Hit and Run

'You're not kidding anyone,' I said. 'It sticks out a mile. You trapped me into going down to that lonely beach. There was no one there. I went and looked the place over yesterday. There are no footprints except yours and mine, and that told me Ross couldn't have been there. He knew what happened because you told him. You two are after the twenty thousand I'm putting in your husband's business. He told you about it, didn't he? That's why you were so interested in asking questions about it when we first met. You told Ross, and you two planned to get it from me by blackmail. When I called you on the telephone and told you I had found a way out, you weren't pleased. I spotted that in the tone of your voice. As soon as I hung up, you called Ross and told him. He came down here fast to see what I was up to and he brought a flashlight camera with him. Now lie yourself out of that little lot if you can!'

She slumped down in her chair and hid her face in her hands and began to cry.

I crossed the room and mixed myself a highball with lots of ice in it. By the time I had carried the drink to my chair and had sat down, she had stopped crying and was wiping her eyes on the shirt sleeve like any little gutter child who has had a hiding and now feels sorry for herself.

'Ches ...'

'Here we go again,' I said, leaning back in my chair and looking at her. 'Now what yarn have you cooked up?'

'Ches, please be kind to me,' she said and wrung her hands. This was something new, and if I weren't sick to death of the sight of her, her despair might have moved me a little – not much, but maybe a little. 'I couldn't help it. He – he's been blackmailing me for months.'

I drank a little of the Scotch. It tasted fine: strong enough and cold enough and with just the right bite in it.

'You mean Oscar has been blackmailing you for months?'

'Yes.'

'So you thought it would be a bright idea if he blackmailed me as well?'

'I couldn't help it.' Again she wrung her hands. As a repeat performance it wasn't quite so convincing. 'He found out you had all this money ...'

'You mean you told him?'

'No, I didn't. I swear I didn't!' She stared at me, tears still on her pale face, her eyes wide and miserable. 'He found out.'

'Look, don't give me that stuff,' I said angrily. 'For heaven's sake, try to make your story convincing. He couldn't have found out. Only you and Aitken knew how much I was going to put into the business. Aitken wouldn't have told him, so you must have.'

She squirmed in her chair as she tried desperately to keep ahead with her lies.

'I – I didn't mean to tell him, Ches. You've got to believe me. We were talking together, and I said I knew someone who had a lot of money and I wish I had it. I never thought he would ... It just happened ... it slipped out. I didn't intend to tell him.'

'But you told him?'

She went back to the trick of squeezing her hands between her knees.

'Yes, but I didn't meant to.'

'Why has he been blackmailing you for months?'

She hesitated, looking away, moving uneasily. 'I can't tell you that, Ches. It – it's private. It was something I did ...'

'Like taking some interesting man down on a lonely beach?'

'Of course not. I – I've never done that before.'

'Well, all right, let it ride. So he was blackmailing you, and in spite of that you used to have little chats with him like telling him about your husband's employees and how much money they have.'

'It wasn't like that at all ...'

'I bet it wasn't. Okay, don't look so indignant. Anyway, I bet it was his idea for you to persuade me to teach you to drive and to take you down on the beach.'

'Yes.'

She lifted her hair off her shoulders. That was a trick she hadn't tried for some time.

'And you have no idea why you were persuading me to go down to the beach?'

'No. He – he didn't tell me.'

'And because he blackmails you, you do what he tells you?'

She fidgeted with her hands, blood rising into her face.

'I have to do what he tells me.' '

'Do you pay him money?'

She flinched.

'No-I haven't any.'

'He extracts his blackmail by making you do what he tells you?'

'Yes.'

'After you had acted out your little scene with me,' I went on, watching her, 'you drove off and somehow managed to kill a policeman. You promptly drove to the nearest telephone and called Oscar and told him what you had done. He saw this was a much more powerful weapon to use against me and instructed you to go to my place and stage another little scene, persuading me to take the responsibility, then he assured you he would move in and collect the money. You, because you have to do what he tells you, followed his instructions to the letter, even trying to persuade me by threats of telling your husband if I didn't pay up.'

She began to beat her fists together again.

'It didn't happen like that at all, Ches! I didn't telephone him. I came straight here.'

'I don't believe you, Lucille. I don't believe Ross is blackmailing you. I think you and he are working on this thing together.'