Landscape With Violence by John Wainwright

Author:John Wainwright [Wainwright, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime
Published: 2012-07-04T03:38:09+00:00

12.10 p.m…

“Damn!” Carter glared his disgust at the dead telephone, hurled the useless receiver on to the carpet of the bedroom, and muttered, “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

Every blasted telephone in the house dead. Of course, they would be. Wolff was a puffed-out yob, but he wasn’t an idiot; he’d have given very specific instructions to his bully-boys. Cut the link with the outside world. Don’t give anybody an opportunity to raise the alarm.

Basic precautions.

Basic enough, even for a yob like Wolff.

Carter walked to the window. He peeped through the horizontal slits in the half-closed Venetian blind; watching for some sign of movement across at Yew Tree Bower.

The Dardick was where he’d tossed it, prior to checking the bedroom telephone. It was there, on one of the beds… staining the brushed-nylon sheets with a smear of gun-oil.

Carter watched; he caught an occasional glimpse of Wolff in the sun lounge of Yew Tree Bower—a quick, on-and-off sighting through the branches of ornamental trees and bushes. Wolff moving around. Wolff looking agitated about something. Wolff waving his arms a little. Wolff talking to somebody… somebody Carter couldn’t see.

Carter bent his knees and squinted between some of the lower slats.

A voice said, “Interesting… is it?”

Carter whirled, tensed his legs for a dive for the bed and the Dardick, then froze as Lennox waved the Luger in his face.

“Naughty,” warned Lennox. The fat detective bent forward, over his own stomach, scooped the Dardick into his free hand, and said, “I’m collecting ’em, son. I’ll soon have a full set.”

Carter straightened his legs, relaxed, blew out his cheeks in a long sigh, and said, “Thank God!”

“For what?” enquired Lennox interestedly.

“That—y’know…” Carter waved one of his hands in a vague gesture. “That you’re not one of them.”

“Them?”

“Wolff’s crowd.”

“Y’mean your lot?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, man. You don’t think…”

“Easy sonny.” Lennox pointed the Luger at Carter’s navel, as Carter made as if to move towards the middle of the bedroom. “I don’t enjoy shooting people—I’ll grant you that… but, in my line of business, I have to do lots of things I don’t enjoy.”

“I’m—I’m not with Wolff,” said Carter, urgently.

“No?” Lennox looked curious… and disbelieving.

“Not with Wolff,” repeated Carter.

“You could have fooled me, cocky,” said Lennox gently. “This morning—in the boozer—when you pitched stumps for this little game. You put up a hell of a performance.”

“Oh!”

“For somebody who isn’t with Wolff,” emphasised Lennox.

“I—I suppose…” began Carter, then stopped.

“Go ahead,” said Lennox. “ ‘Suppose’ a little… we aren’t pressed for time.”

“That you think I’m on their side,” mumbled Carter.

“Rather more than ‘think’,” corrected Lennox.

“After this morning, I mean. Y’know… after this morning.”

“That,” said Lennox, “is exactly what I mean. ‘After this morning’. And, come to that, since this morning.”

“Yes,” said Carter, heavily. “You would—of course you would… everybody will.”

Lennox watched Carter’s face, as he asked. “And weren’t you?”

“This morning,” agreed Carter, wearily. “But not now.”

“No?” Disbelief was still thick upon the question.

“They’ll kill me,” said Carter, simply.

“Probably.”

“Certainly. It’s the only ‘safety’ their kind can understand.”

Lennox nodded silent agreement.

“After what Flora Aimes said. After what she did.

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