Catching Andrews - Again

18

Catching Andrews—Again

    The path was only wide enough to take two abreast comfortably, and that was how they came down it. A flood of flushed-faced, silk-clad women, all more than old enough to know better, plus two or three mixed couples, the husbands looking neutral, the wives as flushed as any, and then… My eyes stood on stalks. The man whom I still tended to think of as Anson, pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair—it would be, I recognised groggily, one of the “complimentary wheelchairs” we’d seen folded up in the entrance lobby—followed closely by another wheelchair pushed by an older man who, there was no question, was Andrews Senior! The same thick thatch of hair, though his was silver, the same features, much more tanned, and manifestly much older, but yes, unmistakable. Perry dug me sharply in the ribs. I nodded dazedly.

    Behind them again came Pete, pushing a third wheelchair—his elderly lady was talking volubly and he was looking wry.

    “I could take ’im out,” said Perry in my ear, very quietly.

    “At this range?” I hissed. “Him and who else?”

    “Only a .22,” he murmured.

    Oh, the Hell with it! “Come on,” I said, stepping out as they neared us. The chattering, flushed women in front of them didn’t even spare us a glance as they passed. Andrews was laughing in a silly, affected manner. The laugh choked in his throat as he glanced over and realised who it was, and he came to a dead halt.

    I didn’t speak, I just pointed the .32.

    “Don’t try anything, Andrews,” said Perry from beside me. He moved swiftly to the other side of the path, where the ground was much more open, and steadied his little Walther TPH .22.

    The stupefied women in the wheelchairs had now got their breath, and gave vent to terrified shrieks.

    Andrews was looking round frantically for a way of escape. Behind him his father released his wheelchair and made a rush for the bushes. Pete tried to grab him, but he had to avoid the wheelchair: Andrews Senior vanished into the bushes. Pete dashed after him.

    “Stop them! Help!” screeched one of the wheelchaired women.

    “Lady, this An-thony bloke is a terrorist,” said Perry flatly.

    Possibly proving it, Andrews spat at him and swore violently.

    Behind us, many of the silk-clad ones had passed on towards the house, oblivious, but the nearest ones had heard the commotion and were milling about in consternation.

    “The police will be here any minute, Andrews,” I said loudly. “Just keep still. Or try to run and we’ll shoot you.”

    “You wouldn’t fucking well have the guts!” he shouted.

    No? Just try it, I thought.

    We must have held him there for about ten minutes, I suppose, but it felt like hours. Perry divided his time between guarding that side of the path and making sure that the milling crowd, now augmented by a couple of useless-looking young men from the house, kept well back. I just kept the Walther PPK/E trained on Andrews. Silently praying that he would make a run for it—yes.

    He didn’t, sadly. He was still standing there glowering when Inspector Wilson and his men fought their way through the crowd with shouts of: “Police! Stand back!” which didn’t, actually, have much effect.

    “Right, we’ll take it from here,” said Wilson briefly. Possibly we didn’t look convinced, as he then added: “Put those guns away before you kill somebody.”

    “Not Pygmalion likely, mate. He’s walked away from under the cops’ noses once already,” replied Perry smartly.

    “Shuddup. Jones, put the cuffs on ’im!”

    A young constable approached. I eyed him with disfavour: he couldn’t have been more than about twenty-three but he was already showing all the signs of spending his hours of work sitting in a car eating junk food—which, several persons had now assured me, was all the cops did all day. Distinctly plump around the jaw and podgy round the tum, bulging gently out of his pale blue summer uniform shirt.

    He fumbled with his handcuffs.

    Andrews must have realised in a split second that everyone’s eyes were on the constable, not on him. He made a dive for the bushes. I got off a shot. We heard a screech as he vanished, so I must have winged him: I’d certainly aimed at his left shoulder, though as I already knew Perry’s Walther PPK/E threw slightly left, under torture I might have admitted that I’d been hoping I’d get him in the chest.

