Dark Side of the Street

7

Rain drifted against the window with the dismal pattering and Chavasse looked out across the farmyard morosely. In the grey light of early morning, it presented an unlovely picture. Great potholes in the cobbles filled with stagnant water, archaic, rusting machinery and a profusion of rubbish everywhere.

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" Youngblood asked in disgust. "Talk about Cannery Row."

Chavasse went to the table and poured himself another cup of tea. "What time is it?"

"Just coming up to nine forty-five."

"And Crowther said the funeral was at ten. They should be back here by half past." He nodded at the table. "Had enough to eat?"

"Yes-you fry a good egg."

Chavasse opened the kitchen door and looked up at the hill on the other side of the yard. There was a small grey stone hut on top and a scattering of grimy looking sheep.

"Think I'll take a walk-see what I can see."

Youngblood looked out over his shoulder at the rain. "Rather you than me. I'll search the house. There might be a gun around the place."

"You'll be lucky," Chavasse said. "Crowther may be primitive, but he has all the cunning of the fox."

He took an old oilskin coat down from behind the door and went outside, buttoning it up to his chin. There was a pile of rusting tin cans against the outhouse wall, the accumulation of the years, and he kicked one of them across the yard and followed it into the barn.

It was in the same state of decay as the rest of the place, planks missing from the door, rain drifting down through several holes in the roof. An old cattle truck which still seemed to be in working order was parked by the rear door and the tractor beside it, its metal parts red with rust in the damp atmosphere, looked as if it hadn't functioned for years.

Chavasse kicked the tin can carelessly out of his path. It landed in a pile of mouldy hay in one corner and a couple of brown rats shot into the open to poise in the centre of the floor watching him. Strange how you could never get over some things. His face wrinkled in disgust and he picked up a stone and threw it with all his force, sending them running for the shadows on the other side of the barn.

He went out through the other door, passed through a wilderness of brambles and nettles that had once been a kitchen garden and found the beginnings of a path beyond the crumbling boundary wall.

It lifted through a scattering of alder trees, following the curve of the hillside, climbing steeply to the summit. Quite suddenly he found that he was enjoying himself. There was a fine fresh smell to the rain and the hard physical exercise was something to be enjoyed for its own sake after the long weary months of prison life.

He negotiated a high drystone wall by climbing an ingenious stone stile and found himself on the final slope. Sheep wandered amongst a jumble of great boulders and outcrops of stone, carved by the winds of time into a thousand strange shapes. Above him to the rear of the hut, a clump of thorn trees stood together, their branches twisted and unnatural and pointing, like the fingers of a gnarled hand, in the same direction, forced by the prevailing wind.

The hut was larger than it had looked from the farmyard and in reasonable condition. There was fresh hay inside, dry and sweet and sacks of feedstuffs, probably for the sheep. He lit a cigarette, went back outside again, and crossed to the scattering of rocks that formed the spine of the hill.

From there he had a clear view of the main road in the valley below shrouded in mist, a gleam of water beyond. A reservoir, perhaps a lake? He turned away and with something of a shock, found that Molly Crowther was standing watching him.

She made a strange melancholy figure, fitting perfectly into that dead landscape in an old black coat with the padded shoulders fashionable during the war years. A scarf was bound tightly around the strong peasant face.

"Hello there," Chavasse said, walking to meet her. "Did everything go all right?"

She nodded with a curious indifference. "The priest didn't waste much time. He was getting wet."

"Where's your father?"

"Gone into the next village with Billy. He dropped me down there on the road. It's quicker to walk over the hill and I wanted to check on the sheep."

"Do you look after them?"

"Most of the time. Billy helps me when he's in the mood. The trouble is he doesn't know his own strength. One minute he's fondling a lamb, the next its neck is broken. He isn't very reliable."

"I see your point." Chavasse hesitated and went on, "I'm sorry about your mother."

