Ransom Town

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Who d’you say he was?’ asked Eddie Paradine, who stood less than five feet tall, but whose shoulders were broad enough for a six-footer.

  ‘I didn’t give a name,’ replied the sergeant. ‘Have a look at this.’ He handed over a photo.

  Paradine studied it briefly. ‘Never clapped eyes on the bloke.’

  ‘Come off it. He’s been seen in your territory. If a kid nicks a handful of sweets in your territory you know all about it.’

  ‘Sarge, straight as a ruler, I ain’t never clapped eyes on the bloke.’ He handed the photo back.

  ‘I don’t believe you, Eddie?’

  ‘Now would I ever lie to you?’

  ‘And because I don’t believe you, I’m going to keep on asking you questions and when I get tired I’ll send a couple of blokes along to take my place. Could get bad for business, I suppose.’

  You suppose! thought Paradine, and his face screwed up with an expression of bitter, impotent hatred. Let a man steer a course only a fraction outside the law and the splits shoved in their boots with callous viciousness.

  ‘Well?’ said the sergeant.

  ‘He’s living down Escotts Road.’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘With a bird.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Eddie: been a great help.’

  Bastards, he silently shouted.

  *

  Menton, sitting behind Fusil’s desk, looked up, his heavy face showing a most unusual indecision. ‘It’s a complete gamble.’

  ‘I know,’ replied, Fusil. ‘So maybe we could offer Race some sort of a deal . . .’

  ‘No deals,’ snapped Menton immediately.

  ‘Look sir, we just can’t afford to keep an eye on every dot and comma in the rule book . . .’

  ‘You’ll stick to the rules, whatever the pressures, whatever the crisis. D’you understand that?’

  Fusil had been a fool to say what he had. He knew Menton genuinely believed that if a man went outside the rules he was betraying the law he was supposed to be serving. Perhaps his attitude called for respect: Fusil could not respect it.

  ‘And what chance is there of finding a lead through to the rest of the mob?’ asked Menton, as if there had been no short, sharp clash between two men who saw the world differently. ‘Race is a real pro. D’you think anyone from the mob will have visited the house for other people to see? All contacts will have been made well away from there. And as no grasser’s come through with any hard news, all their meetings have been blacked out.’

  ‘Don’t forget there’s the woman.’

  ‘He’ll have kept her completely in the dark.’

  ‘Then do we sit back and shout Kamerad and do nothing about following up the lead?’

  It was the same question, if concerning a different man, that the chief constable had discussed. Menton had to give the same kind of an answer. ‘You follow it up and you do every goddamn thing possible to break the case. But when you move you’re starting a time clock that hasn’t got very long to run. So if you fail, you accept that failure.’ He slumped back in his chair. ‘Remember that, Bob,’ he said, must unusually using Fusil’s Christian name. ‘You accept that failure. You can’t win ’em all.’

  ‘I can try.’

  Menton sighed. And you couldn’t make a leopard change its spots.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The house was almost at the end of Escotts Road, opposite a factory which had been shut down two years before and was still empty with gappy, broken windows. It was an ordinary, graceless, semi-detached: there was a tiny front garden and a larger back garden, part of which had a garage on it. This garage fronted a dirt road which separated the gardens of Escotts Road from those of Ponders Avenue.

  The police, all in civvies, arrived after dark in two small separate parties in order to attract as little attention as possible. Fusil, a W.P.C., and a P.C., arrived first, Kerr, a sergeant, and a P.C., five minutes later.

  Race was a large man, who took considerable pride in keeping fit. He had a square, not unhandsome face, full of hard character. On his right cheek were several small scars which had been caused by three safety razor blades set in a raw potato: surgeons had done wonders, but they hadn’t been able to hide all the damage. Connie Smith was younger than Race, snappily attractive, scared but trying very hard not to show it.

  ‘Take her through to another room, Joan,’ Fusil said to the W.P.C.

  ‘I’ll get my lawyer to . . .’ shouted Connie, as she left. The door of the sitting-room shut to cut off her threat.