    “After ’im!” roared Wilson, drawing his own gun. Belatedly, some would have said.

    Perry and I were already dashing into the dense growth of shrubs.

    “Over there!” he panted.

    We hurled ourselves into the undergrowth. We could hear Andrews crashing around in there somewhere but we couldn’t see him, or anything, except the thick foliage of the bloody rhododendrons and God-knew-what that, according to the information sheet we’d been favoured with on purchase of our garden tickets, had been planted in order to simulate an “English shrubbery” back in the 1930s.

    “Listen!” hissed Perry, panting, pulling me to a halt.

    I listened. Nothing.

    “Clear, or gone to ground?” gasped Wilson from behind us.

    What was the point of asking? I was wishing to God we’d brought the dogs.

    “My blokes are guarding all the exits,” said Wilson on a weak note.

    “There’s a fair amount of fencing he could get over if he doesn’t mind a bit of barbed wire, mate,” replied Perry sourly. “You winged him, didja, Alex?”

    “Yes, I think so.”

    “Good. Well, my bet is he’ll head for the far side of the house, where they keep their bins: one foot on a wheelie bin, he’s up on it, and over the wall. Come on!”

    We came on, Wilson meanwhile ordering his men via his walkie-talkie to check that side of the grounds. For my part, I had a vivid vision of Andrews realising the police would do just that, and circling back, to escape into the front garden over the gate in that ten-foot wall. Even winged, a fit man could easily enough haul himself up on those elegant vertical bars, reach the crossbar near the top that strengthened them and held them in place, and swing himself over.

    It got too much for me, and I said: “I’ll check out the other side.”

    Perry nodded. “Go.”

    I ran.

    I had to push past not a few bewildered idiots milling around pointlessly, asking the ambient air what was going on, not say several young constables trying to herd them back into the house, but I reached the gate, to find it swinging open. Hell! The bloody man must have had a key! I rushed through, no sign of him. Down to the front gates, still open, and—

    Jesus! It wasn’t him, it was his father, but it was just as bad. Cassie’s car was parked only a few yards from the gate, in a spot vacated, luckily, we’d thought at the time, just as we arrived. Andrews Senior had bashed in the passenger’s window with a mattock—it was lying on the pavement beside him—and was in the act of pointing a knife at Gavin’s throat.

    “HEY!” I shouted, and he swung round automatically.

    I had a clear shot. There was no chance of hitting the boy or the car. Behind him the pavement was empty.

    I shot him in the right thigh and he dropped like a log.

    He was still holding the knife.

    I approached cautiously. “Drop it.” No response. “Drop it or the next one’ll be in the chest.”

    He swore, readying the knife.

    My first shot had passed through the fleshy part of the thigh: it must have missed the bone, or he’d have been in a lot more agony than he was. There was plenty of blood but nothing fatal. It was the force of the impact alone that had felled him.

    “Drop the knife, Andrews,” I said.

    Face contorted with pain and fury, he raised it in the practised knife-thrower’s grip, fist clenched round the handle.

    I shot him in the chest.

    In the car Cassie and Gavin had both screamed. Then there was dead silence.

    Perry arrived about two seconds later, panting.

    “Heard—two!” he gasped.

    “Yeah. It’s the bloody father—like father, like son.”

    He took in the scene with a glance. “Got it. He was gonna have a try with the knife, was ’e?”

    It had fallen from his hand and was lying beside him. I looked down at him thoughtfully.

    “Well,” I said to Perry, “it wasn’t quite like that. I’m an ignorant Pommy that’s not used to guns. I panicked. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought he was going to get up again, so I just shot blindly.”

    There was a split second’s pause and then he said kindly: “Yes, of course you did, Alex, mate.” He put an arm round my shoulders. “Come over here and sit down on the verge: you’re in shock.”

    Rather luckily for the success of this pantomime, Asphodel House’s “plutey” suburb featured actual grass verges. The more usual Adelaide style was tiny uncomfortable pieces of scattered gravel on a wide stretch of dust. I sank down on the said grass, drew my knees up, and rested my chin on them.

