Blame The Dead

Eleven

He sat on the foot of my bed – his spare bed, to be accurate -and said, 'Do you remember much of last night?'

'It hurt like hell, you butcher.'

'Aye.' He'd been twenty-five years south of Scotland but a flavour of the accent remained. 'You've told me yourself you'd been shot full of Pentathol. I couldn't risk giving you anything else while I dug out that needle. Did they teach you to break off needles in your own arm in Intelligence? '

'They suggested it. You didn't give me a whisky either, you old Scrooge.'

'Same reason,' he said calmly. He leaned forward and looked into my eyes professionally. 'Aye – you're clear by now.' He handed me a glass of brownish stuff. 'I don't doubt you breakfast off it usually, though it's lunchtime for the law-abiding classes.'

I sniffed the drink suspiciously, but it was real Scotch. 'Thanks, Alec. Cheers.'

I swallowed and nearly unswallowed immediately. It hurt.

He nodded. 'Yes, you've had a bump in the stomach; it'll hurt for a while and there's nothing I can do about it. And your neck, too.'

I sipped cautiously.

'And now,' he said, 'we'll talk about the police.'

'Did you report me? '

'No, not yet. There's no law against breaking off a needle in your own arm, though it's quite a trick. And there's nothing to stop a man falling against something and bruising his stomach. But it's the neck, man, the neck. Anybody who could put that much pressure on his own carotid with his own hands could likely bugger himself as well and we'd have fewer problems with roving queers.'

I grinned – and even that reminded me of the neck. 'Alec -I'd report it myself if it would do any good. But these lads were professionals; nobody would know where to start looking.' Then a thought struck me. 'The one using the needle – did he know his stuff?'

He considered. 'There's nothing to finding the vein in your arm – it sticks out at you. But knowing how to use Pentathol, drip-feeding it in and keeping you just on the edge of consciousness – well, maybe that took some training.' He stood up. 'If it was a doctor I'd want to see him struck off.'

'If he was a doctor I'll bet he has been.'

He nodded. 'Well, come back tomorrow and I'll change the dressing. It'll ache for a while, but you can buy yourself a fancy black silk sling and collect a lot of misplaced sympathy.'

He turned to go, then turned back and gave me the Scotch bottle. 'One more – just one, mind, and Laura'll bring you up some soup. I've got patients who don't even go looking for trouble.'

I walked around to my flat, feeling naked and vulnerable without a gun. Outside my own front door, I suddenly wished I'd had somebody walk with me: there was no reason why the Pentathol squad shouldn't be waiting inside for a second crack. The thumbscrews this time, maybe. – But they weren't.

They'd turn the place over again, of course. Hastily, but just efficiently enough to make sure I wasn't hiding anything of Bertie Bear size. And they'd left Bertie himself – the second copy – lying there only half hidden in a pile of books. Well, that settled that, anyway: nobody loved Bertie for himself alone, which was a relief.

I searched only well enough to make sure they hadn't left my Mauser HSC lying around, and they hadn't, of course. All this was getting a bit awkward: I was running out of small, easily concealed guns. All the stuff in my deposit box was long-barrelled target -22s or serious -38 revolvers and nine-millimetre automatics – including Mockby's Walther. I did a little telephoning around among friends more or less in the gun business, and by the time I was back home watching a frozen pizza defrost, I'd done a trade. If Mockby had ever thought he'd get his gun back again it was too late now.

What I'd got wasn't ideal, but it was a help: a four-inch-long Italian copy of the old Remington derringer, which itself had been a near-copy of the gamblers' sleeve gun designed by Derringer. This had two superposed barrels in -38 Special calibre, which gave it the punch of the normal American police revolver but was small and flat enough to hide on a spring clip up my left sleeve. The nameless friend threw in the clip holster as well; he should never have had the gun – even the Ministry won't licence that sort of weapon, let alone the cops – and I think he was getting tired of the risk. There was at least a chance of getting the Walther on his licence (you pretend a relative died and left it to you: they don't believe you, but it saves face all round).

When I'd finished the pizza I spent an hour watching TV and practising a fast draw whenever a bad guy appeared. In fact, you can't really be fast with a sleeve gun unless your hands are close together already, as when praying or shaking hands with yourself, both of which look a bit odd in a tense situation. But you're as fast sitting down as standing up, so it's a good gun to watch TV with, at any rate.

Twelve

Friday morning was misty, with a touch of frost underneath. I got up slowly, feeling stiff just about everywhere, started the electric percolator, then busted my last egg trying to boil it. The only letter was a formal invitation to the Kingscutt funeral – posted in Harrow. I still didn't like the idea, but I was still going to have to do it. I spent most of the morning typing up a report I was doing for a chemicals firm: 'Dear Sirs, I have examined your offices, laboratories, and manufacturing plant with regard to the security aspects, and must say that I am impressed by the measures you have taken to render them espionage-proof [Always flatter the bastards first; they'll tell others that you're a bright, observant type]. However, there are a few areas in which I feel security might be improved…' And you end up, 'I suggest you keep this letter in a safe place and do NOT have it copied since it would be a useful guide to any industrial spy trying to penetrate your organisation…' That always impresses them.

Actually, the worst danger they had was the managing director, the sort who wouldn't tell you his first name during the working day and boasts about his new inventions in the golf club. How the hell d'you putthat in a formal letter?

About the time I was wondering if I'd got a stamp, and if so, where, the phone rang. I skipped the Scots accent this time, but still I only said, 'Yes?'

'Major?' A familiar voice. 'Dave Tanner.'

A private detective I'd first met when he was a military-police officer. A tough one, though if you're breeding a tough army you're going to need tough military coppers, and if you're not breeding a tough army you may as well give up wars and where's the fun in that?

Anyway, Dave had got out earlier than me and gone further; he now ran quite a sizeable agency, and I'd worked for him for nearly the first year after I got out – though my guess was still that some of his boys specialised in the sort of thing I was busy guarding against.

I asked, 'What can I do for you? You've got a case that's baffling the keenest brains in your mighty organisation?'

He chuckled. 'Could be, could be. How're you keeping?'

'Don't you read the papers?'

'Thought you'd done a pretty good job of staying out of them. Feel like a pint of lunch?'

'Maybe. Where?'

'The Lamb in Lamb's Conduit Street? '

'Okay. What's it all about, Dave?'

'Half past twelve. I'll tell you then.'

So that was that. I decided to take the car – I probably wouldn't have too much trouble parking there, and I wanted to know how my left arm would stand up to it. So I stopped off at the Regent's Park Road post office to send my report, and then it seemed easier to keep on that road and cross Camden Town through Parkway.