Hit and Run

I

IT took me about forty minutes to walk back to my bungalow.

As I walked, I brooded over the scene I had had with Lucille. I told myself I must have been out of my mind to have done what I had done. It would serve me right if she went straight to Aitken and told him. Probably at this very moment she was telling him. I was too sick with myself to care. Again and again I saw her look of startled surprise when I had asked her if she loved me, and again and again I heard her reply: the words kept hammering in my mind.

My bungalow stood in a little garden, fifty yards from thesea. The nearest house was a quarter of a mile farther along the road: a house owned by a wealthy broker, Jack Seaborne, who only came for a month in the summer.

As I walked up the path from the beach, I saw there was car parked before my front gate. I had only to take a few more steps up the path to see it was my Cadillac.

Then Lucille appeared from out of the shadows.

‘Ches…’

I came to an abrupt stop, staring at her.

‘I’ve brought your car back,’ she said in a small voice.

She too had stopped. A couple of yards separated us.

‘Lucille, I’m sorry. I really am. I lost my head…’

‘Don’t talk about it.’

‘I’ll take you home.’

‘Could we go inside first? There’s something I must tell you.’

‘Better not. Come on. I’ll take you home. You can tell me in the car.’

She lifted her thick hair off her shoulders with a movement that hinted oddly of despair.

‘Please, can’t we go inside for a moment?’

She was standing in the full light of the moon. She looked tense and there was a terror in her eyes that frightened me.

‘We’ll talk as I drive. You’ve got to get back…’ I stopped short as she began to sway. Her eyes suddenly rolled back and her knees buckled. I jumped forward as she began to fall and I caught her in my arms.

‘Lucille! For God’s sake! What is it?’

She collapsed against me, and I let her down gently to the ground. Kneeling beside her, her head against my chest, I held her to me. Her head dropped back. In the moonlight, she looked as white as a ghost. She looked so bad she frightened me.

Then her eyelids fluttered and opened. She stared up at me, then she tried to sit up.

‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘Don’t move…’

She rested her head against my shoulder and closed her eyes. I put my hand under her knees and lifted her. She was lighter than I expected her to be. I had no trouble carrying her up the path to the front entrance to the bungalow.

‘I’ll be all right now,’ she said. ‘Let me down. I’m sorry. I’ve never done this before.’

I set her down, holding her against me as I groped for my I found it, opened the door, then I picked her up again and carried her into the lounge. I laid her on the divan by the window.

‘Stay quiet,’ I said, and leaving her I went back into the hall and shut the front door. Then I came back and turned on the lights in the lounge.

She lay still, staring up at the ceiling, her eyes like holes cut from a sheet.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ I said. ‘I can’t say how sorry I am I behaved like this. A drink will pull you together.’

‘I don’t want one,’ she said and covered her face with her hands. She began to cry.

I went over to the liquor cabinet, poured a little brandy into a glass and took it over to her.

‘Drink this. It’ll pull you together.’

‘No, please.’ She turned her head away. ‘Ches, I’m terribly sorry. I’ve damaged your car.’

‘There’s no need to faint about that, and stop crying. You don’t have to cry because you’ve damaged my car.’

She turned on her side and looked up at me. I was startled to see how white she was. There was a scraped bony look about her face that made her eyes look enormous.

‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ she said, the words coming so fast it was difficult for me to follow what she was saying. He came up beside me and shouted at me. I didn’t know he was behind me. I lost control of the car. There was an awful bang. There’s a big scratch right along the door and the fender’s dented.’

Suddenly I felt an icy chill start up my spine.

‘What are you trying to tell me? Have you hit someone?’

She looked away from me and stared up at the ceiling. Her hands turned into fists.

‘It wasn’t my fault. I swear it wasn’t. He came up from behind and shouted at me. I didn’t even know he was there until he started shouting.’

‘Who? Who shouted at you?’

‘This policeman. He was on a motor-cycle. He came up beside me and shouted…’

I put down the glass of brandy and went over to the divan and sat beside her.

‘You don’t have to be frightened. Just tell me what happened.’

She began to beat her clenched fists together.

‘I swerved when he started shouting. The side of the car hit him…’ She broke off and began to cry again.

