Betrayed by Death

by Roderic Jeffries

  None of them had any illusions about the chances of finding such persons or, if found, the value of their evidence. The 15th and 22nd of January were relatively recent dates, and people’s memories might be expected accurately to go back that far. But it had been 2nd October when the previous boy had disappeared, and to show that Thompson’s absences from home were of special significance it would be necessary to prove that they all coincided with the dates on which the boys had disappeared and the silver robberies had been carried out.

  *

  The second in command at the forensic laboratory phoned Fusil on Tuesday. “I knew you’d want an immediate run-down, rather than waiting for the full report.”

  Fusil experienced sharp tension. One by one their other leads had failed, leaving them only the forensic evidence with which to inculpate Thompson.

  “Sports jacket. The stain was not blood, and although we’ve failed positively to identify it we’re pretty certain it’s some kind of varnish. The hairs on the collar and shoulders were human, almost certainly all from the same person. They showed signs of treatment from curling irons and the application of a light brown tint. It’s a probable they came from an elderly woman.”

  Fusil visualized Mrs Thompson with her gently curled, light brown hair.

  “Grey flannels. The dried mud on the knees contains no peculiar characteristics, and it’s impossible to tell you anything meaningful about it.

  “Shoes. The stain on the plimsolls was not blood. Once again, we’ve been unable to identify it definitely, but it’s very old and probably creosote. We can’t make anything of the scuffed toes of the brogues except to say that the scuffing occurred relatively recently.

  “Dog hairs. Length, average diameter of the medulla, roots, points, pigmentation of the cortex, and so on have all been very carefully compared with the control hairs which came from the Ford Granada and we can say that they are similar in all respects. This means it is likely both comparison and control hairs came from the same animal.”

  “But you can’t say definitely?”

  “No. We still haven’t been able to devise a technique which will prove that a hair came from a certain animal.”

  “You can’t take that very far in court, then?”

  “It’s confirmatory evidence only.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “Sorry, but we can’t work miracles.”

  Fusil thanked the other, then rang off. They hadn’t needed a miracle, he thought angrily, just one of the pieces of good luck which Menton so decried. As it was . . .

  Menton listened to Fusil’s report, then said: “There’s not the evidence there for an arrest, is there?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Despite your repeated assurances that the forensic evidence would make our case.” He spoke with cold authority. “Perhaps you can at last recognize the mistake of your past actions?”

  “Knowing as much as I do now, sir, I’d still question Thompson when I did.”

  Menton’s anger was immediate, so also was his bewilderment. He simply could not begin to understand why Fusil didn’t swallow his pride and acknowledge he’d been at fault, thereby implicitly asking for as sympathetic a review of his actions as was possible in the circumstances.

  *

  “What will happen?” asked Josephine, as she stood at the stove and made gravy. “I’m not panicking, or anything like that. It’s just that I want to know so that I can be ready for it.”

  Fusil sat down at the small table, took his pipe from his pocket, and began to rub the bowl against the palm of his left hand. “Thompson may crack if he’s questioned at length, but somehow I doubt it. He’s one of those blokes who looks as if he ought to be as weak as a blancmange, but who turns out to be twice as stubborn as any mule. So assume the worst and he doesn’t confess, then we don’t begin to have enough evidence to arrest him. From that it follows that my premature questioning of him has officially to have been a very bad error.”

  She crumbled a beef-cube into the mixture. “I don’t see why?”

  “If we’d begun to investigate him before he knew he was under suspicion, he might have done something which would have given us the lead we do desperately need now.”

  “And a tenth boy might have been murdered.”

  “Which could have provided us with the proof.”

  She was shocked. “You can’t talk like that!”

  “I can’t, but other people can,” he answered sadly. “And it is possible to justify what they say.”

  “Of course it isn’t.”

