Ransom Town

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘You sound as if you’ve now convinced yourself we’re up against villains, not terrorists,’ observed Menton sharply.

  ‘Whether I have or not, sir, it doesn’t mean I’m not liaising fully with A.T. They’re completely in the picture.’

  ‘I was speaking to Inspector Lancome a little earlier. He mentioned he’d half a dozen names that needed checking out. Have you taken any steps in that matter yet?’

  ‘The photos are already up on the boards for identification and every patrol is being briefed before going out. . . . Incidentally, sir. Lancome told me that he still can’t ferret out a single reference to the O.F.S.E.’

  ‘Which doesn’t mean a thing at this stage. You heard him say in my room that he’s perfectly prepared to accept that there are terrorist organizations existing of which he hasn’t heard even a whisper.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Which is why I’m working to both alternatives. But I still see that as a bit of a pointer, considering the scale of this job.’

  Menton asked a few more questions and then rang off. In theory, Fusil thought, Menton was right. The police didn’t yet have anything approaching proof. But Menton had for a long time been more concerned with administration than with field work and it was field work which honed a man’s instincts.

  Campson entered the room and handed over a sheet of paper. ‘The night crime, sir.’

  Fusil skimmed through the typewritten list. Two housebreakings, one Peeping Tom, one (question mark) rape, three muggings, one serious wounding, one missing person, one floater from the harbour, one serious hit-and-run, three acts of vandalism. Because of the ransom threat, some of these cases would have to be turned over to the uniform branch. It was something he disliked doing intensely. He could delegate responsibility to his own men without worrying because he trusted them – or, to put it at its lowest level, he was certain he would find out in time if they began to make a hash of things – but he was sufficiently egotistical not to trust anyone who was not under his command. ‘Keep back as much as we can handle and send the rest below.’

  ‘They’re pretty overworked as it is, sir.’

  ‘They don’t know what overwork means.’

  Campson disapproved of such inter-departmental intolerance. There should, the Standing Orders book roundly declared, always be thoughtful liaison between the various branches of the force.

  There was a brief knock and Kerr entered. ‘’Morning, sir,’ he said breezily.

  Campson’s disapproval grew. In his book, quite apart from the Standing Orders book, morning reports should be made through the detective sergeant who could then weed out all non-essentials at the same time as he made certain everyone was doing his job properly. But Fusil encouraged personal reports, making it seem he didn’t trust his D.S. ‘Is that all, sir?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Fusil said to Kerr: ‘Well?’

  Campson left, wishing he could complain without making himself look ridiculous about the lack of working respect the D.I. showed to his rank.

  ‘I had a good sniff round in the bank job, sir,’ said Kerr. ‘One thing’s for sure. Brian Morgan’s wife is a very rich piece of crackling.’

  Fusil briefly wondered if he’d ever been quite so carefree, even when he’d started in the force. ‘D’you think we could forget the scenery and concentrate on the facts?’

  ‘I suppose so, sir. I’ve checked and all the facts stand. Mrs Morgan’s stepfather gave the couple three thousand quid and that’s what upped their life style. The bank manager confirms that Mr Coutts gave them that much.’

  Fusil picked up a plastic ruler and began to smack it up and down on the palm of his hand. The case belonged back in cold storage. It seemed ridiculous to pursue it any further when the city was being held to ransom. Yet to give a traitor best . . .

  ‘There’s just one more thing, sir. At one stage, I did get a sniff of a hint. Hanna, the assistant manager at the bank, was nervously eager to help. I’ve an idea there’s something to be gained from pressuring him.’

  Innocent people often were ill-at-ease when being questioned by the police, so that this was more a guess than a hint. But a good detective learned to guess correctly – and to call his guesses instinct. ‘See Hanna and pressure him as far as you can safely. Do it tonight.’

  ‘Tonight, sir?’

  ‘After you’ve finished work.’ Fusil grinned sardonically.

  Kerr left and Fusil read through the mail. There were five requests for witness statements from outside forces and another three from within the county force. He swore. Each request represented a detective’s time. . . .

