by John Creasey
“Is Boyd there?”
“Yes. Everything appears to be normal.”
“Thanks,” Gideon said.
He rang off, and looked towards the east but was not yet close enough to pick out the New Bridge Power Station. He could see the Pool of London and the mass of shipping not only alongside the river front but in the great docks with their network of waterways, their huge warehouses, the railway lines, the enormous cranes. He could just make out Millwall docks, where the S.S. Walla Walla was already loading and waiting for the computers from Electronics New Age.
“There’s New Bridge, sir,” the pilot said.
Gideon saw the three tall, slender stacks, smoke rising in enormous, rolling billows, darker than the smoke from Battersea. It was going straight up for perhaps fifty feet and then being carried sluggishly towards the north-east. The shapes of the nearby factories began to show up, including the long, white building of the Electronics New Age Company. It was still being fed, was still working at full pressure, which could make all the difference to its future.
Then the pilot said in a casual voice: “Isn’t that smoke thinning, sir?”
Gideon narrowed his eyes.
“Is it?”
“Looks like it to me.”
Gideon didn’t speak, simply stared at the tall stacks and the smoke, watching the point where it actually left the chimney, his heart thumping, his left hand gripping the big, smooth bowl of his pipe.
It was lessening; there wasn’t a doubt of it.
His heart felt like lead.
Suddenly, without a second’s warning, the power supply to the area fed by New Bridge Power Station was cut off.
Suddenly, every machine driven by electricity, every tool, every light, every motor, stopped working.
Suddenly, there were urgent calls of alarm, emergency steps were taken in hospitals, dentists’ drills stopped, boiling rings began to cool, refrigerators stopped.
In an area covering nearly a twelfth of London, all electric power died away.
In the Electronics New Age factory, there was a sense of shock and horror among the skilled workers who had been working at rare pressure, among the management and the white collar staff.
“Well never make it,” the man Roscoe said.
“We might if it comes on within the hour.”
“No – it will take too long to start up again. We’ve had it. We can’t make that shipment.” The general manager, slight and pale, looked absolutely defeated, utterly despairing.
John Boyd, in that first moment of disaster, grinned with animal ferocity, and clapped his hands together with a tremendous bang. Then, the grin wiped off his face, he prang towards the telescope, and saw the control board of the distribution switches, smoking and on fire.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Success
The helicopter landed with unexpected gentleness on the tarred surface at the far end of the New Bridge Power Station parking area. Two security guards and a dozen men came hurrying towards it as Gideon climbed out, Piluski among them. The gap between the two main buildings was filled with men, mostly in boiler suits, and others were filing out of the generating house and the boiler house. One of the guards recognised Gideon.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Where’s Captain Boyd?”
“In the generating house,” Piluski said. “Over by the distribution panel. There’s been a—”
Gideon did not wait to hear him finish but strode towards the entrance through which Boyd had taken him so recently. Piluski kept pace with him. Most of the workers were talking excitedly among themselves, only a few appeared to notice Gideon.
“It must have been a bomb.”
“Wasn’t the slightest warning.”
“How many were hurt – any idea?”
“Must have been a dozen.”
“Hundred, more like.”
Yet there was no sign of ambulances, fire engines, or injured people.
Gideon pushed his way past two security officers, into the huge shed – and stood absolutely still. Over on the far side there were dozens of men on the floor, being attended by others. Huge doors were open and two ambulances stood backs to the shed, and others were approaching. Over in one corner a dozen men were spraying foam over the burning control board. Smoke was thick, and spreading fast. From outside there came the urgent clangour of a fire engine.
Boyd stood in the midst of the chaos, calling orders, in perfect control of himself and the situation. Security officers, first aid men wearing the Order of St John armlets and nurses were moving among the injured as they were lifted on to stretchers and carried away. Men, obviously in charge, were giving orders at the turbo-generators, and Gideon realised something quite remarkable: there was hardly any noise.
Boyd moved round towards the other men.
“Is the boiler house all right?”
“All heat’s turned off,” one man said.
“Fuel feeds?”
“It’s all under control.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it with my own eyes,” Boyd growled.
A well-dressed, middle-aged man approached, with several others just behind him, and Boyd drew up and stopped growling. Gideon, some distance off, sensed that the newcomer was in authority here. One of the security officers was close by, and Gideon asked: “Who’s that?”
“The Controller, sir, Mr. Courtney.”
Gideon nodded acknowledgement.
The Controller went straight to Boyd. He was lean and immaculate, pale, silver-haired; Boyd looked big and clumsy beside him – and belligerent Nothing stopped over by the control board, but the two men and those about them formed a little oasis of stillness.
“Do you know what happened?” Courtney asked in a clipped voice.
“A magnetic bomb appears to have been fixed to the control board, sir,” Boyd stated.
“Appears to have been?” Courtney’s manner was scathing.
“No one was near the board at the moment of the explosion, sir. I have established that beyond all doubt.”
“I had your assurance that nothing could go wrong.”