    Perry patted my back kindly, as Wilson, an older plainclothes man and a couple of uniformed men dashed up to us.

    “Is that— That’s not him!” gasped Wilson.

    “No,” Perry agreed. “It’s his bloody father.”

    “So which one of you shot him?”

    “Alex did. Why he’s in shock, poor bugger,” he said.

    “Yes,” said Cassie’s voice clearly from the car. She opened the driver’s door and got out. “Poor Alex panicked, I think. He was shaking like anything after the gun went off and the horrible man fell over. I was terrified, I thought he was gonna get up again and stab us. Alex’s hand was shaking and he just shot at him blindly.”

    I couldn’t have put it better myself. Give that girl a medal!

    “Yes,” said Gavin’s voice from the broken window, very squeaky. “He just kind of shot at him blindly. He was pointing his knife at me.”

    “At his thuh-throat,” said Cassie. Suddenly she burst into tears—genuine ones, that no doubt she’d been holding back for some time. That did it, and Wilson was all fatherly concern, assuring her it was all over now, and urging her to sit down beside me. He then ordered his men to call an ambulance pronto, and made and answered umpteen calls on his walkie-talkie…

    The bloody man wasn’t dead. The conscientious ambulance personnel stanched the bleeding, clapped an oxygen mask on him, and rushed him off to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which was in the CBD—on the other side of the city, true, but still far too near—where the conscientious theatre staff saved his life; wasn’t he lucky?

    At the police station downtown Cassie burst into tears all over again as this titbit was purveyed to us by a misguided young female constable, and who could blame her? A second round of sweet tea was administered, Gavin, who’d earlier professed to hate tea, having now discovered that if it was soused in sugar and milk it was “not bad”, eagerly partaking.

    After this excellent news the two of them were told they could go, as their statements had been taken, but Mr Cartwright would have to stay and so would Mr Hawkes, as “first on the scene”.

    “Um, yes… Um, maybe Pete could drive,” faltered Cassie.

    As according to what meagre information the cops had supplied—none of us had been allowed to speak to him before we were all interviewed—Pete had had a knock the head, Perry hurriedly vetoed this idea.

    “Look,” he said firmly: “Ring Jim. Him and Paula’ll look after you, pet. They can contact your mum and dad or Junie or whoever you like, but they’re nearest.”

    “Cuh-could you ring him, Perry?”

    “Righto.” The police had told us not to use our mobile phones—doubtless for fear someone might be cretinous enough to contact the media—but he produced his, ignoring the startled look from the young constable on guard, and rang. Yes, Jim and Paula would both be there in fifteen minutes or so.

    “All right,” he said grimly to the constable: “Where is Mr Goodwin?”

    “Um, well, the ambos cleared him. Um, well, he’s given his statement. The Inspector said he could go,” was the helpful reply.

    “He’ll be waiting for ya, Cassie,” Perry decided. “Tell him to go home with Jim and Paula, too.” He turned back to the constable. Was there somewhere the lady and the little boy could sit down to wait? he asked in steely tones.

    Stuttering and stammering ensued but he finally, after consulting one, “Sarge”, agreed that there was, and ushered them out.

    That left Perry and me. Alone in a room with a hidden video camera: quite.

    I drooped over the South Australian Police’s ugly Formica table. After quite some time had elapsed in silence I said glumly: “I feel drained.”

    “Of course ya do, mate! Shit, anyone that’s not used to guns would!” he agreed with some fervour.—One could say this for Perry Hawkes, he wasn’t slow to pick up a cue.—“Don’t let it get to ya: the bastard woulda knifed you, ya know.”

    “I suppose… I’ve never been so scared in my life, Perry,” I admitted shakily. “I think in my mind I must’ve got him mixed up with his son, because I kept seeing awful pictures of what he did to Jim and me that time in Byron Bay… With the knife.” I shuddered. “It was terrible. I just— I can’t really remember,” I admitted. “I must have pulled the trigger, but...”