I put my hands on my knees and squeezed until my knuckles turned white.

‘Crying won’t help,’ I said sharply. ‘What happened when you hit him?’

She drew in a long, shuddering breath.

‘I don’t know. I just kept on. I didn’t look.’

I sat for a long moment, motionless, aware that my heart was beating heavily and sluggishly. Then I said: ‘You mean you didn’t stop?’

‘No. I was frightened. I drove straight here.’

‘Was he hurt?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Just where did this happen?’

‘On the road leading from the beach.’

‘You didn’t hear him shout after you?’

‘No. There was this awful bang against the side of the car, and that was all. I drove straight here. I’ve been waiting for you for more than half an hour.’

‘Were you driving fast?’

‘Yes.’

For a long moment I sat staring at her, then I got up.

‘I’ll be back in a moment. I want to look at the car.’

I got up and crossed the room to my desk. I took from one of the drawers a powerful flashlight. As I went out of the room, I heard her give a little sighing moan, and that chilled my blood as nothing else had done so far.

I walked down the path to the car. In the light of the moon I could see at once that the on-side front fender had been damaged. When I turned on the flashlight I was able to see just how extensive the damage was.

The front headlamp was smashed and the fender buckled. There was a deep dent in the door panel and a long scar had been ripped into the paintwork. It ran in a jagged line the length of the door.

These details I took in with one brief glance. Then I moved around the car. There was a bright red stain that glistened in the light of my torch on the off-side fender of the rear wheel. The white ring around the off-side tyre was also sticky with the stuff. It didn’t take me more than a second or so to accept the fact that this was blood and I stared at it, feeling cold and sick.

It looked as if she had side-swiped the motor-cycle, knocked the driver off, and had run over him with the rear wheel. And she hadn’t stopped!

I turned off the flashlight and stepped back. The sweat on my face felt clammy and cold in the hot night air. He was probably in the road bleeding to death at this moment.

I went quickly back to the lounge.

She was still lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling, her fists clenched and her breath coming

in quick, uneven gasps. She looked pretty bad.

I picked up the glass of brandy and went over to her.

‘Here, drink some of this,’ I said. ‘Come on: it’s no use crying.’

I lifted her head and made her drink a little. Then she pushed the glass away with a shudder.

‘I’m going to see what has happened,’ I said. ‘Wait here. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

She nodded, not looking at me.

I looked at the clock on the overmantel. The time was twenty minutes to eleven.

‘Just wait here. I shouldn’t be long.’

Again she nodded.

I left her and went down to the Cadillac. I paused and looked at the broken headlamp and the bent fender. I realized I would be crazy to take the car out on the road in this condition. If someone spotted the damage they might put two and two together when the news broke in the morning’s papers as I knew it must break.

And yet I had to have a car and have it fast. Then I remembered that Seaborne who owned the house farther down the road kept a car in his garage for his vacation. I had been to his place off and on, and I knew he kept the key of the garage on a ledge above the garage doors. I decided to use his car.

I got in the Cadillac and drove fast down the road to the house. Leaving the Cadillac outside, I went to the garage, found the key and opened the double doors.

Seaborne’s car was a battered 1950 Pontiac: a car he carted his six children around in when he came down here. I drove the Pontiac out on to the road, left it with its engine ticking over, then I got into the Cadillac and backed it into the garage, shut and locked the doors. I dropped the key into my pocket.

I got into the Pontiac and drove fast to the highway. It took me ten minutes to reach the beach road.

I approached the intersection cautiously. There were about six cars parked along the grass verge, their dipped headlamps making puddles of light along the road. A bunch of men and women were standing together looking towards the head of the beach road. Blocking the entrance to the road were two speed cops, standing beside their parked motor-cycles.

With my heart slamming against my ribs, I pulled up behind | the last of the parked cars and got out.

There was a fat man with a Panama hat resting on the back of his head standing alone by his car, his hands in his trouser pockets, staring at the speed cops.

I walked over to him.

‘What goes on?’ I said, trying to make my voice sound casual. ‘What’s the trouble?’

He turned to look at me. It was dark, and the lights from the headlights of the cars reflected downwards. He could see my legs and feet, but there wasn’t much else of me he could see to recognize later.

