The Madeiran Double Cross

by Sally Spencer

*

  Since he followed Linda into the Savoy, Francisco Reis had spent his time drinking and trying to come up with a solution to his problem.

  At eleven o’clock, he said to himself, “I will accuse her, face-to-face, and see how she reacts. If she says she is innocent, and I believe her, then there is no difficulty. If she says she is guilty, or she says she is innocent and I think she is lying, then that is the time to think about what to do next.”

  But bank robbers were dangerous people. Maybe she would tell her friends what he had said, and he would end up at the bottom of the harbour.

  At a quarter to one, he said, “I will do nothing. I will pretend that the nights we spent together never happened – and no one will ever know.”

  Yet the robbers were bound to be caught – there was no escape from the island – and then they would be questioned.

  “How did you know there was so much money in the bank?” they would be asked.

  “Linda told us.”

  “And how did she know?”

  “She learned it from the Chief Cashier. He is very indiscreet in bed.”

  And surely it would go worse for him if he had not already admitted it.

  By ten to three, after a great deal of soul-searching and many glasses of brandy, he decided to throw himself on the mercy (and discretion) of the Policia Judicial.

  *

  It was half-past three when Pedro reached Curral das Freiras. His body was aching, his head throbbing. He wanted to lie down where he was, and sleep for a long, long time. Yet he dared not stop, because the army was out looking for him. On the trail down from the Pico he had heard them coming, just in time to slip behind a rock.

  There were buses in Curral. Taxis, too. He was tempted to take one. But the army would be on the roads as well. They would stop every bus and taxi and ask the inevitable questions:

  Where have you been?

  How long were you there?

  How did you get there in the first place?

  And he looked suspicious. He was dirty, his clothes were ripped, he had grazed his hand and his cheek.

  There was no alternative to the levada that ran from Curral to Funchal. It would take him several hours, part of it would be in the dark and he might run into soldiers, but it was the best chance he had.

  “Bloodys bastard luck,” he said, limping painfully on.

  *

  Arnie the Actor sat across the table from Sergeant Scott. He was wearing a square-cut jacket with wide lapels and padded shoulders, and wide trousers with turn-ups. His broad-brimmed hat was hanging behind the door. When Scott had found him sitting – bold as brass – in the Orinoco Club, he had been drinking straight bourbon.

  “So what d’ja want, copper?” he asked from the corner of his mouth.

  “We’ve got Mason,” Scott said, slowly and deliberately, “so we’ve got you.”

  “Never hoiyd of this Mason guy.”

  Scott rose from his chair, and hit Arnie a backhanded blow that knocked him out of his seat. Arnie sprawled on the floor, blood trickling from his lip.

  “You dirty rat,” he said.

  “Now don’t you get abusive,” Scott threatened, “And don’t bugger about with me either, Arnie. You’ve been working with Frank Mason on a bank job. Until last night, you were in Madeira, setting it up.”

  Arnie picked himself up and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “You can’t pin nothin’ on me, copper,” he snarled. “I got an alibi.”

  “What!” Scott scoffed. “Twenty-four hours a day for the last three or four days?”

  “Doesn’t have to be twenty-four hours a day, wise-guy,” Arnie said. “Only has to be one hour,” he held up a single finger, “during the time you say I was out of town. Night before last I was playin’ poker with Fat Sid the Bookie and Roadie O’Brien. You want alibis, copper,” he leaned across the table and lowered his voice, “I got ‘em – the best that money can buy. And now I wanna see my attorney.”

  Scott bounced Arnie off the wall for half an hour or so, being careful to cause pain without any bruising, but he knew he was getting nowhere.

  He could crack Arnie’s alibi only by pulling in the witnesses and giving them an intensive grilling. And Gower's assertion that he had seen Arnie in Madeira wasn’t grounds enough for that – however much the Chief Superintendent might lament that things should be different.

