Rhoda Flannery would have to pass that skull every time she went out, every time she came home. I edged by it, and found myself outside number 49.
All the curtains were closed. I knocked on the door. Something told me that nobody was in, the same mysterious sense that tells you that nobody will pick up a telephone. It can be wrong, though. I hammered, again and again, but I couldn't conjure her up.
Fictional detectives carry little bundles of bent wires that enable them to bypass the most sophisticated products of the lock maker craft.
Or if it's a Yale lock they just slip a credit card in and hey presto!
But this wasn't a Yale. My own preferred method is to borrow a key.
It's common knowledge that there are only about ten different keys for all the locks on these flats. An old customer of mine, called George Dunphy, lived in one of the other blocks. He was also an old-style cat burglar; no bricks through windows for him. I radioed control and asked for his address. It took a couple of attempts as the radio was on the blink.
He was in. "Hello, George. Remember me, Charlie Priest?" I said when he answered the door.
"Mr. Priest? Well, blow me down. What can we do for you?"
"Well, you could invite me in."
He lived in Bevan Towers, and the council had elected that this block should house the more responsible tenants. Attlee Towers was reserved for rent defaulters, immobilised travelling people and re housed single-parent families. George led me through into a cosily cluttered living room. The gas fire and telly were at full blast, and Mrs.
Dunphy did not look pleased to see me.
"I need to break into a flat, George, over in the Attlee block. I was wondering if you could help me."
It wasn't the most tactful way of putting it. "No, he can't," stated Mrs. Dunphy. "AH that's behind him."
George gave me a look that said he'd love to, but his wife held more terror for him than any judge had ever done. "Well, Mr. Priest, it's like the missus sez. I ain't done nothing like that for years."
"I know that, George. What I mean is: can I borrow your key? Or can you tell me how to get in?"
"Oh, we can do that. Wait a minute, let's see what we 'ave." He went to the sideboard and took an ancient biscuit tin from the cupboard.
There was a picture of George VI and Queen Elizabeth on it, in their coronation finery. He tipped the contents on to the table.
It was a treasure chest. Hundreds, possibly thousands of buttons spilled out, in every design and material imaginable. Other items were mixed in with them, like marbles and foreign coins and campaign medals.
I fingered a couple of medals.
"Are these yours?" I asked, with genuine interest.
He was rummaging through the pile. "Them? Yeah, they're mine."
"Where did you get them?"
"An 'ouse in "Eckley," he said, throwing his head back and roaring with laughter. I had to join in.
"I was in the army nine years," he explained, wiping his eyes, 'when they was needing 'em, not feeding 'em. This is what we're looking for."
He'd found a master key. The end was a simple T-shape. Soon he produced another two of slightly different designs. "One of them'll get you in," he stated.
"Great, thanks." I couldn't resist asking: "Do you, er, want them back?"
"Not me, Mr. Priest. Been straight ten years now. You keep 'em." He nodded towards his wife. "But I'd love to come with you."
I thanked him and left. Five minutes later I was trying the keys in the door of 49, Attlee Towers.
None was a perfect fit, so I tried them all again, using more force.
One felt as if it was doing something, so I shook the key about in the lock and twisted harder. It worked, I was in.
I closed the door behind me, slid the bolt across and switched on the light. "Anybody home?" I shouted, although I was certain the place was deserted.
The room was a dump. The dr alon suite was threadbare and the wallpaper bore black marks where the furniture had rubbed against it for years. Discarded clothing was flung about the place and a plate bearing the relics of a meal was still on the table. A well-used flypaper hung from the ceiling; didn't know you could still buy them.
I tried not to breathe.
Against the far wall was what I took to be a Welsh dresser. The shelves were filled with cheap little trophies and shields. I walked across to examine them. Most had been awarded to Rhoda, for her body-building exploits, but were mainly bronzes, with an occasional silver. Even at her chosen sport she was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. On the mantel shelf were several photos of the pair of them in various poses, bodies glistening like porpoises. They must have thought they looked good, and that was all that mattered.
I started opening drawers and cupboards, not sure of what I was looking for. The dresser was filled with all sorts of household items, glass and crockery, some of it good quality. Nothing for me, though. A sideboard contained all the documents that we acquire and hoard in our passage through life: like insurance policies, old gas bills and the instructions for the microwave. The cupboards in it were stuffed with clothes, mainly woolly jumpers. I turned to a writing desk in the corner.
Like a professional burglar I opened the bottom drawer first, and when I saw the contents my stomach convulsed, as if it had been clawed by a polar bear. The drawer held a pile of newspaper cuttings, and smiling at me from the top sheet was the face of Annabelle. In a corner lay an unopened carton of shotgun cartridges. I'd found what I'd come for:
Rhoda Flannery was the Mushroom Man.
