Death on the Downs

Forty-Five

Though flickers of unhealthy light intermittently penetrated her prison, Carole could see nothing of the outside world. Nor could she draw attention to herself. She had been securely gagged. But she could hear the two men talking.

At first she was full of a wild, crazy hope. This was a rescue. Why else would he have come? He was her saviour.

But they weren’t far into their conversation before that hope was crushed. More than crushed – stifled, strangled till no breath of life remained.

“It’s an impasse,” she heard Brian Helling’s voice say. “A Mexican stand-off with no weapons.”

“No weapons?” Lennie Baylis’s voice echoed.

“Well, no guns. One knife between the two of us.”

“But I hold all the cards,” said Baylis. “I’ve got the authority of the West Sussex Constabulary behind me.”

“Hardly.” There was triumph and derision in Brian Helling’s tone. “You shop me, I tell them about your deals with the boys in Brighton. How long have you been taking a percentage for turning a blind eye to their transactions? Nice little pay-offs from all the pubs and clubs. You must’ve salted away quite a bit by now, Lennie.”

“The police look after their own. Nobody’d in the force’d believe you, Brian.”

“No? All right, maybe not me on my own, but I could get Will Maples to back me up.”

“He won’t say anything. He’ll keep quiet to save his own skin.”

“You can’t be certain of that. I still know too much for you to turn me in, Lennie. You can’t afford the risk.”

“Maybe not.” There was a silence. “Of course, it needn’t be the police. I could just alert the Brighton boys to where you are.”

An intake of breath. Brian Helling was frightened, but he disguised his fear as well as he could. “Another risk too far. I might still be able to get information to the police.”

Baylis seemed to accept this and changed tack. “I’ve got plenty on you, though, Brian. I know about you digging up the bones in the barn behind the Forbeses’ place. I can get you on blackmail – and on torching your mother’s place.”

“You’ve got no proof of that. The fire could have been an accident.”

“No way. There was petrol on the dog’s fur.”

“The dog? Wasn’t that little bugger burnt to a cinder?”

“No, it got out of the cottage. Forced its way through a half-open window, we reckon.”

“Damn.”

“Yes. Bad luck, Brian. Always enjoyed hurting animals, didn’t you?”

“Better than enjoying hurting people, Lennie.” The line was spoken with deep viciousness. “You remember what you did to me here, don’t you?”

Baylis laughed, and in her prison Carole shivered. The sound was pure cruelty.

Then he asked, “Why did you kill your mother, Brian?”

“She’d lost her nerve. After Carole Seddon went to see her and then you went to see her the same day, she was all set to turn me in. I couldn’t allow that.”

“I see.”

“And with the insurance on Heron Cottage, I’ll be able to pay off what I owe in Brighton.”

“What? No way you’re ever going to get the insurance. You’re mad, Brian, do you know that? Always have been, from when you were a kid.”

“I’m not! But if I were, what you did to me here might help explain why!”

There was another callous laugh from Baylis.

With an effort, Brian Helling calmed himself. “So, like I said, it’s a Mexican stand-off. We know too much about each other. Each one of us has the power to destroy the other. And that’s what’s going to keep us both quiet.”

There was a long silence while Lennie Baylis took this in. At the end he asked flatly, “So what about her?”

“We both know the answer to that. Carole Seddon’s got rather a lot of information, hasn’t she? You know exactly how much. That’s why you’ve been taking such a personal interest in her investigations – to find out if she’s got anything incriminating on you.”

“Hm.”

“And you know she has, or you wouldn’t have come out to this godforsaken place. Carole Seddon knows enough to shop both of us – particularly if she’s overheard what we’ve just been saying.”

“Yes.”

To Carole the ensuing silence felt very long. Agonizingly long.

“So we have to kill her?”

“Needn’t be as proactive as that.”

“You mean we just leave her here?”

“That’s right. We just leave her here.”