1958 - Not Safe to be Free (20 page)

She walked heavily down the passage to the broom cupboard.

There she paused to listen and to look up and down the passage.

From a door close by she heard a girl protesting shrilly and a man cursing her. Shrugging, she opened the cupboard door and stepped inside.

Moving like a ghost, Jay stole out of his room and down the passage. He had taken off his shoes and he made no sound as he reached the cupboard door. It was shut now and he put his ear against the panel and listened. He heard a sharp clicking sound of a released spring, then a sliding noise. He waited, his heart beating fast, his ears straining.

“Anything I can get you, Joe?” he heard the woman ask.

“Do you want something to eat?”

Jay’s lips moved into his meaningless smile.

So Kerr was in there!

He moved away from the door and walked silently back to his room, pushing the door nearly shut. Then, leaning against the wall, he waited.

Joe Kerr moved uneasily as he frowned up at Madame Brossette.

“I’m all right,” he mumbled. “What’s the idea? You woke me up.”

“I thought I’d see how you were getting on.” She patted his arm. “Are you hungry?”

“No. I’m all right.” He closed his eyes. She could see he was very drunk. “Just leave me alone, will you?”

“I’ll be up again,” she said and she remained at his side until he began to snore, then leaving him, she walked down the passage, down the stairs and back into the lobby.

“All right,” she said to her daughter. “You get off now. Don’t be back too late.”

Maria slid off the chair behind the reception desk.

“I won’t be back until two,” she said sulkily, “so don’t expect me before then.”

Madame Brossette grunted. She was long past worrying about her daughter. In another year the girl would be walking the back streets of Cannes and would be hiring a room at the hotel. Madame Brossette believed in sacrificing sentiment for profit. What had been good enough for her when she had been young should surely be good enough for her daughter.

She watched Maria leave the hotel, then, lighting a cigarette, she settled down on the chair her daughter had vacated and with a bored grimace, picked up her magazine and began to leaf through its pages.

Jay moved silently to the head of the stairs and looked down at her; then, satisfied she would be occupied for a while, he moved on bare feet down the corridor to the broom cupboard.

He paused to listen outside the door, then he put his hand on the door handle and turned it gently. He eased open the door a few inches and was surprised to find himself looking into total darkness. He listened and, hearing nothing, he moved into the cupboard, closing the door behind him. For some moments he remained motionless, his breathing coming hard and fast while he tried to pick up any sound that would tell him he was in the room in which Kerr was sleeping.

Finally, hearing nothing, he took out his cigarette lighter and flicked the flame alight. Then he saw where he was—in a broom cupboard and seeing an electric light switch, he put on the light.

Madame Brossette’s conversation with Joe which he had overheard told him there must be a false wall in the cupboard and it didn’t take him more than a few minutes to discover the spring release that operated the false door.

He stood looking into a small room, not more than ten feet square. There was a bed, and, on the bed, lay Joe Kerr, his breathing heavy and punctuated with slow, strangled snores.

Jay moved back to the cupboard door and slid the bolt that was on the inside of the door, then he moved silently into the inner room until he reached the bed.

He stood looking down at Joe as he slept, the light from the outer room giving enough illumination for Jay to see the raddled, tired face in some detail.

He pulled the razor from his wristwatch strap, then he sat on the bed and reaching out, gently shook Joe’s shoulder.

Joe was dreaming of his wife and for a change, the dream wasn’t a nightmare. He was seeing her, in slacks and a flowered patterned shirt, weeding the flagged path that led up to the cottage Joe had rented for their honeymoon and Joe smiled as he watched her in his dream.

Then he became aware of a hand on his shoulder gently shaking him and the dream was spoilt, stopping abruptly the way the picture on a movie screen stops when the film snaps.

Jeanne again! he thought angrily. Why can’t she leave a guy alone? He hunched his shoulders, mumbling a protest, then he tried to free himself from the persistently shaking hand.

Fingers gripped his coat more firmly and into his dream-dazed mind came a sudden sense of danger and a warning that these weren’t Jeanne’s thick, heavy fingers that had so often shaken him awake. Slowly he turned his head and opened his eyes.

