Predisposed To Murder - Chapter Thirty-Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Max! Where have you been?  I’ve been so worried about you! You could at least have phoned!”  But Max pushed past his mother, ran upstairs to his own room and began throwing some clothes into a suitcase. His mother followed, more than a little breathless already. “What are you doing? Where are you going? Are you in some kind of trouble? I knew it. I just knew it!” She declared in a whining tone that made Max cringe. He rounded on his mother, a savage look in his eyes that caused Annie Cutler to recoil, stumble, and almost lose her footing altogether.

“Yes, I’m in trouble and I haven’t time to explain,” hesitating a fraction before adding in a more conciliatory tone, “I need some money.”

“Surprise, surprise!” exclaimed his mother scathingly. “How much do you want this time?”

“Ten grand will do for now.”

“What, ten thousand pounds!” Annie was genuinely shocked, “You expect me to hand over ten thousand pounds just like that?”

“For heaven’s sake, Ma, you’re loaded. Ten grand is chicken feed to you.”

“You’re father earned his money. It wouldn’t do you any harm to try earning your own living for a change.”

“Change the record, Ma, and just write me a cheque. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.”

“I see. You have to be desperate to ask your own mother for help, is that it? What’s happened to us Max? We used to be close. Now I hardly see you. When I do, you’re always in a foul mood and usually more interested in my cheque book than you are your poor mother.”

“And whose fault is that?” Max flung the question back at her. “I’m your son, Ma, not a possession to be exhibited to all and sundry when it suits you and kept under lock and key when it doesn’t.”

“I have never kept you under lock and key!” the dumpy woman protested.

“Maybe not,” he conceded, “but it certainly feels like it!” he yelled back at her, now piling some shirts into a suitcase that lay wide open on the bed. “When did you ever let me bring a friend home, eh? Never, that’s when. And shall I tell why, as if you didn’t know? Because you can’t bear to share me with anyone, that’s why.  You want me all to yourself. Well, I don’t want to be your substitute toy boy, Mother, I never did. Look at you,” pausing to give the woman in the doorway a long, critical look. “You were passably attractive once. Now you’re fat and ugly and no one would look at you twice. You couldn’t get a man if you tried so you thought you’d work all that unspent energy off on me. You’re sick, Ma, and you make me sick too!”

“But rich,” she said so quietly that he barely heard. “Alright, Max, I’ll write you a cheque this one last time. Once you leave this house I never want to see you again. No matter how times you come begging cap in hand, you’ll be wasting your time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Max ungraciously. Hadn’t he heard this before countless times?

“I’ll go and write that cheque now.” Annie Cutler was almost at the bottom of the stairs when the doorbell rang and she saw a shadow against the glass she did not recognize.

“Don’t answer it!” Max yelled from the upstairs landing, but Annie was already opening the front door.

“Mrs Cutler?” Annie nodded, “My name is Colin Fox. I’m Nina’s brother and a friend of Max’s. Is he here?” Annie was about to let him in when a familiar figure emerged from a car parked right outside the house. She stiffened instantly. “You…” she hissed.

“Hello Annie,” said Nina.

Colin Fox flung his sister an aggrieved look. He had told her in no uncertain terms to stay put and not interfere in affairs that were none of her damn business. He might have guessed she would ignore him. Forbidding Nina anything had always been tantamount to waving a red rag under a bull’s nose.

“Was that Max’s voice I heard?  Max!” She pushed past Annie and called up the stairs, “It’s me, Nina. Colin’s with me too. Come down and tell us what the devil is going on. Why are you being such a prick?”

“Get out of my house,” Annie Cutler hissed at the woman she blamed entirely for her son’s latest defection.

“Either come down or I’m coming up!” Nina ignored her and called out again.

“You’re upsetting your mother Max,” it was Fox’s turn to shout. Sensing an ally, Annie gave him a wide smile and was rewarded with a conspiratorial wink. “You don’t want your poor mother to become even more upset, do you?” he yelled again.

While Annie Cutler positively beamed at Fox, Nina tough she detected a thinly veiled threat in her brother’s choice of words. Don’t be such a drama queen, Nina, she remonstrated with herself, but remained uneasy all the same. Colin had still not explained to her satisfaction why he was carrying a gun.

Max appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Max, darling, are you alright?” Nina found herself asking with genuine concern.

Before Max could reply, Colin Fox has pushed past Annie Cutler and was charging up the stairs. Caught off guard, Max hesitated as if trying to decide what to do next before dashing back to his room and slamming the door.

Fox was not only there before Max could turn the key on the inside but also wasted no time putting his shoulder to the door and pushing against it.

Below, Nina tried to follow her brother but Annie Cutler gripped her arm with a podgy hand and would not let go. “Max is in trouble. You have to tell me all you know. Don’t I deserve to know?  I’m his mother for heaven’s sake. I need to know. I deserve better than this,” she wailed and became hysterical.

Reluctantly, Nina led the woman whom she detested into the lounge, deposited her unceremoniously on a sofa and sat beside her. “I don’t know any more than you,” she had to admit, “but carrying on like this is helping no one so pull yourself together, woman, and let go of my bloody arm!”

But the fat, ringed fingers retained a surprisingly firm grip. “It’s your fault,” Annie Cutler shrieked at Nina, “My Max was a different person before he met you. He was kind, considerate. Now he’s beastly to me and always asking for money so he can keep up with you, you bitch, you…whore!” Nina slapped the little woman’s face with her free hand. The gargoyle face turned purple with rage, bulbous eyes all but popping out of their sockets. “Oh!” wailed Annie Cutler and promptly burst into floods of tears. Forgetting that Nina was public enemy number one, she collapsed, sobbing, into the younger woman’s arms.

Upstairs, Colin Fox heaved his shoulder against the door one more time and it gave way sufficiently for him to burst into the room.

The two men glared at each other. Fox kicked the door shut behind him and pulled the gun from his pocket. Max Cutler’s handsome face turned very pale. “There’s no need for that,” he said in a low, choked voice and swallowed hard, unable to tear his eyes from the weapon, its metallic glitter emphasising the threat as if any emphasis were needed.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Fox snarled. “Now, where are the letters?” Cutler nodded towards a small red box on the bed. “I’ll never understand what Wiseman saw in you,” Fox sneered as he edged towards the bed, gesticulating with the gun for Max to keep his distance. “It takes all sorts to make a world, I suppose, even one with queers in it.”

“If you say so,” said Max, calmer now and able to look Fox in the eye. He had only met Nina’s brother once before and had disliked him intensely at first sight, not least because he made no secret of his contempt for his boss’s sexual preferences. If Wiseman was aware of this, he chose to ignore it. Colin Fox, he had repeatedly assured Max, was a man whom it was a good move to have on your side and a very bad one to alienate. Max, on holiday in Miami at the time, had been content to let sleeping dogs lie. Later, he would find hard to believe Nina could have such a nasty piece of work for a brother.

At first glance, Max had to admit that Colin Fox was pleasantly, almost boyishly good looking, with an untidy mop of hair and an engaging smile. It was the eyes that gave him away. They were a steely blue-grey. You felt they were looking right through you and not liking what they saw one bit. Max shivered involuntarily. Fox was not a man who bluffed or carried a gun he had no intention of using.

When he, Max, had discovered the full, global extent of Klaus Wiseman’s drugs racket, he had caught the next plane back to London. Among the messages on the answering machine at his mother’s house was one from Fox. It just said, “Fox here. Enjoy being home, Max, while you can.”  The deceptively mild voice had made Max’s flesh creep just as it did now.

