1958 - Hit and Run Page 6

  She sat forward, her hands on her knees, and she stared at me.

  ‘But, Ches, surely we must do something? I should have stopped. It was an accident, of course, but I should have stopped.’ She began to beat her fists on her knees. ‘He might recognize me if he sees me again. He might have taken the number of the car. Surely we must do something?’

  ‘I finished the whisky and put the glass down, then I got to my feet.

  ‘Come on. I’ll take you home.’

  She remained motionless, her eyes wide and staring.

  ‘You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you? What is it?’

  ‘It’s bad, Lucille,’ I said. ‘As bad as it can be, but you don’t have to be frightened.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was suddenly shrill.

  ‘You ran over him.’

  She clenched her fists.

  ‘Oh, no! Is he badly hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take me home, Ches. I must tell Roger.’

  ‘You can’t tell him,’ I said. ‘He can’t do anything.’

  ‘Oh, but he can. He’s a friend of the Captain of Police. He’ll be able to explain.’

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘That I have only just learned to drive, of course. That it was an accident.’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t make any impression.’

  She became rigid, her eyes opening wide with terror.

  ‘Is he so badly hurt? You don’t mean – he’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. You’ll have to know sooner or later. Yes, he’s dead.’

  She closed her eyes and her hands went to her breasts.

  ‘Oh, Ches …’

  ‘Now, don’t panic.’ I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it – anyway, for the moment. We’re in a jam, but if we don’t lose our heads ...’

  She stared at me, her lips trembling.

  ‘But you weren’t in the car. It’s nothing to do with you. It was my fault.’

  ‘We’re in this thing together, Lucille. If I hadn’t behaved as I did, you wouldn’t have rushed away like that. It’s as much my fault as yours.’

  ‘Oh, Ches ...’

  She dropped her face down on the settee and began to sob.

  I watched her for a moment or so, then, getting up, I put my arms around her and pulled her against me.

  ‘What will they do to us?’ she gasped, her hands gripping my arms.

  ‘You mustn’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing we can do until we see what the newspapers say tomorrow. Then we must decide.’

  ‘Suppose someone saw me hit him?’

  ‘No one did. There was no one on the beach.’ My hands tightened around her. ‘Did you pass any car after you hit him?’

  She pushed away from me, got unsteadily to her feet and wandered over to the window.

  ‘I don’t think so. I can’t remember.’

  ‘It’s important, Lucille. Try to remember.’

  She came back to the divan and sat down.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘All right. Now listen, we must discuss this tomorrow after we’ve seen the papers. Will you come down here? There’s nowhere else I can think of where we can have an uninterrupted talk. Can you get here about ten?’

  She was staring at me, her eyes empty holes in her face.

  ‘Will they send me to prison?’ she asked.

  That gave me a horrible jolt. I realized if they caught her they would send her to prison. You can’t kill a policeman and get away with it. You might kill anyone accidentally, and if you had a top-flight attorney you might beat the rap, but not if you killed a policeman.

  ‘Stop talking like that! It won’t get you anywhere. What time will you be here tomorrow? Can you get here by ten?’

  ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t do anything?’ She began to beat her clenched fists together. ‘If they find out ...’

  ‘They won’t find out. Will you listen to me, Lucille? We mustn’t panic. We must first find out what the papers say. We mustn’t do anything until we know all the facts. We’ll know the facts tomorrow morning, then if you’ll meet me, we can make up our minds what to do.’

  She pressed her fingers to her temples.

  ‘Don’t you think I should tell Roger? He might be able to do something.’

  If I had thought Aitken could have done something, I wouldn’t have hesitated to go with her and tell him the whole sordid story, but I was certain he couldn’t do a thing for her. If she went to him the truth would come out that she and I had been on the beach together. He would want to know why she had run off like that. Knowing Aitken, I felt sure he would have got the truth out of her, and then I would be sunk.

  I drew in a long, slow breath.

