you do exactly what I tell you. And keep on doing it.”

“Certainly, your majesty. Where are we going? And what sort of party is it?”

“It’s at my house. It’s a sort of house-warming. Fasten your seat belt.”

“It’s not worth it for such a short trip.”

Mercer brought the car to a halt, and said, in the same cold, serious voice, “You’re breaking the rules already. On this party you’re to do what I tell you, remember? If you don’t, I really am going to throw you out.”

Venetia looked at him. She was still angry, but a less comfortable feeling was beginning to take over. She said. “All right, Bill. If that’s one of the rules.” She fastened the seat belt. “Aren’t you going to use yours?”

“As it happens,” said Mercer, “in my case, mobility is more important than security.”

As he pulled away from the kerb he leaned across her, and pressed a switch on the dashboard. A blue light showed, and began to flicker, on-off-on-off in regular rhythm.

“What’s that?” she said.

Mercer said nothing. The glow from the dashboard light was playing tricks with his expression. There was nothing comfortable in it.

As they passed under the railway arch, Mercer flicked on his headlights, and flicked them off again quickly when he saw that there was no one there.

Cray Avenue was a cul-de-sac, with a short side road at its far end which ran back to the railway embankment and stopped there. As he turned into the Avenue, Mercer flicked on his lights again. There were three men waiting on the pavement in front of his house. No car visible. He guessed it was tucked away round the corner at the end.

He said to Venetia, “Hold tight. Here it comes,” swung the car across the road and up onto the pavement, stood on the brakes, and cut the engine. Then he opened the off-side door, squeezed through it, and slammed it shut. He was now standing in the sharp angle made by the car and the garden wall.

There was a moment of complete silence. Then the three men came across the road. The leader was a big man with a nose like the prow of a ship. His silvery-grey hair was smoothly brushed. Grizzled sideboards came down almost to the angle of his chin. There were tufts of hair on his high-coloured cheeks. The dignified, almost benevolent face sat oddly on an anthropoid body. The arms were unnaturally long, and the large hands hung almost level with his knees as he walked.

He said, “It looks as if these people have had a bit of trouble with their car. Better help them out, Sam.”

Mercer said nothing.

Sam said, “Perhaps he doesn’t want to be helped.” He was working his way round to the back of the car, where there was a narrow gap between it and the wall. The third man, who was smaller than the other two and had red hair and a face like a sick fox, moved to the left, but was blocked by the bonnet of the car.

The big man said, “Have him out, lads.”

Sam came in through the gap. Mercer, with one hand on the top of the low garden wall, kicked him hard on the knee. Venetia heard the knee-cap go with a crack. Pivoting on the wall, Mercer turned in time to meet sick fox who had hurled himself across the bonnet of the car. Mercer caught his hair with his left hand and hit him with his gloved right hand, holding him and pulling him onto the punches. Then he let him go and he tumbled back onto the roadway.

Mercer said, “Are you coming in yourself, Mo, or do you leave all the fighting to the boys?”

“I do what I have to,” said Mo Fenton. His churchwarden’s face was thoughtful. Sick fox had picked himself up. He said, “I could get into the garden behind him, Mo. We’d have the bastard fixed then.”

Mo whistled, and the black snout of a car showed round the far corner. The driver and another man jumped out and came running.

Mo said to the driver, “You help Sam back to the car. Take it easy. His knee’s busted. When you get him there, stay with him. Mick, you can lend a hand here.” He spoke in a level conversational tone.

“A pleasure,” said Mick. He looked like a big schoolboy, ready to go in to bat at a crisis in the innings. “How do we get the bugger out?”

“We don’t,” said Mo. “We invite him to step out.”

“Do you think he’ll oblige?”

“I think so,” said Mo. He opened the near-side door, and looked down at Venetia. She had managed to undo the seat belt, but seemed too paralysed to move further.

Mo dipped his hand into his top pocket, took out an old-fashioned cut-throat razor with a black handle, and flicked the blade open. He said to Mercer, “Either you come out, or I start cutting bits off your girlfriend and throw them over to you.”

“You’re dead wrong,” said Mercer. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a stupid little bint who insisted on coming for the ride. If she gets hurt, it’s her fault.”

“I don’t think you can mean that,” said Mo. He was holding the door open with his left hand and looking down curiously at the girl. Venetia was leaning forward as far away from him as she could. His right hand moved. She gave a little scream. The razor had travelled down the sleeve of her coat, slicing it through, barely touching the skin.

She threw herself sideways across the car, but her legs were blocked by the steering column and the gear lever. As the top part of her body shifted, the dashboard of the car came into sudden view.

Mo said, “The bastard. He’s got a flasher going. All out, quick!”

Mercer put his arm into the car and touched the horn. A lot of things started to happen at once.

The front door of the house behind him flung open and a man came pounding down the path. He was out through the gate in time to collar Mick round the waist and the two men rolled across the road, and carried on with their fight in the gutter on the far side.

There was a car coming fast down the main road, its lights full on, its police siren blaring. By this time the black car was moving. Mo Fenton and sick fox tumbled aboard.

The police car swung round the corner, its headlights picking out the scene in sharp black and white. Mick and his opponent had rolled out of the gutter and onto the pavement. Mick was underneath. The police car was blocking the middle of the road. The driver of the black car had only one chance, and he took it. He drove onto the pavement. Mick’s opponent saw it coming and rolled into the open gateway. Mick had no time to move. He gave one scream as the car went over him. The rear wheels bumped over the body, the driver threw the car to the left, missed the lamp-post by inches, made a racing turn at the corner, and was gone.

John Anderson, in the seat beside the driver of the police car was talking urgently into his wireless set.

“Where the hell’s the second car got to?” said Mercer.

“It’s behind us. I’ve sent it after them.”

As he spoke a police car went past the end of the road.

“He won’t catch them,” said Mercer. “That driver was Kowalski. He’s Grand Prix. If the two of you had got here together, ten seconds earlier, you could have blocked the entrance. That’s what I was holding them for.”

“I’m sorry,” said Anderson. “How are you, Milner?”

The newcomer had picked himself up out of the gateway. He said, “I’m all right, sir. Better than that poor bugger.”

He was looking down at what had once been a man. The car had gone over Mick’s head. Anderson turned back and started talking into his wireless set again. He seemed to be setting up road-blocks.

Mercer walked back to his own car. A tousle-haired figure in a raincoat was standing beside it. He recognised Father Walcot.

He said, “I got her arm tied up. It’s not a deep gash. Then she passed out.”

Mercer said, “Thank you, Father. As soon as they’ve cleared this shambles, I’ll drive her home.”

He sounded deadly tired.