Without Conscience Read online

  Oliver Hardy was right. It was a fine mess and despite their soothing influences, Duke Ellington and Johnnie Walker were not going to help me solve it tonight. As I began to grow drowsy, one thing above all others was clear to me: I liked the idea of having Peter around.

  THIRTEEN

  It was late morning when Rachel managed to pull herself from the bed. Her body was stiff and her face throbbed. She had slept much easier than she had thought possible. It was only now as she dragged herself into full wakefulness that she became conscious of the pain and discomfort. The aches returned and she remembered why she felt so bad. Once more the steel grip of fear took hold of her. So strong was it that her body shook with remorse. If only she could turn the clock back. If only she hadn’t been stupid enough to leave home in the first place; or at least not been blindingly naïve enough take up with Harryboy. He was still asleep, snoring like the filthy pig he was. If she had a knife, she’d stab it right through his heart now. There would be no hesitation. Her hands clenched at the thought of it, the thought of the knife tight in her hand slicing through his flesh, bursting through the walls of his heart and the blood, rich hot blood spurting out, staining his vest a wonderfully bright life-draining crimson. She’d stab him time and time again. If she had a knife.

  Well, maybe she wouldn’t, she admitted to herself, as reason reasserted itself. That’s what she’d like to do, but if it came to it, she’d probably chicken out. Deep down, she didn’t think that she really could kill anyone, no matter how much she hated them. And she really hated Harryboy. She never realized that it was possible to hate and despise someone with so much intensity.

  And yet … would she really kill him? She sneered at herself. Of course not. The truth was that she didn’t have the guts. She didn’t have it in her. It shocked her to realize how much he had tainted her mind that she now regarded this as a weakness.

  Perhaps she ought to consider what she was going to do now, she told herself, rather than fantasize about sending Harryboy Jenkins to his grave. She sat on the edge of the bed, her body aching and tears streaming down her face, feeling very sorry for herself. Then in blinding flashes it all came back to her, the blows, the curses, the hurt.

  After leaving the café in Soho she had done some window shopping and then gone to the pictures to see an old Fred Astaire picture. She had stayed in the cinema and watched the programme twice. It had been wonderful to escape into that improbable musical world where love and a happy ending were assured. Afterwards, she treated herself to some fish and chips and then returned to the hotel room to wait for Harryboy.

  And she waited. And waited. When it got to nine o’clock she was seriously worried. She reckoned something must have happened to him. Or worse, that he had been picked up by the police. Arrested for murder. Her blood ran cold at the thought of it. If the police had nabbed Harryboy, it wouldn’t be long before they came for her too. Her stomach started to tie itself into knots and she began pace up and down the dingy hotel room in worried frustration.

  Then at ten o’clock, the door burst open and Harryboy staggered in. He looked terrible. His suit was crumpled and stained with mud and his face was flushed and bloated with alcohol. He was very drunk. After feeling a certain relief at his return, his return on his own without the police in tow, she demanded to know where he’d been and why he had left her waiting all this time. He told her to shut up. But she didn’t. The tension that had built within her had given her some courage and now she couldn’t help herself. She wanted an explanation.

  ‘Come on, Harryboy, I have a right to know. I have a right to be treated decently,’ she cried, grabbing him by the shoulders.

  At that moment, something snapped inside of Harryboy. All the pent up anger, self pity and guilt that had been seething inside him since his visit to Pimlico boiled over. ‘Shut up!’ he roared, turning on her, his eyes bulging with fury. ‘Shut up!’ Then he hit her. He hit her with great force, the back of his hand smashing into her face, sending her spinning backwards against the wall. She cried out with pain and shock. However he wasn’t going to leave it there. He rushed at her, his fingers grasping hold of her blouse, ripping it as he dragged her forward again. She was too terrified to scream as he punched her in the ribs.