“None of the most vulnerable points was attacked, sir.”
“None of the—” Courtney began, then drew in a deep breath. He turned to the man who had asked about the boiler house. “Has every necessary action been taken, Mr. Sims?”
“Yes, sir. All generators have been stopped, all heaters—”
“I don’t want details. Will you and Mr. Boardman make a personal check?”
“At once, sir.”
Courtney turned back to Boyd.
“Do you know how many are injured?”
“Not precisely, sir.”
“Are there any fatalities?”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t know how many. There are also some serious injuries.”
“Do you know who placed the bomb?”
“No, sir.”
Gideon and Piluski moved a little nearer but were not noticed.
“Make it absolute priority to find out,” Courtney ordered. He turned and looked at the scene of the explosion. Most of the injured were receiving attention now, several ambulances had gone and others were backing in. The flames were nearly out, but much of the control board and some of the machines near it were destroyed. He was obviously appalled, and when he turned back to Boyd there was a glitter in his eyes and for the first time his voice rose. “It is utterly unbelievable that you should have allowed such a disaster to happen.”
Boyd glared – and Gideon moved another step or two forward.
“I’m not to blame!”
“You are the Chief Security Officer here and—”
“That’s enough of that,” roared Boyd. “I can protect the plant agai
nst ordinary sabotage, I can’t prevent bloody fanatics taking a chance of blowing themselves and the whole place up!”
Gideon, within a couple of yards, spoke for the first time.
“Captain Boyd, why have you instructed your brokers to buy Electronics New Age shares in the last half hour of today’s stock exchange business, and the first hour’s trading on Monday?”
It seemed a long time before anyone understood the significance of the question, and there was a long, puzzled silence before Courtney gasped: “What?”
“Would it be true to say that you anticipated this power failure, and made your personal plans accordingly?” inquired Gideon. His voice had never been more even and his gaze never more steady.
Boyd’s head turned slowly towards him, eyes glaring, lips parted, as if he could not believe that he had heard aright. Piluski moved up behind him, and obviously others began to understand what Gideon was implying. Gideon was now face to face, with Courtney a yard away from them.
“And do you realise that whoever was responsible for the explosion here, whether directly or indirectly, will be charged with murder?” asked Gideon.
Boyd’s mouth began to work, but he neither moved nor spoke. It was a man in a blue boiler suit, at the back of the little crowd, who said in a high-pitched voice: “He inspected the control board himself half an hour ago. I saw him. He—”
Boyd roared: “You bloody liar!” and swung towards him, sweeping an arm round to push Gideon aside. Gideon grabbed his wrist, and before Boyd could prevent him, twisted the arm round behind his back and forced it high. Boyd made one convulsive movement, then realised that if he moved violently he would break his arm.
Gideon said roughly: “Now let’s have the truth. Why did you order your brokers to buy those shares? How did you know they would fall?”
“It’s a lie! I did no such thing,” Boyd gasped. Sweat poured down his forehead and into his eyes, and he made another convulsive movement to escape.
“I can prove that you did,” Gideon stated simply, and saw handcuffs in Piluski’s hand. He nodded, and let Boyd go, but before the big man realised what was happening, the handcuffs were on his wrists.
Gideon thought: I hope to God Osmington was right.
As he spoke, as another ambulance snorted and drove off, a woman began to cry – low-pitched, heart-rending. Gideon, regaining his hold on Boyd, looked across at her. She was on her knees beside the body of a man on a stretcher, a man over whose face a stretcher-bearer was pulling a sheet. The shrill-voiced man shouted from behind Gideon: “Murderer – bloody murderer!”
“Murderer, murderer!”
“It was Boyd!”
“It was Boyd!”
“Murderer!”
“Bloody murderer!”
The cry seemed to be taken up not by a dozen but by a hundred voices, and Gideon saw men approaching from all directions, some with spanners, some with hammers in their hands. Gideon felt Boyd’s body begin to stiffen, felt him shivering – and then saw him twist his head round and heard him gasp.
“Get me out of here, Get me out! They’ll bash me to pieces if you don’t!”
Gideon, seeing the rage in the faces of men whose workmates had just been killed or injured, seeing one man with blood seeping from a wound in his forehead and another with a gash across his cheek, stepped on to one of the silent turbo-generator protectors. Piluski stood close by Boyd, with Courtney in front of him.
“Listen to me!” roared Gideon, his voice so powerful than men fifty yards away turned round. “My name is Gideon – Commander Gideon of Scotland Yard. We know who did this thing, we know why they did it and you can be sure they will be tried and punished with the utmost rigour of the law.” He paused for a few tense seconds, and then ordered: “Now let us pass. Don’t try to take the law into your own hands. Let us pass. Now.”
There was a deep hush as he stopped. Then slowly a path was made in the crowd, and he jumped down and went ahead. Boyd followed, Piluski brought up the rear, and no one tried to stop them.
On the way to the Yard, Boyd did not say a word.