  There was a knock on the door and nothing happened until Fusil shouted out, then Bressett stepped inside. Fusil sometimes wondered whether Bressett would make the grade. He was good at his job, but he lacked drive and self-confidence: a good detective should be able to walk naked through a garden party at Buck House if he felt he needed to.

  ‘We’ve received a report from the lab, sir, on the rope Mickey was hanged with. For part of its length the fibres are all directed upwards towards the loop which apparently means the rope was pulled over something solid when it had a weight on it: maybe Mickey was dragged up to the position he was found in. And as I mentioned in my report, the pathologist said that the face was white on the side of the knot when it should have been . . .’

  ‘I remember. By the way, I like the way your report was made.’ Fusil saw the quick look of pleasure on Bressett’s face. ‘So now it’s become odds on we’ve a murder and not a suicide! All we bloody needed!’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  ‘There’s no call to be. Unless you croaked him.’

  *

  Welland called for two more pints of bitter, something which came naturally to him. The landlord drew the draught beer and passed the glasses across the counter. Welland carried them over to a table at which sat a small, wrinkled man, whose face was tanned by sun, wind and rain. ‘Here you are, then. A bit of father’s milk to make your toenails grow.’ He sat, jolting the table because he didn’t readily fit into the narrow chair. ‘There’s nothing like a pint of wallop to restore a bloke unless it’s a couple.’ He drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You were telling me about this stranger you saw walking past Beanpole Farm and having a good look a day or two back. Can you describe him?’

  ‘Oh, aye, that I can.’ The small man drank with the eagerness of a large capacity. It astounded him that after sixty-two years, man and boy, he had at last met someone who was willing to buy him several beers without expecting any in return.

  *

  Yarrow stepped out of the car and stared along the road with contempt. The docks were not far away, but even that didn’t really explain why this street was so rundown: most of the small, mean terraced houses had peeling paintwork, rotting timbers, missing and cracked panes of glass, and broken tiles. Obscene graffiti were common, the road gutters were littered with rubbish, and there were two abandoned cars from which even the locals could find nothing more worth pinching.

  He knocked on the door of number five. When there was no answer, he knocked again, impatiently, and finally the door was opened by a child of seven whose beautiful deep blue eyes held all the cynical knowledge of a woman of fifty-seven. ‘Is Mr Casier in?’ he asked, turning the word ‘Mr’ into a term of sarcasm.

  She studied him. ‘You ain’t the rent man.’

  ‘That’s right. Look, if your father’s in the house, I want a word with him.’

  ‘He ain’t my dad,’ she said with sudden force, not bothering to explain what relationship existed within the home. ‘’Ang on.’ She shut the door.

  The door was opened by a shambling man whose once solid body had long since turned to fat. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and stubble, tinged with grey, darkened his cheeks and chin. His clothes were rumpled and stained. He didn’t know Yarrow, but immediately identified him as a detective. ‘’Ullo, mister. ’Azel said as you wanted a word?’

  They went
into the front room. There were empty beer cans on the mantelpiece and in the fireplace, cheap magazines lying about everywhere, rubbish on the torn and worn settee: an ashtray had tipped over and its contents were strewn about the floor. The room smelled of dirt and decay.

  ‘Were you just passing by?’ suggested Casier ludicrously.

  ‘Give over,’ replied Yarrow contemptuously.

  Casier fiddled with his right sideburn, twisting the long hair into tight twirls.

  ‘You’ve been busy recently, haven’t you?’

  Casier ducked his large, egg shaped head and smiled weakly. ‘I’m always busy, mister. I’ve got this job down at the docks and . . .’

  ‘Busy with the torch.’

  Casier drew in his breath with a hiss and he blinked rapidly. His pudgy mouth, with thick curling lips, moved as if he were trying hard to speak.

  ‘You’ve been knocked four times for torching.’ When dealing with men like Casier, Yarrow never employed subtlety in his questioning: that would have been to credit them with some intelligence. ‘You get your kicks from starting a blaze and then standing around and watching it. Better than a woman, isn’t it?’

  Casier ducked his head.

