The Interrogators

by Allan Prior

Genres: Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

In the small Northern town of Arkley, a young girl is abducted from her hospital bed and brutally murdered. For Detective Inspector Savage, this is his last case - a case which he dreams will bring a triumphant end to his disappointing career. Savage's dream becomes a dangerous obsession and the young C.I.D assistant assigned to the case becomes entangled in his relentless crusade to catch the killer by any means necessary.

Release date: November 21, 2013

Publisher: Mulholland

Print pages: 336

Sample

THE TELEPHONE pealed shrilly in the small, overfurnished bedroom. The woman stirred first, put a long, slender arm out towards the instrument; it was the only part of her body that moved. The rest of her lay at a slight angle from the side of the bed, stretched towards the man, who slept in a crouched, knees-up position. The bedclothes were half thrown back from their bodies, although the day was not warm yet, and the satin eiderdown had slipped to the plushy carpeted floor. The whole room was furnished with taste; but not the kind of taste expected in that kind of room, which was small and cramped. The taste belonged to a larger place, with more glass, and a vista, and much more space. To a place, in fact, with more money.

The wisp of fabric that served as curtain ruffled in the cold dawn breeze and the woman shivered. Her shoulders, very white and smooth, for she was young, were out of the covers, and only a wisp of pale nylon covered her. She pulled the candy-striped sheet over her head. The cream telephone was in her hand by now, and she muttered acknowledgement into it, propping herself on one elbow and pushing the dark, smooth hair from her forehead with the other. Her eyes were still closed.

The voice at the other end of the line was rough, ironical. The woman showed no amusement.

‘Yes, this is Joyce. Yes, he is still asleep, as a matter of fact.’ A large, deliberate yawn. ‘Hold on, please.’

She put her hand over the mouthpiece and nudged the sleeping man with her elbow. He wakened slowly, as if the prospect of the world was not pleasing.

‘What is it?’

‘Telephone. It woke me. It would take the Bomb to wake you.’

A crack, Eaves thought, wakening slowly, even half-asleep, her eyes still gummed with sleep, she has to make a crack that refers to something I should have done, and didn’t, like think about the Bomb yesterday. No, I didn’t think about it yesterday, or the day before, I had plenty of other things to think about, like getting the bread-and-butter. I’ll bet she didn’t think about bread-and-butter yesterday?

‘Hello,’ Eaves said into the telephone, which she still held. He rested his head on her breasts and smiled up at her; but her eyes were still obstinately closed. Joyce hugged sleep like a friend, she needed at least ten hours every night to feel properly rested the following day. He rubbed his beard. Once he was awake, he was with the world; he did not love it, but he was with it.

‘Is that you, Jack?’

Savage’s voice, amused. What the hell does he find so cheerful at this time of the morning, Eaves wondered morosely.

‘Yes, it’s me, sir.’

‘I woke the wifey, did I? Sorry.’

‘She’s gone to sleep again, sir.’

‘I bloody well haven’t,’ Joyce breathed. ‘Honestly, I don’t know how you stand him.’

Eaves smiled but without mirth. ‘Because I have to, love, I’ve worn worse bastards than him, he’s all right.’ Into the telephone, he said, ‘What was that, sir? Didn’t catch it, bad line.’ For Savage had been talking on.

There was a silence at the other end. That was the trouble. Eaves breathed hard. You could not take liberties with old Savage. He was too smart.

‘I said,’ Savage’s voice was deadly, and Eaves swallowed hard, ‘I said, there’s been a murder and I want you up at the hospital right away.’

‘A murder?’

Jack’s voice echoed round the elegant, safe little room.

‘Hello, sir! Did you say —’

Savage added one more word and then there was a click at the other end of the line, and the telephone went dead. Eaves lay in the bed, his head resting on his wife’s breasts, for a long moment. Then he took the instrument from her hand, gently reached across her and dropped it on the pedestal. Joyce groaned at his weight and turned away. He wondered if she had heard the awful word. If she had, she gave no sign; she would protect her rest, even with a word like that in the room.

Eaves kissed his wife on the cheek briskly, and she moved under his caress, which told him that she had heard, was awake; but he knew better than to waken her officially, to talk, or make a noise; so he quietly raised the covers and let himself out of the bed.

‘Don’t wake Gillian,’ Joyce said, quite sharply, and turned on her side, away from him.

