Comes the Dark Stranger Read online

  COMES THE

  DARK STRANGER

  Jack Higgins

  Open Road Integrated Media

  New York

  And this one for Sarah

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  A Biography of Jack Higgins

  1

  He was drowning in a dark pool. The hands of the damned were pulling him down, but he kicked and struggled and fought his way to the surface. There was an agonizing pain in his head. He tried to scream, but when he opened his mouth, water rushed in. And then a faint light appeared. It grew brighter and brighter until suddenly, he broke through to the surface and breathed again.

  He was lying on his back in a pool of water beside several overflowing dustbins. The water was filthy and greasy and he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again he saw that he was in a narrow alley with walls of slimy brick on either side, faintly illuminated by the diffused light of a street lamp that stood in the main road a few feet away.

  It was raining heavily and the rain felt cool and clean on his face and yet the drops stung him and he couldn’t think why. He couldn’t remember who he was or how he came to be lying on his back in an alley or why his face hurt when the raindrops splashed against it.

  When he tried to sit up he found that his wrists were handcuffed together and there were no shoes on his feet. For some curious reason this didn’t bother him. He wasn’t alarmed - just slightly puzzled. He frowned and tried to concentrate. It was no good - his mind remained a blank and he became aware of a steady, throbbing pain in his head, slightly above his right eye.

  He shifted his shoulders and felt the water seeping through his jacket, cold, sharp and bitter as death. He rolled over and tried to get to his feet, but he hadn’t the strength and his whole body shrieked its agony through a thousand tortured nerves.

  He reached clumsily with both hands for the edge of one of the bins and heaved himself upright. For a moment he stood there swaying and then he was conscious of a terrible pain in his stomach and he leaned against the wall and was violently sick.

  As he turned away from the wall, he lurched into another dustbin. There was a shriek as from a lost soul in hell and a cat sprang from amongst the refuse and disappeared into the gloom. In its flight, it dislodged the dustbin lid, which hit the cobbles with a clatter, rocking backwards and forwards.

  The sound resounded from the walls of the narrow alley, mingling with the echoes of the cat’s awful cry - and then he was afraid. He remembered who he was and how he had come to be lying, handcuffed and unconscious in an alley and he remembered the most important fact of all. Someone had been murdered and the way things looked, he was the killer.

  Panic flickered inside him and he moved along the alley, away from the main road, hobbling painfully in his stockinged feet. He turned a corner and found himself standing under an ancient gas lamp, bracketed to the wall above his head. On the opposite side of the alley there was a door with a decaying sign above it that said: H. JOHNSON AND SON - PANEL BEATERS.

  He moved to the door quickly, but he was wasting his time. It was padlocked with stout chains at top and bottom. A few feet away there was a window, and he quickly pushed his elbow through the glass and fumbled for the catch. A moment later he was standing inside in the warm darkness.

  A little light filtered through the window from the gas lamp outside and he moved forward cautiously, eyes probing the gloom. He was in what was obviously the workshop. Sheets of metal were standing against one wall and damaged car doors, wings and fenders littered the floor. He moved towards the bench that stood in the centre of the room and a sudden thrill of excitement moved through him as he saw a large guillotine of the type used to cut metal, bolted firmly to one end of the bench.

  He slipped his arms under the knife and positioned the steel links that held the handcuffs together over the cutting edge of the base. He held his wrists as far apart as the handcuffs would allow and arched his body over the handle of the blade. Sweat trickled down his forehead and he took a deep breath and pressed downwards sharply. The knife went through the metal link as easily as wire through butter and he stepped back, his hands free.

  There were some metal lockers in one corner of the room and he examined them quickly. Most of them were padlocked, but one opened to his touch. Inside he found a tin mug, some greasy overalls and a pair of steel-capped industrial boots. He sat on the edge of the bench and pulled them on. They were a size too large, but he quickly laced them up and moved back to the window.

  It was quiet outside and for a moment he listened to the rain drumming into the ground and the faint, faraway sounds of traffic in the main road, before he swung a leg over the sill and scrambled out into the alley.

  He pulled the window down and a voice said harshly from the darkness. ‘Hold it right there!’

  A young constable moved into the lamplight, rain streaming from his cape, and reached out towards him. He moved slightly, the light falling directly on to him, and the constable stood quite still. His face turned yellow and sickly in the lamplight, and there was sudden fear in his eyes. ‘My God, Martin Shane!’ he said.

  Shane didn’t give him a chance. His right foot kicked out viciously, the steel toe-cap of the boot catching the constable under one knee so that he screamed and fell back against the wall. There were tears of agony streaming down his face and he fumbled for his whistle with one hand. Shane slammed a fist against the unprotected jaw and turned and ran along the alley towards the main road.

  The clock in a shop window said six-thirty. It was that period on a late-autumn evening when the streets are almost deserted. Just after the workers have gone home, but a little before the people bent on pleasure have come out. As he stood staring stupidly at the luminous hands of the clock, the pain in his head suddenly increased and he turned and lurched blindly across the road.

