Ransom Town

by Roderic Jeffries

  He slammed his clenched fist down on to the desk.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was trite to say that large events hinged on small happenings, but it was true. If on Friday Helen had not gone to spend the evening with her parents at Farnleigh, if Kerr had not been so late in leaving the station it had not been worth bussing to Farnleigh, if Hanna had not lived close to the bus route from the station to Kerr’s house . . . But Helen had gone to Farnleigh, Kerr didn’t leave the station until eight-forty, and Hanna’s house was only five minutes’ walk from the bus stop outside the Chinese take-away food shop.

  The woman who opened the door of Hanna’s house to the extent of a chain had a high, sharp voice. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  A bit of a welcome for a start, thought Kerr. He identified himself.

  ‘Let me see your warrant card.’

  He handed this in. After a short while, the door was shut and he heard the chain being released. The door was then opened fully. The photograph on Hanna’s desk had not done his wife real justice: she was twice as sternly angular in real life. Oliver Twist would never have dared ask her for more.

  ‘It is inconsiderate of you to call at this time,’ she informed him. ‘My husband likes to spend his evenings in peace.’

  And obviously the only way he’d be able to do that would be to keep his mouth tight shut. ‘May I have a word with him?’

  ‘What is it about?’

  ‘I have some questions I want to ask him.’

  ‘Questions about what?’

  ‘I think it’s best to leave that until I speak to him.’

  She looked at him with cold dislike, then reluctantly showed him into the sitting-room. There was a large fire of smokeless fuel and the room was warm. The television was on. The furniture was not luxurious, but it was attractive and every piece had the look of being exactly in its right and proper place.

  Hanna stood up and his expression was first one of astonishment, then one of uneasiness.

  ‘Sorry to bust in on you at this time of night,’ said Kerr, with a breeziness undiminished by his reception, ‘but there just hasn’t been time before now to get to have a word with you. We’re over the tops of our eyebrows in work.’

  ‘I told Mr Kerr that it was most inconvenient, but he insisted on speaking to you,’ said Mrs Hanna.

  Hanna looked from Kerr to his wife, then back again at Kerr and belatedly he realized Kerr was still standing. ‘Do sit down. Come over here where it’s warm.’ He stood up in a flurry and as a result half knocked over an occasional table, only just catching it in time. He cleared his throat, then said: ‘There’s nothing more I can tell you, you know.’

  ‘Nothing more about what?’ demanded his wife.

  ‘About the bank robbery, dear.’ He turned to face Kerr. ‘That’s what you’ve come about, isn’t it?’

  Kerr settled back in the chair. ‘That, among other things.’

  ‘Other things? But what else . . . Look, I never touched those plans, nor have I ever spoken to anyone outside about them. Even Enid doesn’t know where they’re kept: in fact, she didn’t know they existed.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ she snapped. ‘Steven is well aware of where his duty lies.’

  Rule, Britannia! ‘Someone passed the news on to the people who did the job.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve an idea who did?’

  ‘Good God, no! If I did, I’d have said so long before now. When the police made their suspicions clear the manager asked me if any of the staff suspected anything. I spoke to several people who can be trusted implicitly and not one of them has the slightest suspicion of any member of the staff. So you see.’

  ‘I see what?’

  ‘Well – that I can’t possibly help you.’

  ‘That doesn’t follow, does it?’

  ‘But . . . If I don’t know . . . I mean, what . . .’

  His wife interrupted his stumbling words. ‘If my husband says he cannot help you, that’s an end to it’. She looked icily at Kerr, daring him to pursue the matter.

  What was worrying Hanna sick? wondered Kerr. So far, there hadn’t been a hint of what it could be.

  ‘There’s nothing more,’ said Hanna, trying to sound definite.

  ‘Well . . .’ Kerr let his voice die away.

  ‘This is becoming ridiculous,’ snapped Mrs Hanna.

  Kerr looked directly at her. ‘I’m afraid that what we have to talk about now is very confidential.’