"I'm not," she said with brutal frankness. "She had cancer of the stomach during the last year of her life and refused to go to hospital. I had to look after her. It wasn't much of a time for either of us. She's well out of this place anyway."

"Don't you like it here?"

She turned on him in surprise. "Who could like a place like this?" She flung out an arm that seemed to embrace the whole wind-swept landscape. "Even the trees grow crooked here. It's a dead world. I sometimes think the only living things in it are the sheep and they're like Billy-witless."

"Why don't you leave?"

"I couldn't before-there was my mother to consider. Now it's too late. I'm squeezed dry. I wouldn't know where to go."

There was real pain in her voice and Chavasse felt genuinely sorry for her. "Perhaps your father could help. He may intend to now that your mother has gone."

"There's only one thing he wants to do for me-God knows he's tried that often enough." She laughed harshly. "My father died when I was three. He was a gypsy like my mother. She met Sam Crowther at Skipton Market ten years ago and married him within a week. The worst day's work she ever did in her life."

"You sound as if you hate him."

"And this place-all I ever wanted was to get away."

"Where would you like to go?"

"I've never really thought about it." She shrugged. "Some place where I could get a decent job, wear nice clothes, meet people-London, maybe."

From her vantage point it must have seemed as remote as the moon and just about as romantic. "Distance lends enchantment," he told her gently. "London can be the loneliest place on earth."

"I'd take my chances." They had reached one of the boundary walls and she leaned against it, arms folded under her breasts. "It must be marvelous to be able to go places-do exciting things-like Mr. Youngblood, for instance."

"Five years in gaol," Chavasse said. "Another fifteen to go if they catch him-perhaps more now. Nothing very romantic there."

"I mean before that," she said with a slight trace of impatience. "He was a smuggler, you know."

"Amongst other things."

She rushed on, looking animated for the first time since he had known her. "I read an article about him in one of the Sunday papers last year. They said he was a modern Robin Hood."

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it. Depends what the original was like."

"But it's true," she insisted. "They published an interview with an old lady who'd been treated with eviction because she couldn't pay her rent. Somebody told Mr. Youngblood. He gave her a hundred pounds and he'd never even met her before."

Chavasse could have told her that the incident had taken place just after a successful payroll snatch in Essex which was known to have netted Youngblood and his associates thirty-two thousand pounds and had put two armoured car guards in hospital, one with a fractured skull, but he knew when he was wasting his time.

He grinned crookedly. "He's certainly quite a man."

She nodded. "I hope he gets away, clear out of the country. I hope you both do."

"Do you get many people through here like us?" he said.

"About half a dozen this year."

"What about George Saxton and Ben Hoffa, Harry's friends? Did you see anything of them?"

Suddenly it was as if shutters had dropped squarely into place and when she glanced at him, the eyes were blank, the face devoid of all expression. "Yes, they were here."

"For how long?"

She hesitated and then said slowly, "I don't know. I didn't see them go."

Chavasse was aware of a sudden coldness in the pit of the stomach and his throat seemed to go dry. "Was that unusual?"

"Yes-yes, it was," she said hesitatingly. "The others were here for two or three days. I always saw them leave. My step-father took them in the car."

"Let me get this straight," Chavasse said. "You met Saxton and Hoffa down there on the road at night just like us and you brought them up to the farm?"

"That's right."

"Did you ever see either of them again after that?"

"Never."

They stood staring at each other dumbly in the rain, the ceaseless sighing of the wind the only sound.

"What happened to them, Molly?" Chavasse said.

"I don't know. Before God, I don't know," she cried.

"You mean you don't want to know, don't you?"

She shuddered violently as if at some secret unpleasant thought and he gripped her arms above the elbows, gentling her like a fractious mare. "All right, Molly-there's nothing to worry about. I'll handle it."

He started to walk away, paused and turned towards her. "Are you coming down?"

"I've the sheep to see to." Her hands were shaking so hard that she had to clasp them together. "Later-I'll be along later."