All this had taken place long before he’d had a fling going with Nina. By the time he’d made the connection between the two Foxes, it was too late. He had already underestimated ‘Gypsy’ and Steve Williams had been assigned to ‘sort’ the pair of them. Besides…and now a thought hit Max with some surprise as he licked his lips with growing apprehension. He had fallen in love with Nina by that time.

It had never entered his Max Cutler’s head that he could love a woman with anything like the same intensity, never mind passion, as a man. Intensity and passion were all very well and made for good sex, end of story. Love had never played any part in his relations with men… Or women like Pip Sparrow, he reflected ruefully. Nina, on the other hand, was different to anyone he had ever known, man or woman. At first the main attraction had been her looks and her money, nor necessarily in that order. Somewhere along the line, though, the goal posts were moved. We were good together Nina and me.  Could they be again, he wondered, and doubted it.  Cutler sighed. Trust him to find love for once in his life…after he had already blown it.

Even while such thoughts were running riot in his head, culminating in the unlikely discovery that he was in love with Nina Fox, Cutler had continued to watch her brother with all the attentiveness of a cornered animal facing extermination.

As Colin Fox reached for the red box, his eyes darted towards it and were momentarily distracted from Cutler. Max saw his chance and seized it, diving forwards to grapple with Fox at the very moment the latter’s fingers closed on the box and before his line of vision had time to revert. 

The two men fought.

Downstairs, Nina and Annie heard the blast of a gunshot. The latter screamed and let go of Nina’s arm. Nina ran out of the room and dashed upstairs.

Hearing movement behind one of several doors, Nina did not hesitate but turned the handle and flung it wide open. “Oh, my God!” she cried. Max was lying at a curious angle across the eyes closed, blood pouring from a chest wound. “Colin, what have you done? What have you done?” she repeated, her voice risen an octave or two as she quickly crossed to where Max lay and felt for a pulse. Unable to find one for a second time, she turned and stared wide-eyed at her brother.

Fox, still gripping the smoking gun had to struggle to find his voice. He had liked carrying a gun, not least because it made him feel important, better and bigger than the Colin Fox most people saw, good looking enough but insignificant, nothing more or less than another face in a crowd. He had never shot anyone before. Nothing could have prepared him for the way he felt. Where he had expected to experience an exhilarating sense of power and satisfaction at having demonstrated it, all that gripped him, churning up his stomach, was an immediate need to vomit.

Watching Colin throw up all over the floor, Nina’s feelings were very mixed. On the one hand, she wanted go to him, hug him protectively and reassure him that everything would be all right while, on the other, an intense loathing welled up inside her. She hated her brother even more than she had once hated their father. Besides, she reflected grimly, everything was far from all right. “Give me your mobile,” she held out a trembling hand.

Colin Fox started to reach inside a pocket, and then changed his mind, seemed to pull himself together and stared disbelievingly at his sister. “You’d call the police?”

“Never mind the police,” she retorted, “We need to call an ambulance.”

“He’s dead,” said Colin Fox in a flat, toneless voice.

“It looks like it,” Nina agreed, “but I’ve made that mistake once and I’ll be damned if I’ll make the same mistake again. Now, give me the bloody phone.”

But Fox simply stood stock still, staring at the body sprawled on the bed and oozing blood over a pale grey duvet cover. There was blood, too, on his own shirt, trousers, hands, even smudges on his forehead and cheeks where he’d tried to wipe away the sweat that continued to soak his face, making the skin blotchy as if he had eczema.

“Why, Colin? What’s going on? What haven’t you told me?” Nina yelled, “Why shoot Max, for God’s sake?” She spotted a red box on the floor. Absently, she bent to pick it up.

“Don’t touch that!” Colin Fox shrieked at her like madman. Before she could say another word, he had bent down and picked it up, clasping it to his chest with his free hand as if for dear life.

“What’s in the box?” Nina demanded to know, “Is that what you’re doing here? Is Max blackmailing you?” she voiced the first suspicion that came to mind.

“It’s complicated,” muttered Colin Fox weakly.

Nina shrugged, calmer now. “If you don’t want to tell me, fair enough, I dare say I’ll find out sooner or later. Right now, though, I don’t have time to listen anyway.” She got up from the bed, blood on her hands and dress, to confront her brother with all the confidence of an accomplished actress making the best of a poor script. “I’m going downstairs now to phone for an ambulance. For all we know, Annie may already have done so or called the police. Mind you, the poor cow is in such a state that I doubt it,” she added with a humourless laugh. “I’ll give you ten minutes, Colin, not one second more. That will give you time to freshen up a little, borrow some of Max’s clothes and get the hell out of here before I call the police.”

“You’d shop your own brother?”

“Oh, grow up, Colin!” she snapped before starting to panic and had to fight to catch her breath. All at once, she felt composed and incredibly calm. “You’ve just shot a man for heaven’s sake,” she flung at her brother, “I suggest you do something about it and fast.” She turned her back on him and left the room with neither thought nor fear for her own safety.

Annie Cutler was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, her short, fat legs visibly trembling. “I heard a gunshot,” she whimpered.

“Go and sit down,” Nina told her,” I’ll be right with you as soon as I’ve called for an ambulance.”

A telephone was sitting complacently on a table in the hall.  Nina grabbed the receiver from its cradle and would have dialled 999 but Annie pulled at the sleeve of her dress with such force that she stumbled and the plug came loose from its wall socket. “What are you playing at?” Nina yelled, “We need a bloody ambulance!”

“It’s Max, isn’t it?” the woman cried, near hysterical, “He’s dead isn’t he? That bastard has killed my son.”

“No one’s dead,” Nina told the woman tersely, “but they soon will be if you don’t shut up and let go of me so I can call for an ambulance.” Annie Cutler tried to say something, but no words came. Eyes bulging, her mouth kept opening and shutting.  Like a bloody great fish, Nina thought as the other woman collapsed in a heap at her feet. “Oh, shit!” she muttered, resisting an impulse to burst into tears.

The front doorbell rang.

“Oh, shit!” Nina swore again. Some sixth sense came to her rescue and she stepped over the unconscious Annie to open the front door. “Carol!” She began to weep with sheer relief and fell into Carol Brady’s arms.

“Where are they?” A familiar voice came from behind her. Nina swung round, startled, to find Fred Winter standing there looking grim-faced. She managed to pull herself together long enough to blurt, “Upstairs. Be careful, Colin has a gun. He shot Max. I think he may have killed him. But my brother is no killer, Mr Winter. Please believe me, he isn’t…”

Winter, who had taken the extra precaution of entering the house by a rear window, ran upstairs.

“Colin isn’t a killer,” Nina repeated to a stunned Carol. On the floor, Annie Cutler moaned and attempted, unsuccessfully, to get to her feet.

“Help her while I call for an ambulance,” Carol told Nina sharply.

The cutting edge of Carol’s voice had a sobering effect on Nina who duly proceeded to help poor Annie to her feet, and then supporting the obese woman as best she could, led her to the same armchair she had vacated less than ten minutes previously and sat her down.

 “Brandy,” Annie croaked, “I need a brandy. In the cabinet over there,” pointing.

Nina fetched a large brandy but not before pouring one for herself. She drained the glass and then poured another. A glass in each hand, she approached the pathetic heap perched on the edge of the armchair. She handed one to Annie before band then, still sipping at the other herself, rejoining Carol in the hallway.

Carol was peering anxiously up the stairs, but made no move to ascend.