  So they would have to get to Arnie through Mason, rather than the other way round.

  He gave Arnie one last painful dig in the ribs. “You can go,” he said, “but don't leave town.”

  “Don’t worry, copper,” Arnie said, as he made his way stiffly to the door, “ain’t nobody born who can chase me outta my own burg.”

  *

  At four o’clock, just as an empty British Airtours 707 had received clearance to take off, a crowd of about a hundred and fifty men, women and children, invaded the runway. Some stood around the wheels of the aircraft, shouting and shaking their fists. Others lay down on the runway, directly in its path.

  There were many more police than normal on duty at the airport, but, even so reinforcements had to be called in from Funchal.

  A number of the demonstrators allowed themselves to be herded away, but there were others – more militant, or perhaps just angrier – who had to be physically carried. There were several scuffles and six people were arrested.

  “Who cares?” screamed one of those taken into custody. “Jail will be an improvement on this.”

  By the time the Airtours plane took off, there were already two others circling the airport waiting to land – one of them running dangerously short of fuel.

  *

  “We have sent up army blankets and bedding to the airport,” Silva said miserably, “and the big hotels are providing free meals for those people stranded in the terminal, but we still fear there will be another riot. And the Director of Tourism says that even if re-open the airport immediately, it will be forty-eight hours before things are back to normal. I have to give my permission, Ron – I have to.”

  “Patience, Jose,” Gower said, showing uncharacteristic amounts of that quality himself. “Give it another couple of hours and we’ll have the whole thing sewn up.”

  It certainly looked that way. One of Silva’s men reported that the maitre d' of Jardim’s Restaurant remembered Mason well, and had provided a full description of his companions.

  “Tony Horton and Harry Snell,” Gower murmured as he read it. “All together the night before a job. Bloody idiots!”

  Gower and Silva conducted an interview with a nervous and remorseful Reis, who admitted that, yes, he had probably shot his mouth off too much about the bank’s business to the girl; yes, she was back on the island, and yes, she was in Room 207 at the Savoy – a room registered in the name of Mason.

  By six o’clock in the evening, there was still no sign of Pedro, and though they knew roughly where it was, the team of soldiers searching for the money had not yet uncovered it. But on the brighter side, plain-clothes men on duty reported that Mason, Horton and his woman, and the Snells, had arrived back at their hotels almost simultaneously.

  “Why don’t you go and pick them up?" Gower suggested.

  But there had been no real need to say anything, because Silva – warrant in pocket – was already moving towards the door.

  SIXTEEN

  “Mr. Gower!” Mason said. “They got you across here quickly enough.”

  Gower indicated the chair facing him. “Sit down, Frank.”

  Mason ambled over, and did as he had been told. He looked around at the dull green walls and high slit windows of the interview room.

  “They’re the same the whole world over, aren’t they?” he asked. “My, what happy hours you and me have spent together in places like this.”

  You can be cocky, Frank, Gower thought. I don’t mind – because it’s your bloody swan-song. And you’d realize that if you knew just how much I’ve got
on you.

  He could have questioned one of the others instead. It would have been easier. But he didn’t want things easy – he wanted to make Frank Mason crawl.

  “It’s more serious than usual,” he said. “The policeman that Pedro shot is dead.”

  Mason’s mouth dropped open, and for the first time there was a trace of fear in his eyes.

  “He can’t … it’s not … Pedro’s shotg …”

  That was it. Gower thought, the first breach in the dam. From now on the water would trickle through faster and faster until it became a flood. Until the whole of Mason’s self-esteem had been washed away – until he had been destroyed.

  “What were you going to say, Frank?” he asked.

  “Pedro shot a policeman? Pedro who?”

  Good recovery, Frank, Gower thought – but not quite good enough.

  “That’s not what you were going to say, Frank,” he told the other man. “You were going to say that Pedro's such a wally that you’d never trust him with live cartridges, so you gave him blanks. Not like the ones you shot into the tires of the lorry, eh? They were real enough.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Gower.”