He didn't bother to argue and went down the hill on the run, his face grim. The possibilities implicit in what she had said were monstrous and yet, if he was honest, some sort of suspicion had been there at the back of his mind from the moment he had met Sam Crowther and his sinister shadow. He remembered the knob on the bedroom door turning silently in the night and his flesh crawled.

He climbed the stone stile, vaulted the wall and found himself face to face with Youngblood.

"Find anything?" Chavasse said.

Youngblood shook his head. "Not even a shotgun. I know where we are though. Found an old envelope. This is Wykehead Farm, near Settle." He frowned suddenly. "You look excited. Anything happen?"

"I'm not really sure," Chavasse said. "But I've just had a chat with Molly and I've a hunch there could be something very nasty in the woodshed."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"No time to discuss it now. Ask her about Saxton and Hoffa yourself and see what you make of it. You get a clear view of the main road from the top. The moment you see Crowther's car, come down and warn me. You'll have plenty of time."

He went down the hill quickly leaving Youngblood standing there, a frown on his face. After a while he turned, climbed the stile and went up the hill.

Although he had developed, and especially in his Navy days a genuine love of the sea, Harry Youngblood was a city animal and he paused to survey the strange twisted landscape with distaste. There was nothing here that appealed to him. Nothing at all, and he climbed on until he reached the spine of rocks on the crest of the hill and looked down to the road below. A truck moved along it, match-box size, but there was no sign of Crowther's old black Ford.

He turned and started towards the hut and suddenly realised that the girl was standing there looking at him, a lamb cradled in her arms. She disappeared inside and when he reached the doorway, he found her crouched down on the floor mixing some kind of bran with milk in a feeding bowl.

"Hello there," Youngblood said. "What happened to your father?"

"He went into the next village with Billy. I came up here to check the sheep."

She had spoken without looking round and he lit a cigarette, aware of a sudden unbearable tightness in his chest that threatened to choke him. She had taken off her coat and the black woollen dress she wore was, like the cotton one of the previous night, a size too small and stretched tightly across her buttocks and thighs.

Outside, thunder echoed faintly and the rain increased with a sudden rush. She glanced briefly, almost furtively over her shoulder and again, he was conscious of that same strange trick of the light as the shadows of the hut smoothed away her plainness, softened the harshness of that strong, ugly face, making her beautiful.

She stood up, reaching to a rack on the wall and Youngblood, his throat dry, dropped his cigarette and moved close, his arms sliding around her, pulling her against him. When he turned her around, she stood there woodenly, her face expressionless, making no move to stop him as his hands crawled across her body.

Five years. Five long, hard years. Forgetting about Saxton and Hoffa and Chavasse's strange behaviour, Youngblood, hot with desire, threw every other consideration to the winds and pushed her back on to the pile of hay in the corner.

It was only when he penetrated her that she came to life, her hands tightening in his hair, her mouth fastening on his with great bruising kisses that were almost frightening in the intensity of their passion.

Below in the valley, Sam Crowther's old Ford turned off the road and started along the track to the farm.

Youngblood surfaced, his face damp with sweat and stared up at the roof. There had been no finesse about what had happened, nothing gentle and now it was over. She lay beside him, eyes closed, breasts heaving, moisture beading her upper lip and he was filled with something very close to disgust. She was ugly-God dammit, everything about her was ugly from the unkempt hair and sallow face to the dowdy black dress and darned stockings.

He eased away and she turned at once, opening her eyes. He forced a smile. "You all right, kid?"

"Oh, Harry, I love you. I love you so much." She clutched his hand and turned her face into his shoulder.

It was a cry from the heart of someone who had never known love or kindness or any kind of affection in her life before, but Youngblood had neither the perception nor the sensitivity necessary to understand, that for her he had become the only real thing in a world of illusion.