Above, Winter took in the situation at a glance. He thought he detected a flicker of life in the inert Cutler who nevertheless remained unconscious, and was bleeding profusely. “Give me the gun lad,” he told Fox gruffly. “There’s no point in making a bad situation worse, that’s what I always say. If Cutler pulls through, at least you won’t be facing a murder charge.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Fox’s whole body was shaking, but his voice retained a semblance of calm as he coolly pointed the gun at the detective.

Winter shrugged. “Do you really want to take that chance?”  He nodded towards the body on the bed. “If he doesn’t get help soon, it’s academic and you’ll be going down for a damn long stretch anyway.  So why not give me the gun and make things as easy on yourself as you can? ”

“I couldn’t handle prison,” Fox admitted between clenched teeth. Winter shrugged again, but said nothing. “I couldn’t and I won’t!” Fox said quietly. “So move aside and let me pass.”

“Or what…?” Winter growled, “You’ll shoot me? I don’t think so. Look at you, man, you’re shaking like a leaf. Your sister’s right. You’re no killer.”

“Nina said that?” he sounded mildly surprised, pleased even, and dropped his guard for an instant. Winter saw an opportunity and leapt forward.

Both men fell heavily to the floor.

Fox was first to recover his wind and reached for the gun that had fallen from his hand and lay within a fingertip’s touch on the carpet. Winter, though, astonished the younger man with his agility. Soon, they were both wrestling for control of the weapon.

Downstairs, a second gunshot galvanized Carol into action. Brushing aside a whole army of reservations, every last grain of native commonsense along with them, she dashed upstairs. Nor, in all honesty, would she be able to claim later that she had acted intuitively. Stumbling not once but twice on the upstairs landing, she reached the bedroom in a blind panic. Colin Fox pushed her roughly against the door as he ran past and scuttled down the stairs. “Freddy!” Carol thought she heard herself scream although, in reality, could barely manage a croaking sound.

Winter lay perfectly still on the floor, his eyes closed, jacket and shirt covered in blood.

To be continued on Wednesday

Predisposed To Murder - Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“What the devil are they playing at?” Winter growled.

“Why don’t you just honk your horn for them to wait and we can go and ask them,” was Carol Brady’s tart response. “Sometimes, Freddy, I wonder about you…” she added darkly. She wished now that she hadn’t let him persuade her to leave her own car parked in a side street near the harbour. At least, then, she’d have some sense of being in control. As it was, she was now dependant on dear Freddy’s whims or ‘hunches’ as he preferred to call them. Whatever, she never quite trusted them and this one, in particular, struck her as being more than a little wide of the mark.

Winter shook his head. “No, there’s something wrong. Why are the two women sitting in the car on their own? And, look, see how Cutler is walking just ahead of Colin Fox, almost as if Fox…”

“Has a gun?” Carol was plainly startled. She hadn’t anticipated any real danger. “Oh, really Freddy, as if…Why would Colin Fox have a gun, for heaven’s sake, let alone point it at anyone…” Yet, the more closely she watched the scene unfolding some yards ahead, the less far-fetched the detective’s theory struck her. “Whatever Max Cutler is or has been up to, it can’t be so bad as to warrant having a gun pointed at him, surely? Besides, Nina and Pip would realize what was happening. They wouldn’t just sit there and let Max be forced into a car at gunpoint, surely? No, Freddy, the whole idea is preposterous. So Colin Fox has one hand in his coat pocket, so what? It doesn’t mean he has a gun.”

“It doesn’t mean he hasn’t either,” said Winter with the same flawed logic that always infuriated Carol, but to which she never had a ready answer. “As for the women...Well, what would you have them do?  If I’m right, they’ll want to keep an eye on things and save their precious Max if they can. If I’m wrong, why should they do anything but enjoy a cosy chat while they wait?  It’s my guess,” he added, “that whatever deep water our friend Max Cutler has got himself into, Colin Fox hasn’t exactly been keeping his feet dry either.” Even as he spoke, he recalled that Fox was listed in Cutler’s mobile phone directory.

They watched as the two men climbed into the car, Max in the driving seat, and quickly drove off. Winter promptly turned the ignition in the blue Volvo and set off in pursuit while taking care to keep a discreet distance. 

“They seem to be heading for Canterbury,” Carol murmured, unable to prevent a note of alarm creeping in as she spoke. “Oh, I do hope I’m wrong!” she wailed.

“The B&B, I agree.” It was spoken as a barely coherent grunt. The same thought had entered Winter’s head and refused to budge. “Maybe our Max left something behind that Colin Fox needs to make sure he collects…”

“Whatever Cutler is mixed up in, why should Colin be involved except as Nina’s brother?” Carol insisted. Winter told her about the mobile. “What, you have Cutler’s phone? Oh, really Freddy, you might have said. Not that it proves a thing of course. Why shouldn’t he have Colin’s Fox’s number?”

“True,” Winter conceded, “but why on earth should he? I never got the impression they were pals, did you?  Besides, if you’re shacking up with a bloke’s sister, you’re hardly likely to be bending his ear much, wouldn’t you say?  In my experience, put brothers and their sister’s boyfriends together and you might as well light a match to a leaking oil can.”

“Except Nina’s no oil can,” retorted Carol.

“She’s rich, famous, beautiful…well, more rich and famous then most of us and definitely beautiful…what’s that if it isn’t an oil can begging for a match?”

Carol seethed in silence, not least because she could think of no suitable response to Freddy’s unlikely metaphor.

………………………………

“Max!” Cessy Pearce could not conceal her delight upon opening the front door of the B&B and finding him waiting on the doorstep. She glanced quickly at his companions. “Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed, recognizing Pip instantly. To Colin Fox she paid little attention, her gaze coming to rest on Nina. “Oh, it’s you!” She gave a little squeal of pleasure. “My sister and I are great fans of yours,” she told Nina, “We never miss an episode of April Showers.”

“I must look a mess.” Nina forced a laugh.

“Not at all,” Cessy assured her. “If anything, you look even prettier without all that make-up.” Nina immediately warmed to the woman and gave her a broad smile that was, for once, not in the least contrived. “Do come in all of you. Who’d have thought it? Nina Fox in our sitting room!” She showed them into the room where Margaret sat in her wheelchair, watching the door expectantly.

“Cessy...” Max Cutler sounded anxious, “...have you let my room yet? It’s just that I think I may have left something there.”

“Let your room?” Cessy seemed momentarily nonplussed.

It was Margaret who answered. “No, we haven’t let your room,” she said smiling although her expression struck Nina as a bit odd.

“Would you mind if I go and take a look?”

“By all means, do.  The door is not locked. ”

“Oh, but Mrs Farmer will have cleaned and stripped the bed,” declared Cessy. “She’s very conscientious and thorough. I’m sure if she’d found anything you left behind she’d have given it to Margaret or myself for safekeeping.”

“All the same…” Max wore what struck Nina, yet again, as the strangest expression.

“Max must take a look for himself sister,” said Margaret Pearce in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Thanks. I’ll only be a jiffy.” Max was out of the door before anyone could say another word.

“I’ll come with you,” said Colin Fox somewhat belatedly and made as if to follow, but Margaret had eased forward slightly so that now her wheelchair was blocking the door.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Margaret was quick to apologize. “I’m afraid these things have a mind of their own sometimes.” She laughed, and the sound struck Nina as somewhat incongruous from such a dour looking woman. Everyone politely tittered except Cessy who continued to look a shade bewildered. Margaret shifted to one side. “There you are…” she told Fox, who paused in the doorway.

“What room?” he snapped at Margaret.

“Number eleven,” she replied evenly, not in the least bit ruffled by his tone.

