Hell Is Always Today Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE THRILLERS OF

  JACK HIGGINS

  DARK JUSTICE

  “High-speed narration.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  BAD COMPANY

  “Higgins writes with spare velocity, racing through a complex plot…[and] has no equal in the realm of ex-Nazis wreaking havoc…. Higgins maintains the suspense and even manages a series of nasty surprises along the way.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Starts off at light speed and quickly goes into warp drive, never easing up on the throttle so that readers never quite catch their breath.”

  —Stonnington Leader (Australia)

  MIDNIGHT RUNNER

  “The fun comes from the wisecracking band of dangerous but bighearted secret soldiers Higgins wheels out to save the world—and his galloping Hollywood-ready pace.”

  —People

  “Swift and coursing with dark passion…as credible and steel-hearted as Higgins’s best.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  EDGE OF DANGER

  “This is Higgins near the top of his game…another winner.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “His 32nd triumphant exercise in keeping readers hugely entertained.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “The action is nonstop.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  DAY OF RECKONING

  “The action is sleek and intensely absorbing, but the supreme pleasure is in those Higgins celebrates—tarnished warriors who value honor over life and who get the job done no matter what the cost.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  THE WHITE HOUSE CONNECTION

  “The White House Connection has one heckuva heroine…[who] begins a one-woman assassination spree that will keep you turning the pages.”

  —Larry King, USA Today

  “Masterful…a satisfying, suspense-filled book.”

  —Roanoke Times & World News

  “[A] page-turning thriller.”

  —The Indianapolis Star

  THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER

  “High-tension action and harrowing twists—Higgins at his best.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A tight story with plenty of action.”

  —Chattanooga Free Press

  NIGHT JUDGEMENT AT SINOS

  “This is one you won’t put down.”

  —The New York Times

  DRINK WITH THE DEVIL

  “A most intoxicating thriller.”

  —The Associated Press

  “It is Dillon’s likeability and the author’s adroitness in giving his character the room he needs that make Higgins’s novels so readable.”

  —The Washington Times

  YEAR OF THE TIGER

  “Higgins spins as mean a tale as Ludlum, Forsythe, or any of them.”

  —Philadelphia Daily News

  ANGEL OF DEATH

  “Pulsing excitement…Higgins makes the pages fly.”

  —New York Daily News

  “The action never stops.”

  —The San Francisco Examiner

  EYE OF THE STORM

  Also published as Midnight Man

  “Heart-stopping…spectacular and surprising.”

  —Abilene Reporter-News

  “Razor-edged…will give you an adrenaline high. It’s a winner.”

  —Tulsa World

  ON DANGEROUS GROUND

  “A whirlwind of action, with a hero who can out-Bond old James. It’s told in the author’s best style, with never a pause for breath.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  SHEBA

  “When it comes to thriller writers, one name stands well above the crowd—Jack Higgins.”

  —The Associated Press

  THUNDER POINT

  “Dramatic…authentic…one of the author’s best.”

  —The New York Times

  “A rollicking adventure that twists and turns.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  GRAVEYARD SHIFT

  “One-hundred-percent-proof adventure.”

  —The New York Times

  BROUGHT IN DEAD

  “Action-packed, colourful and written by a natural storyteller.”

  —Sunday Mail (London)

  Titles by Jack Higgins

  HELL IS ALWAYS TODAY

  BAD COMPANY

  MIDNIGHT RUNNER

  THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT

  EDGE OF DANGER

  DAY OF RECKONING

  THE KEYS OF HELL

  THE WHITE HOUSE CONNECTION

  IN THE HOUR BEFORE MIDNIGHT

  EAST OF DESOLATION

  THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER

  PAY THE DEVIL

  FLIGHT OF EAGLES

  YEAR OF THE TIGER

  DRINK WITH THE DEVIL

  NIGHT JUDGEMENT AT SINOS

  ANGEL OF DEATH

  SHEBA

  ON DANGEROUS GROUND

  THUNDER POINT

  EYE OF THE STORM (also published as MIDNIGHT MAN)

