Pick Up the Pieces

by J F Straker

  ‘You can’t blame us,’ said Wells. ‘We looked all set for the high jump. Of course, if we’d known none of us went into the garage Tuesday night —’ He broke off and turned to Chitty. ‘You never told us what happened, Dave. Bert says he found the piece of paper with YES on it where you were standing. Why didn’t you go in and get the money?’

  Chitty grinned sheepishly; but before he could answer Pitt said, ‘Mind if I try my hand at that one, Mr Chitty? Mr Wells here seems to think that the police get results purely by chance. I’d like to show him he’s wrong, that we do occasionally apply our brains to the job.’

  ‘Go right ahead, Inspector.’

  ‘I felt rather pleased with myself when I’d worked it out,’ Pitt said boyishly. ‘You dropped your glasses, didn’t you, before reading what was on the paper?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And when you picked them up they were broken, eh? You couldn’t see to read?’

  ‘I dropped the piece of paper as well,’ said Chitty. ‘It slipped out of my hand as I made a grab at the glasses.’

  ‘Yes, of course. That’s why it wasn’t torn or crumpled.’ Pitt turned to the others. ‘You see? It’s as simple as that, Mr Wells.’

  Wells ignored him. ‘What did you do then, Dave?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Chitty; and then, considering that this was perhaps too brief an explanation, ‘What could I do?’

  ‘You could have come and told one of us what had happened,’ said Forthright.

  ‘And been accused of spying? Not ruddy likely! Besides, it was three to one against my piece of paper having YES on it. If White told us next morning that he’d been robbed I’d no need to worry; if not — well, at least you couldn’t say it was me that had let you down, could you?’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell us later, when we more or less accused you of having killed White?’ asked Wickery. ‘And why pretend you broke your specs on the track?’

  ‘Well, you’d see they were broken when we got back here, and I didn’t want any questions asked,’ said Chitty. ‘I was going to explain later; but the way you went for me, saying I must have broken them in White’s room and that I ought to be shot it put my back up properly. To hell with them, I thought — let ‘em worry. It can’t do me any harm.’

  He looked rather ashamed at this last revelation, but Wells nodded sympathetically. ‘It was a mess-up all round, if you ask me,’ he said.

  ‘We’re well out of it,’ said Forthright. ‘What do you think will happen to us, Inspector? Will it mean going to prison?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say, Mr Forthright. I’m a policeman, not a judge.’

  They came back to reality with a bump. Curiosity had for a short while drowned their mistrust of each other and their fears for the future, but now these were with them again. Silence fell on them; they looked furtively at each other and doubtfully at the Inspector.

  Wickery stubbed out his cigarette and stood up.

  ‘If you don’t want me any more, Inspector, I’ll be getting home,’ he said. ‘And thanks a lot.’

  ‘No more for now, anyway,’ said Pitt.

  ‘I’ll be making tracks too, then,’ said Wells, glad of the lead Wickery had given him. ‘Coming, Dave?’

  Inspector Pitt stood at the cottage door with Forthright and watched them go; Wells and Chitty walking together, Wickery a little apart. He felt a twinge of pity. They had probably been decent enough fellows, he thought, before Fate and White and Loften had in turn played their tricks on them. Would they go back to being decent fellows, or would the immediate past and future be too much for them?

  The three men left the road and turned into the field, and now only their bobbing heads were visible above the hedges. Forthright turned to the Inspector.

  ‘What do you think we’ll get?’ he asked. ‘You must have some idea.’

  Pitt eyed him thoughtfully. You’re the strong man behind that bunch, he thought; I’d bet a pound to a penny you put them up to it. Maybe without your lead they’d have behaved like law-abiding citizens — have reported the accident and never have known what it’s like to suffer the despair and degradation of blackmail. I ought to have included you with Fate and White and Loften.

  ‘Justice,’ he said aloud, his voice stern. ‘Justice, Mr Forthright, that’s what you’ll get. And I hope you feel you deserve it.’

  If you enjoyed reading Pick up the Pieces, you might be interested in Death on a Sunday Morning by J F Straker, also published by Endeavour Press.

  Extract from Death on a Sunday Morning by J F Straker

  1

  With her wrists bound behind her back and her ankles tied to the legs of the chair, Rose Landor sat at her husband’s desk and strained her ears in an attempt to make sense of the muffled sounds and voices that filtered through to her from beyond the closed door of the office. She was more worried than frightened, for neither she nor Brian had been treated roughly and the men had curtly apologised for tying her up. She was also tired and physically distressed. Bound as she was, she could not relax her body against the chair or rest her head, and for what seemed like time interminable but was probably little more than half an hour she had been forced to sit upright. Her limbs ached, her eyes were hot and the lids heavy. Spasms of cramp attacked her soles and her thighs; and although her ankle bonds were sufficiently loose for her to dispel some of the pain by standing up, without the use of hands and arms the struggle to lift herself off the chair became increasingly hard.