  Her face crumpled into an agonizing grimace and she doubled in pain, falling onto the bed clutching her stomach. Her vision blurred and the room began to sway. But Harryboy hadn’t finished with her yet. He was on fire with alcohol-fuelled fury and it was all focused on this helpless young girl who’d had the temerity to question him. To raise her voice to him. No one spoke to Harryboy Jenkins that way. No one! He’d show her. He’d fucking show her. Now he had found a target for all his fear, guilt and anger which had dogged and haunted him all day. And in his fury, he found a certain perverted pleasure also.

  Grabbing Rachel by the hair, he dragged her from the bed on to the floor, where she lay sobbing, curled up in a foetal position.

  ‘Now will you shut up?’ he snarled, kicking her hard, each word, a blow. ‘Eh? Will – you – shut – up?’

  ‘Yes,’ she sobbed quietly. ‘Please stop. Please don’t—’

  He spat at her. ‘Shut up!’ he bellowed. It had gone beyond his anger with Rachel and her nattering questions. He was using her along with the alcohol to exorcize his own feelings of weakness and guilt that had been brought on by his visit to his home in Waterloo Street. He kicked her again, a fixed rictus grin blighting his features.

  She moaned and then lay very still.

  Harryboy stared at her, a cruel satisfaction damping his inflamed temper. An arrogant smirk lighted upon his lips. That’ll teach her. The bitch’ll think twice before she messes with me again.

  Rachel lay so still that for a moment he thought that she was dead. It didn’t frighten him that he might have killed her. She had deserved it anyway. Unsteadily, he knelt down and turned her over. As she flopped on her back, he could see that she was still breathing. The stupid bitch had just blacked out.

  He left her there on the floor and, staggering about the room in his drunkenness, he managed to get out of his clothes until he was just in his vest and underpants. Then he collapsed on the bed and within minutes he was diving deep into untroubled alcohol-induced dreams.

  Gradually Rachel regained consciousness, her whole body aching and throbbing with pain. At first she couldn’t move. It was as though she was locked in a vice which was gradually crushing her body. She lay there a long time, willing the ache to subside and her limbs to regain their movement. Eventually, she managed to pull herself into a sitting position with her back resting on the side of the bed. It was a long, painful process and she paused from time to time, biting her lip as the pain became too great to bear. Now her fingers gingerly explored the contours of her face. She could feel the swelling and the bruising and she began to weep once more. The tears flowed and her chest heaved with quiet sobs as a wave of desolation and utter despair drowned her.

  Suddenly Harryboy shifted his position on the bed, grunting in his sleep as he did so. This frightened Rachel into silence. The last thing she wanted to do was wake the swine up. He might start attacking her all over again. With gritted teeth, she wiped her tears away, pulled herself to her feet and staggered over to the washbasin. She stood for some moments with her eyes closed, too scared to open them and see herself in the mirror. At length she summoned up enough courage to look at her reflection, to view what he’d done to her. What she saw made her moan softly as though her soul was being drawn from within her. The bruised and battered face which stared back at her from the mirror was barely recognizable as her own. It was the face of a stranger. The puffy eyes, the bloody nose, the bruised flesh, already darkening to a deep blue, transformed the pretty girl she had been into a walking monster from a horror film. She had become the Bride of Frankenstein.

  She sniggered hysterically at this thought and swung round to look at Harryboy in the bed, his bestial mouth open in a pig-like snore, his cheeks rising and fallin
g like little pink bellows. Well, she thought, if I am the bride, he certainly is the Frankenstein monster: an unnatural, heartless fiend. The tears came again and she turned away.

  Slowly and carefully, she washed her face and then patted it dry. If anything, it looked worse. I’ll need a mask for a week, she thought. Longer possibly. Like a drunken man trying to prove that he’s sober, she made her way to the bed, her whole body racked with pain. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to escape from reality into the safe land of dreams. There she could escape to that fairy-tale world where Fred Astaire would whirl her round a shining dance floor and nobody would hurt her, ever again.