‘An accident,’ he said. ‘A cop got himself killed. I’ve always said these cops ask for trouble the way they get in front of you. Well, this one pulled that stunt once too often.’

I felt cold sweat break out on my face.

‘Killed?’

‘Yeah: a hit-and-run job. Can’t say I blame the guy who did it. If I was unlucky enough to kill a cop, and there were no witnesses, damned if I would stick around and apologize. If they catch him, they’ll crucify him. I’ve always said the cops in this town are no better than the Nazis were.’

‘Killed him, did you say?’ I scarcely recognized my voice.

‘That’s right: ran over his head. He must have hit the side of the car, and then the poor devil must have fallen under the rear wheel.’ He pointed to a tall, thin man who was talking busily to the crowd. ‘That’s the fella who found him: the one in the grey suit. He told me. He said the poor guy’s face was like a sponge of blood.’

Suddenly one of the speed cops came stalking across the road.

‘Hey, you bunch of vultures!’ he bawled, his voice violent and tough. ‘I’ve had about enough of you. Get out of here! You hear me? It’s swine like you in your hunks of metal who cause the accidents! Get out of here! Get out, the lot of you!’

The fat man said out of the corner of his mouth: ‘See what I mean—a Nazi,’ and he walked over to his car.

I went back to the Pontiac, started the engine, made a U-turn and drove back fast to the bungalow.

When I walked into the lounge, I found Lucille huddled up in one of the big easy chairs. She looked very small and defenceless and frightened, and her face was the colour of old parchment.

As I came into the lounge, she stiffened and stared up at me.

‘Is it all right, Ches?’

I went over to the cocktail cabinet, poured myself a double whisky, added a little water and drank thirstily.

‘No, I wouldn’t say it is all right,’ I said, moving to a chair near hers. I sat down, not looking at her.

‘Oh.’

There was a long pause, then she said: ‘Were you able… did you see…?’

‘The police were there.’ I couldn’t bring myself to tell her she had killed him. ‘I didn’t see him.’

Again there was a pause, then: ‘What do you think we should do, Ches?’

I looked at the clock on the overmantel. It was now twenty minutes past eleven.

‘I don’t think we can do anything,’ I said.

I saw her stiffen.

‘You mean we don’t do anything at all?’

‘That’s what I mean. It’s getting late. I’m going to take you home.’

She sat forward, her hands on her knees, and she stared at me.

‘But, Ches, surely we must do something? I should have stopped. It was an accident, of course, but I should have stopped.’ She began to beat her fists on her knees. ‘He might recognize me if he sees me again. He might have taken the number of the car. Surely we must do something?’

‘I finished the whisky and put the glass down, then I got to my feet.

‘Come on. I’ll take you home.’

She remained motionless, her eyes wide and staring.

‘You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you? What is it?’

‘It’s bad, Lucille,’ I said. ‘As bad as it can be, but you don’t have to be frightened.’

‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was suddenly shrill.

‘You ran over him.’

She clenched her fists.

‘Oh, no! Is he badly hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take me home, Ches. I must tell Roger.’

‘You can’t tell him,’ I said. ‘He can’t do anything.’

‘Oh, but he can. He’s a friend of the Captain of Police. He’ll be able to explain.’

‘Explain what?’

‘That I have only just learned to drive, of course. That it was an accident.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t make any impression.’

She became rigid, her eyes opening wide with terror.

‘Is he so badly hurt? You don’t mean—he’s dead?’

‘Yes. You’ll have to know sooner or later. Yes, he’s dead.’

She closed her eyes and her hands went to her breasts.

‘Oh, Ches…’

‘Now, don’t panic.’ I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it—anyway, for the moment. We’re in a jam, but if we don’t lose our heads…’

She stared at me, her lips trembling.

‘But you weren’t in the car. It’s nothing to do with you. It was my fault.’

‘We’re in this thing together, Lucille. If I hadn’t behaved as I did, you wouldn’t have rushed away like that. It’s as much my fault as yours.’

‘Oh, Ches…’

She dropped her face down on the settee and began to sob.

I watched her for a moment or so, then, getting up, I put my arms around her and pulled her against me.