During the flight to Lambeth, however, a near-miracle happened at Electronic New Age and to all the plants in the area. Power came back, through the grid. Machines began to hum and turn, and hope began to flow back, too. Scott-Marie had talked to good effect, and a major disaster was averted.
“Well make that ship yet,” Roscoe said, with lifting heart,
Gideon tapped at the door of the Commissioner’s office, late that afternoon, and as he opened the door, Scott-Marie came towards him with his hand outstretched. Gideon, tired but very cheerful, for he knew now about the speed with which the current had been switched on, returned the strong pressure.
“If I’d only been half an hour earlier—” he began.
“Nonsense,” interrupted Scott-Marie. “You worked miracles, George. Don’t start reproaching yourself. I understand that the case against Boyd is virtually proved.”
“No shadow of doubt” Gideon assured him. “A search at his flat revealed some fuse-holders of the kind used at New Bridge, and some nitro-glycerine and a time mechanism. The bomb was inside the fuse-holder. He doesn’t even deny anything, now. But he won’t talk about his accomplices, and I doubt if he’ll ever talk. It will take us a long time to find out whether Sir Geoffrey Craven was involved, and there are other leaders we haven’t yet identified – but the trouble as such is over.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you weren’t sure,” Scott-Marie said with confidence.
“I am sure, sir. Lemaitre has made a breakthrough in the arson case at Bethnal Green. Hibild was behind that, too, working through a man named Kano, Rupert Kano, who has vanished. A man employed by Kano has made a full confession. At Kano’s instigation, he started at least seven fires, forcing seven firms to sell out to subsidiaries of Hibild. The youth, Jensen—” he broke off. “Do you know about him, sir?”
“Yes.”
“He was paid to start the fire at Mickle and Stratton’s. He then seemed to have lost his nerve, so they killed him and pushed his body into a tank of sulphuric acid – the third such victim, according to our informant. I haven’t yet been able to establish whether the betting firm of Jackie Spratt’s is directly involved – there’s no positive evidence, merely suspicion.”
“What will you do about Sir Geoffrey Craven?”
“Question him, sir, and harass him continually. The City Police have been doing some under-cover investigation for the Monopolies Commission – and we can get into Hibild Head Office and examine their books without trouble. And we may soon be able to investigate his private affairs.”
“Yes,” Scott-Marie said. “We don’t want any talk of one law for the rich and one for the poor.”
“Can’t stop the talk, sir,” Gideon said philosophically. “There’s one other case I’d like you to know about, one which has nothing at all to do with this.”
“Yes?”
“A man named Entwhistle was convicted of the murder of his wife and sentenced to life imprisonment two years ago,” said Gideon. “I think there’s some doubt about the justice of the verdict in view of recent information. I propose to put Honiwell on to that, quietly – he can do with a change from the Epping job. He can always go back to it if anyone comes under suspicion.”
Scott-Marie said slowly: “I can imagine few things worse than being under a life sentence for a crime I didn’t commit.”
He made no other comment but most certainly realised that Gideon was simply covering himself should the Assistant Commissioner disagree on the wisdom of re-opening the investigation.
“Is there any news of Mrs Morrison?” asked Scott-Marie.
“She’s recovered from her attempted suicide and has gone to stay with her parents, sir. I’m preparing the papers for the Director of Public Prosecutions, ab
out her husband, that’s out of our hands now. I am sure we should try to make parents inform us much more quickly if a child is missing. I think we should ask the Press and the broadcasting services to support us in a long-term campaign.”
Scott-Marie said quietly: “Those crimes worry you more than any others, don’t they?”
“I suppose they do,” Gideon admitted. “Yes, I’m sure they do.”
Soon afterwards, he went along to his own office. There, faultlessly typed, were his own notes; Sabrina Sale was blessedly efficient. There, too, was Briggs’ report on the fire-raising; somehow, that had lost its urgency, and certainly there was nothing he could do about it tonight.
He put everything away, and left the office.
He went out of the Yard by the side entrance, and drove himself home. He stopped for a few minutes and looked at the mighty stacks of the Battersea Power Station. Tomorrow morning he would pass it again, on his way to briefing Osmington, Piluski, Honiwell, Lemaitre – a very self-satisfied Lemaitre – and begin the long, long investigation into the Hibild crimes. He had no doubt of the eventual outcome, only worry about the time it would take.
He started off again.
Fifteen minutes later he was listening to the woeful strains of a prelude he couldn’t name, very different in mood to the joyous playing he had last heard. He went, inquiringly, to see Kate in the kitchen.
“She’s had a quarrel with Jonathan,” Kate said, as she washed flour off her fingers, under a tap. “She’ll be all right, George. Just pretend you’ve noticed nothing.”
Very slowly, Gideon nodded. Soon, he realised that Kate felt just as he did: relieved. Penny was so very young to marry.
Series Information
Published or to be published by
House of Stratus
Dates given are those of first publication
Alternative titles in brackets
'The Baron' (47 titles) (writing as Anthony Morton)
'Department 'Z'' (28 titles)