  Race had sprawled out on the settee, his long legs stuck straight out. He looked bored.

  Fusil nodded and the two P.C.s and the sergeant left the room, making a point of firmly shutting the door behind them.

  ‘Have a smoke?’ asked Fusil.

  ‘Sure,’ said Race. He helped himself to one of his own cigarettes.

  ‘Give the man a light,’ said Fusil to Kerr.

  Race flicked open a gold lighter before Kerr had drawn his throw-away gas lighter out of his coat pocket.

  Fusil sat down in one of the armchairs and there was a twanging of springs. ‘That needs something done to it,’ observed Race. ‘I’ll get the repairers in tomorrow.’

  Fusil said pleasantly: ‘You and Joe Allsopp are part of the mob who did the bank job in the summer. That blew up in your faces because you didn’t know the sacks of notes were stacked on a weight alarm. Because you didn’t get the loot you were expecting, you decided to make your fortunes in another way – you’d hit this town for a few million quid in ransom. So far you’ve torched a Dutch barn, a garage, and a house in which a kid of twelve was burned to death.’

  ‘That’s getting personal, Inspector. I’ve had my moments, no arguing, but burning houses with kids in em? Do you mind?’

  ‘Interested to know how we traced you?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘When Albert Mickey tried to put the black on you, you paid him off with some of the few notes you did manage to nick from the bank. Carelessness.’

  ‘We can’t all get triple As.’

  ‘They were identified by a cashier. That told us the attempted ransom was tied up with the abortive bank raid. So we went back to the bank job and finally identified Brian Morgan as the link-man.’

  ‘I know a Butch Morgan. After a couple of pints of Liffey water he’ll whistle “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond” like you’ve never heard it whistled before.’

  ‘Morgan identified Joe Allsopp.’

  ‘I’ve met a bloke called Alton who could whistle “What shall we do with the drunken sailor” whilst drinking a pint of whisky.’

  ‘You and Joe have worked together on these fires. The last one, which killed a kid of twelve, has turned it into a murder rap.’

  Race looked down at his hands to inspect his nails.

  ‘The judge will be wondering whether to make it thirty or forty years minimum even before he starts the trial. So the blokes who actually did the torching aren’t going to watch their grandchildren grow up. But I don’t suppose it will go so hard on the ones who stayed at home that night because the law’s got soft and doesn’t handle constructive murder as it used to. . . . You know something? If it were me, I’d make sure people understood I wasn’t near that house when it was torched.’

  ‘So where were you?’ asked Race. He flicked his cigarette into the fireplace.

  ‘Who did the actual torching?’

  ‘Now why ask me?’

  Fusil stood up and the springs twanged again.

  ‘Musical chairs,’ said Race.

  ‘Get up and strip.’

  Race said sweetly: ‘I didn’t know you were one of them.’

  ‘You saw the three blokes who are waiting outside. They’re dead eager to get their hands on one of the blokes who torched a twelve-year-old kid.’

  Race slowly stood up. ‘I’ve a mind to write to The Times to complain.’

  ‘Remember my name’s spelt with an I not an E.’

&
nbsp; *

  They’d searched him and his clothes: they’d searched the house, room by room: they’d found nothing.

  ‘Send someone down to cover the garage and the car,’ said Fusil, not bothering to hide his bitter disappointment.

  The sergeant left the bedroom in which their search had finished. ‘How do we play it now, sir?’ asked Kerr.

  ‘Go back and try the woman a second time,’ he answered wearily.

  ‘But she doesn’t seem to know anything . . .’

  ‘She doesn’t. But it’s something to do to help keep us from thinking.’

  They went down to the sitting-room.

  ‘You’ve no right to keep me here,’ complained Connie, in a high, whining voice.

  Fusil ignored her and spoke to the W.P.C. ‘Have you tried to explain the situation to her again?’