  “And you’re right, of course. The policeman isn’t dead. He’s like all the local cops – a gutless wonder. When he heard the explosion, he dropped – and he stayed down until you were well away. But I’m not a greedy man, Frank. I don’t have to get you for murder, I’ll be happy with armed robbery.”

  He walked around the edge of the room, ending up behind the seated man. Four suspects out of five would have turned their heads so they could keep him in their vision, the fifth would have been so rigid with terror that he couldn’t move. Mason didn’t move, but there was no evidence of paralyzed knotted tension in his shoulder muscles.

  Well, that would come. And in a way, the longer it took, the sweeter it would be when it finally arrived.

  “You see, Frank,” Gower continued, moving again to disorientate him, “the best kind of collar is when you catch the villains at the scene of the crime, shotguns still smoking in their hands. But second best is what I’ve got on you, when there’s so much circumstantial evidence that we can build up a clear picture in the eyes of the jury even without a confession. But we will get a confession, anyway – make no mistake about that. Harry Snell or Pedro will be only too glad to shop you, in order to save their own necks.”

  He walked around in front of Mason again, so that he could see his face. There had been panic there earlier, but now his expression showed nothing.

  “Let’s start at the beginning, Frank," he said, “with the bunk you did from Spain. Not only was it illegal, driving a car you hadn’t rented, but it’ll look very suspicious in court.”

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Gower,” Mason said. “You're not even trying. So it was illegal. What’ll I get? A fine? Or maybe a short prison sentence three months max., if I’m prepared to go back to Spain, which I’m not. And as for how it’ll look in court, my brief will tear it to shreds.” He grasped the front of his sports shirt between thumbs and forefingers and adopted a richer, plummier voice: “My client committed a youthful transgression over twenty years ago, a transgression brought on him by poverty and desperation. Since then, despite the fact that he has led an honest life, and never received so much as a parking ticket, the police have continued to persecute him. They would not even leave him alone when he went to Madrid, to improve his mind by studying the art treasures of the Prado. Is it any wonder that this man, sick of harassment, chose to exercise a little subterfuge in order to gain some peace? It was wrong, yes, but it was understandable.”

  “Very good, Frank,” Gower said. “But you’re missing the point. It’s not the individual details on their own which matter, it’s the complete picture they build up. You have three known criminals on a small island, criminals who actually have a meal in a posh restaurant together. The very next day a robbery is committed, and the robbers physical descriptions match those of the happy diners. Bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Nothing wrong with three old friends having a meal together,” Mason replied. “And even if one of the robbers did look at bit like me, well, a lot of people are over six feet these days – it’s all down to the powdered milk we were fed as kids.”

  “Three British criminals on the island,” Gower continued, “and all the equipment used in the raid was British as well.”

  “It’s good to know that even criminals are learning that British is best.”

  “Your little tart Linda was screwing the Chief Cashier at the bank,” Gower pressed on, hammering another nail in Mason’s coffin, “and she asked him a lot of probing questions. How do you think that will look in a conspiracy charge?”

  “She's always had a healthy appetite – for both information and sex.”

  “And finally, Frank, there’s Pedro and the money. We haven’t got either of them yet.” Gower paused. “You see, I’m being straight with you. No lies, no trickery. But then I can afford to be straight, can’t I? It’s virtually certain we’ll pick up Pedro sometime tonight, and it’s only a matter of time before we find out where the little tosser hid the rucksack.”

  There was a barely perceptible twitch in Mason’s left eye, but to Gower it spoke volumes. Mason was worried, but it wasn’t Pedro that was causing him concern – it was the money.

  Was he really so bloody stupid as to think they couldn’t get a conviction without the loot?

  Or was he prepared to go away for a long stretch as long as he knew the money would be waiting for him when he came out – a sort of retirement plan.