He patted her on the shoulder awkwardly and pulled away, taking out his cigarettes and lighting one. Looking for a change of subject, he remembered what Chavasse had said.

"What went on between you and Paul? When he passed me on the way down he seemed pretty excited about something."

She got up, took a comb from the pocket of her coat and ran it through her hair. "He was asking me questions about the other people who came here, that's all."

"Like George Saxton and Ben Hoffa?"

"That's right."

"And what did he want to know?"

"If I'd seen them leave."

Youngblood frowned. "And did you?"

She shook her head. "The others who came used to stay two or three days, but I never saw either of your friends again after I brought them up here."

Youngblood stared at her in horror as the full implication sank in. "Jesus Christ!" he whispered.

In the same moment, both barrels of a shotgun were fired in rapid succession, the sound echoing flatly through the rain as it drifted up from the valley below.

He turned to the door and the girl grabbed his arm. "Don't go, Harry-don't go!" she screamed.

He struck her across the face with the flat of his hand, sending her backwards into the hay. "You bitch!" he said. "You dirty little bitch! You've sold us out!"

And then he was gone and she picked herself up and stumbled after him, crying hysterically.

When Chavasse reached the farmyard he paused, suddenly uncertain, not even sure what he was looking for. If his suspicions were correct, if Saxton and Ben Hoffa had never left this place alive, their bodies could be anywhere. Tossed into a peat bog or simply buried a foot under the surface somewhere out there on the moors, they could lie for five hundred years without being discovered.

He went inside the farmhouse and stood in the stone flagged passageway for a moment, wondering what to do next, conscious of the eerie silence. There was a door to his left and one on the right leading to the parlour and living room respectively and the kitchen was at the far end. And then he noticed another under the stairs.

When he opened it, unpleasant, dank odour drifted up to meet him from the darkness below. He fumbled for the light switch and clicked it on to disclose a flight of stone steps. He went down cautiously and found himself in a narrow whitewashed passage that turned into another, various storerooms leading off on either side.

There was the usual accumulation of rubbish that was to be found in the cellars of any old house and many of the rooms had obviously been used to store provisions in other days. He was wasting his time, so much was obvious and he turned and went back along the passage.

"Doing a bit of exploring, eh?" Sam Crowther said from the top of the stairs.

He was standing in the doorway, a double-barrelled shotgun under one arm. Chavasse paused fractionally at the bottom of the steps and kept on going.

"That's right. Hope you don't mind."

"Not at all." Crowther moved back into the passageway, a jovial smile on his face. "And where's Mr. Youngblood?"

"Somewhere around."

"And Molly?" Crowther chuckled, somehow contriving to make even that sound obscene. "Happen they're together, eh?" And he dug his elbow into Chavasse's ribs.

"I wouldn't know about that."

In spite of Crowther's unctuous smile an indefinable air of menace hung around him and danger crackled in the air like electricity. Chavasse waited, tense and ready for anything that was to come, uncomfortably aware of the dull ache from his stitches, knowing that, to all intents and purposes, he might as well be one-armed.

Crowther leaned forward and winked in a conspiratorial fashion. "There's summat you might find very interesting out back, summat I wouldn't show to everybody. Seeing as how we're alone, this might just be the time."

He turned, walking ahead along the passageway and Chavasse followed him out through the kitchen. He led the way across the yard and opened a gate leading into a small courtyard. The only thing it seemed to contain was an old well surrounded by a three foot circular brick wall. Billy stood beside it, a stupid fixed grin on his ugly face, his great hands curved slightly as if he was waiting for something.

"Let's have it off then, Billy, lad." Crowther chuckled. "Nothing like a piece of female flesh for splitting the opposition. Mind you my Molly's no oil painting, I'll grant you that, but she's got the necessary and after five years inside Mr. Youngblood's not going to be too choosy now, is he?"

