The Bullet Trick (44 page)

'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.

'James Montgomery, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be given in evidence …'

I sank to the floor, put my head in my hands and shut my eyes.

Berlin

SYLVIE’S RED LIPS mouthed something that might have been I love you or Don’t do it or Do it quick. My consciousness shifted and I saw us both caught in a tableau. Sylvie afraid but determined, her pale skin shining as if it were drawing all the light in the warehouse towards her, and me in my ridiculous costume, right arm raising the gun level with my shoulder. Somewhere in the dark the stranger and Dix were watching, waiting for me to go through with the trick, and somewhere far off so was I; still sure the wax was in the chamber, but wondering what it was that I’d missed. I lowered the gun and took a step towards Sylvie. Scared as she’d looked, her fear had been nothing to the terror that suddenly shadowed her face.

'Come on, dear,' her voice shook with the effort of calm. 'Why don’t you show them our William Tell act?'

And I realised that the die was cast. I had been tempted with money and performance pride but something worse than humiliation would happen if I rejected the challenge now.

I slid from my position on the outside, back into myself, breathed deeply, raised my arm, slowly took aim, squeezed the trigger and fired. The glass shattered and the target flew backwards into the centre of an explosion of noise and red.

I sank to the floor, into the warmth of my own piss, putting my head in my hands, feeling a thousand shards of glass rain down on me, scattering across the floor like diamonds spilled by a careless hand.

I crouched there, hearing nothing but the repeat of the blast exploding over and over in my ears. After what seemed like a long time Dix touched my shoulder.

'Here,' his voice was gentle. 'Swallow, you’ll feel better.'

I kept my eyes on the ground unable to run towards the red blur at the edge of my vision and asked, 'Did I kill her?'

'Shhhh.'

Dix prised open my mouth and slipped a pill beneath my tongue. I swallowed then hunched back on the floor, letting darkness claim me. He was right, oblivion was better than the knowledge of what I’d done.

Consciousness brought the sharp tang of disinfectant. My first thought was that they weren’t making hospital beds any softer. But when I forced open my eyes I lay curled in a square of sunlight beneath the warehouse’s skylight. The shadows of pigeons roosting in the roof above crawled across me. One touched my face; I winced and raised a hand to bat it away though it was nothing.

I thought of Sylvie. The vision of her ruined body dropping to the floor flashed into my mind in bloody Technicolor. There was a sudden pain in my gut and I twisted into it, heaving deep dry sobs whose echoes were my only replies. Above me the birds launched into the air, their wings beating out a fractured rhythm; I thought of the sound a pistol makes and groaned.

I’m not sure how much time passed before I managed to raise my head, but I know it was a long interval between that first move and struggling to my feet. Someone had covered me with my raincoat. I pulled it on and stumbled like a three-day drunk to the spot where Sylvie had fallen. The warehouse was huge and empty, a transitory space where things were stored then moved on, where women were shot then disappeared and shattered conjurers stood and wondered what to do next.

Someone had done a good job. There was no sign left of my crime, except for a patch on the floorboards that was cleaner than the rest, where traces of blood and tooth would still be stored, if you knew how to look. I got down on my knees and traced my fingertips across it. The boards were rough and unpolished, their surface still vaguely damp.

My hand went into my pocket feeling for the gun, but instead of hard metal my fingers closed around a stiff paper package. I drew it out and looked at a large bundle of euros, more cash than I’d ever seen. I stared blankly at the money then put it back in my pocket, fastened my coat and stepped out into the open air, walking a long way until I felt straight enough to hail a cab. The door to Sylvie and Dix’s flat was open, the place abandoned. I’m not sure how long I stayed there, sitting on Dix’s chair, pulling at the gaffer-taped tear in its arm, wondering what had happened and what to do, waiting for the police to arrive. But some time after it had become clear that no one was going to come for me, I found myself on a flight home to Glasgow.

London

IT FELT GOOD to be back in London. A friend of Eilidh and John’s had a studio apartment he’d wanted to let in a hurry. Johnny had given me a reference that dispensed with the deposit and I’d managed to cobble together a month’s rent. After dumping my few things in the flat my next stop was Rich’s office.

I braced myself for Mrs Pierce’s disapproval but there was a young woman at the desk. Slim and dark, with short black hair framing a pixie-like face.