    “Stop thinking about it, mate,” he said quickly. “Have ya drunk your tea?”

    “Um… No, there’s a bit left,” I said wanly.

    “Well, drink it up: sugar’s good for shock.”

    “Is that what this is?” I drank and shuddered—this time involuntarily: it was disgusting, even worse cold. “I feel sort of shivery.”

    “Yeah, that’s what shock does to ya.”

    We had been provided with police blankets, the “ambos” having reclaimed the ones they’d initially put round us. Perry removed his and draped it over mine.

    “Thank you, Perry,” I said dully, wondering if I was going to come down with heat stroke.

    He sat down again. “And stop worrying! It was my fault: I should never have given you that Walther.”

    “What? Oh—the gun?” I said dully. “You did tell me just to threaten with it.”

    “Yeah, well. Like I say, it was my fault.”

    “No,” I said faintly. “He—he had his knife at the poor little boy’s throat, Perry. I—I had to stop him."

    “Yeah, ’course ya did, matey. Just stop brooding, eh? Think of something nice. Tell ya what, didn’t you say that you and Pete were gonna go to that place that does art restoration stuff and get your nice painting back? Think of that!” he urged brightly.

    I managed not to choke but it was a close-run thing. “Very well, I’ll try,” I said weakly.

    “Yeah, you do that.” He got up and opened the door. “OY!”

    After a few moments the young constable resurfaced, looking cautious. “Yeah?”

    “Look, mate,” said Perry: “couldn’t you for God’s sake have some biscuits brought in or something? We’ve been here for hours and by the looks of him, Alex is about to flake. That so-called afternoon tea we had at that poncy Asphodel House wouldn’t of satisfied a flea!”

    “Aw,” he said. “Mum wanted to go there but Dad took one look at the prices and said No way. Um, well, I could ask the Sarge…”

    Perry just waited, so the boy rang through on the wall phone.

    We waited, I with my head bowed, feeling very hot inside my two blankets, and Perry looking, as usual, completely blank.

    “The Sarge says,” the lad reported, “that they’ll bring something up from the canteen. And Inspector Wilson’ll be with you soon but he has to make his report to the top brass first, and they gotta think up somethink to tell the TV, they musta got hold of it somehow.”

    Somehow? There were several dozen idiots at Asphodel House with their eyes on stalks: take your pick! Informers with greased palms inside the Force needn’t even apply! I drooped over the ugly Formica table more than ever.

   “‘Right; well, thanks,” said Perry on a weak note.

    We waited.

    Oh, God. Steaming hot sausages and chips, baked beans in tomato sauce—baked beans in Australia? Uh, the Colonial legacy, presumably—and peas. Bright green, so frozen ones. I thought of the plethora of wonderful fresh produce in every supermarket I’d so far seen out here and felt extremely weak.

    “Thank you,” I managed to whisper.

    “No worries,” returned the stout copper who’d brought the appalling provender. He departed, beaming.

    “Perry, I—I’m not really hungry, I’m afraid,” I managed.

    He was tucking into sausage and chips, so unless he was martyring himself for the cause—of which Perry Hawkes would have been more than capable, I was in no doubt—he was genuinely hungry.

    “You gotta eat something,” he replied thickly through a mouthful. He swallowed. “Try some chips, at least.”

    Glumly I tried some chips. Reconstituted potato fuzz fried in fat, frozen for a millennium, and replunged into more boiling fat.

    “Don’t worry about your cholesterol count, Alex,” the amazing Mr Hawkes then produced: “they’re not allowed to use beef fat any more in Oz, these’ll be done in oil.”

    Having originally been soused in what, precisely? I refrained from asking and forced a few more down.

    “Sometimes they have pies,” our young constable volunteered helpfully. “Four’n Twenty, I think. They’re nobbad, but I reckon the sausages are better.” He looked wistfully at my plate.