I sat on the floor for several minutes, back to the wall and staring at the carpet. There were plenty of questions, but I couldn't come up with any answers. God willing, when Annabelle was well I'd spend the rest of my time with her. Marry her, if she'd have me. And I'd leave the police force. All it offered was a front-row seat at a Greek tragedy, and I'd paid in full.
Outside it was raining again, or was it still raining? I stood in the doorway to the flats and tried to radio Control.
"Priest to Control."
No reply.
"Charlie Priest to Heckley Control. Acknowledge."
Silence.
"I say again, this is Charlie Palooka with an urgent message to Heckley Control. Answer the goddamn radio, Arthur."
I flicked the switch off and on and pressed the 'speak' button, but wasn't even rewarded with a hiss of static. I'd have to use the mobile phone in the car.
As I stepped off the curb my left foot went into a pothole filled with water. It came over my ankle and filled my shoe.
"Bugger!" I cursed, shaking my soaking foot. "Bugger-bloody-damn!"
"And fuck!" I added for good measure.
"Arthur, why can't I reach you on my radio?" I snapped, when he answered the phone.
"Sorry, Mr. Priest. We could hear you. You must have another faulty radio. The transmit button sticks in when it's wet. What was all the cursing about?"
"I stepped in a puddle. Up to my knee. I'll have to go home to change my shoes. Look, Arthur, these radios should have been sorted weeks ago." I was annoyed about it, and having one cold foot didn't help.
"We thought they had been. All the new ones were sent back and modified."
"It's not good enough. I'll have words with the supplier. A fault like this could cost someone's life."
"You're right, boss. Put it in your pocket, then it won't get left in the car."
I retrieved it from the glove box where I'd tossed it. "OK. Now listen to this. I want an APW broadcasting for Rhoda Flannery, home address: forty-nine Attlee Towers, Heckley; driving a grey 1988 Ford Fiesta. You've got the number."
"Will do, Mr. Priest. What's it about?"
"She's the Mushroom Man."
"Sheest! Are you sure?"
I ignored the question. "Suspect is armed with a shotgun, and very dangerous. On no account to be approached by unarmed officers. I'm outside Attlee Towers now. Can you have someone here as soon as possible? Oh, and inform Mr. Wood."
Five minutes later a local patrol car joined me, and said that an ARV was on its way. I pointed out Rhoda's flat to them and gave strict instructions that they were to wait for the armed officers if she came back. I said I was going home to change my shoes and would then go to the station. It could be a long day.
I reversed the car into my drive, so I could make a fast getaway if anybody rang. It felt cold inside the house, and I was chilled through. The radiators weren't on at that time of day, so I turned the gas fire fully on and pulled the easy chair closer. I kept my jacket on, but removed my shoes and socks so I could toast my feet. There was a draught on my neck, so I sank lower into the chair. When I'd thawed out I'd make a drink and a sandwich. Meanwhile, I'd just relax and let the others do the running around. It was out of my hands.
Well, I thought it was.
This was my parents' house, inherited by me after they died. Dad was a do-it-yourself freak. He'd installed the central heating, years ago, and made a good job of it. Except for one small thing. In the hallway, under the carpet, there is a trap door that gives access to the circulating pump. It creaks every time you walk over it. He'd tried to fix it and so had I, but without success. As I sat there, warming my feet, it creaked. Somebody was inside the house.
That was why it was cold: one of the windows was open. I reached out and picked the phone up from the coffee table alongside my chair. It was dead. I delved into my inside pocket for the radio, but just as I touched it the door flew open.
The ridiculous and the terrifying are sometimes just a hair's-breadth apart. She was wearing a man's suit that was two sizes too large for her even before her body had been wasted by disease, topped off by a trilby hat. She would have looked as if she were auditioning for the Artful Dodger had it not been for the gaunt face, dotted with sores that would never heal because her immune system was gone. And the sawn-off shotgun. The Dodger never carried a shotgun.
"Who the hell are you?" I said. I knew the answer, but would never have recognised her.
"Put your hands where I can see them," she croaked, 'and say a quick prayer, before I blow your fucking head off." Her voice was a cackle, like she had a throat full of eggshells.
"It's Rhoda, isn't it?" I said.
"And you're the late Charlie Priest." She pointed the shotgun at me.
It focuses the attention like nothing I'd experienced before. Keep 'em talking, the book said.
"Why?" I asked. God! Was that the best I could do? "Don't you think I deserve an explanation?" Marginally better.
"What explanation did you give Don?" she hissed.
"Don committed murder," I told her. "He knew what was coming; bore no grudges. It was my job to put him away, and I did it."
"He was innocent. He wouldn't lie to me. You didn't get him life, you gave him a death sentence." She was shrieking now. "Do you know what it was like? A hundred men sharing a needle, passing it from cell to cell for a month until someone brought a new one in? He didn't deserve what he got in there."
I was hopelessly off balance, sprawled in the armchair with my arms dangling over the sides. I pulled my feet back against the seat as I spoke: "Nobody deserves that, Rhoda. Least of all you."