  The pain was a living thing and the pavement stretched before him into infinity. He began to move forward, hugging the wall, lurching unsteadily from side to side like a drunken man. The wind lifted into his face and the raindrops stung like pellets of lead. He paused as he came to a brightly lit window and stared into it. There was a tall mirror in the back of the window and a man looked out at him.

  Black hair was plastered across the high forehead. One eye was half-closed and the right side of the face was swollen and disfigured by a huge purple bruise. The mouth was smashed and bleeding and the front of the shirt was covered in blood.

  For some reason he smiled, and that terrible face creased into a painful grin. As he turned away, a couple passed and he heard a shocked gasp from the woman, followed by a burst of excited conversation. He crossed the road quickly and plunged down a narrow side-street.

  He kept on walking as fast as he could, turning from one street into another, moving farther away from the centre of the town. Gradually the streets began to change their character until he was walking through an old-fashioned residential neighbourhood with decaying Victorian houses rearing into the night on each side. The streets were lined with chestnut trees and the pavements were slippery with their leaves. Once or twice he stumbled and almost fell, and each time he had to rest against a garden wall.

  The street lamps stretched into the darkness, and he progressed painfully from one patch of yellow light to the next. As he paused at the end of on
e street, the insistent jangle of a bell shattered the quiet and a police car turned a corner and came towards him. He dodged through a garden gate and huddled behind a hedge until it had passed. As the sound of the bell faded into the distance, he moved out of the garden and stood on the corner of the street.

  The rain suddenly increased in volume, bouncing from the pavement in silver rods. He pulled up his jacket collar and stared about him in desperation, and then, rearing out of the darkness across the road, he saw the dim bulk of a church.

  He staggered across the empty street and pushed at an iron gate. It creaked open and he passed inside. A dim light shone from an immense stained-glass window, casting diamond shadows across the tombstones in the churchyard. When he mounted the steps to the door it opened smoothly and quietly as if welcoming him, and he stepped inside.

  It was quiet - very quiet. He stood at the end of the aisle and looked down towards the altar and the lamp. For some reason he walked forward, his gaze fixed on the lamp. It seemed to increase in size and to grow small again, and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment.

  A soft Irish voice said, ‘Excuse me, but are you all right?’

  Shane turned quickly. There was a small chapel on his left, its walls decorated with a half-completed fresco. Standing looking at him was a tall, grey-haired man in overalls with a paint brush in one hand. The overalls were topped by a clerical collar.

  Shane moistened his lips and tried to speak, but somehow the words got stuck in his throat and only a dry croak came out. The dizziness hit him again and he swayed forward and grasped at the pew to steady himself. An arm of surprising strength slipped round his shoulders, and he opened his eyes and tried to smile. ‘I don’t feel so good at the moment. Just let me shelter from the rain for a little while and then I’ll move on.’

  The priest gave a stifled exclamation as he looked into his face. ‘God have mercy on us!’

  Shane tried to pull himself free of the encircling arm. ‘I’ll be all right in a few minutes. Just let me sit down.’

  The priest shook his head. ‘You need medical attention. You’re badly hurt.’

  A flicker of panic moved inside Shane and he grabbed at him with shaking hands. ‘Don’t get the police! Whatever you do, don’t get the police!’

  The priest looked searchingly at him and smiled gently, so that a peculiarly crooked scar on his right cheek merged with the smile, somehow lighting up the whole face. And then Shane recognized him.

  ‘You’re Father Costello,’ he said. ‘You were a padre with the 52nd Infantry Division in Korea.’

  The priest nodded and guided him firmly along the aisle towards a small door in the far corner of the church. ‘Yes, I was in Korea. Did we ever meet?’

  Shane shook his head. ‘No, but I saw you on several occasions.’ As the priest opened the door and ushered him through he went on, ‘I remember how you got that scar. You went over the top to help a wounded Chinese and he tried to carve you up.’

  Father Costello’s face clouded and he sighed. ‘That’s something I prefer to forget.’

  He pushed Shane into a chair. They were in the vestry. His cassock hung behind the door and a gas fire spluttered fitfully in one corner. He sat down at a battered walnut desk, unlocked one of its drawers, and took out a bottle of brandy. He poured a generous measure into a glass and smiled. ‘That should help things for the moment.’

  Shane choked as liquid fire coursed through his veins, and Father Costello pushed a packet of cigarettes towards him and took a first-aid kit from another drawer.

  Shane lit a cigarette gratefully, and the priest pulled his chair closer and examined his face. After a slight pause he said, ‘You really do need a doctor to attend to this.’

  Shane shook his head. ‘Not tonight, Father. I’ve got more important things on my mind.’

  Father Costello sighed, and started to work quickly with swabs of cotton wool dipped in aquaflavine. As he fixed surgical tape in position over some of the worst cuts, he said calmly, ‘They made rather a mess of you, didn’t they? Whoever did it certainly made a thorough job.’

  Shane pulled up his sleeves and showed him the steel bracelet encircling each wrist. ‘It was a policeman, Father,’ he said. ‘And they’re the toughest of the lot when they really get down to business.’

