Chapter 18
Hartnell edged himself very carefully up to see over the skylight from a different angle. He took a risk of having his head blown off, but there was nothing else he could do except keep out, which he had no intention of doing.
The kitchen was empty when he peered over. The glass of one of the two panes were shattered and cracked in all directions.
He waited for nearly a minute and then he smashed the rest of the glass with his fist, ducking back out of sight at the same time.
He heard the glass clattering on the floor, nothing else, and he gradually eased himself up again to look over. The kitchen was still empty and he couldn't think what the setup was. Who was in there? And was Gracie there? Were they waiting to get him down there to have a better target - a sitting duck, virtually? If only he had a pistol - or even some sort of club. He stared along the roof but there was nothing.
Down in the kitchen he could see bottles, a heavy frying pan, heavy ladles. Yes, he would have to take the chance and get down there. The silence was ominous. But, maybe the lack of movement inside meant that whoever had been here had fled. Perhaps it was one of the gang hiding out for the time being. Gracie probably wasn't there at all. These considerations played small part in his action. Nothing would have stopped him getting into the flat. If Gracie was there, at least they'd make a fight of it and maybe go down together.
Gingerly, watching the kitchen door all the while, he reached through the shattered pane and undid the catch. With one hand he pushed it up and then inserted the other under the frame as it rose. He withdrew the first hand and pushed the window right up, latching the iron catch on the last notch. There was still no movement from within and he could hear nothing at all.
He waited a moment, sweating. He knew he was taking his life recklessly in his hands. He'd done it before in those years of daredevil hell amidst the flak and the enemy planes.
Gently he swung himself onto the edge of the skylight. It was a drop of ten feet. He dropped, landing on the balls of his feet shooting forward a pace and seizing a ladle from the wall in the same movement.
As he edged forward towards the open door he picked up a bottle to throw at the first sign of movement. But there wasn't any and as he reached the door and could see through the crack he was suddenly sure the room was empty. No. There was someone on the bed! The blood rushed to his head and he lunged into the room, his face wrinkled with horror. Gracie was lying there the way Francie had left her.
As soon as he'd got the gag off her she burst into hysterical tears, which seemed a mixture of the most utter anguish and the most complete joy.
Hartnell's eyes had filled with tears. He was speechless. He untied her bonds as quickly as his trembling hands would permit him and then clasped her gently in his arms. Neither had said a word.
They clung together for a long time, pressed tenderly together. It didn't matter to Gracie that his hands were on the weals on her back. That he was here was unbelievable and wonderful. It gave her some strange, new faith. It was surely an act of God that he should have arrived just at this moment before Francie took her off to new ravishment and death.
Hartnell's voice broke with a sob when at last he managed to speak.
"Who did this Gracie?"
Quietly, through her tears, wincing occasionally from a sudden twinge of pain, she told him how Francie had arrived, purporting to be him, how he had subjected her to this misery and intended taking her away to kill her.
Hartnell's voice shook with emotion. His eyes were like a hunted tiger's, haunted and savage at the same time.
"I'll kill him for this!" His voice was intense, bordering still on a sob. "I'll smash him to a pulp and then I'll hang for it. The bastard, the filthy bastard! I'll kill him!"
His voice had risen, become almost shrill with emotion, and it was Gracie who became the calming agent.
"Pass me a gown, darling. I don't want you to see me like this."
Hartnell sat on the bed, his head in his hands, working himself into a fury of hatred against Francie, thinking what he was going to do to him when he caught him. If it hadn't been for Gracie he would have rushed straight from the house in pursuit.
Gracie went into the kitchen and bathed the raw, stinging wounds as best she could, refusing help from Hartnell.
"Where will he have gone?" he grated, after a while.
"It doesn't matter, darling." Gracie came back into the room. He saw slight traces of bruises on her lovely face. "Don't chase him, darling. We must get away," she pleaded.
"Where will he have gone?" Hartnell repeated, almost harshly. "I'm going after him, Gracie. I should never be able to live with the knowledge of what he'd done to you."
"Oh Roger, Roger. Can't you see that the fact that we're together now and have a chance is the most important. Let what's passed, pass. Oh darling, please."
"No, Gracie. I have to get him first. And, by God, when I do he'll wish they'd got him the other night instead."
Gracie looked at him hopelessly. He was going to dash all their chances of getting quietly into a different world. Before it had been she who hadn't seen things clearly, now it was he. Her whole body was burning, but it seemed unimportant now that he was here with her. She longed to keep him with her, somehow, anyhow.
