The Bullet Trick

He took a step forward.

'That’s mine.'

'Really?' My voice was mild. 'I thought it belonged to Bill Noon.'

Montgomery shook his head wearily.

'They were old Noon’s not his son’s. He had his and I had mine, whoever went first was to see his copy destroyed.'

'An insurance policy?'

'Kind of.'

I’d guessed the ploy when I’d spoken with Drew Manson, but it was good to have it confirmed.

'So neither of you could get a sudden urge to confess or grass the other one up without sticking yourself in it. I suppose it was a good plan until one of you died suddenly and you got greedy and decided to blackmail young Bill.'

Montgomery laughed.

'Is that what he told you?' He looked at me incredulously. 'And you believed him?' He laughed again and shook his head. 'Why not, I suppose?' His voice became serious, like an instructor explaining a basic point to a particularly dull student. 'The night you nicked it I had just paid a lot of money for that picture.' He repeated the phrase, stressing the point. 'A lot of money. All I wanted was to go home and do to that photo what I’d done to my own one as soon as I’d heard Bill’s dad had snuffed it: burn it and get shot of the whole sorry business. Thirty years with that hanging over me, never a day, an hour even, when I didn’t think of it. But Bill wanted to torment me. If he’d stuck me in it I would have understood.

She was his mother after all. But he didn’t want that. He wanted to torture me. A big party, the whole squad, strippers and me sitting with evidence of the crime that ruined my life and could still send me down, burning a hole in my pocket. Then…’ Montgomery started to laugh at Bill’s audacity, 'then he stole it back.'

'And you killed him and his boyfriend.'

'No, things got out of hand. His boyfriend dived in. Bill and I would have worked it out somehow, but his little nancy had got hold of a gun from somewhere. He aimed it at me, Bill went to stop him and the thing went off. He saw what he’d done and turned it on himself. It was nothing to do with me. There was blood everywhere, a fucking forensic man’s wet dream.'

I was certain that I could hear the lie in his voice but asked, 'So why didn’t you call the police? An ambulance?'

Montgomery was indignant.

'Be reasonable, can you imagine? That would have gone down a storm wouldn’t it?

Anyway, there was no point. They were dead already. I just wanted to get what I’d come for then get out. I tore that office apart.' Montgomery shook his head as if he was still amazed.

'He got his revenge all right. It was only later, when I thought through the night, that it became obvious what had happened. Then I knew I had to find you.' He smiled softly. 'It took a while, but I got you in the end.'

'Do you think so?'

'Look,' the policeman’s voice was reasonable. 'It was a long time ago. I’m a different man from the one I was then. I’ve made a different life. You can understand that. Everyone makes mistakes.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wedge of notes. 'I can pay, name your price.'

'Absolution.'

'What?'

I pointed up towards the balcony where the pair of mannequins stood.

'Up there.'

Montgomery shook his head.

'You forget, Wilson, I’ve been dealing with villains for thirty-five years.'

A soft whisper came from above.

'James.'

Montgomery birled round. A third figure had joined the Victorian couple. It stood silhouetted against the shadows, and then stepped down to the edge of the balcony. She was ghost-pale, her eyes set like stabs of jet, lips so bloodless they were almost absent. Her ash-gold hair seemed faded to white and she wore a loose cotton dress that could have been a shroud.

Montgomery’s voice was hoarse with dread.

'Gloria?'

Sheila Montgomery raised her head and stared out at us like vengeance made flesh.

'How could I be Gloria? Gloria’s dead.'

The policeman gasped for air. For a second I thought he might collapse, but then slowly his breaths grew longer and he regained his voice.

'He’s a crook, Sheila.' Montgomery looked at me. 'He’s trying to set me up.'

'In that case he’s done a good job. I saw the photograph, Jim, the one you’re so eager to buy. It was taken years ago.' She gave a bitter laugh. 'Setting you up in his pram was he?'

'No… he …'

The policeman faltered.

'I just heard you admit to standing by while Billy died, tell me what else you’ve done or I’ll think the worst.'

'I never wanted you anywhere near any of this.'

Sheila’s voice was faint.

'Near what?'

'This.' Montgomery spread his hands vaguely. 'I swear… I never touched her.'

'But you knew her? You knew Gloria?'

There was silence as the policeman searched for an excuse and failed. I wondered if there was a release in surrendering to the truth, but if there was, no sign of it appeared on his face. Montgomery looked ten years older than the man I’d first seen in Bill’s club. He sighed and said, 'Yes, I knew her.'

Sheila gasped and I realised that until then, despite the photograph I’d shown her, she’d been unconvinced of her husband’s involvement. Montgomery took a step forward, looking up at the gallery like an aged ruined Romeo.

'I swear, as soon as I met you I knew the affair with Gloria had been nothing. She was nothing compared to you.'

Sheila shouted, 'You think I’m upset about that? You think I care about that? About the sex? You think I’m jealous of Gloria?' She gripped the balcony and fought for composure.

'What did you do, Jim?'

Montgomery talked on, as if he hadn’t heard her, or as if he’d been preparing his speech for a long time.

'We were young… Gloria was bored… she thought it was funny to seduce a policeman…

to have lovers on both sides of the law. I was naïve… unsophisticated… easily flattered.'

Sheila’s voice was shrill.

'You’re blaming her? A dead woman?'

Montgomery whispered.

'No… no… I …'

'Tell me Jim or so help me God I’ll throw myself off this balcony. Did you and Bill Noon kill my sister?'

'No!' James Montgomery looked away from his wife, out into the empty stalls. 'No, I never killed her. It was Bill. He knew she’d been mucking around and he lost his temper.

She fell down the stairs. Nobody meant it, it just happened. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he made me help him.' His voice was cracking now. 'He made me.'

'And young Bill?'

'I swear I had nothing to do with that.' He took another step forward. 'I never touched Gloria. All I did was help dispose of her body and I’ve been paying for it ever since.'

Heavy footsteps sounded across the stage. Montgomery looked at me, then towards the wings where the tall figure I’d been hoping to see all night was walking towards us.

'No, you haven’t.' Blunt was as scruffy as ever, but his voice was strong and sober.

'You’ve been avoiding it. But you’ll start paying pretty soon.'

Montgomery looked at Blunt blankly, then he saw the uniformed policemen behind him and realised what was happening. He edged backwards across the stage.

I said, 'There’s nowhere to go, Monty, you’ve got to face them.'

James Montgomery took a last step back. Sheila gasped and I reached out to grab him.

Our fingers touched and then he tumbled beyond my grasp. It was as fast and as sure as gravity. The feel of his hand was still upon mine even as I saw him twisting awkwardly and heard the sickening thump.

There was a clatter of police boots and a cackle of radios on the back stairs as the uniforms ran the slow route down. Blunt walked across the stage and looked into the audience pit.

'He’ll live.'

The sound of Sheila Montgomery’s sobbing drifted down from above. Blunt made his way wearily down into the stalls and started to recite the police litany.