  ‘You can’t tell him, Lucille. If you tell him, how will you explain what you were doing in my car? How will you explain what you were doing on the beach? How will you explain that you and I were on the beach together, that we undressed and swam together? If I thought your husband could do something, then I would go with you and tell him, but he can’t. If you lose your head and tell him, you will give him grounds for a divorce, and I’ll lose my job.’

  She stared fixedly at me, then she said in a voice tight with panic: ‘I’d rather be divorced than go to prison. Roger wouldn’t let me go to prison. He has a lot of influence. I’m sure he wouldn’t let me go to prison.’

  I put my hands on her arms and shook her gently.

  ‘Lucille! You’re reasoning like a child. Once he knew you and I had been on the beach together, he would wash his hands of you. He wouldn’t give a damn what happened to you. You must realize that.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ she said desperately. ‘He might divorce me, but he wouldn’t let me go to prison. He’s like that. He wouldn’t allow it to be said his wife was in prison.’

  ‘You still don’t seem to realize how serious this is,’ I said, trying to speak quietly and calmly. ‘You have killed a policeman. All right, it was an accident, but you didn’t stop and you haven’t a driving permit. If you had killed anyone except a policeman, your husband might have been able to swing it, but even if he had more influence than Eisenhower, and he hasn’t, he can’t do a thing for you now.’

  ‘So you mean I’ll have to go to prison?’

  Her face seemed to shrink and her eyes became rounder and larger. Terror spoilt her young, fresh beauty.

  ‘No. They don’t know you did it, and I don’t think they will ever know. We would be fools to tell them until we know exactly what has happened. When we do know, then we’ll be able to make up our minds just what we should do.’

  She gnawed her underlip, looking at me.

  ‘You mean we just don’t do anything?’

  ‘We don’t do anything tonight. Have you understood about tomorrow? Will you come down here about ten? We can decide what to do then.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, come on, then. I’ll take you home.’

  She got up and walked ahead of me out of the lounge, across the hall and to the front door, then she stopped abruptly.

  ‘We’re not going back in the car, Ches? I don’t think I could drive in it again.’

  ‘I’ve another car. I borrowed it from a friend down the road.’ I put my hand on her arm and eased her out on to the porch. ‘We’re not going back in the Cadillac.’

  I turned off the light in the hall, closed the front door while she stood on the top of the porch. As I was turning the key in the lock, I heard a man’s voice call out: ‘Hey, is this your car?’

  I felt as if I had put my hand out in the dark and had touched a naked electric cable. I don’t suppose I started as much as I imagined, but I know I started pretty badly. I heard Lucille catch her breath sharply, but at least she had the sense to move quickly to one side into the shadows of the porch where she couldn’t be seen.

  I looked down the path. A man stood at the gate. It was too dark to see much of him, except that he was
tall and bulky. Parked behind Seaborne’s Pontiac was a Buick convertible, its bonnet lit by the Pontiac’s taillights.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ I whispered to Lucille, then I walked down the steps and down the path to where the tall man was standing.

  ‘Sorry to give you such a start,’ he said, and now I was close to him I could see he was around forty-five with a heavy moustache and a whisky-red, cheerful face. ‘I thought you had seen me. Isn’t that Jack Seaborne’s car?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, aware my breathing was too quick and too uneven. ‘I’ve borrowed it while mine’s in dock.’

  ‘You Chester Scott?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Glad to know you.’ He thrust out his hand. ‘I’m Tom Hackett. I don’t know if Jack ever mentioned me. He’s mentioned you to me often enough. I was passing and I wondered if the old sonofagun happened to be down here.’

  I wondered if he had seen Lucille. We had come out of the lighted hall. It depended how long he had been standing at the gate.

  I shook hands with him. My hand felt cold in his.

  ‘No, Jack won’t be down until August. He never comes down before then,’ I said.