  Her main fear was of the dark. Since childhood she had suffered from claustrophobia, and the longer she sat the more menacingly the darkness seemed to close in on her. To overcome her fear, as well as to ease the increasing stiffness in her neck, she kept turning her head from side to side in an attempt to locate familiar objects and so make the gloom seem less opaque. She knew the room well: modest in size, but high-ceilinged and with a noble cornice, with a good Wilton carpet on the floor and an attractive yet unobtrusive paper on the walls. The furniture was functional rather than decorative, although the tubular-framed chairs were comfortable and the large flat-topped desk was admirable for its purpose. Yet she could remember when the room had looked very different. Only a few years back Brian had constantly complained about its appearance. It gave a bad impression, Brian had said, for the manager to receive his customers in an office with rusting filing cabinets and stained wallpaper, with large cracks in the ceiling and worn carpet on the floor. But then in those days Westonbury had been something of a backwater, a small country town where the Tuesday market was the main feature of practically every week except Race Week. And even Race Week could be something of a non-event. The meeting was too insignificant to attract the big stables or the heavy punters. We’ll pretty you up in time, the Bank had told Brian. But right now our resources are fully stretched and Westonbury is low in priority.

  It was the arrival of Turnbull Motors that had changed the Bank’s attitude. Turnbull Motors were big, and with them had come a host of subsidiaries. New housing estates had sprung up on the periphery of the town to accommodate the influx of workers, new shops and services had opened to cater for the workers’ needs. Westonbury had become prosperous, and the Bank had reacted to its prosperity by starting work on larger and more suitable premises in the town centre. The new premises should have been ready the previous year, but there was still no firm date for completion. In the meantime the existing building, a converted Victorian dwelling-house, had been given a hasty facelift. Extra staff had been engaged and, although cramped for space, had so far managed to cope. Only during Race Week had the pressure become really excessive, for with the town’s new prosperity the meeting had grown in importance. In Race Week business was terrific.

  It was Race Week now. Or the end of it. And that, Rose Landor supposed, was why she was sitting in the dark in her husband’s office, bound hand and foot, waiting for Brian and the men to return and wondering what was to follow when they did.

  They had been watc
hing the late night movie on television when the bell rang. She had opened the front door and there they were: two menacing figures in boiler suits, with wooden staves in their gloved hands and stocking masks over their heads. But despite their appearance their manner had been brusquely polite. They had urgent business at the bank, they told Brian, and needed his assistance; would he and his wife please get ready to accompany them? They hoped he would be cooperative, they said, because although they had no wish to get rough, rough was what they would get if he wasn’t. Brian had complied without argument; apart from the knowledge that resistance would have been futile, only a few months previously the Bank had issued instructions to all branches that under such circumstances they wanted no heroics from members of their staff. He had, however, queried the order for her to accompany them. Was that really necessary? They could lock her in a room without a telephone if they feared she might raise the alarm. But the men had insisted. They had their instructions, they said. The woman was to go with them.

  They had gone in two cars: Brian driving his Austin, with her beside him and one of the men crouching in the back, and the second man following in the car in which the two had come. The house was some distance out of town, and as they drove she had wondered what the men would do if there were people on the street when they reached the bank—a possibility that was by no means unlikely, for although the bank was situated in a side street life did not die early on a Saturday night in the new Westonbury. Even if the men removed their masks even if Brian went unrecognised would not the sight of four people entering the bank at that hour arouse suspicion in an onlooker? But the hope that this thought had engendered vanished as they approached the bank. ‘Drive on past,’ the man in the back said, when Brian started to brake. ‘Take the first turning right and then right again.’ ‘Right again’ was a cul-de-sac that served the rear of the row of buildings in which the bank was situated, their back yards screened by a high brick wall; the buildings on the other side were in the process of being demolished to make way for a shopping complex. As the Austin stopped behind the bank two other masked men, also in boiler suits, emerged from the shadows. No one spoke. The man in the back motioned them to get out, whereupon they were grabbed by the newcomers and hustled through a gap in the brick wall. Moments later they heard the two cars being driven away.

  At one time the back yard had boasted a lawn. Now it was little better than a sea of mud, the mud made sticky by a week of heavy and persistent rain. As they ploughed their way through it Rose wondered why Brian had done nothing to have it cleaned up. She never used the back entrance herself, but she knew that Brian did so regularly. The Bank had wanted to brick it in on grounds of security; it was a relic of the past, they said, when the building had been a private residence, and was out of place in a bank. But Brian had pressed for it to remain. With double yellow lines outside the front entrance and the nearest parking lot some distance away he preferred to park the Austin in the cul-de-sac and use the ‘tradesmen’s entrance’, as he called it. The Bank had not insisted. Perhaps at the time they had reasoned that such an insignificant branch was unlikely to attract the attention of bank robbers. And had then forgotten.

  A man’s voice, louder than before and quickly hushed, interrupted her uneasy musing. Then the door opened and Brian and the men were back. Though her eyes were now more accustomed to the dark she could not distinguish them as individuals, but as they approached the desk she saw that three of them were carrying suitcases. Another, the tallest of the four, switched on a torch. The beam lit her face, and she blinked and turned her head.

  ‘Sorry we had to neglect you, Mrs Landon’ the tall man said. ‘But business had to come first, I’m afraid. All right, are you?’