  He stood up arid flexed his muscles gingerly. His body felt sore all over, and his kidneys were badly swollen, but as far as he could tell there were no bones broken. He looked at himself in the mirror that hung above the gas fire and turned with a wry grin. ‘I’m not sure that I don’t look worse now that you’ve cleaned me up.’

  Father Costello smiled faintly and picked up the bottle. ‘Another brandy?’

  Shane shook his head and moved towards the door. ‘No, thanks, Father. I haven’t got much time.’

  He stretched out his hand to the door-handle, and Father Costello said calmly, ‘Don’t you think you ought to tell me about it, Martin Shane?’

  For a moment Shane was frozen into position, and then he turned warily. ‘You know me?’

  Father Costello nodded. ‘Your picture was in the paper today, and there was an announcement about your escape on the radio.’ He took a cigarette from the packet and lit it carefully. ‘You know, it sometimes helps to talk with a stranger. We can often see things in a different light.’

  Shane moved forward and said tightly, ‘This city is crawling with coppers, and they’re all looking for me. You know what I’m supposed to have done?’

  Father Costello nodded gravely. ‘A particularly revolting murder.’

  Shane sagged into the chair and fumbled for another cigarette. ‘They say I’m insane and I’m not even sure they’re wrong any more. Doesn’t that frighten you?’

  The priest held out a match in a steady hand and shook his head. ‘I can’t say it does. Perhaps the only person you really frighten is yourself.’

  Shane stared into the kindly grey eyes, trying to understand what he was getting at, and then all the fears, all the uncertainties of the past few days welled up inside him and he knew that more than anything else he wanted to pour them out to this man.

  He said slowly, ‘Maybe if I told you everything right from the beginning it would help. Perhaps I’ll get some glimmering of light or see some reason for what happened.’

  Father Costello leaned back in his chair and smiled gently. ‘I know something of your story from the newspaper accounts, but I think you’d better start by telling me why you came to Burnham in the first place.’

  Shane eased his bruised body into a relatively comfortable position. ‘That’s easy, Father,’ he said calmly. ‘I came to Burnham to kill a man.’

  2

  IT was raining heavily on the afternoon Shane arrived in Burnham, and there was a touch of fog in the air. As he emerged from the station a gust of wind kicked rain into his face in an oddly menacing manner, as if warning him to turn back before it was too late. He shrugged the feeling off and started to walk along the wet pavement towards the centre of the town.

  He found what he was looking for within a matter of minutes, a sleasy, third-rate hotel in a quiet back street. When he went in a young girl was sitting behind the reception desk reading a magazine. She looked up, a sudden sparkle in her eyes, and smiled brightly.

  ‘I’d like a room for a week,’ Shane said.

  ‘With or without a bath?’ she asked, twisting the register round and handing him a pen.

  He told her he’d have the bath, and she took down a key, lifted the flap of the reception desk, and led the way up the stairs.

  She was wearing a tight skirt and high-heel shoes, and from the rear she presented a not unpleasing picture. The general effect was spoilt by the fact that she had no breasts worth speaking of and a generous sprinkling of acne in the region of her mouth that no amount of make-up could hide.

  The carpet was badly worn on the top corridor, and she caught her heel and stumbled so that he had to reach out to prevent her falling. She
leaned heavily against him and smiled. ‘This is your room, Mr Shane.’ She pushed the key into the lock, then stood to one side and he went in.

  It was no better and no worse than he had expected. There was a dressing-table and a wardrobe in Victorian mahogany that the management must have picked up cheaply at a sale, but the bed was clean and the bathroom adequate. The room had that unpleasant, musty odour, peculiar to such places and redolent of old sins, and he went to the window and threw it open.

  When he turned, the girl was standing just inside the room regarding him with what was supposed to be a mysterious smile. ‘Will that be all?’ she said.

  He moved across the floor, took the key from her hand, and gently pushed her out of the door. ‘I’ll let you know if I want anything, kid.’

  As he closed the door she smiled eagerly. ‘If there’s anything - anything at all, Mr Shane, just ring.’

  It was very quiet in the room when she had gone, and suddenly the pain was with him again, moving inside his skull like a living thing, taking his breath away and sending him reeling into the bathroom.

  He quickly turned on the cold tap and filled a glass with water; and then he took a small glass bottle from his pocket and unscrewed the cap with trembling fingers. He poured two red pills into the palm of his hand, hesitated for a moment, and then shook out two more. He crammed them into his mouth and swallowed the water. For a moment longer he stayed there, eyes closed, leaning heavily on the wash-basin, and then he lurched into the other room and fell across the bed.

  It was the worst attack he had ever known. He lay with his face turned into the pillow, sweating with fear, and then, abruptly as it had always done before, the pain left him and he could breathe again.

  He pushed himself up slowly and sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments with his head in his hands. After a while he reached for his canvas grip and unzipped it. He took out a half-bottle of whisky, pulled the cork, and took a generous swallow.