  ‘I took a chance. I was on my way to Palm Bay. I’m staying at the Paradiso Hotel for a couple of weeks. The wife comes down by train tomorrow. She can’t travel for long in a car: gets car sick.’ He laughed easily. ‘Not that that’s any skin off my nose. It gives me a little time to myself. I thought if Jack was here we might have a drink and a yarn together.’

  ‘He won’t be down until August.’

  ‘Yeah, so you said.’ He looked at me. ‘If you’ve got nothing better to do, why don’t we go someplace and have a drink? The night’s still young.’

  ‘I’d like to, but I have a date.’

  He looked past me towards the dark bungalow and he grinned.

  ‘Well, if it’s like that. I just had an idea we could make up a little party. Two’s company, eh?’ He moved back to look at the Pontiac. ‘Good old bus. Going well?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘When you’ve nothing better to do, come over and see us,’ he went on. ‘The Paradiso. Pretty good joint: plenty of fun. Bring the girlfriend if she isn’t too shy. Well, I mustn’t keep you. So long for now.’

  Waving his hand, he went back to the Buick, slid under the steering wheel, gunned the engine and drove away.

  I stood motionless, watching his red taillights disappearing down the road, mf hands gripping the top rail of the gate, my heart slamming against my ribs.

  ‘He saw me,’ Lucille said, and her voice was unsteady. She came down the path and joined me at the gate.

  ‘He saw I had a girl with me,’ I said as calmly as I could, ‘but he couldn’t have seen enough of you to know you again. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  I took her arm and led her to the Pontiac. We got in.

  ‘Are you quite sure I shouldn’t tell Roger?’ she asked in a small tight voice.

  This was more than my jumping nerves could stand. I swung around, reached out, put my hands on her shoulders and gave her a hard little shake.

  ‘Once and for all! I said no and I mean no! He can’t do anything for you!’ I was shouting at her now. ‘If you tell him, you’ll make him an accessory! Don’t you realize that? If he doesn’t hand you over to the police, he could get a sentence. You’ve got to leave this to me! I’ll tell you what we will do tomorrow.’

  She shrank away from me, and taking out her handkerchief she began to cry.

  I drove fast towards Palm Boulevard.

  II

  On the highway I came suddenly on a long line of cars, crawling towards the city. I had never seen such a traffic jam, and I knew at once that it had to do with the death of this speed cop.

  I had trouble in forcing my way out of the secondary road from my bungalow into the stream of traffic. Finally, someone gave way to me and I got into the line of the creeping cars.

  Lucille stopped crying when she saw what was going on.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s nothing to worry about,’ and I wished I really believed that.

  We crawled on. Every now and then I looked at the clock on the dashboard. The hands showed ten minutes to twelve, and we still had about two miles to go before I got her home.

  Suddenly the cars ahead of me crawled to a stop. I sat, gripping the wheel, staring into the darkness ahead of me, seeing only the red taillights and maybe a hundred cars stretching in a long motionless line up the road.

  Then I saw the cops. There must have been a dozen of them. They were moving down the line of cars, powerful flashlights in their hands, and as they passed, they threw the beams over each car.

  That brought me out into a cold sweat.

  ‘They’re looking for me,’ Lucille said in a voice tight with fear and she made as if to get out of the car.

  I gripped her arm.

  ‘Sit still!’ My heart was thumping and I was thankful I had been smart enough to use Seaborne’s car. ‘They’re not looking for you! They’re looking for the car. Sit still and keep quiet!’

  I could feel her shaking, but she had enough sense not to move as one of the cops neared us.

  A big, broad-shouldered man got out of the car just ahead of us. As the cop came up to his car, the big man said in an explosion of rage: ‘What the hell is this? I’m trying to get to Palm Bay. Can’t you guys keep this goddamn road clear?’

  The cop sent his beam over him.

  ‘You can come down to the station and make a complaint if that’s the way you feel about it,’ he said in a voice that could have peeled rust off the keel of a ship. ‘You’ll go when we’re good and ready for you to go, and not before.’