  ‘I do not understand what you are trying to say.’

  ‘As you yourself implied earlier, some professional secrets have to be kept even from a wife. So if you wouldn’t mind leaving the room?’

  ‘If I’d do what?’

  ‘Leave the room, please?’

  She did not move so he stood up, crossed the floor and opened the door. He smiled cheerfully as, perhaps wondering how she had for once lost control of a situation, she walked out.

  Back by the chair, Kerr took off his mackintosh and folded it on his lap, making it obvious that he was prepared to stay for as long as was necessary. He brought out a pack of cigarettes and offered this and although Hanna initially refused, he immediately changed his mind and accepted one.

  Kerr settled back in the chair as he remembered one of Sergeant Braddon’s favourite sayings: ‘There’s times when silence is worth a whole chapter of words.’

  ‘You . . . you said you wanted to talk about something else?’ said Hanna, his voice croaky.

  Kerr nodded.

  ‘Nothing that I . . . Nothing I can tell you can possibly have anything to do with the bank robbery. I swear to that.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to leave us to be the judges of that.’

  ‘But if I promise on my oath that it’s unconnected . . .?’

  ‘I’d believe you every time, of course. But my seniors are very suspicious people.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ mumbled Hanna.

  Kerr spoke in a brisk, chatty tone. ‘Why not spit it out and get it over and done with. Things will be so much easier afterwards.’

  His voice dropped to a loud whisper. ‘If Enid ever learned . . .’

  ‘Why should she? As far as she need ever know, we’re discussing a suspicion you have regarding the robbery which until now you’ve not dared tell anyone about because it’s potential dynamite.’

  Hanna drew on the cigarette, went to speak, stopped himself, and drew on the cigarette again. A couple of minutes passed during which his expression accurately portrayed the turmoil in his mind. He suddenly drew in his breath, like a man about to start on some hard, dangerous act, then said hoarsely: ‘It’s only occasionally. And then it’s just because . . .’ He ran his tongue along his lips as he looked at the door. ‘She’s never understood, but sometimes a man just has to.’

  You poor old bastard, thought Kerr compassionately. He tried to make things easier for Hanna. ‘What’s her name?’

  It took Hanna three attempts before he managed to say, ‘Peggy.’

  ‘Is she nice?’

  Hanna was clearly disconcerted by the question. ‘But don’t you understand, she’s a whore?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. But I’ve met a lot of ’em and some are nice enough. Of course, the old story that they’ve hearts of gold is all cobblers. Their hearts are in their purses. Was she very pricey?’

  Hanna experienced a sudden dislike for the detective. He’d managed to convince himself that the relationship had been more than just a sordid transaction, but Kerr’s words had stripped away that deceit.

  ‘How much does she charge?’

  ‘Ten pounds,’ he muttered sullenly.

  ‘And how often d’you see her?’

  ‘Not very often.’

  ‘What’s that mean? Twice a week?’

  ‘Maybe . . . maybe twice a month.’

  ‘And it’s always Peggy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s she hang out?’

  ‘I
n a house in Roehampton Road.’

  ‘What number?’

  ‘You’re surely not going to see her? I’ve not done anything illegal . . . I don’t . . .’ He realized that in his excitement his voice had risen and he looked at the door with guilty fright.

  ‘I have to check. And when I do and everything turns out exactly as you’re saying, then I walk away and forget the whole matter.’

  ‘It . . . it won’t get into the papers?’

  Kerr managed not to smile at the naive assumption that an assistant bank manager’s visits to a prostitute were news. ‘You’ve no need to worry about that.’

  ‘And what about my wife?’

  ‘She won’t hear anything about it from me.’

  Hanna’s relief was immediate but, ironically, so was his fresh resentment that Kerr had not only learned his secret, but had also destroyed his illusions concerning it.

