Ransom Town
Page 4
‘Of course not,’ agreed Weal.
‘They are if someone decides to make them so,’ said Menton.
Fusil understood that he was being rebuked. Probably he shouldn’t have been quite so definite: Menton needed leading, not pushing. But in this case he was certain that as far as the police were concerned there wasn’t time for very much subtlety.
*
Fusil arrived back at divisional H.Q. at a quarter to four, three-quarters of an hour later than he had hoped. ‘Too much waffle and not enough do,’ he muttered as he parked in the reserved space, but he knew that his annoyance was directed at himself and not at his three senior officers and the D.I. from A.T. It wasn’t often that he couldn’t quote chapter and verse for his conclusions.
He went into the building through the back way, along a dimly lit corridor which smelled of damp and humans, and up the back stairs to his room. There was a note on the desk asking him to call Mr Harvey.
‘’Afternoon, Bob. We’ve had a letter arrive by the afternoon post. It’s very short so I’ll read it over. “You’ve had the first instalment. The price right now is a bargain – just one million. Hang around and the pace gets hotter.” It’s signed the Organization for Social Equality again.’
‘Quite the humorist!’ Here was confirmation of what he’d told them, he thought – that sly, twisted, sneering contempt for humanity and authority. ‘Where’s the postmark?’
‘Fortrow Central, so the letter was posted in the middle of town. The paper and the envelope look the same and memory tells me the typing’s also the same.’
‘Thanks a lot. I’ll get a bloke over right away for the letter. By the way, what did the fire brigade say about last night’s fires?’
There was a short, dry chuckle. ‘Aye, I have been on to ’em. They had six fires last night, full reports of which haven’t all come in. Anyway, they were a bit cagey with me and wouldn’t say if they suspect arson. They’d only go so far as to admit none of the six was classified as a major outbreak.’
‘Right now we’re looking for a minor fire, aren’t we? The one that persuades us that their threat’s genuine so we hand over the million?’
‘Bob, I can’t hold back any longer. I’m going to have to print.’
Fusil began, ‘Can’t you . . .’ then stopped. It was unrealistic to expect the paper to withhold the news any longer. ‘O.K., but keep it really low key, will you? None of this scaring everyone into next week.’
‘We don’t need to make the idea scaring, do we? It starts off that way.’
After the call was over, Fusil rang the fire service. The fire investigating officer was out, but he would be asked to ring back as soon as he returned.
Fusil filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it. A high-rise block, violent fires, stairs, service and lift shafts drawing the fire up with explosive speed, electricity gone, panic . . .
Chapter Six
‘You know, of course,’ said the pathologist, as he stared at D.C. Bressett through the upper half of his bifocals, ‘that death is caused by vagal inhibition, cerebral anoxia, or asphyxia, if a ligature is tightened around the neck?’
D.C. Bressett didn’t know or care. He hoped he wasn’t going to be sick.
The pathologist bent closer to the naked body which was stretched out on the tiltable autopsy table. ‘Hum!’ he remarked.
Bressett struggled to think of anything but the man who lay on that table with screwed-up eyes, twisted nose, curled and sneering lips, and protruding tongue on which teeth had clamped down in one final spasm of agony.
‘Interesting!’ said the pathologist. ‘Give me a six.’
His assistant, a suitably morose-looking individual, handed him another knife with a long, curved handle.
They hadn’t mentioned attending post mortems in the recruiting advertisement, Bressett thought resentfully. ‘D’you want to do a man’s job and feel ten feet tall?’ Right now, he felt ten inches and rapidly shrinking.
‘It’s interesting how many people believe your feet have to swing clear of the ground before you can hang. Pure nonsense. Any number of the people who hang themselves – often accidentally – do it with part of their legs touching the ground. Last year I had a case of a young man who hanged himself sitting. Know how it happened?’
Bressett didn’t answer.
‘He dressed up in women’s clothes, went out into a wood, spread out a few girlie magazines, fixed a rope to a tree and put a loop round his neck. Masochists seem to gain considerable pleasure from putting their heads into loops: flirting with the ultimate pain, I’ve heard it called. It’s the only kind of flirting that kind of person does – what?’
Bressett shivered.
‘The rope pressed deeper into the neck as he moved around and shut off the arteries. He was unconscious before he knew anything was happening – anaemia of the brain. Then asphyxia set in and it was all over.’
Bressett knew they’d rib him mercilessly back in the hostel because they knew he was squeamish. Had his first P.M. gone with a real swing? Did he know there was spaghetti for supper?
Some twenty-five minutes later, the pathologist crossed to the double sink, stripped off his long gloves and green overalls, changed from green wellingtons into shoes, ran hot water into one basin and scrubbed his hands with antiseptic soap. He used a fresh towel to dry his hands with pernickety care. He spoke to Bressett after he’d dropped the towel into a bin. ‘We’ve an interesting case here: very interesting.’ His words occasionally bore the trace of a burr. ‘I’ve taken samples of his blood and urine, of course. I expect to hear that the blood alcohol level is fairly high.’