Eaves gathered his trousers, shirt, and socks and took them with him into the bathroom. It was not warm in there but at least it was not as cold as the kitchen would be. He dressed quickly, moving his eyes away from the thickening roll of fat at his waist; he would have been a hard, lean man in any other profession. The constant, unremitting drinking that was a natural part of CID work had put the fat on him. He knew that every other plain-clothes man looked much the same with his clothes off. Savage, for example, looked gross, his paunch hairy and ginger, something to be proud of, thrust forward for inspection. In the Turkish Bath, a thick white towel in danger of slipping off altogether, Savage slapped his belly and grinned, the drink oozing out of him. ‘It’s as hard as a water-butt, is that, Jack.’ And, in truth, the whole look of the man was that of a wood-barrel: round, hard, made of some more durable material than flesh. Eaves fingered his own waistline. I’m just getting fat, he thought, it’s no excuse, I don’t have to drink, why don’t I go in training again? That would be an excuse Savage would have to accept. Eaves shivered as he pulled his thin cotton shirt over his head and examined the separate collar. It showed a thin line of grease but it would do. He buttoned it hurriedly, staring stolidly in the wall-mirror: the collar was tight, it bit into his neck, but he would become used to it in the course of the day. He tugged his police-college tie into a tight knot; always have a neat collar, his father’s words, a neat collar and well-polished shoes, then you’ll look presentable, no matter how your suit looks. Eaves grimaced. His father had never had a suit like the one he was putting on, a ready-made, but from Simpson’s, bought by Joyce on one of her trips to London. He didn’t really care for it, the trouser-cuffs were too narrow for Arkley; the single-breasted jacket had always been a touch too tight; Savage looked hard at it the first time he had worn it and remarked, pleasantly, ‘Jack, you’re as well-turned out as a pox-doctor’s clerk.’

Eaves remembered with shame that he had merely smiled rather awkwardly. Savage had known damn’ well the suit had been bought by Joyce in London, that he had had no part in the selection of it. He had told Savage that Joyce was in London. Savage would not forget a detail like that. Savage never forgot any detail. His own suits came from Alby Albertson, who ran a little tailor’s shop in Arkley Centre, and were, invariably, of twenty-two ounce Yorkshire worsted, in clerical grey. Savage wore them winter and summer.

Eaves splashed cold water on his face and ran a comb through his bristly fair hair: at least he still had that, he thought, he was still young enough looking for girls to think he might not be married yet. He decided against brushing his teeth, there was no time. If Joyce had been watching, or around, he would have cleaned his teeth first, and washed before he put on his clothes. He smiled, reminded of Ash Street, of his father’s terrace-house, where there had only been one cold-water tap in the kitchen, and the whole family, eight of them, had dressed first and washed sketchily later, in a hurry to get to work.

There would be none of that for his daughter, asleep and safe in the next room. He thought tenderly of her for a long moment; he wished he saw more of her. Eaves sighed. It was the job.

Eaves pulled his nylon socks on last, and squeezed into his elastic-sided leather shoes: his feet were not cold, there was not a scrap of linoleum in the house; even the lavatory was carpeted, with a rubber protective area around the bowl. Joyce had her own ideas about comfort. Warmth and softness and style, too. Joyce looked and looked, in the one store in Arkley sometimes, in far-off, exciting London mostly, for the stylish pieces she needed. Well, it was often her own money she was spending, it was up to her to do as she liked with it.

Eaves shut off the light in the black and white bathroom and walked out into the tiny central hall of the bungalow. On impulse he looked into his daughter’s bedroom. Gillian lay sleeping sweetly, her arms thrown free of the covers, and her head almost at right-angles to her body. Joyce slept like that too. The girl resembled her in no other way. Eaves felt a wave of tenderness. Fourteen, nearly fifteen, he thought, she has all life before her; and as many good things as I can give her. For the girl was plain, like himself. He tiptoed softly out of the bedroom. His tweed coat was on the Swedish light-wood hatstand in the hall. The new hat – a little too furry, a little too narrow in the brim – that he had bought on Joyce’s advice, at Rollo’s, the best men’s stockists in Arkley (Savage’s comment: ‘They charge pounds-ten for little yellow pullovers for the sons of fellas with brass. How much did they rush you for that?’) and opened his front door quietly.