  The big man seemed to lose some of his size.

  ‘What’s going on anyway, officer?’ he asked in a much milder tone. ‘Are we likely to be long?’

  ‘A hit-and-run job. We’re checking all cars going out of the city,’ the cop said, ‘and you won’t be long.’

  He checked the big man’s car, then moved on to mine. I found myself gripping the wheel until my fingers hurt as he sent the beam of his flashlight over my wings, and then over the bumpers.

  The cop, a thickset man with a face that could have been carved out of flint, looked at me, his light swinging first on me and then on Lucille, who cringed back, catching her breath sharply. He didn’t seem to notice anything for he moved on to the car behind us.

  I put my hand on her arm.

  ‘Take it easy. There’s nothing to be frightened about.’

  Frightened? Cold sweat was rolling off me.

  She didn’t say anything. She sat, her hands gripped between her knees, and see breathed like an old woman of seventy after a climb up a flight of stairs.

  The car ahead of me began to move, and I went after it. We crawled on in silence for four or five hundred yards, then the pace quickened.

  ‘They were looking for me, weren’t they, Ches?’ she said, her voice shaking.

  ‘They were looking for the car, and they didn’t find it.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Where they won’t find it. Now look, will you stop working yourself into a panic? Just sit still and keep quiet!’

  Ahead of us was the intersection that led to Palm Boulevard. I pulled out of the line of traffic and increased speed. I reached the entrance to the Gables as the hands of the dashboard clock showed ten minutes after twelve.

  I got out, went around to the offside door and opened it.

  ‘I’ll see you at my place tomorrow at ten,’ I said.

  Slowly, as if her legs were cast in lead, she got out of the car.

  ‘Ches! I’m frightened! They were looking for me.’

  ‘They were looking for the car. Now look, go to bed and try to get this thing out of your mind. There’s nothing either of us can do until tomorrow.’

  ‘But they’re checking all the cars! The policeman said so.’ She stood there, staring u
p at me, her eyes terrified. ‘It’s serious, Ches. It really is! Don’t you think I should tell Roger? He’s good at this sort of thing.’

  I drew in a long, slow breath.

  ‘No,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from rising. ‘He can’t help you. I’m the only one who can handle this. You’ve got to trust me.’

  ‘I just couldn’t bear to go to prison.’

  ‘You won’t go to prison. You’ve got to stop working yourself into a panic. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.’

  She seemed to make an effort to pull herself together.

  ‘Well, all right. I’ll wait until tomorrow if you say so,’ she said. ‘But, Ches, if you don’t think you can handle it, I must go to Roger.’

  ‘I’ll handle it. Now go to bed and leave it with me.’

  For a long moment she stared at me, then turned and began to walk unsteadily up the drive towards the house.

  I watched her go until I lost sight of her.

  Then I got into the Pontiac and drove back to the bungalow.

  While I drove, fear like a misshapen gnome, sat silently on my shoulder.

  chapter five

  I

  By ten minutes to ten the following morning, I was in such a state of jitter, I did something I have never done before. I drank two double whiskies, one after the other, in an attempt to steady my nerves and quell the sick apprehension that had been gnawing at me all night.

  I had had very little sleep, and at seven o’clock I began to prowl around the bungalow, waiting for the boy to deliver the newspapers. For reasons best known to him, he didn’t arrive until past eight. As I went out to pick up the papers he had tossed on to the porch, Toti, my Filipino servant, arrived.

  Afraid to look at the paper, while he was around, I told him to wash up the coffee things and then get off.

  ‘I’m not going to the office this morning, Toti.’

  He looked at me in concern.

  ‘You sick, Mr. Scott?’

  ‘No. I’m just taking the weekend off,’ I said, moving towards the terrace, the newspapers burning my hand.

  ‘You look sick,’ he announced, continuing to stare at me.