  Gower placed both hands on the table, palms down, and leaned forward.

  “I’m going to be nice to you, Frank,” he said. “I could easily go to Harry Snell or that girl Tony brought with him,” – Mason’s eyelid flickered again – “or I could wait until they bring Pedro in. But I’m going to give you first shot at coming clean and lightening your sentence. And do you know why? Because I like you.”

  Nothing could be further from the truth, and they both knew it. It was because Gower hated Mason that he was giving him this chance. It wasn’t enough that he could put him inside. He wanted to see him grovel. He wanted to see him go to prison knowing that he had shattered his own precious code of honour. He wanted to make it hard for Mason ever to live with himself again.

  “I refuse to answer any more questions without my lawyer being present,” Mason said flatly.

  Gower felt rage bubbling up inside him. Who did this prick think he was? Someone brave? Someone commendable? He was nothing but a bank robber, a common criminal.

  “Screw you, Mason!” he said.

  He realized that he was standing upright again, and that his right arm was lifted back ready to swing. The tightness had returned to his chest, too.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Gower,” Mason said quietly.

  The arm froze in mid-air.

  “Where do you think you are?” Gower demanded. “This is a police station. You touch one hair on my head, and I’ll have four uniformed men in here beating the shit out of you.”

  “I still wouldn’t do it if I was you,” Mason advised.

  Gower felt the arm fall limply to his side.

  “You’re a mug, Mason,” he said angrily. “I always knew that, but I never knew how far it bloody went. You’ll get twenty years – maybe more under the Portuguese criminal code. And I wouldn’t ask for bail if I was you, because when Ted Sims finds out about you and Linda, your life won’t be worth a tinker's cuss on the outside.”

  And having said his piece, he stormed out of the room.

  *

  Mason may have told Gower very little, but in comparison to the others, he was like a supergrass.

  “I want to see a lawyer,” Mary Snell said, her expression as tight as her permed hennaed hair.

  “I … em … want to see a lawyer,” mumbled Harry Snell, his eyes gazing at the floor, his fingers clasped tightly
together, his hands shaking.

  “It’s no good shouting at me like that,” Susan sobbed, the tears running down her cheeks, “I’m not going to say anything until I've seen a lawyer.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Linda said, crossing her legs, “a male lawyer.”

  “Come on, Mr. Gower,” Tony drawled easily, “I’m entitled to a lawyer if I want one, and you’ll get nothing out of me till then.”

  If they’d tried to come up with an alibi, he would have had something to work with – a structure of lies and evasions which he could have slowly, methodically, demolished. But they wouldn’t say anything except lawyer, lawyer, bleeding lawyer.

  The Mason gang were playing the game according to rules they had just invented, and refused to see that these rules simply would not work.

  But just wait till they caught Pedro! Then surely they would understand it was all over.

  *

  It was at the highest point of the levada – a thin ribbon of concrete clinging to the mountainside a hundred feet above the ground – that Pedro saw the soldiers. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run except back the way he had come.

  They were fresh, and he was exhausted and weak with hunger. They would soon catch him, unless he missed his footing and plunged to his death.

  He could see the barrels of their rifles glinting in the pale afternoon sun. They might not bother to follow him, maybe they would just use him as target practice.

  Even if by some miracle he managed to escape them, his clothing was no protection against the cold night air, and he would probably die of exposure.

  And there would be soldiers at the other end, too.

  “Bloodys shit luck,” he moaned, as he limped up to the search party.

  *

  The policeman was the most terrifying person Susan had ever met. He had looked like an evil toad, squatting on the chair opposite and spitting his vile questions at her.

  “You’re nothing but a tart, isn’t that right? Anybody with a couple of bob in his pocket can have you.”

  She was sure he had no real human feelings – and not just for criminals, but for anybody.

  “You don’t like the way I speak to you, eh? Not respectful enough? Well, you lost the right to any respect when you became Tony’s whore.”