  THE EAGLE HAS FLOWN

  COLD HARBOUR

  MEMORIES OF A DANCE-HALL ROMEO

  A SEASON IN HELL

  NIGHT OF THE FOX

  CONFESSIONAL

  EXOCET

  TOUCH THE DEVIL

  LUCIANO’S LUCK

  SOLO

  DAY OF JUDGMENT

  STORM WARNING

  THE LAST PLACE GOD MADE

  A PRAYER FOR THE DYING

  THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

  THE RUN TO MORNING

  DILLINGER

  TO CATCH A KING

  THE VALHALLA EXCHANGE

  THE KHUFRA RUN

  A GAME FOR HEROES

  THE WRATH OF GOD

  Hell Is Always Today

  Jack Higgins

  BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  HELL IS ALWAYS TODAY

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1968 by Harry Patterson.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

 
; a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 0-7865-7958-7

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Prologue

  The police car turned at the end of the street and pulled into the kerb beside the lamp. The driver kept the motor running, and grinned at his passenger.

  “Rather you than me on a night like this, but I was forgetting. You love your work, don’t you?”

  Police Constable Henry Joseph Dwyer’s reply was unprintable and he stood at the edge of the pavement, a strangely melancholy figure in the helmet and cape, listening to the sound of the car fade into the night. Rain fell steadily, drifting down through the yellow glow of the street lamp in a silver spray and he turned morosely and walked towards the end of the street.

  It was just after ten and the night stretched before him, cold and damp. The city was lonely and for special reasons at that time, rather frightening even for an old hand like Joe Dwyer. Still, no point in worrying about that. Another ten months and he’d be out of it, but his hand still moved inside his cape to touch the small two-way radio in his breast pocket, the lifeline that could bring help when needed within a matter of minutes.

  He paused on the corner and looked across the square towards the oasis of light that was the coffee stall on the other side. No harm in starting off with something warm inside him and he needed some cigarettes.

  There was only one customer, a large, heavily built man in an old trenchcoat and rain hat who was talking to Sam Harkness, the owner. As Dwyer approached, the man turned, calling goodnight over his shoulder and plunged into the rain head down so that he and the policeman collided.

  “Steady on there,” Dwyer began and then recognised him. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Faulkner. Nasty night, sir.”

  Faulkner grinned. “You can say that again. I only came out for some cigarettes. Hope they’re paying you double time tonight.”

  “That’ll be the day, sir.”

  Faulkner walked away and Dwyer approached the stall. “He’s in a hurry, isn’t he?”

  Harkness filled a mug with tea from the urn, spooned sugar into it and pushed it across. “Wouldn’t you be if you was on your way home to a warm bed on a night like this? Probably got some young bird lying there in her underwear waiting for him. They’re all the same these artists.”

  Dwyer grinned. “You’re only jealous. Let’s have twenty of the usual. Must have something to get me through the night. How’s business?”

  Harkness passed the cigarettes across and changed the ten-shilling note that Dwyer gave him. “Lucky if I make petrol money.”

  “I’m not surprised. You won’t get many people out on a night like this.”

  Harkness nodded. “It wouldn’t be so bad if I still had the Toms, but they’re all working from their flats at the moment with some muscle minding the door if they’ve got any sense. All frightened off by this Rainlover geezer.”

  Dwyer lit a cigarette and cupped it inside his left hand. “He doesn’t worry you?”

  Harkness shrugged. “He isn’t after the likes of me, that’s for certain, though how any woman in her right mind can go out at the moment on a night when it’s raining beats me.” He picked up the evening paper. “Look at this poor bitch he got in the park last night. Peggy Nolan. She’s been on the game round here for years. Nice little Irish woman. Fifty if she was a day. Never harmed anyone in her life.” He put the paper down angrily. “What about you blokes, anyway? When are you going to do something?”

  The voice of the public, worried, frightened and looking for a scapegoat. Dwyer nipped his cigarette and slipped it back into the packet. “We’ll get him, Sam. He’ll over-reach himself. These nut-cases always do.”

  Which didn’t sound very convincing even to himself and Harkness laughed harshly. “And how many more women are going to die before that happens, tell me that?”

  His words echoed back to him flatly on the night air as Dwyer moved away into the night. Harkness watched him go, listening to the footsteps fade and then there was only the silence and beyond the pool of light, the darkness seemed to move in towards him. He swallowed hard, fighting back the fear that rose inside, switched on the radio and lit a cigarette.