“Oh, but…” Cessy started to say, but changed her mind and turned to the others, smiling if still visibly flummoxed. “Do sit down everyone. I’ll go and make some tea.”

“That would be wonderful,” said Nina, thinking how delightfully dippy the able-bodied sister was and selecting one of four hard chairs at a small mahogany table to avoid sitting next to Pip. The latter, for her part, had slipped off her shoes and was sprawling comfortably on the sofa.

“Do take my armchair,” Cessy told her, “It’s so much more comfortable.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Nina assured her.

“Oh, well, in that case…I’ll go and put the kettle on shall I? I think we have some of your chocolate cake left too…” she added, giving her sister another peculiar look.

“No chocolate cake for me,” Nina laughed, “I’m on a diet.”

“Nonsense,” said Margaret, “You don’t want to be all skin and bone, do you? That’s the trouble with the younger generation today, obsessed with good looks and not a clue how to keep them. Eat sensibly and the rest will take care of itself,” she told Nina, “A slice of chocolate cake won’t upset the applecart unless the applecart is already top heavy,” she declared. “It’s a poor thing if we can’t treat ourselves from time to time,” she added with a mischievous twinkle in each eye.

“You’ve convinced me.” Nina laughed, warming to the other woman just as she had warmed to the sister.

“That goes for me too,” said Pip.

“Splendid!” Cessy Pearce disappeared into the kitchen.

“Excuse me just a moment,” said Margaret and followed her sister. “Can you manage on your own, dear?” she asked. “There are six of us, after all.”

“Of course I can manage,” Cessy told her. Suddenly, she lowered her voice dramatically and whispered, “Why do you think Max asked if we’d let his room? He knows we never let the spare room”

“You guess is as good as mine,” Margaret whispered back, “but I suspect he was trying to tell us that all is not as it looks. I wouldn’t trust that Fox man an inch. Something is wrong, sister, but all we can do for now is play it by ear. Now, if you’re sure you can manage, I’ll get back to our guests.”

“I dare say you’re right,” Cessy agreed and was much relieved to have Margaret confirm her own vague suspicions, “but isn’t it exciting,” she added with a little squeal. “Imagine, you and I having tea with Nina Fox! Who’d ever have thought it?”

Margaret merely nodded and returned to the sitting room.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Max had wasted no time locking the door to room number eleven. Both sisters being a little deaf, their voices were inclined to carry so he’d heard Margaret tell Fox the room number. In actual fact, it was not his room at all but one conveniently next to Margaret’s bedroom at the rear of the house. Silently blessing his godmother for her astuteness, he had already flung open the window and was clambering on to the windowsill when Fox tried the door. “Open up, Max!” Fox demanded.

“Just give me a mo,” Max called out with feigned cheerfulness before edging his way along a narrow ledge to the adjacent room.

It took only moments to recover the box. Margaret had shown him a space beneath a loose floorboard by the bed, partially concealed by a blue silk eiderdown hanging down. “No one will look here,” she had told him with a wicked smile. “An old lady’s bedroom is sacrosanct.”

“Not to some people,” he had wanted to say but refrained rather than risk worrying his godmother needlessly.  In addition, he was inclined to think that, on the whole, she probably had a point. Besides, where else could he hide the damn thing? He doubted, too, whether the police would find it there. After all, Steve Williams hadn’t. 

Better to think positive and stay optimistic. Now, eagerly retrieving the red box, Max was he was glad he had done just that.

Grabbing a shoulder bag that lay on a padded seat in front of the dressing table, Max wasted no time emptying its contents on to the bed and cramming the box into it before sliding the leather strap over his head. Retrieving some car keys from amongst the clutter on the bed, he returned to the window, looked out and judged he could reach a drainpipe a couple of feet  or so away. 

Below, parked nearby, Winter and Carol were astonished to observe Max Cutler emerge from an upstairs window, tread precariously along a windowsill and then stretch, leap, and grab hold of a drainpipe. Both legs thrashing in the air before gaining a firmer hold, he proceeded to shin down it with monkey-like agility and speed. Once on the ground, he dashed across the forecourt to a somewhat forlorn looking mini that looked as though it could use a spray job, fumbled with some keys, tumbled into the driving seat and had driven before Winter or Carol had quite caught their breaths.

“Well,” demanded Carol, “aren’t we going to follow him?”

“Let’s see what happens here first.”

“And let Max get away after all it’s taken us to track him down? Oh, really Freddy, if you aren’t just the limit!”

“Keep your hair on, woman,” said Winter without taking his eyes of the B&B’s forecourt. “Max has to be feeling pretty panicky to do what he’s just done, right? You wouldn’t catch me shinning down any drainpipe from that height, I can tell you.”

“So?”

“So where else does anyone go when they’re desperate?”

“Suppose you tell me,” said Carol with mounting exasperation.

“Back home to mum, of course. What I want to know is whether our friend Colin Fox has the same idea.”

At that instant, Fox came running out of the house, Nina in hot pursuit.

……………………………….

It hadn’t taken Colin Fox long to realize something was up. Reluctant to break the door down and draw attention to the fact, he returned downstairs. “Do you have a spare key to room eleven?”

“Well, yes, but…” stammered Cessy.

“May I have it?”

“Oh, but…”

“Give it to him, sister. The keys are in my room, as you know.”

“But your tea will get cold,” mumbled Cessy.

“Never mind the damn tea. Let’s find that key…now… shall we?” already accompanying a bemused Cessy upstairs.

“I’m sorry,” Nina told Margaret.

The older woman was remarkably reassuring, “Don’t apologize, my dear. If you ask me, men get away with far too much because we women are forever apologizing for them.” Even so, Nina scrambled to her feet and ran out of the room after her brother and Cessy.

Margaret turned to Pip. “Will you have some more chocolate cake, my dear?” Pip nodded and eagerly helped herself. Whatever all the fuss was about, she wasn’t particularly interested. She had only fleetingly considered going after Nin before deciding that Nina could take care of herself. As for that brother of hers, she didn’t care for him much at all. Max, now, he was something else. But while she couldn’t deny he was good in bed, she had only slept with him to get at Nina, after all. No way could Max compete with another delicious slice of chocolate cake.

Colin Fox burst into room 11 and ran to the open window in time to see Cutler running across the forecourt below. “Damn!” he swore and ran out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time. “Stay there!” he shouted at Nina, who ignored him. He had already turned the Peugeot’s ignition when she slid into the passenger seat beside him and slammed the door. “I told you to stay put!” he yelled, glaring at his sister. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, sis,” he added warningly.

“I want to catch up with Max every bit as much as you do,” retorted Nina and continued fastening her safety belt.

“Suit yourself, you always do” growled Fox and drove off after Cutler who was already out of sight.

“He could be anywhere,” Nina was quick to point out.

“Where he is hardly matters,” Fox muttered, “It’s where he’s going that interests me.”

“Oh? Psychic now, are you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Fox put it to her impatiently, “The man’s at his wit’s end. Where else would he run but back to mummy?”

Nina bit her lip and said nothing. It was true, and she did want to catch up with Max if only to ask him what the devil he thought he was playing at. Had he sent those silly letters, she wondered for the umpteenth time? Clearly, though, her brother had his own agenda. She had never seen him look so angry, determined... and, yes, malicious. Her head swimming again, she half closed her eyes, wryly reflecting on Cessy Pearce’s comment about her appearance. A glance in the rear view mirror only confirmed that she looked a frightful mess. It had been so sweet of the old dear to say otherwise. Making a mental note to return to the B&B and give the sisters her autograph just as soon as she could find the time, she let a weight on her eyelids got the better of her surrendered to a tidal wave of nervous exhaustion.