  “Jo, if we can’t arrest him the case will eventually have to be pushed into a holding file. Of course we’ll keep him in mind, but we simply won’t have the manpower or time to keep a close eye on him. After a while, he’ll be as good as free from surveillance. He may move home. We can’t do anything to stop that. Probably, we shan’t know where he moves to. Then he goes back on to the streets and several boys disappear before it’s realized it must be Thompson again and he’s been located. So if the tenth boy had died, his death might have saved the lives of several other boys.”

  “God, what warped logic!”

  “Life’s often warped. And so’s death.”

  She finished mixing the gravy, used a pair of oven-gloves to lift the baking-dish up, and poured the gravy into a jug. The front-door bell rang.

  “I don’t care who that is, Bob, say I’m dishing the meal and you’re going to sit down and eat it.”

  “And if it’s Bertha?”

  “I’ll wring her neck!”

  He left, crossed the hall, and opened the front door to face Moody.

  “I want a word with you,” said Moody.

  “What about?”

  “Have I got to explain on the doorstep? When you came to my place, I poured out the hospitality in the best room.” His tone was not as lightly ironic as he’d intended. He hated Fusil as a policeman even if he, reluctantly, respected him as a man. Between them lay a fragile relationship which could alter in a moment.

  The reckless impropriety of asking a man under suspicion of armed robbery into his home was obvious. Yet, Fusil knew, Moody would never have come if there were not a very important reason. He stepped to one side. Moody entered.

  “Who is it?” Josephine called out from the kitchen.

  “If that’s the missus, you can explain me away by saying I’m a business associate!” suggested Moody.

  Fusil gave no answer, but led the way into the sitting-room. He crossed to the slow-burning stove and opened the cast-iron doors.

  Josephine appeared in the doorway and looked at Moody, then at her husband, expecting to be introduced. When he ignored her, she became slightly flustered. “Bob, I’ve just dished the meal.”

  “You’ll have to put everything in the oven to keep it warm.”

  She left, closing the door behind herself.

  “There’s sherry or beer,” said Fusil shortly. “My cellar doesn’t run to anything else.”

  “I’ll take a beer off you.”

  He went through to the kitchen, and as soon as he stepped inside Josephine said in a sharp whisper: “Who’s that? And why didn’t you introduce me? It looked so rude.”

  He bent down, opened a cupboard, and brought out two cans of beer. “He’s a villain with solid form who ought to be inside for armed robbery but isn’t because of lack of sufficient evidence.” He reached up to a wall cupboard for two glass tumblers.

  “What — what’s he doing here?” she asked, bewildered.

  “I haven’t found out yet.” He ripped off the tabs from the tins, poured the beer into the tumblers.

  “Bob, is it something — dangerous?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Back in the sitting-room, Moody was standing by the stove. Fusil handed him one of the tumblers. “Well, what d’you want?”

  He answered that question with another. “Where’s the kid right now?”

  The question momentarily confused Fusil. “Kid?”


  “Didn’t you tell me you’d got a son?”

  “Tim — he’s out having supper with a pal.”

  “How’s he going to get back home?”

  “They’ll bring him back by car.”

  “You’re still not letting him travel on his own?”

  “No.”

  “So that spoon didn’t get you anywhere?”

  Fusil drank.

  “Well? Did it bloody get you anywhere?”

  “Is that what you’ve come to find out?”

  “Why else d’you think?” Moody stared at him, then spoke with bitter anger. “You still can’t get it into your thick copper’s head that a bloke like me can love his son as much as a bloke like you can.”

  Fusil made no comment.

  “Didn’t Jones help?”

  “Up to a point.”

  “Up to a point?”

  “He went through our mug shots and identified one.”

  “Then why aren’t you —”

  “I questioned this bloke. He murdered those boys right enough. Only there’s not the evidence to arrest him.”

  “Evidence? Stuff the evidence if he’s guilty.”

  “You, of all people, ought to know we can’t work like that.”

  Moody spoke with fresh anger. “You won’t see the difference between murdering kids and taking a few quid that’s covered by insurance?”