  She gazed down at the bed with hunger. But she certainly wasn’t going to get under the covers with that beast. Gingerly, she lay down on the edge of bed as far away from Harryboy as she could get without falling off, the pressure on her bruised ribs causing her to wince. Then she turned her back on the snoring creature beside her. With some effort she turned out the table lamp on her bedside table and plunged the room into darkness. The absence of light soothed her and somehow seemed to take some of the pain away.

  But still in that Stygian void she could hear the buzz saw rasp of Harryboy’s snoring. In time she got used to its regular grating rhythm and was able to remove it from the front of her consciousness. After lying there for some fifteen minutes, blessed relief came to her as she drifted off to sleep. So exhausted and traumatized was she that Rachel slept a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Now she was awake and having to face the terrible reality of her plight. Again, with some effort, she forced herself to concentrate on the practicalities of the situation. She needed to wash and dress and try to make herself look as presentable as possible.

  With stiff and awkward movements, ignoring the pain, she made her way to the sink and splashed her face with cold water and once again stared at herself in the mirror. Surprisingly some of the redness had disappeared but she had a swollen nose, a cut lip and a black eye. Slipping off the torn blouse she examined the unsightly bruises on her body.

  With tears in her eyes, she smiled wryly at herself. She would live, she told herself.

  Almost in slow motion, she washed herself, changed into some clean clothes and then set about camouflaging as much of the damage to her face as was possible with powder and paint. Twenty minutes later, with her hair combed differently so that it fell in Veronica Lake fashion across her blackened eye, she looked almost normal. From a distance, at least, she thought.

  Rachel was just applying her lipstick when Harryboy stirred. Scratching his head, ruffling his greasy hair, he pulled himself up into a sitting position, his tongue roaming around his dry mouth in a futile attempt to lubricate it. He gazed at Rachel over by the washbasin, the curve of her body arousing him.

  ‘Morning, babe,’ he called, grinning.

  Rachel turned sharply to face him, her heart beating wildly with apprehension.

  ‘You look good.’ His grinned widened. ‘Good enough to eat.’ He patted the bed at his side. ‘Come alonga here, baby. I fancy a little nibble.’ He leered at her. ‘You know what I mean.’

  She knew what he meant.

  ‘No,’ she said, quicker, louder and with more passion than she had intended. She repeated the word more softly as she shook her head. ‘No.’

  Harryboy frowned. ‘What do you mean? Come on here.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she grinned nervously. ‘It’s … not possible. It’s … it’s my time of the month. You know.’

  Harryboy screwed his face up into a snarl. ‘You women,’ he snapped.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Yeah. So am I.’ With a heavy sigh, he leapt off the bed. Rachel flinched, but he ignored her and headed for the wardrobe. ‘Better get dressed then and grab some breakfast.’

  It was as though last night had not happened. The hurt, the blows the indignity. They meant nothing to him. He had a kind of amnesia which erased all the ugliness of his behaviour from his mind. He was still treating her as he had done the day he met her. The fact that he had beaten her senseless and involved her in the murder of a policeman was of no consequence. He had forgotten these things, forgotten because they meant nothing to him. Now he was sober and clear-headed, he experienced no remorse or shame. There was no apology, no ‘I’m sorry, babe’, nothing. He didn’t even seem aware that she was upset. It was at this moment that Rachel Howell’s knew then that she would kill him. Her fear and conscience had evaporated. She knew now that it would only be like destroying a mad dog. She would bide her time, wait for the right moment so that there could be no mistake, no escape for the vile pig and then, God help her, she would kill him.

  FOURTEEN

  The piercing ring of the telephone was my rude reveille the following morning. I jerked up automatically like one of Pavlov’s salivating dogs at the shrill sound, cricking my neck in the process. In fact my whole body felt stiff and rusty. Sleeping scrunched up on a two-seater sofa had transformed me into Dorothy’s tin man. With awkward creaky movements I reached for the receiver, realizing by the bright chinks of light at the edge of my blackout curtain that I had slept in rather late. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter past nine.