He looked up at Jay, who sat motionless at his side, his left hand resting on Joe’s shoulder.

Joe couldn’t believe what he was seeing, then, with a gasp of fright, he started to sit up, but the fingers on his shoulder suddenly turned into steel claws and dug into his flesh, making him gasp with pain and fear and forcing him flat again.

He lay motionless, his heart thumping, sweat on his face, as he looked at the compact motionless figure who was sitting beside him and for the first time in his life, Joe experienced real fear: fear that turned him cold, that dried his mouth, that paralysed him.

The pale expressionless face with its dark glasses, the lips curved in a meaningless smile, struck a sick terror into him like a knife thrust.

“It’s Mr. Kerr, isn’t it?” Jay said, leaning forward slightly so Joe could see his own reflection in the two dark screens of the boy’s glasses.

“How did you get in here?” Joe croaked. “You—you’ve no business in here.”

The thin, pale lips moved into a smile that accelerated Joe’s heartbeat.

“Oh, but I have. I’ve come for the photographs and the negatives. Where are they?”

Joe tried to pull himself together. Again he attempted to sit up, but again the steel fingers bit into his flesh. He was horrified to realize this slight boy was so strong.

“Where are they, Mr. Kerr?” Jay repeated. “I want them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe mumbled, shrinking back on his pillow. “You get out of here.”

Jay withdrew his hand from Joe’s shoulder. His very stillness made him seem more menacing to Joe.

“The photographs and the negatives, please,” he said softly. “I haven’t much time.”

There was a threat in his voice that made Joe touch his dry lips with the tip of his tongue.

“I haven’t got them. She’s got them. You ask her for them.”

Jay said gently: “I could persuade you, Mr. Kerr.”

He lifted his right hand so Joe could see it. The razor lay in his open palm and Joe suddenly felt very sick. He watched the boy open the blade that glittered in the electric light.

“The photographs, please,” Jay said. He lifted the razor. “Unless you give them to me . . .” He paused and his pale lips moved into a smile that chilled Joe’s blood. “I wouldn’t wish to hurt you, Mr. Kerr.”

The flashing strip of sharp steel filled Joe with horror. What was left of his drink-sodden courage disintegrated.

“Don’t touch me!” he said, his voice quavering. “You can have them! I’ve got them here. . . .”

He pulled out his wallet and spilled its contents out on to the bed. Among the few crumpled thousand franc notes, his press card and a faded snapshot of his wife was a soiled envelope.

Jay picked up the envelope, got to his feet and moved away from the bed. He put the razor on the table, then he opened the envelope and took out three negatives and a number of prints. He checked them, then laid them in the ashtray on the table.

“Are there any more, Mr. Kerr?”

Joe shook his head.

Jay stared at him and he felt certain the man was so frightened he was telling the truth.

“She hasn’t any either?”

Again Joe shook his head.

Taking out his cigarette lighter, Jay applied the flame to one of the photographs. He stood over the little burning pile until there was nothing left but black ash which he scattered over the carpet.

“So now, Mr. Kerr, it is your word against mine,” he said. “I wouldn’t advise you to talk to the police. My father has a lot of influence. Besides, the police would want to know why you hadn’t told them before. Attempted blackmail carries quite a stiff prison sentence. From what I hear a French prison isn’t very comfortable.”

Joe felt if he didn’t have a drink, he would faint and with a hand that shook violently, he grabbed up the bottle of whisky and poured whisky into the glass by his bedside. He half-filled the glass with whisky before Jay moved up to him and took the bottle out of his hand.

The touch of Jay’s cold fingers against his feverish skin made Joe start back. Then, as Jay moved away and set the bottle on the table, Joe picked up the glass and drank greedily. The effect of the whisky on him was immediate. He felt as if he had been hit on the back of his head and he realized the mistake he had made in drinking the whisky so quickly.