  “It’s whether the law sees a difference which matters. It doesn’t.”

  “So how long’s it going to take to find the evidence to nick him?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Don’t you goddamn well care?”

  “Of course I care,” he retorted violently. “It makes me sick in the guts that we can’t arrest him and so make the place safer for your son, my son, everyone’s son. But I didn’t make the law.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Fusil shook his head.

  “I want his goddamn name.”

  “You’re not getting it.”

  Moody put the tumbler down on the mantelpiece, stared with contempt at Fusil, then crossed the sitting-room floor and left. Fusil heard the front door slam shut.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By midday Friday the air in the billiard-room was thick with smoke and stale, as if their frustrations had used up all the oxygen. They stared at one another with tired dislike, constantly irritated by mannerisms which normally would have gone unnoticed: Menton pulled at his lower lip and released it with a plopping noise, Adams fiddled with a long whisker on his right cheek which for days had evaded the electric razor, Fusil played with his pipe, Campson sniffed.

  “Well?” said Menton.

  Yesterday afternoon he and Fusil had questioned Thompson for over four hours. As Fusil had previously suggested to Josephine, Thompson had proved to be one of those men who initially seemed soft yet who, perhaps paradoxically from fear, proved to be stubbornly tough. He had confessed nothing. His mother, shocked to discover at last that they suspected him of murdering the boys as well as committing the many thefts, had demanded they leave the house in a way that had been tragic, not amusing.

  Menton said bitterly: “We still can’t even prove he nicked the silver.”

  If they could have arrested him for the thefts, it would at least have meant he wasn’t free to murder. But beyond Jones’s testimony, there was no evidence against him.

  Menton looked at Fusil. “Thanks to you, we’re up a bloody gum-tree.”

  It was an allegation which had been made with increasing frequency. Each day which passed had made the allegation that much truer.

  Adams’s expression was one of compassion. It saddened him to see a man’s career ruined because he was so dedicated to that career: there was not so much dedication left in the world that anyone could afford to penalize it.

  “We’ll go through the evidence again.” Menton was showing a dogged persistence which had to be respected, even as it aroused resentment.

  There was a knock on the door and a P.C. looked inside. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but the duty sergeant says could he have a word with Mr Fusil?”

  “Doesn’t he realize we’re in conference?”

  “Yes, sir, only it is rather urgent.”

  Fusil looked at Menton, who nodded curtly, stood, pushed back his chair, and left.

  In the corridor the P.C. said: “He’s in your room, sir: asked if you’d go along there.”

  A uniformed sergeant waited in the centre of the room. “Sorry to drag you out, sir, only there’s something come through that I thought you ought to know about right away. Mrs Thompson’s just been on the blower to say her son’s missing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He went out unexpectedly last night, after a phone call. She stayed up past her usual bedtime, but then got too tired and went up, expecting him to return later on. This morning she found he wasn’t in and his bed hadn’t been slept in. After waiting a bit, she phoned us.”

  “Has there been any report of a boy missing?”

  “There’s not one come through as far as I know, sir.”

  “Get on to H.Q. and ask.”

  As the sergeant telephoned Fusil, bitter, sick at heart, saw in his mind’s eye a boy walking along a road and a car drawing up and Thompson smiling and asking him if he’d like a lift.

  The sergeant replaced the receiver. “There’s been no boy gone missing.”

  “Check round local hospitals. If they’re negative, alert all ports and airports, with a full description. The file’s in the other room, but I think I’ve a copy of his p.d. here.” He went round to the back of his desk and searched through the papers and files on the top: eventually he found what he wanted and handed over a single sheet of paper.

  “Right, sir.”

  After the sergeant left, Fusil sat down on the edge of his desk. Where would a man of Thompson’s character bolt to? Would he try to hide in the U.K. or abroad? Surely, someone so insular, so unwordly (God knows if that was a reasonable description for a mass murderer), would be very reluctant to go abroad? On the other hand, fear could change a character out of all recognition.