He began to pace a small section of the floor which stretched between the table on which the body was now being stitched up by his assistant and the basins. ‘D’you know anything about strangulation?’ he asked suddenly and sharply, much as if he had been giving a lecture and wanted to find out if one of his students had dozed off.
‘Not really, sir.’
‘Well, it’s an interesting subject.’ ‘Interesting’ obviously denoted approval. ‘In hanging, a ligature usually has a knot to form the loop that goes over the head and this knot sticks out proud and imprints itself on the neck.
‘The knot will either have been on one side of the neck or at the back. If it was at the back the whole face will be pale, if it was on one side the face is often red on that one side only because of the complete compression of arteries and veins there. Consequently, if one finds the face is pale on the one side of the knot, one starts asking oneself questions . . . . Where was the knot in this case?’
Bressett was forced to look closely at the corpse. ‘On the left-hand side.’
‘Yet the left-hand side of the face is pale, isn’t it?’
Would he ever forget that tortured face?
‘So we have to start asking ourselves some interesting questions. Of course, in my report I shall state only that there is a reasonable possibility that this was not suicide. Proof, one way or the other, will have to come from other sources.’ The pathologist came to a sudden stop in his pacing. ‘What about the rope?’
‘The rope?’ repeated Bressett stupidly, conscious that his stomach was now in open revolt and a cold sweat was prickling his forehead.
The pathologist looked at him and it was possible to imagine there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. ‘The rope with which he was hanged could be of considerable importance. Was a careful note made of the exact way in which it ran over the bed?’
‘I . . . I expect so, sir.’
He checked the time. ‘Well, that’s that, then. I’ve another P.M. to do in a couple of hours’ time – a very interesting case indeed. Come back and watch it.’
Bressett swallowed quickly, then shook his head.
*
Fusil was in the front room when the call came through and the duty sergeant handed him the telephone. ‘Mr Jepson, sir, fire brigade.’
Jepson had a high-pitched, reedy voice which fitted his t
hin, ferrety face and his prominent Adam’s apple. ‘I gather, Inspector, you want to know about the reported fires last night and whether any of them could have been arson? Well, there’s one possibility and that’s a strong one.
‘A Dutch barn, almost full of baled hay on Beanpole Farm in Wrexley Green. The alarm was given at twenty-two forty-seven hours and the local pump appliance was there by twenty-two fifty-nine hours. They were unable to bring the fire under control but as there were no other buildings near-by there was no need to call out any more appliances and the fire eventually burned itself out.
‘Now, as to the cause of the fire. The main question is, was it spontaneous combustion? That normally occurs only between eight and eighty days from cutting the grass and this grass was cut between early May and middle June. Another thing, with spontaneous combustion the heat builds up in the interior, giving a noticeable and characteristic odour, and the fire begins in the interior and works its way outside. I’ve spoken to the farmer and he’s quite definite that since they started taking hay a fortnight ago there’s been no odour and when he first saw the fire the outside was in flames and the top inner bales were still not alight. This fire was either accident or arson.’
‘Right. I’ll get a bloke out to question the farmer and his men.’
‘I’ve had a word with him and . . .’
‘I’m sure you have, Mr Jepson, but we’ll have to make the further enquiries for ourselves. Thanks a lot for your help.’
He said good-bye and rang off. If words were valuable, some men would be millionaires. He called Yarrow to his room.
‘Get out to Beanpole Farm in Wrexley Green and check on the fire they had last night in their Dutch barn. You’re looking for proof of arson because the hay couldn’t have gone up on its own.’
‘Right, sir,’ said Yarrow, in a tone of voice which suggested that now that he was on the job all would soon be clear.
If only Yarrow didn’t like himself so much, thought Fusil with fresh irritation.
*
Yarrow drove in the C.I.D. Hillman to Wrexley Green, a village situated around cross-roads which consisted of a pub, a general store, and half a dozen cottages. An elderly woman on a bicycle – she reminded him of his dusty Aunt Ethel who had spent much of her life sucking peppermints – directed him over the cross-roads a mile further on, past a couple of bungalows and a lot of scrub woodland.
He parked in front of the house and since the front door was obviously seldom used, he walked round to the back door. A dog chained to a kennel barked several times, after which it retreated inside the kennel to escape the raw wind. Yarrow knocked on the door, then stared at the woods which came up to the end of the sodden garden: bare trees, a tangle of bracken, bramble, and weed grasses, and overhead a cawing crow. One had to be half dead to want to live in the country.
Old Farmer Giles, as Yarrow immediately christened the man who opened the door, was large and fat and cheerful: put him in a smock and give him a straw to chew and he’d fit snugly into any rural Christmas card. His wife, no less large and no less cheerful, offered Yarrow a mug of coffee.
‘It certainly were a blaze and a half,’ said Ochett. Just for the moment his cheerfulness deserted him. ‘A hundred tons and most of it real good: no fill-belly there. Had to work hard for that hay, seeing as it was always showering. We were in the fields turning as soon as the dew was off, we’d bring the baler in when the sun was well up, and then like as not there’d be a bloody shower just strong enough to muck everything up.’
Yarrow was quite uninterested in the trials and tribulations of hay making. ‘Was the hay insured?’