The icy wind bit into his face: the day was beginning across the Pennines, away to the west. It would be even colder up there. The bungalow was on the higher part of Arkley, built on the southern fells that surrounded the slate-grey cotton town, nestling quiet and unlit in the chill dawn light.

Eaves felt a sudden lifting of his spirits, a release. He was feeling like that more often nowadays, every time he left the house, no matter what time of day or night. It had not been like that when he was first married. He looked over the dirty grey town. This place was his, he understood it. Behind him in the bungalow were the books he had never read, and the questions Joyce would ask, to which he never had satisfactory answers. Joyce had only to start on her eternal questioning to make him miserable, unhappy, glad to get out of the place. Eaves shook the gloomy thoughts away, and began his day’s work.

It was 5 a.m.

Eaves opened the door of his concrete slab garage, and got into his Anglia. It was in good condition (maintained by the mechanic at Headquarters) and the engine started at the touch of the button. Eaves drove out into the suburban road, past the slumbering villas, down the hill into the old town. Inside three minutes he was surrounded by greystone terrace-houses, given a new look by a bold painted door or two; but inside, apart from plenty to eat and shoes that did not let in water, little had changed since he had lived in such a house. A lot was written about the Affluent Society in the quality Sunday newspapers Joyce bought (he read the Pic and the People) but inside these houses the prime factor was the same as ever. Everybody was a fortnight’s wages from the workhouse. Just the same, Eaves had voted Tory at the last election. He liked to be on the winning side. He was used to it.

The Tories had not won. They had not won an election in Arkley for almost fifty years.

Joyce voted Labour, but Eaves had never been able to work out why. She had a little money of her own, and she certainly never made any bones about her intention of keeping it, and of her pride in her father, old Josh, who had made his money any way he could, and was not ashamed of it either. Snob appeal, Eaves had decided; his wife had voted Labour out of snob appeal. None of her friends in Arkley voted Labour. They were all ladies in hats, whose husbands managed the town’s business while they shopped and sipped China tea in Marr’s, Arkley’s one department store. Voting Labour was different, it was snob appeal. This explanation satisfied Eaves. The Anglia droned through the deserted Town Centre, and Marr’s was shuttered and locked; the wax models in the windows were covered in tissue-paper. But the covering had slipped from one of them, and the perfect, idealized form, breasts smooth and nippleless, legs hard and long, hips far too narrow, stared across towards the Victorian Town Hall. Eaves smiled. We could have them for indecent exposure, he thought, only women hardly ever do it. Savage knew of a case, talked wonderingly of it sometimes, boasted he was the only inspector in the County who had booked a woman on such a charge.

Eaves believed him. Savage had always done what he said he had done. People were sick of checking up on him. If Savage told you it was ‘reet’, it was ‘reet’, the other plain-clothes men in the Division said. They did not like him for it. Nobody liked him, it was rumoured, at Headquarters. A Detective Chief Inspector, deep in drink, had been overheard at a police booze-up to remark that they were waiting for him. Eaves grinned to himself. They would have a long wait. He did not have to like Savage, but he liked Headquarters less. It was where the men in uniform sat who had never walked a night-beat. Eaves sighed. Detectives were a race apart; even amongst other policemen. Particularly amongst other policemen. And say what you liked about Savage, he was a detective.

Eaves swung the Anglia out of the Town Centre, Arkley’s one concession to the needs of its residents for fashion and art, the trollop and the virgin: the Art Gallery, the Odeon. He passed Marr’s Stores into Ash Street. It was a short cut to the hospital and there was no reason why he should not drive along it. The plain fact remained, he never did if he could help it. As he passed the house where he had been born he glanced sidewise; nothing was altered. It was typical of his father that he had not painted his front door yet; he was stoutly waiting for the landlord to do it for him. The curtains were still drawn in the tiny box-like house, and the pint-bottle stood on the step, washed clean, awaiting the milkman. Eaves glanced at his watch. It was past five o’clock; in an hour his father would be rising. The old man had retired (if you could call living on the Old Age Pension retirement) but the years of routine had moulded him, and he still got up as if he had a job to go to. Eaves felt guilty; he had not seen his father for almost a month.

Eaves brooded a moment on the other word that Savage had used, and then willed himself to forget it. His training was to turn up on the scene with an open mind: it was best to know as little as possible until you got there, to have no preconceived ideas, or even know much about the nature of the crime. In the first moment, staring at it, a new pair of eyes might see something everybody else had missed. Eaves tried to forget the word Savage had used.