  Joe Dwyer moved through the night at a measured pace, the only sound the echo of his own step between the tall Victorian terraces that pressed in on either side. Occasionally he paused to flash his lamp into a doorway and once he checked the side door of a house which was by day the offices of a grocery wholesaler.

  These things he did efficiently because he was a good policeman, but more as a reflex action than anything else. He was cold and the rain trickled down his neck soaking into his shirt and he still had seven hours to go, but he was also feeling rather depressed, mainly because of Harkness. The man was frightened of course, but who wasn’t? The trouble was that people saw too much television. They were conditioned to expect their murders to be neatly solved in fifty-two minutes plus advertising time.

  He flashed his lamp into the entry called Dob Court a few yards from the end of the street hardly bothering to pause, then froze. The beam rested on a black leather boot, travelled across stockinged legs, skirt rucked up wantonly, and came to rest on the face of a young woman. The head was turned sideways at an awkward angle in a puddle of water, eyes staring into eternity.

  And he wasn’t afraid, that was the strange thing. He took a quick step forward, dropping to one knee and touched her face gently with the back of his hand. It was still warm, which could only mean one thing on a night like this….

  He was unable to take his reasoning any further. There was the scrape of a foot on stone. As he started to rise, his helmet was knocked off and he was struck a violent blow on the back of the head. He cried out, falling across the body of the girl, and someone ran along the entry behind him and turned into the street.

  He could feel blood, warm and sticky, mingling with the rain as it ran across his face and the darkness moved in on him. He fought it off, breathing deeply, his hand going inside his cape to the two-way radio in his breast pocket.

  Even after he had made contact and knew that help was on its way, he held on to consciousness with all his strength, only letting go at the precise moment that the first police car turned the corner at the end of the street.

  1

  It had started to rain in the late evening, lightly at first, but increasing to a heavy, drenching downpour as darkness fell. A wind that, from the feel of it, came all the way from the North Sea, drove the rain before it across the roofs of the city to rattle against the enormous glass window that stood at one end of Bruno Faulkner’s studio.

  The studio was a great barn of a room which took up the entire top floor of a five-storey Victorian wool merchant’s town house, now converted into flats. Inside a fire burned in a strangely mediaeval fireplace giving the only light, and on a dais against the window four great shapes, Faulkner’s latest commission, loomed menacingly.

  There was a ring at the door bell and then another.

  After a while, an
inner door beyond the fireplace opened and Faulkner appeared in shirt and pants, a little dishevelled for he had been sleeping. He switched on the light and paused by the fire for a moment, mouth widening in a yawn. He was a large, rather fleshy man of thirty whose face carried the habitually arrogant expression of the sort of creative artist who believes that he exists by a kind of divine right. As the bell sounded again he frowned petulantly, moved to the door and opened it.

  “All right, all right, I can hear you.” He smiled suddenly. “Oh, it’s you, Jack.”

  The elegant young man who leaned against the wall outside, a finger held firmly against the bell push, grinned. “What kept you?”

  Faulkner turned and Jack Morgan followed him inside and closed the door. He was about Faulkner’s age, but looked younger and wore evening dress, a light overcoat with a velvet collar draped across his shoulders.

  He examined Faulkner dispassionately as the other man helped himself to a cigarette from a silver box and lit it. “You look bloody awful, Bruno.”

  “I love you too,” Faulkner said and crossed to the fire.

  Morgan looked down at the telephone which stood on a small coffee table. The receiver was off the hook and he replaced it casually. “I thought so. I’ve been trying to get through for the past couple of hours.”

  Faulkner shrugged. “I’ve been working for two days non-stop. When I finished I took the phone off the hook and went to bed. What did you want? Something important?”

  “It’s Joanna’s birthday, or had you forgotten? She sent me to get you.”

  “Oh, my God, I had—completely. No chance that I’ve missed the party I suppose?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s only eight o’clock.”

  “Pity. I suppose she’s collected the usual bunch of squares.” He frowned suddenly. “I haven’t even got her a present.”

  Morgan produced a slim leather case from one pocket and threw it across. “Pearl necklace…seventy-five quid. I got it at Humbert’s and told them to put it on your account.”