    “Have mine,” I said limply. “I really can’t eat much. I’ll just have some chips and peas.”

    “Um, thanks, but I can’t, I’m on duty, the Sarge’d have me guts for garters!” he gasped.

    Bother. The greasy dark brown sausages sat there looking at me evilly…

    “You sure ya don’t want them, mate?” asked Perry.

    What with the two blankets and the fact that the police station’s air conditioning wasn’t coping too well in this room, though in the corridors it had been freezing— “No, really,” I said limply. “It was very good of you to think of food, Perry, but it’s too much for me.”

    “Righto, then.” He reached over with his fork and speared one. He held the fork up, raising his eyebrows suggestively at the young constable. The boy shook his head frantically. Shrugging, Perry bit into the sausage…

    He left his baked beans, so there was something even he couldn’t face! Phew.

    Wilson finally returned. I couldn’t have said when, I refrained from looking at my watch: I had a feeling it wouldn’t have been within the rôle.

    He sat down heavily at the table, and nodded to his offsider, who went over to the electronic equipment that lurked in one corner and pressed buttons.

    On all those police procedural telly dramas, British or American, it doesn’t seem to matter, they carefully announce things like “Interview resumed at” and name themselves and their offsiders—actually, I think in the British ones the offsider has to name him- herself. This didn’t happen.

    “Lessee,” he said heavily. “I think we’ve more or less got the details of what happened straight, but we’ll need to go over them later. What made you suspect that Brodie Andrews was hiding out at Asphodel House?”

    I gaped at him. What?

    Possibly Perry had been expecting this sort of thing. At any rate, he said in a distinctly limp voice that was entirely unlike him: “Run that by us again, wouldja, mate?”

    Wilson gave him a bitter look. “You heard.”

    “Inspector, we had no idea that Andrews was anywhere near… You can’t believe we’d have taken the children there if we’d known!” I croaked.

    “Or the womenfolk,” Perry agreed on a grim note. “Are you barmy?”

    Wilson’s mouth tightened for a moment. Then he said: “The way I see it, you roll up with the family looking innocent, this lures Andrews and his dad into the open, then you make a grab.”

    “Bullshit,” Perry stated flatly. “Why the fuck don’tcha concentrate on convicting the actual crims? Have you found any proof yet that Andrews Senior is the art forger?”

    Wilson merely gave him an unpleasant look.

    “They must have, Perry,” I offered feebly. “We know he is.”

    He sighed artistically. “That’s not proof, Alex. Just try to take it easy, you’re not yourself. –Look, Inspector Wilson, you probably don’t know much about Alex’s background, but he’s got teams of lawyers and a rich family behind him. He might not kick up a fuss if ya try to stick him with anything, he’s not that sort, but they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks. Anything you try on in court, his brief’ll wipe the floor with you. Come to think of it, he knows Andrew Zeff, don’t you, Alex?”

    “What?” I replied in a fuddled voice.

    “Andrew Zeff. The Q.C.”

    “Oh—yes. He was very kind to me. He came to the bank with me and Cassie and explained everything to the manager… And he and his wife had me to dinner. They have a lovely home. They were very gracious… He has a delightful collection of netsuke.”

    “That’s right, mate, known for being a connoisseur of all that Japanese arty stuff, isn’t ’e?” he agreed kindly. “See?” he said blandly to Wilson.

    “I’m not trying to stick anybody with anything, Mr Hawkes,” he replied grimly. “I merely need to ascertain the facts.”

    “I think he means about the tea—sorry, Perry: afternoon tea, isn’t it, in Australia?” I offered.

    “Yeah, that’s right, mate,” he said kindly. “You just take it easy, okay? I’ll explain.”

    “Oh—will you? Thank you, Perry. I don’t think he needs to know about the amuse-bouches,” I said in a fuddled voice—at least, I was hoping it sounded fuddled.