  The W.P.C. nodded her tightly curled head. ‘I’ve said how anyone who had anything at all to do with the job is responsible in law. I’ve told her that the people who actually set the fire will probably spend the next thirty or forty years in the nick . . .’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ shouted Connie wildly. ‘Just because I’m here with Angel, that don’t signify. How many more times have I got to say that?’

  ‘Which of his friends has he been seeing?’ demanded Fusil.

  ‘No one’s ever come here. All the time it’s been just him and me and when he’s been in a temper, that’s been one too many.’

  ‘Who did you meet when you went out together?’

  ‘No one. Do I have to tell you in letters ten feet high? There’s never been anyone at all.’

  ‘It would make things a lot smoother for you if you decided to help us.’

  ‘Oh God!’ she said, apparently addressing the Picasso print of a triangularly dislocated woman on the opposite wall. ‘You tell ’em again and again and still they won’t listen. So how d’you get through to them?’

  ‘Give us a name and you’ll have a hot line.’

  ‘Father Christmas.’ She swung round. ‘I’ve been with him for five months. Right? And when he’s not drunk or bloody minded, he’s fun: him and me have had some good laughs together. But in all that time he’s never told me anything and I’ve never met any of his friends and when he’s gone off on his own he’s never said where he’s been. Shall I say it all again. In all the time . . .’

  ‘All right, we get the message,’ said Fusil.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So now I believe you.’

  ‘Then I’m clearing out of here fast.’

  ‘You’re not moving.’

  ‘But why?’ she cried, in frightened despair.

  Why? He didn’t know. He said to the W.P.C., ‘Keep her happy,’ then led the way out to the hall.

  He walked over to the small table window, opposite the foot of the stairs, and stared out at the tiny front garden, a mass of weeds and an overgrown privet hedge. Menton had warned him, but in his heart he’d hoped. The search would turn up something vital. Race would decide to betray the others in an effort to save himself. The woman would let drop some vital fact . . . But they’d uncovered nothing, learned nothing.

  Before, they’d at least had time. Now, they had none. He hadn’t anything on Race, so he must let him go. Within hours, the mob would know the danger and they’d react immediately and viciously, giving the town a deadline, making every householder look with terror at his family. . . . The four million would have to be paid. The police would try to be in on the hand-over, but this mob would know what arrangements to make to ensure that the police had only an outside chance. . . .

  He jammed his hands into his pockets. Menton had said that he couldn’t win them all and he’d replied that he could try. He’d tried and failed.

  The sergeant returned through the kitchen to the hall. ‘We’ve been through the garage and the car, sir. There’s nothing except these which were under the front passenger seat. I’m afraid they’re only old carpark tickets.’ He handed them over.

  Because the flimsy paper had originally been scrumpled up, it was difficult to read the faint blue printing, but he could just make out that both tickets had been issued for Fortrow Municipal Council, both cost twenty pence, one was timed nineteen hundred and ten hours and the other nineteen hundred and fourteen hours. He was about to discard them as completely valueless, as had the sergeant, when he noticed that the two date’s now over a month back, were exactly a week apart. He thought for a moment, then walked across to the door into the sitting-room and went inside. The P.C. was sitting upright in the armchair which didn’t twang and Race was still sprawled out on the settee, watching the TV.

  Race said: ‘You’re beginning to remind me of that play about a man who came for dinner, but stopped on for weeks.’

  ‘I’ve been talking to Connie.’

  ‘Just so long as things didn’t get complicated. Her fortune’s not in her brains.’

  ‘I asked her if you and she went out a lot together.’

  ‘You should have got her to show you our social diary.’

  ‘She said you often went out on your own.’

  ‘A bloke sometimes needs to be on his tod.’

  ‘So his girl doesn’t see who he’s meeting?’

  Race realized his previous answer had been an unwise one. ‘That’s right. Try to chat up another bird when she’s around and there’s war.’

  ‘Or chat up Joe Allsopp and there’s a witness.’ Fusil brought out the tickets from his pocket. ‘These were under the front passenger seat of your car: car park tickets for the same time two Thursday evenings, a week apart. I suppose that’s when you were meeting Allsopp and preparing the job?’