  ‘So you’ve been giving yourself some more thrills recently.’

  Casier said, with frantic emphasis: ‘Mister, I ain’t done nothing, I swear I ain’t. I ain’t touched a box of matches in months.’

  ‘You’ve just torched a barn filled with hay. A real fire, with flames fifty feet up. Must have thrilled you weak.’

  ‘I’m telling you, mister, I ain’t touched no hay: I ain’t torched anything.’ Desperately trying to convince Yarrow he was telling the truth, he stepped much closer. Yarrow hastily retreated to avoid the fetid breath. ‘I wouldn’t never torch hay ’cause the animals eat it. I wouldn’t never hurt an animal.’

  As Yarrow studied the pudgy face, strained from the effort of trying to speak convincingly, he realized that, as absurd as it sounded, this was almost certainly the truth. Casier would set fire to a building in which were humans without a thought to their safety, but he wouldn’t set fire to fodder because that would be to deprive animals of food. The human mind came in all sizes and shapes – mostly twisted.

  Chapter Eight

  Fusil stood in the centre of the room in number nine, Bretton Lane, and stared at the ancient iron bed with its candy twist framework with scrolls.

  Bressett pointed with his right hand. ‘The rope was over that cross-piece, sir, and the body was lying in this direction.’

  What a way to die, thought Fusil: stretched out in a decaying bed-sitter.

  He walked forward. At the point where Bressett had indicated, the lower curve of one of the scrolls had been rubbed by something and in one place the metal was showing bright underneath. He saw, close to this, the single fibre of material – almost certainly from the cord – which had been caught under a jagged edge of metal. ‘Get a good shot of this,’ he said to the third person in the room.

  Detective Sergeant Walsh muttered something about the difficulties of obtaining a photograph when set against that background.

  Fusil continued to stare at the bed as he said: ‘You’ve been through his clobber – is there anything of interest in it?’

  ‘No, sir,’ replied Bressett. ‘Some clothes which even a Steptoe wouldn’t cart away, no papers of any sort, no letters or personal memoranda, no names or addresses. There was a wallet in his coat and that contained nothing but fifty-two pounds, thirty in tens and the rest in oncers.’

  ‘Fifty-two?’ said Fusil, surprised since a man reduced to Mickey’s circumstances usually lived from hand to mouth. ‘I wonder what petty skivering he’d been up to? . . . O.K., let’s go down and see the lady of the house.’ He turned and spoke to Walsh. ‘Let me know how you get on with the dabs.’

  ‘There won’t be any worthwhile.’

  ‘Some day, you’re going to drown in your own misery.’ Fusil led the way out of the room which, to anyone of imagination, was still acrid with the stink of death.

  A man peered out from one of the other rooms as they went along towards the landing: when Fusil looked directly at him, he partially withdrew, his expression scared. Fusil wondered now much sadness, loneliness, tragedy, a house like this contained? How many of the blasted lives had once appeared so promising? Was fate the villain, or each man his own? He hated criminals with the sharpness of someone who believed in the Old Testament’s unforgiving definitions of good and evil, but for wrecked lives like these he had a deep compassion in which good and evil could often not be separated.

  Mrs Prosser was waiting in the front room. She had dressed with special care and her hair had recently been permed: her manner was grave and courteous. She had, however, been drinking. After greeting Fusil with the aplomb of a dowager, she said: ‘Will you have a sherry, Inspector? It is nice and dry.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d like one.’

  She filled three glasses, not bothering to ask Bressett if he wanted one. She sat on the settee and sipped her sherry with ladylike sips to begin with, but then with far greater enthusiasm.

  Fusil knew her record. Fifteen years ago she’d been a tart, tough enough to survive even in the toughest of districts. But she had fought through to late middle age and an apparent respectability, so Fusil was not going to deny her the fruits of this victory. He treated her as if her name had never appeared on a charge sheet. ‘I’m very sorry we’ve had to come here and bother you,’ he said. ‘It’s been a distressing time for you.’

  She nodded in a composed manner, whereas had she commented aloud on events she would have done so in blasphemous and scatological terms.