  ‘No.’ The quiet tone, the polite inquiry, dispelled all fear of what might be in store for them. She felt free to vent her anger. ‘I am far from all right. I have sore ankles and sore wrists and a blinding headache. I have also suffered severely from cramp.’ Her throat was dry, and she swallowed. ‘Are you all right, Brian? They haven’t harmed you in any way?’

  ‘No, dear. I’m perfectly all right.’

  The controlled precision of his voice was reassuring. ‘Well, that’s something to be thankful for,’ she said. ‘I suppose they’ve taken all the money?’

  ‘I hope so, Mrs Landor,’ the tall man said. ‘That’s what we came for, and we pride ourselves on being thorough. Now, let’s get you out of that chair, shall we?’

  Her bonds gone, she sat for a few moments, wiggling her feet and rubbing her chafed wrists to restore the circulation. Then, steadying herself against the desk, she stood up. Confident now—what did it matter that the bank had been robbed so long as she and Brian were safe?—she said tartly, ‘Well, what happens next? Do you drive us home? Or are we expected to walk?’

  ‘Neither, I’m afraid. You will be staying here for a while. But not in the office. We’re going to leave you in the vault. For security reasons, you understand.’

  ‘In the vault?’ Landor was shaken out of his calm. ‘Good God, man! Why?’

  The other did not answer immediately.

  ‘Off you go, then,’ he said to one of his companions, and watched the man leave. ‘Why? I would have thought that was obvious, sir. I mean—well, what’s the alternative? If we released you, you would immediately contact the police. You might promise not to do so, but we both know you would. Promises made under duress are seldom kept. So we would leave here to find police checks on all the roads out of town. We could, of course, rip out the telephone and tie you up, but you would find that most uncomfortable. In the vault you’ll be free to move around.’

  ‘And how and when do we get out?’ Landor asked.

  ‘I’ll ring the police as soon as I consider it safe. A few hours start is all we need.’

  ‘Suppose you forget?’

  ‘I shan’t.’ His tone was suddenly curt. ‘I’m meticulous in such matters, Mr Landor. Now—shall we go?’

  He led the way with the torch. The vault was open and the lights switched on, and as Rose paused in the doorway she saw that most of the space was filled with steel shelving laden with deed boxes and ledgers. There were no windows and the air smelt stale, and for the first time since leaving home she experienced a pang of real fear. Brian would be with her, they were not to be left in the dark. Yet below ground—and in such a confined space—and once the heavy door closed on them, how long before it would open again? Suppose, as Brian had suggested, the man forgot? Suppose that in fact he had no intention of remembering?

  She shuddered. ‘No!’ she said, her voice shrill. ‘I can’t! I’m sorry, but I just can’t!’

  ‘Oh? Why not?’ The tall man drew her aside as his companions carried in a couple of chairs. ‘All the comforts, you see. And no lack of reading material, by the look of it. And it won’t be for long, I promise you. A couple of hours at the most. You can stick it that long, can’t you?’

  ‘No,’ she said hysterically. ‘I can’t. If you shut me up in there I’ll die of fright.’

  ‘Oh, come now! That’s an exaggeration, isn’t it? Of course you won’t.’

  Gently but firmly he propelled her into the vault, her struggles and her husband’s protests unavailing. Landor followed, angrily shrugging off a hand from one of the other men. As the door started to close the woman screamed. Frowning, the tall man slammed it shut.

  ‘Claustrophobia, I imagine,’ he said. ‘Nasty, poor thing. Still, her old man will look after her. She’ll be all right.’

  2

  Hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, Andrew Osman kicked rhythmically against the wainscoting as he gazed out of the window. There was little to see, for the night was dark and the house stood in thick woodland. Only when the lights of a passing car rounded the bend to colour the tossing foliage of the trees across the road, picking out the wrought-iron gates at the end of the drive before disappearing into the darkness, did the scene come briefly to life. Then the night closed in again, seemingly even
more opaque than before. Andrew continued to watch but there were no more cars. The road was just a lane that led to nowhere in particular, and traffic on it was scarce.

  From the depths of a large armchair Luke Osman said sharply, ‘Cut it out, Andrew, for God’s sake! Stop that damned kicking, can’t you? It’s getting on my nerves. Why don’t you sit down, man?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He stopped, but he did not move from the window. ‘The wind’s getting up. It’s really blowing.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Nothing. Isn’t it about time he rang?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Luke looked up at the carriage clock above the open hearth. ‘It’s only ten to one. Could be another half hour. Probably more. There’s no cause for panic.’

  ‘Who’s panicking? I hate waiting, that’s all. You’re sure he’ll ring?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘But suppose he doesn’t? What then?’

  ‘The problem doesn’t arise. He will. Clarence is greedy. For twenty grand he’d shop his own mother. You should know that, dammit! Incidentally, Andrew, you seem to have scoffed all the sandwiches.’

  ‘I know. I was hungry. Shall I cut some more?’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  Andrew turned from the window and moved aimlessly round the room. It was a large room, comfortably and tastefully furnished. Pausing to examine one of the numerous prints that adorned the walls, he said, ‘How about me popping upstairs to make sure she’s okay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’