    “No, I’ll skip them,” he agreed soothingly. “Like we tried to tell you before, Inspector, we went to fucking Asphodel House because it was our mate Pete’s gran’s old family home, and we thought it’d be a treat for the ladies to have a nice afternoon tea and view the garden.”

    “Lots of English oaks,” I murmured.

    “Yeah,” he agreed. “It is a lovely garden and in spite of the bloody poncy afternoon tea—never let your missus talk you into going there, mate,” he advised the policeman—“we were really enjoying it, and me little girl had found a cute little lilypond with a frog in it—like a garden statue, I mean, not a real one—and everything was hunky-dory, and then Pete and Cassie and the kid came back from a look-see down the back and said flaming Andrews was there.”

    “Yes, the lilypond was lovely… I’m sure I could commission a sculptor to make you a bronze frog on a lily pad, Perry, if you think little Tanya would like one,” I offered.

    “Uh—yeah. Righto, mate, that’d be bonzer, but we’re not really talking about that now. You just have a nice think about how you’d want the frog to look, eh?”

    “On its lily pad, yes. On a plinth, would it be?” I wondered hazily.

    Perry took a deep breath. “He’s just about out of it, Inspector Wilson. You can ask him anything else tomorrow. I’m gonna get him home.” He stood up. “Come on, Alex, we’re going home.”

    “I—er—feel rather wobbly, I’m afraid,” I apologised, getting up unsteadily.

    Of course picking up his cue immediately, Perry came to put a supporting hand under my elbow. “You’ll be right, mate. Just lean on me. –No, we don’t need the blankets any more, we’ll leave them, okay?”

    “Okay.” I let him peel them off me. “Thank you so much for your hospitality, Inspector,” I said politely. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t manage all the food, but the chips were excellent.”

    Beside me I could feel Perry gulp, hah, hah!

    “Come on, then,” he said on a weak note, and led me out.

    Behind us we could hear voices, but we didn’t stop to find out what they were saying. We’d reached the foyer when Wilson’s offsider caught up with us.

    “Hang on!” he gasped, panting.

    I sagged artistically against Perry.

    “What the fuck is it now?” he snarled.

    “Um, where will ya be, Inspector Wilson wants to know!” he panted.

    “No idea,” replied Perry brutally. “He’s got all our numbers, tell ’im to ring them.”

    And he led me out.

    It must have been quite late: it was already dark, well after the downtown rush-hour. The central police station was in a typically wide Adelaide city street, just off the main drag with its damned trams. The street was almost deserted except for my hire car, which Perry had been driving today. Pete emerged from it hurriedly.

    “Help me get this one into the back, mate: he’s had it,” said Perry loudly.

    A look of concern came over Pete’s tanned face and he assisted Perry to load me tenderly into the back seat. They got into the front, Pete at the wheel.

    “Go on, quick, before Wilson comes to ’is senses,” said Perry.

    Pete obligingly started up, though noting: “The rumour is that if ya break the speed limit outside the flamin’ cop shop nothing’ll happen, they’re all in there sitting on their bums slurping tea, but I won’t test that one today.”

    We headed away from the main drag, reached an intersection, and turned.

    “So ya pulled the wool over ’is eyes, didja?” he asked cosily.

    “I don’t know what you mean,” I replied with dignity. “I’m a poor ignorant Pommy that’s not used to handguns and I’m suffering from shock.”

    Pete emitted a mean snigger, but asked: “Did ’e buy it?”

    “No,” Perry admitted. “But we were so good—especially Alex, you shoulda heard ’im!—that he couldn’t pin a thing on us. The more he insisted the more wavery and out of it Alex got, and finally he starts blathering about commissioning a sculptor to make a bronze frog on a lily pad for Tanya!” He chuckled evilly. “Shock’ll do that to ya, ya see. So at that point I hauled ’im out of it.”

    “Propping me up most artistically all the way,” I agreed.

    “Boy, I wish I’d been a fly on the wall!” said Pete fervently.