  ‘We’ll get out from under your feet just as soon as we can, but we’re going to have to check out one or two things. The trouble is, Mickey’s death may not have been suicide.’

  She was visibly shocked. ‘What d’you mean? I saw him, swinging from the bed.’

  ‘The medical evidence is that he may have been murdered and then tied against the bed to make it look as if he’d committed suicide.’

  She finished her sherry in two quick swallows. Then she swore, which startled Bressett who’d naively accepted her as being the woman she portrayed.

  ‘D’you know if Albert Mickey was his real name?’ asked Fusil.

  ‘When he came here he called himself Bert Mickey and there’s never been no reason to think otherwise.’

  ‘Any idea where he came from?’

  ‘I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. . . . Look, Mr Fusil, I’ll give it to you dead straight. He just turned up one day and wanted a bed-sitter: he’d got the necessary, he didn’t look wild, and so I said “yes”. But I didn’t ask questions and didn’t look around for no answers.’

  ‘But you did get friendly with him?’

  ‘Why not? He weren’t Paul Newman, but he was company and he reminded me of someone what I used to know.’

  ‘Did he take you out and about a lot?’

  She laughed mirthlessly. ‘You’ve got things round the wrong way. If I’d of waited for him to take me, I’d still be waiting.’

  ‘Obviously, he didn’t have much money?’

  ‘It was a good week when he paid for his room. . . . I’ll confess it to you, Mr Fusil, I’m getting soft. Even let him have the room on the slate more than once, just because he looked like this bloke I once knew.’

  ‘Have you any idea what he’d got in his wallet when he died?’

  ‘If it was an uncut quid, I’m surprised.’

  ‘I’m going to surprise you a hell of a lot. He’d fifty-two quid.’

  She stared at him for a moment, then she suddenly laughed loudly and her heavy jowls and pouter-pigeon neck wobbled. ‘The old bastard!’ she said with reluctant admiration.

  ‘You’d no idea he’d that sort of spending clout?’

  ‘I’d have given you fifty-two to one he hadn’t. Just goes to show, don’t it? Never too old to be taken for a sucker. If I’d known that, he’d have p
aid for a few of the meals when we went out, I can tell you.’

  ‘Would you reckon he’d a lot of friends?’

  ‘He’d chat with blokes, but I wouldn’t say any of ’em were his friends.’

  ‘What about lady friends?’

  ‘Never heard of any.’ Her tone of voice suggested that if she had, she’d have done something about the situation.

  Fusil finished his sherry. She heaved herself to her feet and refilled his glass and her own, but didn’t bother about Bressett’s.

  ‘What kind of security have you got in this place?’ asked Fusil.

  ‘You’re talking about the front door, aren’t you? I tell all of ’em, eleven o’clock and the door’s locked and unless I’ve given ’em a key they’re out for the bloody night.’

  ‘Then you don’t usually bolt the front door as well as lock it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And where do you sleep?’

  ‘In the room on the other side of the hall.’

  ‘So you’d hear anyone coming in late – anyone you’d lent a key to?’

  She hesitated. ‘Mostly. But sometimes I sleep pretty solid. . . .’ She stopped. She was tough in mind and body, but the point of the D.I.’s questions had been obvious and now she was scared because she visualized the murderer or murderers forcing the front-door lock – easy enough for any professional – and going upstairs during which time she slept so soundly she heard nothing.

  Fusil drained his glass and stood up. ‘We’d better push on. Thanks a lot for your help and the drinks.’

  ‘Was . . . Look, was Bert really croaked?’

  ‘We can’t be sure. But the medical evidence says he could have been. And there wasn’t a suicide note.’

  ‘Who could the lonely old sod have written one to?’

  ‘Why not to you?’

  She seemed shocked by the question.

  *

  Betty Morgan said, in a sweet, small-girl voice: ‘I wouldn’t say no to another drink just for once, sweetie.’

  Morgan took her glass and went over to the cocktail cabinet, new but made in the style of traditional furniture with considerable inlay and curved ball and claw feet. He poured out a strong gin and Italian.