Blood on the Line

‘He was not being asked to walk the beat with you, sir. He was being confronted by a known criminal with a readiness to kill. Why, in the name of all that’s holy, did you choose him?’

Tallis ran a hand through his hair and hunched his shoulders.

‘I hoped that he might be mistaken for you, Inspector.’

‘That was very unfair of you,’ said Leeming, hotly. ‘It was like painting a target on the constable’s back.’ He reined in his anger. ‘I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir, but, in the short time I knew him, I grew to admire Constable Peebles. I feel that you let him down.’

Tallis nodded soulfully. ‘I feel it myself, Leeming.’

Seething with fury, Colbeck took pains not to show it. He’d been shocked at the loss of their new recruit and blamed Tallis for the death. At the same time – and it was something he’d never expected to do – he felt sorry for the superintendent. Whatever reproaches Colbeck might make paled beside the torture to which Tallis was clearly subjecting himself. They were looking at a man in agony.

‘We’ve spoken to the cabman who drove them away from the scene,’ said Colbeck, ‘so we know what happened after the shooting. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell us what happened before.’

There was a long silence and Colbeck wondered if Tallis had even heard him. Eventually, however, the superintendent roused himself and sat upright like a man facing his accusers in the dock.

‘This is what occurred,’ he began.

Slowly and with great precision, Tallis reconstructed the events. He offered no defence for his actions and sought no sympathy. It was a clear, unvarnished and completely honest account. When he spoke of Peebles, he did so with the kind of affection they’d never seen him exhibit before. He explained how he’d felt it was his bounden duty to break the bad news in a letter to the parents who lived in Edinburgh. But the real trial for him had been to inform and commiserate with the young woman to whom Peebles was engaged. It had been one of the most painful and difficult things he’d ever had to do, and it had obviously left him jangled.

‘There you have it, gentlemen,’ he said, extending his arms. ‘I sit before you as a man who made an almighty blunder and who must suffer the consequences. In the short term, Inspector Colbeck will take full control of this investigation.’

‘What about you, sir?’ said Leeming.

‘I will do the only thing I can do as a man of honour, Sergeant, and that is to tender my resignation. I wish it to take immediate effect.’

They knew. The second they entered the house, Oxley and Irene realised that their hosts had read about them in the newspaper. The Youngers knew that they’d been offering hospitality to killers steeped in the blood of two Wolverhampton policemen. Gordon and Susanna looked at them through different eyes now. While Irene quailed, Oxley flashed a smile at them.

‘First of all,’ he said, smoothly, ‘let me apologise for our sudden departure this morning. Irene and I felt that we were imposing on you too much, so we decided to stay out of your way for a while. It was a decision we made on the spur of the moment, so it may have looked like appalling rudeness to you. We’re very sorry, aren’t we, Irene?’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said, ‘we are.’

‘That’s no longer the point at issue,’ said Younger, bristling with ire. ‘Since you took my newspaper with you, I borrowed one from a neighbour. I was horrified by what I read.’

‘Calm down, Gordon,’ warned his wife, seeing that he was about to lose his temper. ‘We don’t want this to get out of hand.’

‘Be quiet, Susanna.’

‘But I thought that we agreed to—’

‘You heard what I said.’

The unaccustomed sharpness in his voice upset her. He’d always treated her with courtesy before. Accepting that her husband would pay no heed to her comments, she fell silent and took a few steps back. Younger stared at Oxley, then at Irene. When his eyes moved back to Oxley, they glinted with a mixture of hostility and contempt. Irene felt profoundly uncomfortable but Oxley was at ease. He ventured a smile of appeasement.

‘I thought that we were friends,’ he began.

‘There are limits to even the closest friendship,’ said Younger.

‘Would you rather that we’d told you?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t come anywhere near us, Jerry.’

‘You should have felt honoured that I’d chosen you,’ said Oxley. ‘At a moment of extreme danger, a man turns to the people he can rely on most and that’s why I came to you.’

‘You came under false pretences.’

‘That’s no more than you and Susanna did,’ riposted the other. ‘Your neighbours don’t even know your real names, let alone what you did when you were a respected member of the medical profession in Bradford.’

‘I knew that you’d throw that in our faces.’

‘We’re brothers in arms, Gordon.’

‘That’s not true!’ cried Younger. ‘We’re not murderers!’

‘There’s no need to shout,’ said Susanna in alarm. ‘Look, why don’t we all sit down instead of standing here like this?’

‘What a good idea,’ agreed Oxley, lowering himself onto a sofa and patting the place beside him. ‘Come on, Irene,’ he urged. ‘Make yourself at home.’

She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure that we should stay, Jerry.’

‘They can hardly throw us out.’

The challenge was all the more effective for being made so casually. Younger knew that he was no match for Oxley. He had neither the strength nor means to eject him from the property. As a last resort, he tried to summon up moral authority.

‘Susanna and I would like you to leave at once,’ he said.

‘That’s not what we agreed,’ corrected his wife. ‘We said that they could stay another night.’ She was hurt by the fierce look that her husband shot her. ‘That was what we agreed, Gordon. We discussed it.’

‘But you didn’t discuss it with us, did you?’ said Oxley.

‘This is our home,’ declared Younger.

‘It was bought in names that you invented for the purpose.’

‘That was an unfortunate necessity.’ He walked across to stand over Oxley. ‘Please get out of here now.’

It was more of a request than a command and his voice cracked when he spoke. Susanna was apprehensive and Irene was unsettled but Oxley merely adjusted his position on the sofa. He flashed another smile. ‘Why don’t we talk about this in the morning?’

‘Yes,’ said Susanna, relaxing, ‘why don’t we?’

‘It’s because it’s too dangerous,’ argued Younger, abandoning assertiveness and falling back on reason. ‘Listen, Jerry, what you and Irene have done is, strictly speaking, none of our business.’

‘I’m glad that you realise that,’ said Oxley.

‘But we have to think of our own position. As long as you’re here, then we are imperilled. The manhunt is being led by detectives at Scotland Yard. What happens if they trace you here?’

‘How could they possibly do that?’

‘Some of our neighbours read the newspapers, you know.’

‘Have any of them been banging on your door?’

‘Well, no … they haven’t.’

‘Have any of them accosted you in the road and demanded to know why you’re hiding two desperate fugitives? No, of course they haven’t,’ said Oxley. ‘It would never occur to any of them to do so because they couldn’t conceive of the idea that such pillars of the community as Gordon and Susanna Younger would entertain vile criminals. Nobody who spots us here will take any notice. We’re your guests – that absolves us of any suspicion.’