    “Yeah, well, we had one of those, too, eh, Alex?” Perry rejoined drily. “See, when they let Cassie and Gavin go that left me and Alex alone, because by a strange coincidence the young cop that had been guarding us took them out and didn’t come back.”

    “Oy, oy,” Pete acknowledged.

    “Right. So Alex, here, puts on the performance of a lifetime!” Perry collapsed in helpless laughter.

    “Aw, go on, tell,” said Pete, a grin in his voice.

    “I merely—”

    “And don’t give us any of your merely’s!” he cried.

    “Er—well, I more or less told Perry how weak I felt, and how I couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. Up to mixing up Brodie Andrews and his father in my head and not being sure I’d pulled the trigger. He kept stressing the point that I wasn’t used to guns and assuring me I was in shock!” I added with a laugh.

    “Good one!” Pete approved. “The flamin' cops musta been spitting tacks.”

    “I think they were,” I agreed. “It was some time before Wilson came back, but it was obvious, though he was as stony-faced as ever, that he was furious underneath and didn’t believe a word of our story. Down to trying to make us admit that we’d gone to Asphodel House deliberately because we knew Andrews Junior was there.”

    “What?”

    I shrugged. “Yes.”

    “Boy, ’e musta been desperate!”

    “No, he thought he was catching us off-guard.”

    “Yeah,” Perry agreed. “After that Alex kinda went all limp—well, he’d been drooping like anything all along—and started in about the frog.”

    “Yes. I was hoping it’d get right up Wilson’s nose,” I admitted. “And it did. I thought he was going to explode.”

    Somehow that struck a chord, and Pete laughed so hard he had to pull in to the side of the road.

    “Yeah, well, they’ll never be able to prove that Alex deliberately shot to do him real damage after the bloke was already incapacitated,” Perry admitted when the paroxysm was over, “but that means they’ll be even less keen to prove that he’s the art forger.”

    “What? Bloody Hell!”

    “Yes,” I said with a sigh. “I’m afraid Perry’s right, Pete. He tried to get out of Wilson whether they had any proof, and only got a very nasty look in reply, but it was damn clear that they haven’t, and aren’t interested in finding any.”

    Sourly Pete replied: “Right. Look, I’m bloody sorry he got away from me. Well, knocked me out with the handle of a bloody mattock, to tell you the truth. Lucky he didn’t use the head, I suppose: I’d’ve been a goner.”

    “Jesus, is that what happened?” I croaked. “The police didn’t bother to give us any details. Are you okay?”

    “Yeah; I was only out of it for a few minutes. Just a bit of a sore head. One of the ambos had a look at me, shone his little torch in me eyes and so forth, but there was no sign of concussion. So are they gonna put Andrews Senior in clink where he belongs?”

    “Yes: they seemed keen on that,” I admitted. “Threatening children with damned knives is a lot more serious than art forgery. He’s in intensive care, of course, but under police guard.”

    “Yeah. Helluva pity you didn’t do the job properly, Alex, mate. He’d be no loss.”

    “Well, no, I agree, but I thought I’d better not. I was furious enough to want to do him serious damage, but not to kill him. Think I probably just nicked the top of his lung. Well, that bloody Walther PPK/E of Perry’s throws slightly left, but at that distance there wasn’t much danger of missing my shot. With luck it will’ve shattered his right shoulder blade, so let’s hope it hampers any future artistic endeavours.”

    “Right. Good. –Just a hypothetical question, Alex,” he said, propping his arm on the back of his seat and looking at me steadily.

    “Go on,” I sighed.

    “Supposing he’d had his back to you…”

    “Er… Shoulder shot. If it was the father—panicking, you see.”

    “Uh-huh. And if it had been the son?”

    I shrugged. “Either way, that would’ve been all she wrote.”

    “Too right,” Perry agreed. “Haven’t you got this bloke’s measure yet, Pete?”

    Pete turned back, buckled his seatbelt and re-started the car. “I have now,” he admitted.

Next chapter:

https://deadringers-trethewin.blogspot.com/2025/06/recuperation.html