"What do you care? Look at this!" she screamed, flinging her hat into the corner. The red mane had gone, replaced by a patchwork of weeping lesions. I felt myself recoil at the sight. "Well, we got it, whether we deserved it or not, and now you get yours." She levelled the gun at me.
"What about the others, Rhoda? Did they deserve what they got?"
"Ah! Them," she scoffed. The gun swung a couple of degrees away from me as she threw her head back and laughed. I drew my hands in, placing them on the chair arms.
"Yes, them. What had they done to you?"
She could barely control her laughter, the gun waving about alarmingly, sometimes pointing at me, sometimes not.
"Nothing!" she declared. "They'd done nothing to me. Don't you see, that's what makes it so perfect."
"I don't understand."
"You're the fucking detective. The Top Cop: She taunted me with the words. "Tell me, then, Mr. Top Cop, what's the perfect murder?"
"Er, I don't know. One that nobody knows has been committed, I suppose."
"Close, but not quite. One without a motive, that's the perfect murder. I had no reason to kill them. You were just the next in the line. Four proper priests, then you. I was going to kill another person called Priest, just to sew things up, then I could die happy.
Unfortunately that stuck-up bitch you go out with got in the way. That was a laugh when I found out she was a bishop's wife." She chuckled and grinned, revealing brown teeth with gaps at the sides of her mouth.
She reminded me of the skull on the window of number 48. I flinched at her words, but used the movement to curl my fingers over the ends of the chair arms. I was as poised as I'd ever be.
"Rhoda," I said, as softly and calmly as I could, 'there's been too much killing. You've had a raw deal, but this won't solve anything.
You could have treatment. They've drugs now that could help you. Put the gun down."
"There's no treatment for this!" she cried, pointing at her head. She leaned back against the wall and I could see that her cheeks were glistening with tears. "I said I'd wait for him. I had a job and a flat. We could still have had kids, that's all I ever wanted. It wasn't much, was it?"
"Kids," I sighed. "That's all I ever wanted, too. But it wasn't to be."
"Still…" she said, and the steel was back in her voice and the gun wasn't wavering any more, 'killing you will make me feel better for a couple of days."
"What about the first two? Were they really you?" The words tumbled out and I wondered if any of our conversation was being transmitted. It would make riveting listening in the control room.
"Ah!" she snorted. "I saw a headline over someone's shoulder. It said: "Priest killed. Was it murder?" For a glorious moment I thought it was you. My heart leapt. I got off the bus a stop early to call at the news agent I wept when I read it was only some crumby vicar."
There was a scrunch of gravel under tyres from the road outside. A look of panic flickered across her face and the gun steadied, pointing at my head. "Neighbours," I said. "They come and go all the time." I eased myself up slightly. "So what about the second one? Did you do him?"
"No, he just fell down the tower. That's when I got the idea, though.
I liked the thought of some religious nut knocking off priests." Her shoulders bobbed up and down with amusement.
They'd surround the house; listen at the windows; then try to make contact, probably by ringing the doorbell. "But the next two were all your own work," I said.
"All my own work," she boasted. "And now it's your turn."
"Where did you get the name, Destroying Angel?"
"I know all about mushrooms. Which are good, which are bad. I've always liked that one."
"I thought they were poisonous?"
"No more talking." She levelled the gun. "Kiss your arse goodbye, Charlie Priest '
TRIIIING! The doorbell!
I went in hard and curving. First to the right, towards her but away from the gun, then up for it. Her eyes had flickered towards the sound of the bell, and for a tenth of a second she couldn't decide whether to swing the gun away from my grasping hand or try to blast me with it. It was all I needed. My body hit hers and bounced her back against the wall. The fingers of my left hand curled round her wrist, thin as a robin's leg, and lifted it and the gun towards the ceiling. She went for my eyes with her free hand, clawing ribbons of skin from my cheek.
I jerked my head back and managed to grasp her other wrist. I was a foot taller than her and a few stones heavier. I stretched her arms apart and pinned her to the wall as if she were a petulant child. She was still holding the shotgun.
"In here! I've got her!" I shouted.
Then her knee hit me in the balls.
Forget childbirth the knee in the balls is the most excruciating pain known to mankind. A fireball exploded in my stomach and my knees buckled, as if a scythe had gone through them. I was blinded by agony, but the threat of a twelve-bore is a powerful anaesthetic. Teetering on the edge of blacking out, I concentrated with all the power I possessed on gripping that right wrist. Outside, the door glass was shattering and wood splintering. With a desperate effort I swung her away from the wall and kicked her legs from under her. She fell over backwards. As she hit the floor I collapsed my legs so that my entire weight fell mercilessly on top or her. Our faces were touching as I did so, and her breath erupted in a volcanic torrent into my face. I turned my head sideways to escape it, and she sank her teeth deep into my ear.
The cavalry rushed in. They found us on the floor, as if crucified face to face, with my blood and her saliva intermingling and dribbling down her cheek, on to the carpet.