The barrel of the shotgun jabbed Chavasse in the back and, as the cover came off the well with a crash, he pivoted sharply, his left arm trapping the barrel against his side, the edge of his right hand slashing Crowther across the side of the neck so that he cried out in pain and staggered back.

Chavasse pulled the shotgun from under his armpit with his right hand, thumbing back the hammers awkwardly as he ran for the gate. As he started to turn, Billy gave a cry of rage and lurched forward.

He was like some primeval beast lumbering in for the kill, the nightmare face contorted with rage, great hands outstretched to rend and tear. Chavasse didn't even let him get close. He swung up the shotgun one-handed, resting the barrels across his left arm and fired. The first shot caught Billy in the chest, stopping him dead in his tracks, the second blew away half his face, scattering blood and brain across the cobblestones, driving him back against the well. He hit the wall, jack-knifed and disappeared without a cry. There was a single splash and then silence.

Crowther lay on his face moaning softly and Chavasse dropped to one knee beside him and searched his pockets. He found a handful of cartridges and reloaded the shotgun, then he gave Crowther a kick in the ribs and stood back.

"On your feet."

Crowther scrambled up, backing against the wall of the courtyard. Chavasse moved in and rammed the muzzle of the shotgun under the man's chin.

"Saxton and Hoffa, they're down there, aren't they?" Crowther hesitated and the muzzle dug painfully into his flesh. "Aren't they?"

Crowther nodded fearfully. "That's right."

"How many more?" Again he hesitated and Chavasse thumbed back the hammers of the shotgun.

"For God's sake, don't shoot!" Crowther cried. "Four-that's all."

"That's all," Chavasse said in disgust, fighting back the inclination to pull the trigger. "Then other people were passed through safely?"

"That's right. I was only obeying orders."

"I bet you were. The people you passed on? Where did they go to next?"

"I wouldn't know." The barrel of the shotgun was raised menacingly and he cried out in alarm. "It's the truth, I tell you. I used to drop them ten miles from here at a crossroads to be picked up by someone else."

There was the sound of running feet and Youngblood called through the rain from the house. "Drum-where are you?"

"Out here!" Chavasse replied.

Youngblood arrived a moment later and paused in the gateway. "What happened here?"

"They thought I might be more comfortable down the well, but Billy decided to try it instead. You'll be interested to know that's where Saxton and Ben Hoffa are."

Youngblood crossed to Crowther. "You dirty bastard."

Very slowly, but with infinite menace, he searched the older man, tossing the contents of his pockets carelessly onto the cobbles. He found a wallet which appeared to contain fifty or sixty pounds and nodded to Chavasse.

"This should be useful. What's he told you?"

"Everybody didn't end up down the well. Most of the clients were passed on."

"Where to?"

"He doesn't know. Says he drops them at a crossroads about ten miles from here to be picked up."

Youngblood turned on Crowther and laughed harshly. "Are you trying to tell me you never hung around to see what happened, never followed anybody? In a pig's ear, you didn't."

He sank his fist into the pit of Crowther's stomach so that he screamed and doubled over, falling to his knees. A foot caught him a glancing blow on the shin and he fell over backwards.

"Now try him," Youngblood said.

Chavasse dropped on one knee beside Crowther and raised his head. "He means business-I'd talk if I were you."

Crowther nodded, a dazed expression in his eyes and wiped blood from his cheek. "All right, I'll tell you. I did follow clients twice."

"What happened?"

"They were picked up by a furniture van and dropped off on the outskirts of Shrewsbury."

"Then what?"

"They waited on a certain bench and were picked up by the same person each time-a blind woman with a guide dog. Her name's Hartman-Rosa Hartman and she lives at Alma Cottage, Bampton. She's some sort of a clairvoyante."

At that moment, the girl arrived, panting and out of breath, her face flushed. She poised in the gateway and looked around her wildly.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

Youngblood turned and went towards her. "If I am, it's no thanks to you, you rotten little bitch. I could have been at the bottom of that well by tonight and no questions asked."