  ‘Hello,’ I growled into the phone. I didn’t feel up to giving the full, ‘Good morning, Hawke Investigations, John Hawke speaking’ routine.

  ‘And hello to you. You sound as though you’ve got a mouthful of cotton wool.’

  It was David.

  With my brain not fully awake yet, I did not feel up to indulging in witty repartee. ‘Good morning, David,’ I replied simply.

  ‘I thought you’d like to know – the ballistic report on the two bullets landed on my desk ten minutes ago. Disappointing news, I’m afraid.’

  ‘They don’t match.’

  ‘You got it, boyo. The gun that shot PC Reece was not the same one that was used to kill your lady friend, Mr Riley. So it’s most likely we are looking for two different fellers.’

  ‘Ah well,’ I said with a sigh. ‘That would have been too easy.’

  ‘Sorry, old boy. It certainly makes your job a lot harder. At least we have a name and a description. Anyway, give me a call if you think I can help. Best of luck, Sherlock.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I sat down and lit a cigarette. Suddenly I felt very miserable and sorry for myself. I had effectively been shunted down the big snake and was back to square one: I had a murderer to find and I had no clues, no leads, no nothing. And in the next room I had a runaway boy whom I knew I would eventually have to disappoint hugely because, no matter how long I delayed it, in the end I would have to inform the authorities of his whereabouts. Peter couldn’t live with me, however much he thought he wanted to. He needed a proper home and schooling, not dingy quarters with a not very successful private detective in the heart of dangerous London. For a fleeting moment, I wanted to get back on the sofa, curl up and pray for sleep to take me away from all my dilemmas. But I didn’t. I gave myself a quick talking to, stubbed out my cigarette and set about my morning ablutions. I would feel better after a wash and shave, I told myself as I padded down the corridor to the little bathroom shared by all the inmates of Prior’s Court.

  Half an hour later, I had a smooth chin, tidy hair and was dressed in a clean shirt. However, while I did feel livelier and more alert, the little dark cloud of trouble still hovered over my head reminding me that my big problems remained in place.

  I roused Peter who was reluctant to leave his dream world and introduced him to soap and a flannel and a comb. Eventually, looking reasonably presentable, the two male inhabitants of 7 Prior’s Court set forth.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Peter with apprehension.

  ‘First port of call is Benny’s. I reckon we both could do with a hearty, well-prepared breakfast … but we’ll have to settle for Benny’s cooking instead.’

  Peter laughed at my little joke and slipped his hand in mine.

  One would have thought the king had condescended to visit Benny’s lit
tle café on Dean Street the fuss he made of Peter. He hugged him, patted him on the head, kissed him on the forehead and outdid the Cheshire cat in grins. Peter took all this quietly with a shy smile.

  ‘Right, you sit down, Peter, while Benny makes you top class breakfast,’ mine host said with spry good humour. ‘You look as though you could do with feeding up.’ Gently, he guided the boy to a table in the far corner of the room. Then he pulled me to one side and the smile and light-hearted demeanour disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

  ‘What goes on here, Johnny? I thought the boy was in Devon. What’s he doing back in town? Is he in trouble?’

  I pulled a long face. ‘He’s run away.’

  Benny slapped his forehead. ‘Again! What for?’

  I really didn’t feel like going over all the details, partly because I didn’t know them all myself, so I gave Benny the severely abridged version. ‘He was unhappy.’

  ‘I’m unhappy. You should see my profits for last week, but I don’t run away.’ His expression softened. ‘This is bad news, Johnny. What are you going to do about the little mite?’

  ‘I really don’t know. If they take him back to Devon, he’ll be just as miserable and go AWOL again.’

  Benny nodded. ‘And next time he might not run to someone who cares for him. It’s a cruel world out there.’

  ‘The other alternative is an orphanage …’