At the end of Ash Street another road joined, in a T-junction. It looked exactly like Ash Street, but there was always something special about Ribblesdale Road for Eaves. Despising himself, he looked slyly towards the house of Molly Painter. It was as it had always been, the house above the corner-shop, something special, owned by people who did not have to go to the Mill every day, a cut above the rest of the street. But the shop was barred and shuttered, the curtains in the flat above were drawn, and Molly, anyway, was married now.

Eaves closed his mind to the name of Molly Painter and the special, old feeling that had ever gone with her name, and, putting the Anglia in top-gear, drove hard, up the hill towards the hospital.

The sprawling, red-brick building loomed into sight: crenellated main structure surrounded by prefabricated annexe-wards dotted around the grounds like forgotten toys on a green carpet, Eaves saw the police van standing in the drive; and Savage’s car, and a group of standing figures. Then, and only then, did he allow himself to say aloud the other word that Savage had used.

Rape.

SAVAGE WATCHED Eaves’s car approach, up the driveway. He deliberately turned away from his car, and walked slowly, his overcoat open, as always, up the drive towards the hospital. He did not want to talk to young Jack Eaves for a moment. If Eaves had anything to contribute, and he doubted it, he would hear soon enough. Eaves would come up to him, deferential, apologizing for his existence, and put up a theory Savage had himself discounted half an hour before. He really did not know why he had bothered to get Eaves out at all, except that somebody would have to relay orders, put Headquarters off, handle the Press when they arrived, as they would arrive, soon. Should have left him in bed with that sexy missus of his, Savage mused; she crosses her legs and he runs. When he sees Vera Small it might put him off it for a bit. Savage paced along, feeling the edge of the chill dawn air; already the warming glow in his bowels from the mouthful of neat whisky he had swallowed, as soon as he arrived, was wearing off; soon he would need another. The four hours of sleep he had managed that night represented his average; he would last on it until the next four hours he was granted. Which did not promise to be for some time.

Seven days! They had to get him, whoever he was, within the first week. After that the trails got covered over, witnesses’ memories failed or improved, it became more difficult to trace suspects’ movements. It was an arbitary length of time, taught to him, along with the whisky-flask and other things comforting or wise, by a mentor now long dead: but Savage accepted it, as he accepted all police lore. Seven days. Savage took out his flask and swallowed, his careful back towards the police van, the two uniformed constables pegging out the area with stakes and string, the police doctor and the duty-surgeon from the hospital still on their hands and knees next to the violated thing that had been a young girl.

The whisky tore at his empty stomach and Savage belched a loud, barking sound, with some pleasure.

A nutter, he decided, he has to be a nutter this one, there’s no other explanation for it. Brooding, his red face and redden hair bent into the biting wind – Savage never wore a hat, that was one of the many eccentricities that Headquarters frowned upon – he walked carefully around the outside of the Young Females Ward. His uniformed men had pegged out the path from the ward itself to the spot in the bushes where the body had been found. He had asked for the ward to be cleared, and from the sudden snapping on of the lights and the noise inside he guessed that this was being done now. The french window was still open, the way Chummy had left it, and Savage glanced at his watch, irritated. The Murder Squad from Headquarters would be down within the hour, and then things would begin to drift out of his hands. Savage felt resentment rising in his throat like a sickness. It was laid down; the Investigating Team should consist of: One Detective Chief Superintendent. One Detective Chief Inspector. One Finger-print Officer. Two Photographers. Two Plan Drawers. One Dog Handler. One Member of Forensic Science Laboratory Staff. One Pathologist.

Savage spat disgustedly. There was no room on that list for the local Detective Inspector, to say nothing of his Sergeant. He looked at the dry grass and decided there would be no footprints, anyway. Savage was all for ‘dabs’ and plaster-casts and all the rest of the comedy; he’d seen it succeed too often. But once the book had failed to get you results, throw it away, that was his motto. It was a procedure that had made him even less popular at Headquarters.

Chummy ran out, Savage decided; he ran out carrying her. He got her into the bushes without much of a struggle. He might be big, Chummy, it was probable, but not certain; the mood he was in, it would have taken four grown men to hold him, whoever he was. Savage always called an offender, whose name he did not know or could not recall, Chummy. He expected everybody to know who he meant. Usually they did.