He felt the glass slide out of his hand and he heard it, as from a long way off, thud on to the carpet. His brain now seemed to be wrapped in a hotbed of cotton wool. He lay back, feebly blowing out his raddled cheeks, feeling the violent acceleration of his heartbeats.

He was aware that Jay was standing over him and the dark glasses, reflecting the light, frightened Joe. Then suddenly he saw his wife standing behind Jay and smiling at him. She was wearing the white brocaded dress in which she had died and he felt vaguely surprised that there was no blood on the dress.

She was beckoning to him and he tried to lift his head to see her more clearly, but the effort was too much for him. Then he became aware that the boy was doing something and his dazed eyes shifted from his wife to the boy’s hands.

The boy was holding a scarlet cord between his fingers and the cord formed into a loop.

Joe thought this was odd and he made a desperate effort to try to understand what was happening, but the whisky fumes now had taken control of him.

He felt himself grinning stupidly as the boy moved slowly and silently up to him, the scarlet loop held in front of him.

Joe looked from the boy to his wife and he saw a big patch of blood was now forming on the front of her dress. He started up, not feeling the loop of silk as it dropped around his neck, staring with drunken horror at the steadily increasing circle of red on the white dress.

It wasn’t until the scarlet cord bit savagely into his raddled, ageing throat that it flashed through his mind that he was being murdered.

III

I
t was a little after a quarter past eleven when Madame Brossette, bending over her magazine, suddenly lifted her head to listen.

Somewhere upstairs she could hear a tap running and she frowned. The only person she allowed to use the bathroom was Joe. Surely he hadn’t gone in there when she had told him to remain in the hideout? Maybe it was one of those wretched girls, although what they would want in the bathroom puzzled her.

Again she listened and her frown turned into an angry scowl as the sound of running water continued. If there was one thing Madame Brossette hated more than anything else it was waste.

Grunting with annoyance, she pushed back her chair and got up. She walked to the foot of the stairs and stared up them, listening.

Water was gushing out of the taps, she decided. Someone had been in the bathroom and not only had left the taps open but had also left the bathroom door open.

“Turn that water off!” she bawled but without much hope that anyone up there would take any notice. The thought of climbing the long, steep flight of stairs in the night heat irritated her, but after waiting a few more seconds, she caught hold of the banister rail and started the long plod up.

Jay watched her come through the crack between the door and the door post. He had turned on the taps and had left the bathroom door open in the hope the sound of the running water would bring the woman up the stairs.

He was very tense. He could feel a muscle twitching in his cheek and he had difficulty in controlling his quick, hard breathing.

He watched the woman reach the head of the stairs, then move heavily down the passage to the bathroom.

Silently he opened the door, stepped out into the passage and going down three of the stairs, he laid across the fourth stair the bolster he had taken from his bed. Then he stole up the stairs and back into his room as Madame Brossette, muttering angrily, turned off the tap.

She came out of the bathroom, turned off the light, then walked half way down the passage and paused outside the door of the broom cupboard.

Jay stiffened. This was the risk he knew he would be taking if he brought the woman up the stairs. Would she look in to see how Joe was?

But he relaxed as Madame Brossette shrugged her heavy shoulders and then continued on down the passage.

Jay watched her. He tensed himself and as Madame Brossette reached the head of the stairs and turned to descend them, her back now to him, Jay silently opened the door and stole out behind her.

Madame Brossette had reached the third stair before she became aware that there was someone behind her. She suddenly felt hot, quick breath on the back of her neck and she had a vague idea that she could hear the thump-thump-thump of heartbeats.

Her foot descended to the fourth stair as she turned her head.

She saw a crouching figure of a man just behind her, his hands outstretched and in the dim light the dark glasses he wore gave him an inhuman look.

She caught her breath sharply. Then she felt the stair give under her weight as she stepped on to something that had a horrible soft feeling.

She lost her balance. She made a desperate grab at the banister rail.

Jay put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a violent push.

She began to fall backwards, her mouth wide open, her eyes bulging with shock and a thin, wailing scream starting from her throat.

Jay reached down and snatched up the bolster as the woman’s great body landed in the lobby with a crash that shook the house.