‘What will they do to us?’ she gasped, her hands gripping my arms.

‘You mustn’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing we can do until we see what the newspapers say tomorrow. Then we must decide.’

‘Suppose someone saw me hit him?’

‘No one did. There was no one on the beach.’ My hands tightened around her. ‘Did you pass any car after you hit him?’

She pushed away from me, got unsteadily to her feet and wandered over to the window.

‘I don’t think so. I can’t remember.’

‘It’s important, Lucille. Try to remember.’

She came back to the divan and sat down.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘All right. Now listen, we must discuss this tomorrow after we’ve seen the papers. Will you come down here? There’s nowhere else I can think of where we can have an uninterrupted talk. Can you get here about ten?’

She was staring at me, her eyes empty holes in her face.

‘Will they send me to prison?’ she asked.

That gave me a horrible jolt. I realized if they caught her they would send her to prison. You can’t kill a policeman and get away with it. You might kill anyone accidentally, and if you had a top-flight attorney you might beat the rap, but not if you killed a policeman.

‘Stop talking like that! It won’t get you anywhere. What time will you be here tomorrow? Can you get here by ten?’

‘Are you sure we shouldn’t do anything?’ She began to beat her clenched fists together. ‘If they find out…’

‘They won’t find out. Will you listen to me, Lucille? We mustn’t panic. We must first find out

what the papers say. We mustn’t do anything until we know all the facts. We’ll know the facts tomorrow morning, then if you’ll meet me, we can make up our minds what to do.’

She pressed her fingers to her temples.

‘Don’t you think I should tell Roger? He might be able to do something.’

If I had thought Aitken could have done something, I wouldn’t have hesitated to go with her and tell him the whole sordid story, but I was certain he couldn’t do a thing for her. If she went to him the truth would come out that she and I had been on the beach together. He would want to know why she had run off like that. Knowing Aitken, I felt sure he would have got the truth out of her, and then I would be sunk.

I drew in a long, slow breath.

‘You can’t tell him, Lucille. If you tell him, how will you explain what you were doing in my car? How will you explain what you were doing on the beach? How will you explain that you and I were on the beach together, that we undressed and swam together? If I thought your husband could do something, then I would go with you and tell him, but he can’t. If you lose your head and tell him, you will give him grounds for a divorce, and I’ll lose my job.’

She stared fixedly at me, then she said in a voice tight with panic: ‘I’d rather be divorced than go to prison. Roger wouldn’t let me go to prison. He has a lot of influence. I’m sure he wouldn’t let me go to prison.’

I put my hands on her arms and shook her gently.

‘Lucille! You’re reasoning like a child. Once he knew you and I had been on the beach together, he would wash his hands of you. He wouldn’t give a damn what happened to you. You must realize that.’

‘That’s not true,’ she said desperately. ‘He might divorce me, but he wouldn’t let me go to prison. He’s like that. He wouldn’t allow it to be said his wife was in prison.’

‘You still don’t seem to realize how serious this is,’ I said, trying to speak quietly and calmly. ‘You have killed a policeman. All right, it was an accident, but you didn’t stop and you haven’t a driving permit. If you had killed anyone except a policeman, your husband might have been able to swing it, but even if he had more influence than Eisenhower, and he hasn’t, he can’t do a thing for you now.’

‘So you mean I’ll have to go to prison?’

Her face seemed to shrink and her eyes became rounder and larger. Terror spoilt her young, fresh beauty.

‘No. They don’t know you did it, and I don’t think they will ever know. We would be fools to tell them until we know exactly what has happened. When we do know, then we’ll be able to make up our minds just what we should do.’

She gnawed her underlip, looking at me.

‘You mean we just don’t do anything?’

‘We don’t do anything tonight. Have you understood about tomorrow? Will you come down here about ten? We can decide what to do then.’

She nodded.

‘Well, come on, then. I’ll take you home.’

She got up and walked ahead of me out of the lounge, across the hall and to the front door, then she stopped abruptly.

‘We’re not going back in the car, Ches? I don’t think I could drive in it again.’

‘I’ve another car. I borrowed it from a friend down the road.’ I put my hand on her arm and eased her out on to the porch. ‘We’re not going back in the Cadillac.’