Seeing that his sister had dozed off, Colin Fox pursed his lips in annoyance and wondered how on earth he was going to explain away his relationship with Cutler, especially if events came to a head, as was looking increasingly likely, and Max had to be eliminated. True, she hadn’t pressed him again about the gun, but it was only a matter of time. “Shit!” he swore aloud, but softly so as not disturb Nina. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be at all. He blamed that fool, Steve Williams. It shouldn’t have proven too hard to make ‘Gypsy’ reveal where she kept the letters. He’d had no brief to kill her. She was, after all, a useful link in Wiseman’s chain whereas Cutler…. He was easily expendable, to say the least.

Fox grimaced. There had to be more than a few letters at stake here, surely, he reasoned? Wiseman had more sense than to jeopardise a profitable operation for the sake of family pride, surely? Who gives a toss if a guy swings both ways, for heaven’s sake?  Swerving to avoid a dog that ran across the road just ahead, he gritted his teeth and swore again. “Sod Wiseman and his weakness for pretty men like Max Cutler! Sod Cutler too,” he hissed and swung the wheel to make a violent right turn that jolted Nina wide-awake.

Nina winced involuntarily. Her brother’s expression was nothing short of demoniacal. Again she was reminded of their father as she recalled, vividly, seeing much the same look on Frank Fox’s face years ago when, time and time again, he would raise his fist to their mother. How can I have forgotten and let that brute back into my life? Worse, could it be that Colin had inherited their father’s temper?  And what was the gun all about?  What the hell is going on? Whatever, Max had better watch out.  A shiver ran down her spine and she began to feel afraid, very afraid, for both men.

In spite of everything, it didn’t occur to Nina that she should also be afraid, very afraid, for herself.

To be continued on Monday

Predisposed To Murder - Chapter Thirty-Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“Colin!” Max Cutler forced a crooked smile.

“Hello Max,” drawled Fox without relaxing his hold on the gun so much as a finger muscle.

“You know each other?” Pip was genuinely surprised.

“Oh, yes. Max and I are old friends aren’t we, Max?”

Max glared at Pip, “You didn’t tell me you’d brought him along,” he said accusingly.

“You didn’t ask me,” she pointed out and gave a petulant little shrug before demanding, “What’s with the gun, Colin?  You don’t need a gun, for heaven’s sake. Put it away. Guns scare me.”

“They scare me too,” Max had to admit, yet with a rueful grin that enhanced his handsome features even further and reminded Pip what had attracted her to him in the first place, apart from the added pleasure of putting one over on Nina.

Nina stirred on the floor, moaning softly. Max moved towards her.

“Stay right where you are Max,” Fox barked warningly and turned to Pip. “See to her, Pip.”

Pip went to Nina and helped her back on to the stool. As soon as she felt able to manage, the latter wasted no time shaking off the girl’s arm. “Get your paws off me,” she told Pip angrily and was no less forthcoming with her brother, “What the devil do you think you’re playing at, pointing a gun at people like that? What on earth are you doing with a gun in the first place?”

Somewhat sheepishly, Fox pocketed the weapon. “You never know when you might need one,” he said without taking his eyes off Max. “I’ve had it ages. Don’t fuss so, sis. Everyone has a gun in the States.”

“This isn’t the United States and I bet everyone doesn’t carry one in their damn pockets even there,” Nina snapped, fraught with exhaustion. “Besides, you’re back in England now in case you’ve forgotten. We’re supposed to be a civilised country, for goodness sake.”

“It doesn’t hurt to remind the enemy you’re no soft touch,” Fox retorted with a dry laugh that sent shivers down Nina’s spine.

“Max isn’t the enemy, he’s…well, just Max,” Nina responded, trying to sound forceful while feeling as though she were teetering on the edge of another fainting fit. This is ridiculous, she remonstrated with herself, I can do better than this. At the same time she gave her arm a discreet pinch to remind herself that she wasn’t playing a scene. Improbable though it was, this was for real. “What happened?” she murmured to no one in particular, playing for time although she wasn’t sure why.

“You fainted,” Pip told her.

“Oh, yes,” Nina summoned up her best smile, “just when the conversation was getting so interesting too…” glaring at Pip.

“Pip, help Nina to the car and wait for me there. I want a quiet word with Max before we join you.”

“Get off me! I can manage quite well by myself thank you.” Nina shrugged off the assisting hand on her arm and succeeded in getting to her feet without assistance. “Anything you have to say to Max you can say in front of me,” she told her brother bluntly. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two but I mean to find out.”

“All in good time, sis, all in good time. Now, be a good girl and wait for me in the car. I promise I’ll come clean just as soon as Max and I have ironed out a few things.”

“Like what?” Nina demanded. “If you’re somehow mixed up in whatever mess Max has managed to get himself into this time, tell me, I want to know.”

“Do as he says Nina,” said Max, “It will be okay, honest.”

“As if I can believe a word you say!” Nina seethed and would have tackled her brother again, but a look in Max’s eyes made her think again. He was trying to warn her. But warn me against what? Not Colin, surely? It made no sense. She sighed, still trying to make sense of the fact that, by her own admission, Pip had killed Ray Bannister. Max may have stabbed him in the first place but it was she, Pip, or so it appeared, who had finished the poor man off. Feeling increasingly nauseous, she staggered towards the door, Pip close on her heels ready to catch her if she fell.

As she drew level with Colin, Nina tried to read her brother’s expression, but it was giving nothing away. A flickering grin failed to reassure her. Inconsequentially, she thought for the first time how much like their father he looked. What am I saying? she remonstrated with herself in dismay. The comparison filled her with a sense of foreboding she could not have begun to put into words. She didn’t try. Instead, she stumbled out of the house and towards the car. Beside her, Pip trotted like an obedient puppy. Nina shivered, reflecting that it was this same cool, passive composure about the girl that she had always found disquieting while  at the same time feeling obliged to let her feelings for Nathan override.

Inside the cottage, Colin Fox was once again pointing a gun directly at Max Cutler. “Where are they Max?”

“Where are what?” Max feigned ignorance.

“Don’t play games with me, Max, I’m in no mood, nor is Klaus. He wants the letters back, the ones you gave ‘Gypsy’ in lieu of readies and which she, in turn, used to try and put the screws on Klaus. That wasn’t very clever, Max, not very clever at all.”

“I didn’t know she’d resort to blackmail,” protested Max. “How was I to know she’d be so stupid?”

“She slept with you, didn’t she?” Fox observed dryly, “That must have told you she kept her brains in her fanny, for a start. Mind you, she’ll be sorely missed.”

“I take it Klaus sent Williams to get the letters and failing that…”

“He killed her, yes, the idiot. That wasn’t very clever either. It would seem no one has been very clever. So it’s up to you to break the mould. Tell me where the letters are and all the rest of Kate’s little mementoes of a colourful life, and then I won’t have to kill you. Klaus doesn’t want you dead, Max. He’s still very fond of you.”

“He wouldn’t want his wife and kids to know that, though, right? Not to mention his hardy Catholic followers who wouldn’t be so quick to jump when the boss says jump if they knew he really prefers men to women. Fat chance! Has he managed to get you into bed with him yet, by the way? No, probably not. He likes tough, handsome hound dog types with a touch of spirit. I’d say you’re more of a spaniel, all flab and heavy breathing.”