  He returned to the billiards room, coughing briefly as he entered and inhaled the stale smoke. “We’ve just had a call from Mrs Thompson. Her son received a telephone call last night and then left the house and he’s not returned. I’ve been on to H.Q. and no boy’s gone missing. I’ve ordered a check on the local hospitals, and if that’s negative all ports and airports to be alerted.”

  Menton began to drum on the chipboard with his fingers. “Do we know anything more than that?”

  “Nothing.”

  He stood. “We’ll get out to the house. Seth, you come along with Fusil. Sergeant?”

  “Sir?” said Campson.

  “We’ll be at Mrs Thompson’s. Phone us if there are any developments whatsoever.”

  *

  Mrs Thompson was as neatly and carefully presented as ever, but her manner was now extremely agitated: she could not keep still, and when standing she moved around aimlessly, when seated on the settee she fiddled with the buttons of her dress.

  She stared across at the three detectives — Fusil and Adams on the settee, Menton in an armchair — with a desperate helplessness. “Something’s happened to him.”

  Fusil was immensely saddened to see her now, old, shocked, terrified, when he remembered their last meeting and her patrician manner towards two detectives who had been so ill-bred as to believe her son could be a perverted murderer. He chose his words very carefully as he tried — yet knowing the attempt must fail — to lessen her pain. “Mightn’t he have decided just to go away because we kept asking him so many questions?”

  “Without saying a word to me? And without taking Mitzy? He’d know Mitzy would be in a terrible state, looking for him everywhere.”

  On their arrival, Mitzy had been wildly excited, yapping, darting around, clearly believing they must be bringing Thompson back to her. Now, she lay on the hearth-
rug, utterly forlorn.

  “He’d never leave her unless — something had happened to him,” she said in a voice which shook.

  The relationship between mother and son was unusually close, Fusil thought, but even so it was perfectly feasible to imagine his leaving without telling her he was going: there would have to be an explanation, and shame would prevent that. But there was no need for shame where a dog was concerned, and he would desperately need companionship when fleeing into the unknown, believing the police were closing in on him. He said: “You can’t suggest who the telephone call might have been from?”

  “I’ve told you, I have no idea.”

  “I’m sorry if we go on and on asking the same questions, but sometimes a person suddenly remembers something fresh. And if we’re to help your son, we have to learn more than we know at present.”

  His quiet sympathy affected her so much that she almost lost her self-control. Although to the detectives she gave no signal, Mitzy suddenly raised her head, came to her feet and crossed to the armchair, jumped up and settled on her lap.

  “All he told you was that he’d suddenly got to go out?”

  “I asked him what was the matter because I could see he was so upset by the telephone call, but he just told me I was imagining things. I wasn’t: I know I wasn’t. A mother doesn’t imagine that sort of thing after thirty-four years.”

  “He did tell you he’d only be a short time?”

  She nodded, suddenly unable to speak.

  “He doesn’t have a car?”

  She shook her head. After a few seconds, she said in a trembling voice: “He learned to drive and I said he ought to buy himself a car, but he wouldn’t. D’you think — d’you think he’s been in an accident?”

  “No, Mrs Thompson. We’ve checked with the hospitals and he’s not been taken to any of them. Tell me, when he left here did you hear a car start up?”

  “I wasn’t listening.” She looked at each of the detectives in turn, then drew herself up until she was sitting as straight-backed as she normally did. “When I told him something must be wrong and asked him what it was, he spoke to me in such a way that — well, when he left I was so upset I refused to wonder what was happening.”

  It was all too easy to picture this old woman, desperately hurt over an incident that normally would merely be part and parcel of family life, angrily telling herself that if he spoke to her like that she wasn’t going to worry about him. And how that now, tragically certain something terrible had happened to him, she was frantic with self-condemnation because her pride had prevented her trying to do more for him at the time.