I turned off the light in the hall, closed the front door while she stood on the top of the porch. As I was turning the key in the lock, I heard a man’s voice call out: ‘Hey, is this your car?’

I felt as if I had put my hand out in the dark and had touched a naked electric cable. I don’t suppose I started as much as I imagined, but I know I started pretty badly. I heard Lucille catch her breath sharply, but at least she had the sense to move quickly to one side into the shadows of the porch where she couldn’t be seen.

I looked down the path. A man stood at the gate. It was too dark to see much of him, except that he was tall and bulky. Parked behind Seaborne’s Pontiac was a Buick convertible, its bonnet lit by the Pontiac’s tail lights.

‘Stay where you are,’ I whispered to Lucille, then I walked down the steps and down the path to where the tall man was standing.

‘Sorry to give you such a start,’ he said, and now I was close to him I could see he was around

forty-five with a heavy moustache and a whisky-red, cheerful face. ‘I thought you had seen me. Isn’t that Jack Seaborne’s car?’

‘Yes,’ I said, aware my breathing was too quick and too uneven. ‘I’ve borrowed it while mine’s in dock.’

‘You Chester Scott?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Glad to know you.’ He thrust out his hand. ‘I’m Tom Hackett. I don’t know if Jack ever mentioned me. He’s mentioned you to me often enough. I was passing and I wondered if the old sonofagun happened to be down here.’

I wondered if he had seen Lucille. We had come out of the lighted hall. It depended how long he had been standing at the gate.

I shook hands with him. My hand felt cold in his.

‘No, Jack won’t be down until August. He never comes down before then,’ I said.

‘I took a chance. I was on my way to Palm Bay. I’m staying at the Paradiso Hotel for a couple of weeks. The wife comes down by train tomorrow. She can’t travel for long in a car: gets car sick.’ He laughed easily. ‘Not that that’s any skin off my nose. It gives me a little time to myself. I thought if Jack was here we might have a drink and a yarn together.’

‘He won’t be down until August.’

‘Yeah, so you said.’ He looked at me. ‘If you’ve got nothing better to do, why don’t we go some place and have a drink? The night’s still young.’

‘I’d like to, but I have a date.’

He looked past me towards the dark bungalow and he grinned.

‘Well, if it’s like that. I just had an idea we could make up a little party. Two’s company, eh?’ He moved back to look at the Pontiac. ‘Good old bus. Going well?’

‘Fine.’

‘When you’ve nothing better to do, come over and see us,’ he went on. ‘The Paradiso. Pretty good joint: plenty of fun. Bring the girl-friend if she isn’t too shy. Well, I mustn’t keep you. So long for now.’

Waving his hand, he went back to the Buick, slid under the steering wheel, gunned the engine and drove away.

I stood motionless, watching his red tail lights disappearing down the road, mf hands gripping the top rail of the gate, my heart slamming against my ribs.

‘He saw me,’ Lucille said, and her voice was unsteady. She came down the path and joined me at the gate.

‘He saw I had a girl with me,’ I said as calmly as I could, ‘but he couldn’t have seen enough of you to know you again. There’s nothing to worry about.’

I took her arm and led her to the Pontiac. We got in.

‘Are you quite sure I shouldn’t tell Roger?’ she asked in a small tight voice.

This was more than my jumping nerves could stand. I swung around, reached out, put my hands on her shoulders and gave her a hard little shake.

‘Once and for all! I said no and I mean no! He can’t do anything for you!’ I was shouting at her now. ‘If you tell him, you’ll make him an accessory! Don’t you realize that? If he doesn’t hand you over to the police, he could get a sentence. You’ve got to leave this to me! I’ll tell you what we will do tomorrow.’

She shrank away from me, and taking out her handkerchief she began to cry.

I drove fast towards Palm Boulevard.

II

On the highway I came suddenly on a long line of cars, crawling towards the city. I had never seen such a traffic jam, and I knew at once that it had to do with the death of this speed cop.

I had trouble in forcing my way out of the secondary road from my bungalow into the stream of traffic. Finally, someone gave way to me and I got into the line of the creeping cars.

Lucille stopped crying when she saw what was going on.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. There’s nothing to worry about,’ and I wished I really believed that.