"Tell me what happened to you?" she asked. She had washed the tearstains from her face and her eyes in their tired, shadowy hollows were brighter than they'd been for some time. Quietly, indifferently, almost impatiently he told her. She listened intently, occasionally biting her lip with the twinge of pain from one or more of the weals which covered her body. When he'd finished she resumed her plea.
"Any more of this can only lead to tragedy, Roger - I feel it," she begged. "Let's try to get away while it's possible. I've heard of people taking fishing boats to France. Anything would be better than staying here."
Roger gazed compassionately at the bruise marks on her face. The picture of her beaten body he wanted to try and keep out of his mind. "No, dearest," he said. "When I escaped it was to find you and then get Francie to jail by hook or by crook. Now it's just my intention to get Francie by hook or by crook."
"But it won't clear you. What I want, Roger, is for you to be cleared. But that couldn't happen. You'd never get Francie - and even if you did he'd never admit he was driving the lorry."
"You're probably right, Gracie," Hartnell agreed. "But it doesn't make any difference. I've just got to get him. It'll make it easier if I know where he's likely to have gone - otherwise I'll simply head for the hideout to see if he's there."
Gracie felt the hopelessness of argument. Not even love for her or concern for his own life would thwart him in his determination to get even with Francie.
"That's almost certainly where he's going. He said something about meeting the others there. Darling, I'm coming with you if you're going. I don't want not to be with you when you're in such danger."
"I won't let you do that. You're in no state to do anything but stay here. Lock the door and don't open it to anyone. If anyone tries to come through the skylight run out to the nearest police station - even that would be better."
"But, darling . . ."
He cut her short.
"Gracie - you must do as I say. If you came with me it would only restrict me and make me nervous and afraid because you were there and might get hurt. Once I get Francie and have settled with him. I'll come back here and then we'll see."
Gracie picked up her handbag and felt inside.
"Take this," she said, holding the revolver - Charlie's revolver - towards him, "And may God be on your side, darling."
He took the weapon and she came into his arms. They kissed gently. Too much had happened and was going to happen for passion to have any place. There was only tenderness and desperate hatred of parting.
Gracie's lips moved as if in a prayer.
"I'll always love you, darling," she whispered.
He held her gently to him, hating not to be able to press her more tightly to him because of the wounds.
"We'll make a lift yet, Gracie," he said softly. "This is coming to an end - all this business."
"I hope so. God, I hope so."
Hartnell placed the gun in his right-hand pocket. He went out onto the landing and Gracie closed the door behind him. All the way down the stairs he fought down his wondering if he would ever see her again.
Sitting on a bench some way up the street, Detective Constable Jones saw Hartnell come out of the block. He buried himself in his newspaper and muttered the news into his pocket radio.
"Keep on him, Jones," the superintendent's voice came back. "We'll let Turner know. We're only round the corner but I don't want him to get scared. We'll be following you."
Hartnell walked right past Jones' seat with a rapid stride. After a few seconds the detective constable got up, looked in the opposite direction, stretched, looked after Hartnell as if getting his bearings and then crossed the road and followed him at some distance on the other side.
Five minutes later when Gracie, fully dressed and hardly showing the pain she felt as she walked, came out of the block, the superintendent's car had already passed and was giving directions to other patrol cars coming in from other directions.
Without fuss or flurry the whole drama passed away from Earl's Court towards the docks.
Hartnell walked for some distance before he took a taxi. He was a little afraid of police checks on all vehicles. He hadn't bought a newspaper, preferring to remain in ignorance of information which, he was sure, could only depress him. Francie was his sole objective.
He was burning like a volcano to get his hands on the gang leader's throat. First he would like to beat him the way he'd beaten Gracie but twice as hard and twice as long, and then he wanted to throttle him with his hands.
Sometimes he glanced over his shoulder and once he thought a man was following him on the opposite side of the road. But when he turned sharply down on a side street the fellow kept straight on.
He knew London fairly well, but it was some time before he found the hideout. The taxi had driven him to a street the name of which he remembered in the vicinity, but he still wandered for quite some time before he hit upon the narrow lane which led to the narrower one and the garage. The area was quiet. It was mid-afternoon. Many of the buildings in the lane were garages and storage houses: a couple of little, ragamuffin boys were playing marbles in the broader lane and a skinny woman passed Hartnell, carrying a shopping bag.
