before. At once he realised that it was a physical sign of how wrong he had been.
Fragments of conversation came back to mind. Put together, they pointed away from Gallimore’s guilt and towards a different culprit. Liz herself had told him all he should have needed to understand; on the night he had found her in his flat in the Empire Dock. And this very day a chance remark from Brenda Rixton should have helped him to work out what had really happened.
With infinite care, as Gallimore watched in bafflement and held his breath, Harry laid the Mauser down upon the desk. Now, at last, he knew the truth.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At the other end of a crackling telephone line, Quentin Pike was saying, “You realise I shouldn’t be telling you this?”
“Sure,” said Harry. His thoughts were racing and the offhand way in which he spoke failed to convey his gratitude to the man who had helped to fill in most of the gaps in his knowledge. With little more than a mild grumble, Pike had answered questions which Harry had not dared to put to Tony Gallimore.
Time was short, Harry was certain of that. The murder of Froggy Evison had been a panic move. Before long, the police would be on the trail. Yet Harry still had the desperate urge to be there before them. He didn’t know why confronting the murderer was so important to him. Did the primitive thirst for vengeance still rule him or was there buried within his heart and mind some subtler need, the nature of which he could not understand?
“Where is this place, Quentin?”
“Woolton. It’s called Paradise Found, would you believe?” Pike clucked his tongue in deprecation of the nouveau riche and their lack of taste, then explained how to get there.
It was eight o’clock. Miracle of miracles, Harry had found a public phone box in working order in the city centre within five minutes of leaving Gallimore at the Ferry. The club manager — he was not after all, Pike confirmed, legally its owner — had appeared bemused by Harry’s sudden change of manner and mood. Without waiting for a reply to his accusation of murder, Harry had asked another question to which Gallimore said at once: “Yes, of course, didn’t you know? But what has that got to do with — what you were talking about?” Harry hadn’t trusted himself to answer; instead he stuffed the Mauser into its protective chamois and cursed his own stupidity.
“I don’t suppose,” said Quentin Pike sadly, “that you are going to tell me what this is all about? But answer this — am I going to lose a client?”
“Don’t worry,” said Harry soberly, “clearing this mess up will probably keep you in business till retirement. Thanks anyway.”
He hung up and strode to the M.G. Despite the purpose-fulness with which he moved, he had no clear idea of what he should or would do. All he knew was that there was no possibility this time that he might be mistaken. He understood why Liz had had to die. Strangely, he had felt a sudden spurt of pity on realising what had happened, but he had striven to banish any emotion which might cause him to waver at this late hour. One day, perhaps, he would feel differently, but tonight was not the time to sympathise with murder.
As he drove, an unbidden image of Liz leapt to the forefront of his mind. He remembered her in the flat at Empire Dock, saying: “I won’t give you any hassle. I’ll be out of your hair soon, I promise.” Harry pressed down on the accelerator. Would he ever be free of her, ever be able to start again? Or would she continue to haunt him — would he be unable to recall the provocative twist of her lips as she smiled without this wrenching, futile sense of having abandoned her to death?
Headlights flashed at him in furious remonstrance as he overtook a slow-moving van on a bend, and a warning blast on the horn of a passing Sierra reminded him to concentrate oh the road. Rain was beginning to fall and his wipers scratched the windscreen noisily, blurring everything in sight. As urban sprawl gave way to suburban dwellings of increasing opulence, he eased his speed and peered around in search of the avenue that, according to Quentin, led to his destination in Freshfield Close. Eventually he spotted it and, braking sharply, he took two sharp turns, bringing him into the boulevard where he meant to confront the creator of his past week’s agonies.
Tall conifers obscured the house, but looking down the drive, Harry saw a lamp burning above the porch and another light behind a curtained first floor window. Outside a front gate which bore a slate sign inscribed paradise found, someone was parking a Citroen hatchback. Harry slowed, straining through the darkness to identify the figure clambering out from the driver’s seat and slamming the car door. The figure moved beneath a street lamp: a man, black-haired and strongly built, wearing a navy’s jacket and jeans.
Harry pulled up behind the Citroen. The man had been about to walk up the drive of the house; now he looked back over his shoulder. Harry opened the door of the M.G. and the man spun round. Harry took a couple of paces forward. The rear quarterlight of the Citroen was shattered and he caught sight of a dark shape on the back seat of the car. Easy to guess it was a shotgun from which the barrels had been sawn off and that the car had been stolen by the man at the house gates. From fifteen yards away, Harry could feel the violence in the stranger: it sparked in the air like electricity.
“Rourke?”
In the clear evening air Harry’s voice sounded unnaturally loud. He was cold and tense and the Mauser was rubbing painfully against his chest.
“Who’s that?” The tone was threatening, but perhaps it carried a hint of fear as well. The two syllables were all Harry needed to confirm that this was the man who had attacked him outside the Empire Dock. And, for sure, stabbed Liz to death in Leeming Street.
Harry advanced. Twelve yards between them now. Ten. Eight. Rourke’s hand slipped inside his jacket, a reflex action. Harry wondered if the knife was there.
Five yards short of the man, Harry stopped, “I know you murdered my wife, Rourke. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Yeah?” Joe Rourke stared at him defiantly. “Now you’ve found me. So what?”
Harrv took a sten forward. He felt no uree to rave or rant. His own restraint surprised him; seemed strange and unnatural. He said, “How much were you paid, Rourke? How little was my wife’s life worth?”
A scornful laugh. “Five grand.” The dark head tilted back; in the glow from the street light Harry could see the faint outlines of the scar tissue which Jane Brogan’s attack had left under Rourke’s right eye. “Two and a half up front. The rest after. It’s all spent. Soon goes.” He might have been talking about money won on a bet.
“And Evison?”
“Not a penny.” Rourke spat on to the ground. “Had to clear him out, didn’t I? He said he’d seen me follow her down Leeming Street while he was on his way to work at the club.”
“And he put the squeeze on you?”
“Yeah, the silly fucker. All the same, it was worth something, killing him. I came here to collect.”
Harry had guessed as much. “And?”
“And you’re trying to fuck me about. I should’ve finished you off while I had the chance the other night. That fucking dog.” Another laugh. “No Alsatians here, though. You won’t be lucky twice.”
As he finished speaking, Rourke whipped his hand out of the inside pocket. Harry saw steel glinting through the stubby fingers. There was a dark smear on the blade. Harry almost gagged at the sight of it. The man had not even bothered to clean the weapon that had killed Liz. Rourke took a step forward. This was their second encounter on a dark night and Harry knew it would be their last.
The Mauser. He remembered it just in time and with a single instinctive movement ripped the gun from its hiding place beside his chest. In his grasp it felt smooth and solid, it gave him courage. He pointed it straight at Rourke’s marked face. For the first time, he looked directly into the murderer’s eyes. Something shone in them — was it fear?
Shoot him, said a voice inside his head. Shoot him while you have the chance. He would do the same to you. What mercy did he show to Liz or to the baby that she carried?
“Put the knife down,” he said. Inwardly, he cursed his own weakness, the tremor that he heard in his voice.
Rourke did not reply. He threw himself forward like an animal intent upon the kill, clutching the knife at waist