She was crying, her face looking uglier than ever and pawed at his chest. "I didn't know, Harry. I didn't know."

"Do you think I came over on a banana boat or something?" Youngblood said and he grabbed her hair viciously, wrenching back her head.

Chavasse moved across the courtyard in three quick strides and pulled him away. "Leave her alone, Harry. She'd nothing to do with it. All she ever had were suspicions and if she hadn't mentioned those, I probably wouldn't be here now."

Behind them, Crowther saw his chance and ran for a gap in the wall where the brickwork had crumbled. Youngblood turned with a cry of alarm, but he was too late and Chavasse grabbed his arm to hold him back as Crowther ran for his life through the undergrowth on the other side of the wall.

"Never mind him-we've got to get out of here."

They went out into the main courtyard and the girl plucked at Youngblood's sleeve. "You'll take me with you, Harry?"

"Do me a favour," Youngblood said and pushed her away violently.

"But you can't leave me," she pleaded. "Not now."

"What's she talking about?" Chavasse demanded.

"How the hell should I know?" Youngblood said impatiently. "I'll get some food from the house and we'll get moving. I suppose we'd better take the Ford."

"Please Harry!"

The girl was crying bitterly and Chavasse looked at her, a frown on his face. He didn't like leaving her, if only because Crowther might return. On the other hand she would be nothing but a hindrance. Or would she?

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Molly, can you drive?"

She looked up eagerly. "Of course I can."

"What are you up to?" Youngblood demanded.

"I was just thinking," Chavasse said. "What if we run into a road block somewhere. It's always possible. If the girl drove a mile in front in the Ford and we followed in the cattle truck, there'd be time for her to turn back and warn us."

Youngblood nodded slowly. "You know, I think you've got something there." He turned to Molly and put a hand on her shoulder. "Think you can do it, kid?"

She gazed up at him, an expression of pure joy in her eyes. "Just try me, Harry. Just try me."

Five minutes after the truck had rolled away down the track, Sam Crowther emerged from the trees at the back of the farm and limped across the yard. His mouth was badly swollen and his chest hurt so that he could hardly breathe.

He leaned over the sink, holding his head under the cold tap and when he straightened, reaching for a towel, he found Simon Vaughan standing in the open doorway.

"Hello, Mr. Smith," Crowther said uncertainly. "I didn't expect to see you."

"Just thought I'd look in to see if everything had gone off smoothly," Vaughan said. "You look as if you've been in the wars, old man."

"Nothing I couldn't handle." Crowther's brain worked overtime. "You've brought the money with you, I hope."

"You've disposed of them already?" Vaughan said. "I must say that's very efficient of you. Where are they?"

"In the well at the rear."

"Mind if we take a look?"

Crowther hesitated. "You won't see much. Stillsuit yourself."

It was still raining when they went into the courtyard and approached the well. The stench was appalling, but such was the depth of the shaft that it was impossible to see what lay at the bottom.

"So you put them down there, did you?" Vaughan said.

"That's right."

Vaughan sighed. "You know you really are the most awful liar. I've just walked over the hill, old man. I saw Youngblood and Drummond drive away in that cattle truck of yours."

Which was true, although he had missed Molly's departure in the Ford by five minutes.

"You have a daughter, don't you? Where is she?"

"I reckon she's cleared off," Crowther whispered.

"I see. Did you tell our friends about Alma Cottage at Bampton and Rosa Hartman?" Crowther's face was his answer and he shook his head gently. "You shouldn't have done that, old man. You really shouldn't."

His right hand came out of his pocket and swung up, the blade of a flicked knife springing into view, the point catching Crowther under the chin and shearing through the roof of his mouth into his brain.

He died instantly and Vaughan pulled out the knife, holding him upright, cleaned the blade carefully on Crowther's jacket, then pushed him over the wall into the well. He turned and walked away through the rain whistling tunelessly.