He waited, lingering on the corner a few seconds and then began to walk carefully towards the garage.
Above the garage was another floor - a loft which had been used for storage. In this had been cut a long slit and it was from this slim embrasure that Lucky, who had been posted on a guard duty in case anyone came while the gang were clearing up, saw Hartnell advancing cautiously along the lane.
Francie had half expected him and when Lucky flew breathlessly down the basement steps to warn of his approach, the gang stopped their clearing-up operations and began to get into position.
The majority - everyone had got back safely from the docks - were to remain in the basement room, taking cover behind beds and crates, guns trained on the door through which Hartnell would eventually come.
Francie was to join Lucky in the loft and they would shoot him down from behind. With their silencers the guns would not sound even as violently as a tire bursting or a cork popping out of a bottle.
"Right," Francie hissed before he and Lucky flew back up the stairs to the wooden ladder leading to the loft. "As soon as 'e comes in let him 'ave it. He's out for blood, believe me. So it's up to our little firin' squad to shoot first."
He took a last look at the positioning around the basement, his eyes signified his cruel satisfaction and then he raced after Lucky up into the loft.
Lucky watched Hartnell arrive, peering again through the slit in the woodwork. Francie was poised in the darkness at the top of the ladder below the trapdoor which led out onto the flat roof of the garage.
Detective Constable Jones, who had beer joined by his colleague Turner, watched Hartnell disappear into the narrow lane. Over their radios they heard Superintendent Wilson saying. "This looks like it, boys. Close in . . ."
Hartnell tiptoed into the unlocked garage. The van was there, he noticed, number-plate changed yet again. It looked as if everyone had got away. He took the gun from his pocket and slipped the safety catch. He had a look at the van first. He was not unaware that Francie might be expecting him, and in one sense it turned his blood cold at the thought that he might be walking smack into a trap. But at the same time there was no other way of getting Francie and he was going to do that whether it cost him his own life or not.
Satisfied that there was nobody in the van he made softly for the basement stairs. At the top he paused and contemplated the ladder to the loft. It was dark up there. He could see nothing. He hesitated, unsure which way to take first and then, as had been arranged, he heard voices coming from the basement room. He made his way cautiously down the steps, very slowly. He was, perhaps, halfway down when he heard the quick scuffle which seemed to come from the loft. He turned about, pointing the revolver towards the top of the basement steps. The creak of the trapdoor came to him, a grunt of exertion and then he was bounding up the steps two at a time.
Just in time to see a foot swinging up through the open trapdoor and disappearing into the square of light, he fired and scrambled up the steps.
Lucky, who had been watching Hartnell arrive had been slow to leave the chink for fear of making noise while he was directly underneath. It was thus he had seen the arrival of the police: several patrol cars crammed with them as far as he could make out had filled the entrance to the lane, blocking it completely.
He had crept frantically from the lookout spot, gesticulating through the darkness to Francie who had not noticed until Lucky reached him.
It had been a moment's reflection to decide on the uselessness of fighting their way through Hartnell to warn the rest of the gang. It was too bad, was Francie's thought, but there it was, each man for himself. It might be that the police would be so occupied with the rest that he and Lucky could make a clean getaway over the roofs. The police would certainly get a warm reception if they tried to get down to the basement - they'd have to use gas.
He had reckoned without Hartnell's keen sense of hearing - and his shot.
The shot, followed by silence, had brought the police to the garage at a run and had sent the gang swarming out from the basement.
There had been a more or less head-on collision. The gang had ranged themselves around the van and the top of the basement steps and started a furious gun battle with the police who drove a couple of patrol cars up outside the garage doors for protection. So severe was the police fire that it was virtually impossible for any of the gang to climb up the ladder to the loft.
Hartnell, meanwhile, had followed Lucky and Francie out onto the roof.
They had already made good time across the flat, concrete top of the garage and were disappearing along the furrow formed by the sloping roofs of two warehouses at a higher level farther on.
He dropped Lucky with his first shot, wishing he hadn't had to but knowing that Lucky would turn against him with Francie - odds that with only five shots remaining he wouldn't have been able to take.
He saw Francie turn, as if surprised they'd been followed so quickly, and shoot back along the furrow. He flung himself on his face and crawled to the ridge the two roofs made, peering round. Another shot shattered the slate as he pulled his head back and he broke out in a sweat, whistling through his teeth. He peeped again and Francie had run on and was jumping down to another level. He had two alternatives: to follow along the furrow as an open target, or to scramble along the broad but insecure-looking guttering on the outside of one of the two ridges of roof. He chose the latter course, threw caution to the winds and scrambled along at speed, nearly losing his footing once and regaining it with a cold chill in his stomach.