  Kerr stood up. ‘I’ll be off, but before I go there’s just one last thing you haven’t mentioned – the number of the house in Roehampton Road?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  As Kerr, followed by Hanna, reached the front door, Mrs Hanna came into the hall from the kitchen. ‘Have you finished discussing your confidential business?’ she demanded, with cold belligerence.

  ‘Yes, we have,’ Kerr answered. ‘Sorry I had to ask you to leave, but you’ll understand that with a bank concerned some matters are so delicate that . . . Well, they just have to be kept secret from the layman.’

  She nodded distantly.

  He left. Fancy having to scuttle along every now and then because his wife just wouldn’t give it to him! How in the hell did a man come to marry a woman like that?

  *

  Saturday morning brought high winds and black-bellied clouds which promised heavy rain: it wasn’t really cold, yet the dampness made it seem so.

  Menton, who’d arrived in Fortrow the previous evening, was in Fusil’s office and Fusil had had to move into Campson’s. Fusil was a man who liked familiar things around him when working: this change to a strange room unsettled and irritated him.

  Kerr reported at eight-thirty-seven. ‘You’re late,’ snapped Fusil.

  Kerr said, aggrieved since by his own standards he was early: ‘The bus was held up, sir, by roadworks.’ This excuse was received with scorn.

  ‘Well? What is it?’

  ‘I questioned Hanna last night. His trouble is that he’s seeing a Tom and is scared stiff his wife will find this out.’

  ‘What’s she been charging?’

  ‘He said it was ten quid a throw.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘I haven’t checked that point yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There just hasn’t been time. . . .’

  ‘There would have been if you could bring yourself to get to work before the middle of the morning. Find out what he did pay her.’

  Kerr left.

  Fusil tilted back his chair. Another marriage that had a rotten core to it. There were times when he came close to believing that every human relationship was rotten at the core, that the fight between good and evil had been won by the devil at the moment when he was cast out of heaven. At such times it was his own marriage, warm to the core, which restored to him a sense of proportion.

  He picked up the copy of the Daily Express which he had brought with him. ‘Ransom town threatened again.’ He put the paper down. Publicity was usually a double-edged weapon: in this case it might help, but it was also certainly going to hurt.

  There was a knock and a P.C. came in to hand him a memorandum from Menton. There was to be a conference at ten in the detective chief superintendent’s room to be attended by the D.C.S., Div. S., D.C.I., and Div. I. There was to be a press conference, to be held in the parade room, at eleven, to be attended by D.C.S. and D.I.

  Bloody memoranda! Now that Menton was in command they’d fly around like snowflakes in a blizzard. A case like this wasn’t solved by memoranda, but by pounding the pavements, pressuring, questioning. . . . But the pavements were being pounded, the known arsonists all over the country were being pressured, as were all the villains considered capable of setting up the job, and grassers were being endlessly questioning. . . .

  Had they missed anything? Goddamn it, there’d been two fires. There must be a lead somewhere. . . . A barn of hay had burned out. No one had seen the arsonist, no strangers had been noticed in the neighbourhood, no parked cars had been marked down. A garage had been burned out. An old lady, not quite with the world any longer, had seen two men but couldn’t describe them, she had seen a car but had no idea what make it was or what was its registration number. The second fire had probably been started by a fire bomb made up from sulphuric acid, potassium chlorate, and powdered sugar: the purchase of any of these ingredients would hardly ever cause sufficient interest to be remembered. . . .

  *

  All over the country teams of detectives questioned men whose names appeared in files whose numbers had been punched out by the computer. In the criminal world they were the Mr Bigs, the men who had proved their ability to organize and carry out sizable operations.

  Allport was questioned by two men. The detective sergeant was neat, both in features and clothing, whilst the detective constable was a shambling bear of a man who might have been living for weeks in what he wore.

  ‘We’re always interested in you,’ said the detective sergeant.

  Allport smiled at them across the sitting-room of his house. ‘You want to make quite certain I don’t get into any trouble?’

  ‘I couldn’t put it neater.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you, sport, and put your minds at rest. I’m busy at work, I’m fit, and I’m thirty-four next week.’