Fox’s finger on the trigger tightened perceptibly. Almost at once, though, he relaxed and smiled. “I haven’t time for this bullshit, Cutler, and neither have you. Now, either you tell me where the letters are or…”

“Or, what…?” Cutler challenged, “The women are…”

“Outside,” Fox reminded him, “so they won’t see a thing. You try to overpower me, we fight and...Oh dear, dear, the gun goes off.  Bang, bang, you’re dead. Oh dear, what a terrible accident. Who’s to say any different?”

“That won’t help you find the letters.”

“I dare say you have them well hidden. If I don’t find them, the chances are no one else will either. So they won’t be a threat, will they, not to Wiseman or anyone else you and that Spanish bitch may have felt inclined to put the finger on?”

“You’re bluffing,” said Max, resisting a nervous swallow. “You wouldn’t dare go back to Wiseman without those letters.”

“Oh, but I think he’ll sleep better for knowing you and ‘Gypsy’ are out of the picture, don’t you?”

The tension between the two men confronting each other across the bedroom was tangible. Like bull and matador, thought Max Cutler, grimly aware that the comparison placed him as the bull.

“If I tell you where to find them, how do I know you won’t kill me anyway?”

“You don’t,” Fox agreed, “but if you don’t tell me you’ll never know, will you?”

“Maybe you’re underestimating Nina, maybe not. But Pip, she’s something else. That girl has an evil mind and evil minds can read other evil minds as easily as reading a book. You kill me, and she’ll know. What’s more, she’ll let you know she knows. I feel sorry for you already…”

“The letters…!” Fox yelled.

“They’re not here, that’s for sure,” Cutler paused, and then, “I’ll tell you what, Colin, I’ll take you to them. We can even take your car if you like. You can drive. The women can tag along just to make sure I get where we’re going safely. They can keep me company on the way home, too, while you have a good read or burn-up or whatever it is you have in mind for the contents of Kate’s little red box.  Do we have a deal?”

“Like I said, if I don’t get the letters the chances are no on else will either,” Fox reminded him.

“Ah but do you really want to take that chance?” Max teased. “Klaus may not be quite as philosophical as you. He might even take the view that, since you too have failed him, he has no more use for you either. We’re all of us expendable, Fox, including you.”

Fox hesitated and appeared to be turning this over in his mind. Cutler forced himself to relax, silently praying for some respite, however brief, relying on the same confident smile that had got him out of previous scrapes to put the bullfighter on the defensive.

“Okay,” Fox growled, “but behave, or else...”

“I’m always a good boy, me,” said Max Cutler with a wink meant to convey a nonchalance he was far from feeling.

The two men left the cottage, Fox trailing a little behind.

In the car, the two women were sitting in the back seat, two pairs of eyes fixed anxiously on the front door of number 22.

“I never imagined Colin would even have a gun, let alone point it at anyone,” murmured Nina, more to herself than her companion.

“People are full of surprises,” was Pip’s only comment. It was enough to make Nina turn on her in a fury.

“Well, you certainly are!” she snapped, “My God, yes. Look at you, sweet seventeen, as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth and all the time…”

“Yes? All the time…what, exactly? Go on, Nina, say it, you know you’re dying to. All the time the time, what...?”

The girl was close to tears. Nina calmed down instantly. “I can understand you being attracted to a man like Max but…murder? No. You’re lying to protect your father, I realise that. But telling the police you killed Ray won’t help him. They won’t believe you, any more than I do.”  What am I saying? Who am I kidding? I’m not scared of her...am I? The sound of her own voice was a great comfort to Nina. Moreover, even as she spoke the words, she began to believe them.

“My father is safest where he is…away from you,” Pip hissed, “and, yes, you’re probably right, no one would believe me. It’s true all the same. I killed Ray just like I killed that creep Steve Williams. What’s more, I enjoyed every second of it.”

“No one blames you for killing a man who tried to rape you,” said Nina gently only to be completely taken aback by Pip’s reaction.

Pip burst out laughing. “Rape me? Oh, he wanted sex all right, but that’s all. Me, I had something else in mind.” The laughter ceased abruptly and the elfin face blazed contempt. “So the bastard got more than he bargained for, so what?” She appeared to relax, her tone merely conversational. “He deserved everything he got. What do they call it, poetic justice?”

Nina stubbornly refused to believe it. “No!” She shook her head, “This is some stupid fantasy of yours, and I suggest you snap out of it young lady or you’ll make a lot of trouble for yourself.”

“A fantasy...? You should be so lucky. Rather, I should say that cow of a mother of yours...”

“My mother, what do you mean?”

“I can’t imagine why the vodka didn’t show up in the post-mortem. Maybe she looked such a mess nobody thought to test for alcohol, what with the truck driver admitting it was his fault. Huh! Like hell, it was. The woman was drunk if she had but known it. There again, I suppose vodka in hot lemon mightn’t show up anyway. What do you reckon?”  But Nina could only stare, appalled. “Oh, look, the men are coming out. Something tells me we’re in for a little joyride. Max doesn’t look too happy, does he?”

Nina turned and looked out of the car window, glad of a distraction. She kept telling herself that Pip was lying. The poor girl had been through a terrible ordeal that had affected her mind. It was only to be expected, after all. The awful strain was sure to tell one way or another. What do they call it…posttraumatic stress?  Yes, that’s it. Poor Pip is so stressed she doesn’t know what she was saying. Lacing Mother’s hot lemon drink with vodka, the very idea!  Either Pip had been watching too much television or reading too many crime novels. On the other hand…But she wouldn’t think about that. The alternative was unthinkable, too sick even for a mixed-up teenager’s fantasy. Even so, she couldn’t deny that Pip had sounded horribly plausible. Her head began spinning again. It took every ounce of willpower to peer through a grey fog threatening to engulf her and struggle to focus on the poorly defined shapes of two figures approaching the vehicle.

The fog cleared as quickly as it had overtaken her. Nina observed the two men as they climbed into the car, Max in the driving seat. Both men, she thought, looked tense, her brother the more so. Max appeared outwardly relaxed, but she wasn’t fooled. Colin had a determined look about him she recognized of old and she might have been looking at their father’s tight lips and jutting jaw. Invariably, both always meant there was trouble in store. But what kind of trouble, exactly, and for whom, she wondered nervously? She kept telling herself that her own brother couldn’t possibly mean her any harm, but wasn’t entirely convinced.

As for Max, Nona met his eyes fleetingly in the rear view mirror, confirming her worst fears. There was no mistaking the expression she read in them. Max was frightened for his life.

Nina lay back and closed her eyes. What should she do? What could she do when she couldn’t even think straight? This whole situation was surreal, worse than dying on stage. Not that she ever had died on stage. It remained a blot on her professional career that no one had ever offered her a stage part. A better analogy perhaps was that sickening sense of being written out of a sit-com only a few months prior to April Showers, dumped without even an opportunity to make a dramatic exit.  Almost at once her face lit up. Audiences had never taken off whereas April Showers... I’m famous now. Nothing and no one can touch me. The ghost of Ray Bannister rose before her eyes only to vanish like a puff of smoke.

Nina gave herself a metaphorical shaking. She mustn’t think about Ray. As for Max, he could take care of himself well enough. Nor was Colin the hard man he liked to play at sometimes. It was all performance with him, too, so nothing to worry about unduly there. And Pip? Nina wished she could fall asleep. On the contrary, although her eyes stayed closed, she remained wide-awake. The spinning top in her head was suddenly replaced by a caricature of Pip Sparrow’s face, its eyes and mouth invoking a cruel humour for which no amount of subconscious effort could put aside or make excuses.