We crawled on. Every now and then I looked at the clock on the dashboard. The hands showed ten minutes to twelve, and we still had about two miles to go before I got her home.

Suddenly the cars ahead of me crawled to a stop. I sat, gripping the wheel, staring into the darkness ahead of me, seeing only the red tail lights and maybe a hundred cars stretching in a long motionless line up the road.

Then I saw the cops. There must have been a dozen of them. They were moving down the line of cars, powerful flashlights in their hands, and as they passed, they threw the beams over each car.

That brought me out into a cold sweat.

‘They’re looking for me,’ Lucille said in a voice tight with fear and she made as if to get out of the car.

I gripped her arm.

‘Sit still!’ My heart was thumping and I was thankful I had been smart enough to use Seaborne’s car. ‘They’re not looking for you! They’re looking for the car. Sit still and keep quiet!’

I could feel her shaking, but she had enough sense not to move as one of the cops neared us.

A big, broad-shouldered man got out of the car just ahead of us. As the cop came up to his car, the big man said in an explosion of rage: ‘What the hell is this? I’m trying to get to Palm Bay. Can’t you guys keep this goddamn road clear?’

The cop sent his beam over him.

‘You can come down to the station and make a complaint if that’s the way you feel about it,’ he said in a voice that could have peeled rust off the keel of a ship. ‘You’ll go when we’re good and ready for you to go, and not before.’

The big man seemed to lose some of his size.

‘What’s going on anyway, officer?’ he asked in a much milder tone. ‘Are we likely to be long?’

‘A hit-and-run job. We’re checking all cars going out of the city,’ the cop said, ‘and you won’t be long.’

He checked the big man’s car, then moved on to mine. I found myself gripping the wheel until my fingers hurt as he sent the beam of his flashlight over my wings, and then over the bumpers.

The cop, a thickset man with a face that could have been carved out of flint, looked at me, his light swinging first on me and then on Lucille, who cringed back, catching her breath sharply. He didn’t seem to notice anything for he moved on to the car behind us.

I put my hand on her arm.

‘Take it easy. There’s nothing to be frightened about.’

Frightened? Cold sweat was rolling off me.

She didn’t saw anything. She sat, her hands gripped between her knees, and see breathed like an old woman of seventy after a climb up a flight of stairs.

The car ahead of me began to move, and I went after it. We crawled on in silence for four or five hundred yards, then the pace quickened.

‘They were looking for me, weren’t they, Ches?’ she said, her voice shaking.

‘They were looking for the car, and they didn’t find it.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Where they won’t find it. Now look, will you stop working yourself into a panic? Just sit still and keep quiet!’

Ahead of us was the intersection that led to Palm Boulevard. I pulled out of the line of traffic and increased speed. I reached the entrance to the Gables as the hands of the dashboard clock showed ten minutes after twelve.

I got out, went around to the off-side door and opened it.

‘I’ll see you at my place tomorrow at ten,’ I said.

Slowly, as if her legs were cast in lead, she got out of the car.

‘Ches! I’m frightened! They were looking for me.’

‘They were looking for the car. Now look, go to bed and try to get this thing out of your mind. There’s nothing either of us can do until tomorrow.’

‘But they’re checking all the cars! The policeman said so.’ She stood there, staring up at me, her eyes terrified. ‘It’s serious, Ches. It really is! Don’t you think I should tell Roger? He’s good at this sort of thing.’

I drew in a long, slow breath.

‘No,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from rising. ‘He can’t help you. I’m the only one who can handle this. You’ve got to trust me.’

‘I just couldn’t bear to go to prison.’

‘You won’t go to prison. You’ve got to stop working yourself into a panic. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.’

She seemed to make an effort to pull herself together.

‘Well, all right. I’ll wait until tomorrow if you say so,’ she said. ‘But, Ches, if you don’t think you can handle it, I must go to Roger.’

‘I’ll handle it. Now go to bed and leave it with me.’

For a long moment she stared at me, then turned and began to walk unsteadily up the drive towards the house.

I watched her go until I lost sight of her.

Then I got into the Pontiac and drove back to the bungalow.

While I drove, fear like a misshapen gnome, sat silently on my shoulder.