There was a cough behind Savage, apologetic, and it irritated him. He knew who it was without looking round.

‘Don’t talk to me till you’ve had a look in the bushes, Jack.’

‘Right you are, sir.’

Eaves’s voice was steady, equable, refusing to acknowledge the brusqueness of the order, treating it as normal, which it was. The lad would do better if he talked back now and again, Savage thought. He probably keeps all his aggression for his missus. He’d need it, Savage decided grimly, looking through the window in time to see the last of the patients, bewildered young girls in quilted dressing-gowns with the cords trailing, being shepherded out of the ward. He walked briskly round to the main entrance. The night-porter, ancient and ashen – it was he who had found the child, Savage had talked to him already – opened the door for him.

‘Anything yet, sir?’

‘Not yet, Dad, want to talk to you later, eh?’

Savage was nauseated by the sudden warm smell of the hospital. Bedpans and lysol and putrefaction and frying bacon; for a man with only two hefty swallows of scotch in his stomach it was not easy to take. Savage had hated hospitals since the war, since the bombing raids and Mae dying slowly, by inches, and knowing it. He felt the loss yet, when he was on his own, every time he was on his own; the pain and hurt should have gone away by now but it had not. Perhaps it never would. Any road, how often was he on his own nowadays? Almost never. His colleagues called him conscientious; it was all right for them. They all had homes to go to. He had a flat. He had always hated flats, he had Mae had laughed at flats; she had liked gardens and a dog. Now he lived in a flat. It was a relief to be called out of it, to find himself doing something useful; or anyway, something that seemed useful at the time.

Savage walked the length of the corridor until he came to the Female Ward. He spoke to the young constable on the door.

‘All clear in there now, son?’

‘Yessir. The nurses just took them out, sir.’

‘Good. Then we can go in, can’t we?’

‘Yessir.’

The constable was pale and distressed too. Like the old man on the door. He was too young for it, and the doorman was too old. It’s between thirty and fifty you lose the squeamishness, Savage thought; in those years you’re too busy running things to find time for it.

‘You stop out here, son. Nobody’s to come in unless I say so.’

The constable came to attention. ‘Very good, sir.’

Savage pushed open the door of the ward. All the cots, eight of them, had been left exactly as their occupants had vacated them. Bedclothes were thrown back on all the beds, and personal things, brushes, food, bottles of Lucozade, at his request, had been left as they stood. There might be a dab somewhere, Savage thought, walking slowly towards the bed Vera Small had occupied, he must have touched something: unless he was wearing gloves. Savage did not know why, but he was quite certain Chummy had not been wearing gloves. Vera Small’s bed was the end one, furthest from the door. Chummy might be a nutter, but he knew what he wanted, he had taken an extra risk for it. Savage looked at the polished linoleum. There was no sign of mud, no scratches. Socks, he thought, Chummy was in his stockinged-feet. He opened the french window, or happen it was open. The Ward Sister had denied it but Savage had seen a sudden blush, it was against orders to leave it unlocked; Savage would bet a shade of even money that the girl didn’t know whether it was unlocked or not. The Matron had been standing by as he asked the question. Yes, it had been left unlocked, and Chummy had walked in, grabbed the girl, dragged her out? Savage visualized the girl’s broken body, estimated her weight. Seven or eight stone? Enough to put up a struggle. Savage looked at the bed from which the girl had been torn; no sign of violence, the covers had been pulled back, probably gently. The girl must have been surprised, sound asleep. Savage looked carefully in the cupboard at the side of the bed. Magazines, love stories, trash; some face powder from Woolworth’s and a pale-pink lipstick. God, the age they started at these days, how old was she, fourteen? Well, she hadn’t needed lipstick for Chummy, he wouldn’t have wanted it, the full-blown attractions of maturity held no longings for him. Some letters, he’d look at them later, a boy-friend was always a possibility, but would a boy-friend have come to a hospital for it? Besides, the doctor had said she was a virgin. There had been plenty of evidence of that. Oh, Chummy had enjoyed himself; he had taken. The point now was to make him pay for what he had taken.

The door of the ward creaked open and the young constable put his head in. He looked surprised to see Savage’s kneeling position, next to the bed.

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Hospital Manager, sir. Asking to talk to you, sir.’

