I was staring down at her when the shadow of a man appeared on the opposite walclass="underline" the shadow of a man in a slouch hat, his arm raised and a blunt something in his fist. It all happened very quickly. I saw the shadow and heard the swish of the descending sap simultaneously and I ducked; but much, much too late. Then the top of my head seemed to fly off, and I felt myself falling.
Chapter Six
I
The sun crept around the edges of the blind and lay across the floor in two long, bright bands. In the hot, airless room there was a smell of whisky strong enough to get tight on, and it seemed to come from me: an overpowering smell as if I had fallen into a vat of the stuff and had taken a swim in it. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like myself. My head felt like hell. The bed on which I was lying was too soft and too hot. I kept thinking of a woman’s face framed in blood with a hole in her forehead through which you could stick your finger, and I didn’t like that either.
I looked at the two bright bands of sunlight on the floor. I wasn’t focusing well, but the carpet seemed familiar. There were holes in it burned by the cigarettes I had dropped on it. There was a ragged tear in it near the window where Benny’s spaniel pup had chewed it. It wasn’t much of a carpet, but it was a relief to see it, for it meant I was in my room and on my bed and the woman’s face framed in blood was probably a nightmare. Probably...
A man’s voice said, ‘He stinks like a distillery, and he’s as soused as a mackerel.’ A voice that sent a chill down my spine. Brandon’s voice. ‘Who’s the woman out there?’ the voice went on. ‘Ever seen her before?’
Mifflin said, ‘She’s a new one on me.’
I looked through my eyelashes. They were there all right. Brandon was sitting on a chair and Mifflin stood at the foot of the bed.
I kept still and sweated. The back of my head felt as if the bone had been removed. It felt pulpy and soft as if there was a hole there: a hole that let in the draught that suddenly played about my pillow.
Mifflin had opened a window by my bed. He had pulled the blind aside to get at the window and a lot of hot, bright sunshine fell on my face, sending shooting pains into my skull.
I thought of Anita Cerf lying out there on the casting couch and the bloodstained yellow cushion and the Colt automatic. A beautiful setup for Brandon to walk into. A red-handed, no alibi, God’s gift to a lazy cop setup. Even Brandon wouldn’t look far for the killer. I thought of the way he had looked at me when he was questioning me about Dana’s death.
But she had to pass your place to get to where she was killed, didn’t she? It seems funny to me she didn’t look in on you.
If a little thing like that seemed funny to him, imagine the bang he was getting out of a setup like this.
The same gun. Dana, Leadbetter and now Anita. All shot through the head. The same method; the same killer.
Motive? I didn’t kid myself that a little thing like a motive would stop Brandon. Ever since he had been in office the police administration had been sagging like a bed with worn-out springs. If he wanted to stop awkward questions, muzzle the Press, quiet the flutterings of the men who had put him in the job he had to solve these murders quick. He’d cook up some motive. He wouldn’t miss out on a chance like this.
‘Hey! Malloy! Wake up!’ Mifflin bawled. His heavy hand fell on my shoulder and shook me. Bright lights burst before my eyes, and the pain in my head went shooting down to my heels and back to my head like a runaway roller-coaster.
I threw off his hand and sat up, only to clap my hands to my head and bend over, groaning.
‘Snap out of it!’ Mifflin urged. ‘We want to talk to you. Hey! Malloy! Pull yourself together!’
‘What do you think I’m doing — a fan dance?’ I snarled, and swung my feet to the floor.
‘What have you been up to?’ Brandon demanded, leaning forward to peer at me. ‘What kind of drunk-up is this?’
I squeezed my aching head between fingertips and peered back at him. He looked fat, well fed and well shaven. His linen was immaculate; his shoes gleamed in the sunshine, and he looked every inch the corrupt policeman. In comparison I must have looked like hell. My fingers rasped my unshaven jaw, the awful stink of whisky fumes made me feel sick and my evening dress shirt stuck to my chest.
‘What do you want?’ I asked, as if I didn’t know. ‘Who let you in?’
‘Never mind who let us in,’ he barked and brandished his half-smoked cigar at me. It smelt as if he had picked it out of an ashcan on his way over. ‘What’s going on here? Who’s that woman out there?’
Not quite the right note, I thought, puzzled. Maybe these two birds were hard-boiled, but not so hard-boiled that they could be calm about a killing like the killing in the other room. And they were calm: disapproving, censorious and smug, like neither of them had ever touched a drop in their lives, but calm.
‘Is there a woman out there?’ I asked.
Not very bright, but the best I could manage under the circumstances. At least it was non-committal.
‘What’s the matter with this guy?’ Brandon demanded, and looked over at Mifflin.
‘He’s drunk,’ Mifflin said stolidly. ‘There’s nothing else the matter with him.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Brandon said. ‘Get that woman in here.’
It came out of me before I could stop it.
‘No! I don’t want to see her! I don’t...’
The kind of voice you hear gangsters use on the movies when they’ve been cornered and are about to get the works. I snapped it off short, but it must have been pretty good because it brought Brandon to his feet and turned Mifflin as still as the Graven Image.
Then a voice said from the doorway. ‘What are you doing with him? Can’t you see he has the shakes?’
And there was Miss Bolus in a fawn linen frock, her red hair caught up with a green ribbon, and her chink eyes moving from Brandon to Mifflin and to me and back again.
‘I told you not to barge in on him,’ she went on, leaning her hips against the door frame, one hand touching her hair, pushing it into place. ‘Why can’t you leave him alone?’ She turned her head slightly to look at me. ‘Would you like a drink, honey? Or has the dog bitten you too hard?’
‘He doesn’t want a drink,’ Brandon said. ‘What did he mean, saying he didn’t want to see you? What goes on around here?’
I thought maybe my mind had given way. Right behind Miss Bolus, in the other room, was the casting couch. From where she stood, if she looked over her shoulder, she could see it. She must have seen what was on it as she came to my bedroom door. Brandon must have seen it. Mifflin must have seen it. And yet here they were as calm as three oysters on the ocean bed, making no attempt to put on the hand-cuffs, telling me I was drunk, and even offering me more drink.
Brandon was saying something as I pushed myself off the bed. But I didn’t listen. I had to see what was going on in the other room. I hoisted myself to my feet. I felt like a diver trying to walk on the floor of the sea without the sea being there.
Brandon suddenly stopped talking. None of them moved. Maybe they sensed something of what was going on in my mind. Maybe they didn’t like the way I looked. If I looked anything like the way I felt I must have been something to see. They watched me crawl across the room. Captain Webb on the last lap of his Channel swim had nothing on me; but I got to the door.
Miss Bolus put her hand on my arm. Her fingers dug into my muscles, but I wasn’t in the mood for warnings and I shoved her aside. All I wanted to do was to look into the other room; to look at Anita Cerf lying on my casting couch with her face framed in blood and a hole in her head big enough for me to poke my finger in.