  ‘How about inviting us to the party?’

  ‘No one more welcome, you know that.’

  ‘You’re too kind.’ The detective sergeant’s manner sharpened. ‘Have you been busy lately?’

  ‘Busy all the time. I’m working with my brother-in-law who’s got a small factory which makes wrought-iron wriggles for the suburban trade. Very, very profitable, though personally I wouldn’t be seen dead with half the stuff.’

  ‘Glad to hear you’re a man of taste. Tell me, have you been down to Fortrow recently?’

  ‘Now as a matter of fact, yeah, I have. Me and Janey went for the day a couple of weeks back to see some friends. Funny people, those friends. Kind of made us wonder if we were really welcome.’

  ‘Must have been a very unusual feeling.’

  ‘That’s right, sport, it was.’

  ‘Have you been to Fortrow since?’

  ‘No reason for going there again, not with them acting like that.’

  ‘So where were you this Tuesday night?’

  ‘Where? Right here, of course, watching the telly with Janey.’

  ‘And Thursday night?’

  ‘No different. I’ve become domesticated. Just give me a warm fire, the telly, Janey, and I’m content.’

  ‘You’ve become a bigger liar than ever. You were seen in Fortrow last Thursday.’

  ‘Must have been someone else who’s handsome.’ Allport laughed easily. ‘Come to think of it, there’s a bit of a coincidence! A bloke I know has just had the splits telling him he was seen in Fortrow those two days – and he ain’t been near the place in years. . . . What’s the matter, sport? Got trouble and you don’t know who started it so you’re trying everyone?’

  ‘Maybe,’ agreed the detective sergeant, unperturbed.

  *

  Menton possessed the qualities of a good P.R. man. He faced the two TV teams and the many reporters and he spoke in a series of clichés and platitudes and managed to sound as if he were taking everyone fully into his confidence. The journalists admired his performance, while not accepting it. ‘But in fact have the police really made any progress whatsoever in the case?’ asked a ginger-haired woman who looked as if she’d invented women’s lib.

  ‘Let me say this. Off the reco
rd – and I stress that – we’re making considerable progress. Don’t forget, we’ve had two fires and three ransom letters. Now you’ll all know that no crime has ever been committed without traces being left behind. Sometimes the traces are obvious and are easily read, sometimes they’re very well hidden and call for a trained scientific team to do the reading. Here, we’ve been lucky – we have many of the finest forensic scientists in the country working for us.’

  ‘So what have they found out?’ asked a man with very long black hair.

  Menton smiled. ‘You really can’t ask me to be that specific. In an investigation of this nature we have to play the cards very close to our chests or the other side will know how the game’s going.’ He paused and his voice deepened. ‘On second thoughts, that was an unfortunate choice of words because out of context they might make it seem as if we’re not taking this case as seriously as we should. Let me reassure you, we’re taking it very, very seriously indeed. We’ve already drafted in thirty-five men from other divisions and an other twenty are due tomorrow.’

  ‘Suppose you can’t identify the arson gang – will the ransom be paid?’ asked a member of one of the TV teams.

  ‘When I was a young D.C., I once said to my D.I., “Suppose such-and-such happens . . .” He tore me off a right, royal strip. “Suppose you do your adjectival job properly and then you won’t need to do any adjectival supposing. . . .” So to answer your question, sir, I will suppose no such thing because the contingency will not arise.’

  It was a practised performance.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Four extra telephone lines had been rigged up and these were brought through to the old games room which was now the local operations room. Any call from the public concerning the fires or ransom demand was routed to this room where one of four D.C.s answered it. Their brief was simple. Calm the caller, assure him or her that everything was in hand, carefully note down whatever information was given, pass that information back to a collator.

  The two collators were detective sergeants. Their job was definable, yet the execution of it was partially indefinable. They had not only to note and cross-check information, but also to try to judge whether the information was both accurate and honest and here there was need for an indefinable play between instinct, experience, and common sense.