‘Oh, aye. But hay’s short this year and what I insured it for won’t be buying me in a hundred ton of the same quality, that’s for sure.’
‘Any ideas why it caught fire?’
‘Some bloody fool put a match to it, that’s why.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘When I make hay, it don’t go up in spontaneous combustion. And none of my blokes would smoke round by the barn. So some silly bugger set fire to it and if I get my hands on him . . .’
‘You leave that to the police, Fred,’ said his wife.
‘That does a power of good, don’t it? If they catch him, like as not he’ll end up with probation. Too soft, that’s what this country is now. I’ll tell you how to cure this bastard. Send him here next spring and make him work on next year’s hay. He won’t set fire to no more barns after that.’
Yarrow could appreciate the bitter anger which came from seeing so much hard work destroyed, but appreciation did not lead to sympathy: he seldom felt sympathy for the misfortunes of others. ‘Have you any idea who might have a grudge against you? Maybe a farm worker you’ve sacked . . .’
‘I ain’t sacked a man in years because I’ve always chosen workers. None of them kind what want paying for just sitting and looking. As I always tell ’em, I’m the bloke who takes all the risks, but don’t get a paid holiday every year. . . .’
Farmers were all the same. Pleading poverty, but always with a brand-new Rover in the garage.
*
A cynic had once said that any informer who claimed his motive was public duty was about to ask for a better rate for the job. Fusil disagreed because he had known one or two who’d informed for reasons which came close to a sense of social duty, but he’d felt contempt for even them because he hated traitors, no matter what it was they were betraying.
He leaned against the side of the call-box and closed his eyes: he was achingly tired, eager to fall asleep on his feet.
‘’Ullo,’ said a sharp voice.
He identified himself. ‘I want a lead on the mob who’s trying to screw this town by threatening to burn down a building full of people. There’s some heavy bunce for the right answers.’
‘I ain’t heard anything. But I’ll keep listenin’, mister.’
As he rang off, he visualized Joe: a guileless face, making him look like someone’s favourite uncle. He’d always accepted payment, but would never ask for it. Why? Fusil didn’t know.
He left the call-box and returned to his car. With any luck, he’d only be a couple of hours late home.
Chapter Seven
As Fusil approached his office on Thursday morning, Miss Wagner came striding along the corridor. ‘Mr Fusil,’ she called out. Most people guessed her age at around fifty, but she was younger than this. She was, unfortunately, not an attractive woman: she had a large mole on her chin from which grew three long and very noticeable hairs, her upper front teeth protruded, and her nose was beaky. But if not attractive, she was at least highly efficient at all things she undertook and in addition she was a professional survivor, having even survived the amalgamation of the two forces and the order that all civilian employees of the borough force were to be paid their redundancy money and removed from the strength.
Fusil went into his office and sat. Miss Wagner, her face expressing a certain annoyance, came to a halt in front of the desk. ‘Mr Fusil, I called to you just now,’ she said, rather breathlessly.
‘I’m sorry, I was thinking hard of other things.’ When he had first been appointed D.I. in the borough force, he had found that she had virtually been running the administrative side of the C.I.D. for years. Exercising a degree – for him, a great degree – of tact, he had firmly made her return to purely secretarial duties. She might have been expected to resent such a reverse, even to the point of resigning, but in the event she had quietly accepted the situation without any apparent resentment. Fusil had soon found her so trustworthy that he had begun to give her work more pertinent to the position of a personal assistant than a mere secretary and before long she was once more handling administrative matters. It had been a curious and interesting example of the quirky circles that human relations wove.
‘Mr Fusil, there’s a message on your desk. Mr Menton urgently wants a word with you. He’s just rung again and he seemed a little upset that he couldn’t speak to you.’
‘I’m very glad to hear she did,’ she said earnestly.
‘But will Mr Menton be quite so understanding?’
She sniffed.
‘Did he suggest what was troubling him?’
‘He’d only say the matter was urgent. I think it will be best if I get him for you right away.’ She picked up the telephone, checked it was switched through to an outside line, and dialled county H.Q.
He hated being fussed over, but nothing would ever stop her fussing over him. He waited as she said over the phone, in her prim, official voice, that Mr Fusil wanted to speak to Detective Chief Superintendent Menton, please. ‘Good morning, Mr Menton. I have Mr Fusil for you. Will you hold on for one brief moment, please.’ She handed Fusil the receiver with a flourish, as if she had been personally responsible for this miracle of communication.
‘Fusil, have you seen the Daily Express this morning?’
‘No, sir.’
‘They’ve splashed the story of the ransom letters. I’ve already had I.T.N. on to me, demanding the full story. Why in the hell did you let the news leak out?’
They both knew that if a story were newsworthy there was virtually no chance whatsoever of keeping it under wraps. But Menton was a man to pull rank as a means of venting his annoyance.
‘How’s the ransom case look right now?’
Fusil detailed the steps which had been, or were about to be, taken. The two letters were with the forensic laboratory, who had yet to report; Dabs had said that there were no unidentified finger-prints on either. Word was being circulated to all the local grassers that there was heavy bunce for anyone giving solid information. National and county C.R.O. were checking their files for the names of all known arsonists.