Yes, Nina finally conceded with a sinking feeling as the ugly face spun and slowed, spun and slowed in her mind’s eye…of Pip she was afraid.

“Where are we going?” Pip wanted to know.

“You had better ask our chauffeur,” said Colin Fox lightly, stroking the revolver in his hand as if it were a pet.

“We’re heading for Canterbury,” Pip commented.

“So why ask?” growled Max.

“I just wondered, that’s all, there’s no need to bite my head off.”

Max said nothing but gritted his teeth and concentrated on the road ahead. Loath though he was to involve the Pearce sisters in this unholy mess he had got himself into, he couldn’t didn’t see that he had any choice. Glancing in the wing mirror, he saw a white Ford Sierra on his tail and instinctively slammed his foot on the accelerator. Nina had opened her eyes. They exchanged glances. Try as he might, he could spot no clue in them as to how she was feeling. Did she still care for him, he wondered? Did he still care for her?  Did we ever really care for each other? But if these had been rhetorical questions, the answers that nevertheless sprung to mind surprised even Max himself.

Nina kept her eyes on the receding Sierra. There was no sign of Fred Winter’s blue Volvo that she had glimpsed barely a minute ago. Had anyone else noticed? She could only pray they hadn’t and glanced furtively at Pip. Pip, though, seemed to be engrossed in a mermaid tattoo on the back of Colin’s neck. Nina permitted herself a small sigh of relief but could not bring herself to speculate what Fred Winter might be planning. For now, at least, it was enough to know he was on their trail.

To be continued on Friday

Predisposed To Murder - Chapter Thirty-Two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Colin and I have come to take you home Pip,” Nina Fox treated the pale figure in a hospital bed to her best smile. “Not before time, either, if you ask me. You look as white as a sheet. What or earth have they been doing to you in this place?”

“She’s just tired aren’t you Pip?” Colin Fox interposed, “If I remember rightly, you don’t get much sleep in hospitals. You’re kept awake half the night listening to people groaning and snoring, and then just when you’ve dozed off at last, some nurse wakes you up again with a cup of tea! Right, Pip?”

Pip nodded and flung them both a rueful smile. “I can’t wait to get out of here,” she confessed.

“There’s just one thing…” Nina began.

“Not here, Nina. It can wait.” Fox cautioned her.

“No it can’t,” Nina protested.

“What is it? What’s up?” Pip was anxious to know.

“Nothing’s up,” declared Colin Fox. Pip ignored him and studied Nina closely, quizzically.

“Before we go back to London, there’s something I have to do.”

“Nina…” muttered her brother warningly.

But Nina was determined. She had recognized the handwriting on the note pushed through her letterbox as the same as on previous notes. She still could not be sure it wasn’t Max’s since he could have disguised it and she had never been any good at recognizing handwriting. A sixth sense warned her not to tell anyone else although she had wanted to confide in Fred Winter and had even driven to Watford, but he was out when she called. “I need to go back to the cottage,” she told an astonished Pip, “I know it’s sounds ridiculous but it’s something I have to do if only for peace of mind. I keep having the most awful nightmares. I see Max lying in a pool of blood and that awful ‘Gypsy’ woman lunging at me like something out of Return of the Mummy. The police will have finished with it by now. It will be just as it was, an ordinary cottage like any other.  I need to see that. I need to feel…Well, ordinary again.”

“You could never be that,” muttered her brother.

A touch of sarcasm in his tone wasn’t lost on Nina who chose again to ignore him. “You don’t mind, do you?” she put itnto Pip, “You don’t have to come in with me. You and Colin can stay in the car. I won’t be long, I promise.”

“You’re mad,” said Fox flatly, “It will just bring everything flooding back and the nightmares will get worse.”

“They can’t get any worse,” Nina glared at her brother.

“I have them too,” Pip admitted and smiled encouragingly at Nina, “You’re right, it will probably do us both the world of good to go back. Colin can stay in the car while you and I…”

“Take a pleasant trip down Memory Lane?  Fox suggested.  “I don’t think so!” He let rip with an angry snort before stomping off in a huff wondering why Nina had let Pip stay in a general ward. He’d have expected his celebrity sister to insist on a private room. He sighed. Nina had always been full of contradictions. That same issue was still bugging him an hour or so later as he waited less than patiently in the car while both women braced themselves at the front door of number 22, preparing, he could only suppose, to wrestle with their demons within.

It was Nina who fumbled with a key in the lock, tentatively pushed open the door and was first to step inside. In a trance-like state, she walked through to the kitchen and stared at the spot where she had found Max lying in a pool of blood; there was still a stain on the floor. She sniffed. An odd smell was coming from somewhere but she couldn’t tell from where. She opened the back door to let in some fresh air.

 Everything was much as she remembered it. Although she was certain the police would have made a thorough search, there were no obvious signs. She turned to remark on this to Pip but the girl had already entered the master bedroom and was staring intently at the bed. Nina joined her nervously, more than half expecting to encounter the woman ‘Gypsy’ Kate in the doorway. “What are you doing?” Pip was leaning over the bed, both hands placed in the centre of a neatly fitting bottom sheet.

“This sheet is still warm,” she declared pensively, turned to face Nin and gave a little gasp. “Max!”

Nina swung round to fins Max Cutler at her elbow wearing only a lopsided smile and a pair of boxer shorts.

“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” he muttered sheepishly before crossing to a wardrobe from which he took a shirt and jeans sharing the same coat hanger and proceeded to dress quickly, without a trace of self-consciousness.

“Max!” Nina exclaimed again, completely at a loss for words.

“We’ve been so worried about you Max,” said Pip. “For all we knew, you were dead.”

“There was a time I wondered about that myself,” responded Max cheerfully, now opening a drawer, now sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling on a pair of socks.

“That woman, ‘Gypsy’…” Nina began

Max looked up sharply, “What do you know about Kate?”

“You do know she’s dead?” said Pip.

“We thought you…” Nina’s voice trailed away miserably.

“You thought I’d killed her?” Max was incredulous.

“Don’t worry, we know you didn’t… now,” Pip interposed. “The police already know who killed her.”

“It was that man Williams,” Nina murmured to no one in particular and went to sit down on a stool in front of the dressing table before her legs gave way under her.

“He’s dead too,” Pip told Max in the same helpful tone she might have used to give someone directions.

“Williams is dead?” Max stammered. The handsome face, already pale, had turned a shade of grey.

“I killed him,” Pip added casually. “He tried it on so I…”

“Killed him, just like that?” Max plainly did not believe her, nor was Nina in the least surprised since she still had some difficulty accepting the fact herself. The task was made no easier by hearing the girl calmly admit to Max that she had killed a man, elfin face impassive, voice utterly devoid of emotion. 

“He tried it on,” Pip repeated. “What was I supposed to do, let the bastard go ahead and rape me?”

“Rape you?” To the amazement of both women, Max threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“It isn’t funny, Max,” Nina snapped, putting one hand to her head that had begun to throb.

Max stopped laughing as suddenly as he had started. “You’re right, it’s not funny.  The very idea of a nymphomaniac fending off any man is bloody hilarious,” he snarled at Pip. The two glared at one another without speaking.

“It’s true then?  You two are... lovers.” said Nina after a long silence, looking from one to the other with undisguised contempt.

“Hardly lovers,” Max sneered. “Oh, I can’t deny it was good sex, but…lovers? No way were we ever that.”

“So why…?” Nina demanded although, even to her own ears, her voice sounded small and pathetic.

Max shrugged. “The little bitch was blackmailing me, why else?”