He could hear the shooting behind him and below and he wondered what the hell had happened, but dared not look back.
At the far end of the roof ridge he looked down onto the lower level - a flat roof sloping slightly away from him.
Another shot smashed the slates near his head and he saw Francie had climbed again on the other side and was retreating amidst a number of chimneys. He held his fire. Francie had used three shots to his two.
With a quick jump, he was down onto the low roof and darting across the space to the step up.
Francie swung round a chimney and Hartnell fired, knowing he was going to hit. He heard the cry of pain. He had caught Francie's ankle. He heard something crashing down the roof beyond him on the side he couldn't see, wondered if it was Francie's gun and decided it was a chance not to be missed.
He vaulted up onto the higher roof and advanced rapidly towards the chimney.
There was a quick slithering and Francie, dragging one ankle, his face creased with pain, threw himself from the sheltering chimney and fell behind another.
Hartnell could see the outside of the roof now, and a gun was lying in the guttering. Below, to his astonishment he saw a mob of policemen looking up, and farther along the lane a crowd of people had gathered.
He had no time for reflection. A roof slate skimmed past his shoulder. That was it; Francie had only the one gun and he'd lost it.
"All right Francie," he called, and his voice was grim with satisfaction. "When I get there you're going to wish you'd never been born."
He edged round the chimney, watching for the next slate. It came and he ducked, hearing it smash to pieces on the chimney stack behind him.
At the same time he saw Francie make a desperate plunge down the side of the roof towards the lost revolver.
He raised his arm, but an almost impossible descent and a broken ankle had already done the job for him. With one shrill scream, Francie slipped, clung, slipped again and crashed from the roof to the feet of the police below, taking a shower of debris with him.
Hartnell walked to the edge of the roof and looked over as far as he could. Half a dozen policemen had heavy revolvers trained on him. He heard Superintendent Wilson's voice coming up to him through a megaphone:
"All right, son. Come on down. You've done your bit."
He began to walk back across the roofs and police were already coming to meet him.
They took him down through the trapdoor and into the garage. It was bedlam. Crates had been shot to pieces by police Sten guns and the gang had capitulated to a man.
The superintendent walked over to him with his rather bewildered-looking inspector.
"That's the man who drove the lorry," Hartnell said, simply, indicating the crumpled heap which was Francie farther up the lane.
By the time they had reached him, Gracie had broken through the relaxing police cordon and was with him. The superintendent decided he understood Hartnell's reticence, even though, he observed, the young lady did look a tiny bit battered.
Francie had been turned onto his back. He was bleeding badly. He hadn't long to live - a few minutes perhaps.
Hartnell looked down at him and no longer felt anything.
"Who drove the lorry that killed the policeman, Francie?" he asked.
Francie stared at him from the blood and the dirt and there was still no break in the cruelty in his eyes. He spat on the ground.
"Tell him who was driving it, Francie."
Francie spat again and blood came from his mouth. His eyes said "I'll see you in hell" as they looked from Hartnell and rested on Gracie.
"He was driving," he said weakly to the small crowd of police officers around him. He groaned and weakly moved his hand to his face. More blood welled from his mouth. He raised his head feebly. It seemed that he tried to grin fiendishly at Hartnell and then Gracie. And then he collapsed backwards with his mouth and eyes open.
They allowed Hartnell a few minutes with Gracie. She was crying.
"Somebody in the gang's going to admit it was Francie sooner or later," Hartnell said. "But I'll have a long time to do. You must forget me, Gracie. You're free now."
"Oh, Roger, I'll wait - you know I'll wait." She clung to him, sobbing.
The superintendent came over.
"All right, boy," he said. He turned to Gracie. "Don't worry too much, Miss. With good conduct it'll be much shorter than you think."
Gracie stared at him with bright eyes through her tears, and Hartnell looked at him too and was about to ask a question when the superintendent said: "Better wait for the proper channels," and took him by the arm towards the waiting car.
He looked out from the car where he was handcuffed between two detectives. He watched Gracie's eyes shining through her tears and he could only tell her with his eyes that he hoped she'd be waiting.
Hers repeated what she'd said before and her slim, still figure seemed to go on repeating it until the car turned into the broader lane and she was out of sight.