  Race laughed. But just for a second there had been a look of consternation in his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty

  Fusil paced the hall, keeping to the carpet to deaden his footsteps. Kerr, using the soft technique, was trying to lull Race into admitting something. Fusil suffered an urge to go into the sitting-room to discover whether he were succeeding, but knew that it would be ridiculous to do so. From the dining-room came the sound of Connie’s voice, loud and whining, followed by the W.P.C.’s quieter, deeper-pitched one.

  Race’s consternation had been short, but sharp. Merely reaction to the guilty knowledge that he had met Allsopp at least twice in the car park while they planned the ransom job? Or reaction to something far more dangerous? He spoke to the sergeant who sat on the stairs.

  ‘Get these two tickets to someone from the town hall who can identify from the serial numbers which car park it was. You’ll have to chase the bloke up in his home so when he starts moaning tell him it’s a matter of life and death. Possibly his.’

  ‘That’s about the only thing which will get anyone from the town hall moving after hours,’ said the sergeant, as he stood up and came down the stairs.

  ‘Ring me here, so get the number before you go.’

  The sergeant went over to the telephone which stood on a small corner cupboard and wrote down the number on the back of an envelope.

  Fusil resumed his pacing of the hall. This was their final chance. If it were a chance.

  *

  The telephone rang and Fusil lifted the receiver but said nothing, in case the call was for Race or Connie.

  ‘Sergeant Tomburn here, sir.’

  ‘Let’s have the news.’

  ‘The car park’s an unmanned one with an automatic barrier in Astrid Road, which is at the back of Eckbourne Road: left at the traffic lights if you’re heading south.’

  He swore.

  ‘What was that, sir?’

  ‘Frustration. . . . Get out to the car park now and I’ll meet you there.’ He replaced the receiver. He’d been hoping again, hoping that Race had parked in that car park because it was close to the building they had chosen for their target if the ransom wasn’t paid and they had to torch somewhere occupied by a number of people. But Eckbourne Road was a shopping centre and along it were also a couple of restaurants, sev
eral snack bars, a cinema . . . Dozens of fat targets. Impossible to pick out the most likely one.

  He left the house and drove with more than his usual selfishness through the back streets to Eckbourne Road. It was dark, cold, and dampening, an evening to be sitting in front of a roaring fire watching the telly, but even so a large number of people were along the road, eating, drinking, watching films.

  The lights were set at red, but nothing was coming out of Astrid Road so he shot them and turned left: a woman, walking a small dog, waved her arm at him to express her annoyance at his road manners.

  He stopped by the entrance to the car park, which was on the right, and stepped out on to the pavement. The sergeant, who’d been fifty yards further along, came up but said nothing. Fusil looked to his right and left. Apart from a modern, institutional looking building with wide glass windows, all the houses in the road were large, probably late Victorian or Edwardian, probably converted into flats or offices. He swore. Still more prime targets. ‘D’you know what that place is?’ he finally asked, pointing to the institutional building on the other side of the road, thirty yards to their left.

  ‘It’s the local public library, sir.’

  ‘Which, no doubt, shuts dead on time so it won’t be open after seven at night.’

  ‘The only thing is, I believe this one’s got a lecture hall. So it could be open later on.’

  ‘We’ll go over and see.’

  They crossed the road and walked along the pavement. There was a small car park to the side of the library and in front of this was a sculpture in some earth-coloured stone, three feet high, which looked as if a child of four had been having fun with plasticine.

  ‘I’ll bet that load of cod’s put a few pence on the rates,’ said the sergeant morosely. ‘The sculptor’s probably the mayor’s nephew.’

  There were four stone steps leading up to the double front door of toughened glass, which was recessed so that it stood under the cover of the top floor. Looking through the door they could see a noticeboard on an easel and there was sufficient light from outside for them to read the notices. There was a list of lectures for the month and amongst them was: ‘Every Thursday at seven-thirty. Road safety and Better Driving. Lecturer, a member of the county constabulary.’