“Blackmailing you?  Why should a sex maniac like you need to be blackmailed before he’ll jump into bed with a seventeen year old girl still at school?” asked Nina, jumping to her feet and flinging them both a withering look.

“Go on, Max, tell her,” Pip purred encouragement. “Go on, I dare you. Tell her why I was blackmailing you. Or shall I?” she added with such viciousness and scorn in her voice that Nina, feeling herself go weak at the knees, sat down hard on the stool again.

“It was an accident,” Max glanced pleadingly at Nina before glaring at Pip again. “You were there, so you know damn well it was an accident.”

“What was an accident?” Nina’s head began to throb more wildly than ever and she felt faint but willed herself to remain attentive.

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Max shouted at her and his voice ripped through her head like machine gun fire.

“Who, kill who?” she asked dazedly.

“Why, Ray of course.” It was Pip who answered, fixing Nina with a queer smile. Through a mist starting to form before Nina’s eyes, the girl’s face took on a fiendish look that she kept telling herself had to be in her imagination but wasn’t entirely convinced.

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Max repeated, looking directly at Nina. “We argued. He’d been cutting sandwiches…was carrying a knife…somehow I…stabbed him…He fell…I panicked…ran…just kept on running…kept on running,” he repeated with tears in his eyes.

“Poor Max,” it was Pip’s turn to sneer,” No thought for your dying boyfriend, only himself.” She glanced at Nina when the latter made no comment. “You don’t have a problem with your bloke being a pouf?” pointing disparagingly at Max.

“Why should I?” Nina replied evenly, “You obviously don’t,” she flung at the girl, angrily shaking her hair so that it caught the sunlight streaming through a window and might have been a shower of sparks. “But Nathan…” she tossed his name into the arena, struggling to come to grips with what was being said. “Why should Nathan…?

“Lie?” Pip almost spat at her, “Why should Daddy lie? Why, but to protect you of course.”

Nina wanted to protest, but no words came to her rescue. Hadn’t she suspected as much?  So why, oh why, hadn’t she insisted that Nathan see her and made him voice his suspicions so…? So, what? So she could convince him that she hadn’t killed Ray, accept that he could have thought her capable of such a thing?  It was the latter, after all, that had destroyed their relationship, more even than his being in prison. It had left her with nothing.

Max, Nina reflected grimly, was not the only one guilty of running away. In a frantic effort to deflect attention away from her own thoughts, Nina turned on Pip. “You knew this? You knew, but said nothing and let your father take the blame? How could you do that? What kind of a monster are you?”

“If he was daft enough to carry the can for you, more fool him,” Pip hissed. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s you. If he hadn’t loved you, he’d never have put himself in the frame like that, never!”

“And that’s what you can’t stand isn’t it, that he loves me?” Nina hissed back.

“Dying?” said Max suddenly and stared at Pip, “You said I left Ray dying. He wasn’t dead then?”

“Not right away, no,” Pip admitted.

“So why didn’t you call for a bloody ambulance?” Nina was on her feet, screaming at the girl.

“It probably wouldn’t have done any good.” Max sank on the bed, head in his hands. “If only the silly sod hadn’t kept hold of that bloody knife! He looked up at Nina. “It was an accident, I swear. I didn’t mean to stab him.”

“Once maybe,” said Nina between clenched teeth, “But twice, three times? A frenzied attack, the police said, “and you’re asking me to believe it was an accident? You make me sick!” she glared at Pip, “The pair of you make me want to throw up!”

“I only stabbed him the once,” Max protested, and looked genuinely shocked.

“You were probably so spaced out, you didn’t know what you were doing,” Nina shouted, “Been snorting coke had you, Max? And where did that come from, eh, your girlfriend ‘Gypsy’ Kate? Is that what this latest little caper of yours is all about? Eh, Max? Rubbed a few people up the wrong way, have you? So why am I not surprised?” She was screaming at him now without even realizing it.

“I only stabbed him the once,” Max yelled back at her. “We fought, the knife slipped, and he fell. I saw he was bleeding and panicked. I went to stay with friends in Dorset. I didn’t even know Ray was dead until I read it in the newspapers and how Nathan had confessed. I was devastated.”

“But not so devastated that you were prepared to take the blame yourself,” Nina put to him coldly. Her voice had dropped to a throaty whisper. Her head was swimming. She put a hand to her forehead and was forced to sit on the stool again. “Oh, how the two of you must have been sniggering up your sleeves at me!” she groaned.

“You were the last thing on our minds,” Pip jeered.

“The knife slipped,” Max was saying to himself. “It did! It just…slipped. There wasn’t any frenzied attack, that’s absurd!”

“Then they can’t have the same radio, television and newspaper reports in Dorset as they do in the rest of the country,” Nina retorted, “or you’d know that’s what happened. It was headline news at time and all over again during the trial. But I dare say you were stoned out of your mind then too,” she flung at him bitterly.

“Maybe,” he muttered. “Well, can you blame me? Do you think I liked having someone take the blame for something I did?”

“So why did you?”

“Because…”

“You’re a coward,” Nina told him bluntly. “A killer, a coward and…God only knows what else...!”

“I did not attack Ray,” Max repeated and turned, imploringly to Pip, “You were there, damn it. You saw what happened. Tell her. Tell me.”

“I was behind the sofa,” Pip reminded him.

“What?” Nina exclaimed.

“Don’t ask,” Max told her and continued to question Pip. “So what, exactly, did you hear? Did Ray say anything before he died?”

Pip looked from one to the other, a strange look on her face, and took her time. “There was so much blood…so much blood,” she said again. A strange light appeared in her eyes that emanated neither shock nor grief. If anything, Nina was inclined to describe it as excitement. A sudden, terrible suspicion made her blood run cold. “There was nothing I could have done for him, nothing anyone could have done, so where was the harm in…” Pip went on and   turned on Nina, eyes blazing, “You were late!” she screamed. “Why were you late? You weren’t supposed to be late. It wasn’t meant to happen like that. It’s your fault Ray’s dead. It’s your fault Daddy’s in prison. .Everything is your fault. This whole bloody mess is your fault!”

“It was you...You killed Ray.” It was not a question. Nina’s voice was barely a croak as incredulity turned to horror.

“Pip?” it was Max’s turn to sound incredulous.

Pip quickly recovered her composure. “Prove it,” she hissed.

“But…why?” Nina was feeling faint again but managed to retain a focus of sorts on the petite figure standing, forlornly it seemed to her, by the door.

Pip shrugged. “It happened. How was I supposed to know there would be a fight? I was upset, angry.” She turned on Max. “I saw you and Ray in bed. It was horrible, horrible! He deserved all he got. You’ll get what you deserve too, both of you, just see if you don’t. I hate you.”

“But your father is in prison, and you put him there,” Nina murmured wearily, fighting to keep her eyes open.

“At least he’s out of your clutches,” Pip sneered. “He hates you, too. That’s why he won’t see you. It’s me he loves, and that’s why he only wants to see me.”

She’s mad, star raving mad.  The thought crossed Nina’s mind even as she swallowed some bile rising in her parched throat.

“You’re mad!” Max echoed Nina’s thoughts. The accusation stung Pip all the more forcibly for the quiet, flatness of his voice.

“I’m not the one of the run,” Pip reminded him. “So tell us Max, since it appears to be confession time all round, what or who exactly are you running from?”

“Yes, tell us Max,” said a new voice.

Three pairs of eyes darted to the doorway where Colin Fox stood, pointing a gun directly at Max.

Nina slipped off the stool and sprawled across the floor in a dead faint.

To be continued on Wednesday