Savage pushed Vera Small’s magazines back into the cupboard, and got creakily from his knees. No mud, no mess, no struggle, probably no dabs. A finger-print, let’s pray for one. We have to pray for something; it’s too late for Vera, and Chummy is past prayer.

The Hospital Manager knew Savage by sight. A masonic emblem dangled on his watch-chain, his eyes, behind thick glasses, were round and shocked. Violent death occurs in this place twenty times a week, Savage thought, but this one shocks him. Savage listened to his babbling with only token respect. What if he was of some local importance? He was only a jumped-up office-wallah as far as Savage was concerned.

‘The girl’s parents, I’ll have to notify them.’

Savage nodded. ‘Of course, sir.’

‘They’ll want to see her, you know.’

Savage said, ‘Not yet.’

‘Is she … Did he …?’

‘Yes, he did, sir, and she’s not pretty. We don’t want her parents upset, they can see her when she’s been tidied up a bit. I’ll send my sergeant to let them know, you can go with him if you want, sir.’

The Hospital Manager looked helpless, but there was a gleam of craft behind the glasses.

‘Of course. Of course. Glad to, but I don’t think I’d be of any use, you know. I mean, it’s a police matter now, isn’t it?’

The Hospital Manager took off his glasses, which had steamed up, and wiped them unhappily on his striped tie.

‘Don’t you worry then, sir. I’ll just send my sergeant. You leave it to us, sir.’

‘I’m in my office when you want the address, Inspector.’

Savage nodded, turned back to the ward. The Hospital Manager caught his arm.

‘Who would do a thing like this?’

Savage looked at him, steadily. ‘A man.’

‘Will you get him?’

Savage smiled. ‘We’ll try, sir.’

The Hospital Manager’s eyes blinked.

‘The bastard, the lousy bastard.’

‘Amen,’ said the Inspector, and walked back into the ward. Once inside, he crossed to the window, and looked out, down the drive, for a sign of the Headquarters team. Nothing. Only the uniformed policemen, still crouching among the bushes, marking out the area Savage had indicated, where some footprints or article might be found. Eaves, he saw, had moved away from the body, was talking to the House Surgeon. Something in the slump of his shoulders under the short-length tweed coat, and that stupid hat his wife had bought him, told Savage that the younger man was upset. Usually, young Jack Eaves carried himself like an athlete; middleweight boxing champion of the Division six years ago, with Savage in his corner in every fight, all the way up. Eaves had been hard-boiled then, and thin at the hips, and he had taken punishment and dished it out dutifully, as Savage had called aggression or defence, in a sharp yell from his corner, in the hot, smoky halls. In those days he had been sure that Jack Eaves was a born copper. Now looking down the driveway at the figure standing forlorn near the Black Maria, Savage wondered, as he had wondered many times in the last two years, about Eaves. A good copper gave all of himself to the job. Eaves did not do that. There was nothing a good copper would not do, to seal a job up. It was a war, a holy war, and Eaves did not seem to know that. Eaves had never been put to the test of it, Savage reflected, he had always had old Daddy Savage behind him, or rather, in front of him. One of these days, Savage thought, Eaves would be put to that test, as they all were put to it, sooner or later. Then Eaves would know, and he would know, whether Eaves was a copper or not.

Savage walked away from the window and stood in the middle of the deserted ward. Pale green walls, distempered; brown lino in great glassy blocks, black iron cots; whitewood cupboards at the side of the beds; nothing changed. Mae had died in a ward just like this, with Savage’s hand in hers and the screens around them. Savage had not been a good husband, but he had been the best husband he could, and that had seemed to be enough for her. At least, he thought, she had died calm, with no terror. Not like Vera Small.

Chummy ran in, no, he walked, he walked in, gently; perhaps he hid a minute or two before he walked along the row of beds? He took a risk; any patient waking might have cried out; but he didn’t care about that, past caring. Savage pondered: Chummy might be on the books, it was always possible that they would pick him up easily in a round-up of nutters with records. Possible, but unlikely; it hardly ever happened that way. If it did, there would be no requirement for the Headquarters Murder Team; he could do it himself. Savage took a long, secret, burning pull at his flask and pushed it back in his hip-pocket. Fat chance of that. They would do it, they would do it all; unless he pushed and shoved, and thrust himself forward. Which he would do. Savage grinned dourly, and took a cheroot from his pocket. H