The Extortioners

by John Creasey

  Probably, thought Roger, he would be prepared to let the blackmailer think he still had his stranglehold.

  “I would very much like to join you,” Clayton said, at last. “You are very kind and understanding, Superintendent.”

  “I’ve lived long enough to know that few people can think clearly on an empty stomach, still less make decisions,” Roger replied. “Shall we go?”

  Much of the big, L-shaped canteen was closed off; and only a few of the tables in the open section were occupied. The caféteria line was empty, and there was some roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with baked potatoes and cabbage which looked as appetising as if it were on the kitchen table of a good home cook.

  “We’ll come back for a sweet,” Roger said. “What would you like to drink with your meal?”

  “Is there beer?”

  “Of course,” Roger said.

  “Then a light ale, please.”

  They sat down well away from anyone else, and it was an unwritten law that if a senior officer was at table with a guest, then that table was given a wide berth; for how else would he want to talk but confidentially? It was Clayton who did most of the talking, filling out the picture of his home life, his fear of divorce, his fear of being ostracised by his daughters; and the newer fear, that Kevin might do some thing desperate in his present mood.

  “I really shouldn’t worry about that,” Roger said. “Very few actually ever reach the point of feeling that life isn’t worth living. He isn’t on drugs, is he?”

  “I think you can be sure he’s not.”

  “Girlfriends?” asked Roger.

  “I had a feeling – it’s no more – that he might be homosexual,” Clayton replied. “It was something his mother said, but—don’t say I told you, whatever you do!”

  “This is all very much in confidence,” Roger reminded him. “What would you like to follow, sir?”

  “I think I saw a baked jam roll which looked most tempting,” Clayton said.

  “Two jam rolls and some coffee?” Roger said with a laugh. “I’ll get it.”

  He went off, leaving the other man alone at the table to ponder over what he had said and thought. He liked the man West enormously. There was nothing remotely official or red tape about him, he was one of the most natural of men, and Clayton was amazed that he had talked to anyone so freely. He felt quite safe with West; confident that any advice the man gave would be worth following – or at the very least, worth the closest possible attention. He watched him coming back with a laden tray, two cups of steaming coffee, two large portions of the jam roll, baked crisply and with strawberry jam oozing out.

  Soon, they were eating.

  Soon, West was saying: “Your most acute immediate problem is whether to tell your wife, isn’t it?”

  “It is indeed,” Clayton said, ruefully. “I still vacillate dreadfully. Ida wanted me to sleep on it, but—” He broke off, and paused with a piece of the jam roll on the end of his fork. “I’m not sure she’s right. I am really not sure. Superintendent—”

  “Yes?”

  “Supposing I don’t tell Rosamund. Supposing you catch the blackmailer and he goes on trial. How far does this confidence go? My name would be suppressed of course, but a great many officials here and presumably at court would know. Would it really be possible to conceal the truth from my wife and family?”

  Roger answered without the slightest hesitation.

  “It would be extremely difficult unless she were out of London – or preferably out of England – for the period of the trial. She would never be told officially but you yourself would be under very great strain, and the newspapers would make a lot of play with Mr. X. And—” He broke off.

  “Please go on,” Clayton urged.

  “It isn’t really my place to,” Roger West replied. “In fact I’m not sure that anyone but an old and close friend should say this to you.”

  He had finished eating, and his grey eyes were very steady as he looked at Clayton. The big room seemed empty except for the two of them, Clayton thought; and he had another, stranger thought: that he had no old and close friend with whom he could discuss this. He hesitated for a long time, and then with a ghost of a smile in his eyes, he said: “I promise to keep whatever you say in strict confidence.

  Please tell me what is in your mind.”

  Roger actually found himself chuckling.

  “Then I will,” he said, and went on so quickly and with such assurance that it was obvious that he had thought deeply about what he was saying: it was almost as if he had some personal experience on which to draw, he spoke with such feeling. “If you tell your wife now she will know that you need her help and her loyalty, and I would think with such a woman as you have described, you are likely to bring out the best in her. But if you wait until a trial, if you show that you can handle this situation by yourself, and don’t need her, then – then I would think she will be deeply hurt, perhaps feeling that you’ve never needed her. In a way that is far worse than not having deeply loved.”

  “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Clayton asserted emphatically. “I shall go straight home and tell her.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, so eager not to delay that some of those present must have thought he was leaving in anger.

  “I’m sure you’re wise,” Roger said quietly. “Can I send you home in a police car? Or I could drive you myself.

  “I—”

  “I’ve my car only fifty yards away,” Clayton told him. “I’ll be happy to go on my own. May I tell you how things turn out?”

  “Here’s my home telephone number,” Roger said, handing him a card.

  He saw Oliver Clayton down to street level and into Broadway, where his own car was parked, but did not wait long enough to watch him get into his M.G. and drive off. Had he waited, he might also have seen the man on a motorcycle who moved away from a spot nearby just after Clayton. But the M.G. went in one direction, cutting through towards Hyde Park, while the motorcycle roared into Victoria Street and then towards Parliament Square and the floodlit front of Westminster Abbey and the moon-face of Big Ben.

  It did not occur to him for a moment that any immediate danger threatened Clayton, and his main preoccupation was how to resolve the situation if the man did tell his wife. Would she – would Clayton, for that matter – go through a charade of pretending with the blackmailer, so as to give the police a chance to catch him?

  Still less did it occur to him that there was the remotest connection between the attempt to blackmail Clayton, and the three suicides.

  Oliver Clayton, meanwhile, drove towards Hampstead in a very different mood from when he had left. He had no doubt at all that he must tell Rosamund tonight, and there was a curious excitement at the prospect. He was eager to tell her, to face the worst; and Superintendent West had contrived to make him believe that the worst would be nothing like as bad as he had expected. He exerted himself to drive carefully; in such a mood it would be easy to be reckless. He drove across the poorly-lit heath to Beacon Road, and slowed down as he neared his house in Beacon Drive. He would leave the car in the driveway rather than garage it tonight; it would save a lot of opening and closing of doors. He drove to within a few inches of the double doors of the garage, put the gear into neutral, and turned off the engine.

  As he opened the door and climbed out, he saw the shadowy figures of two men, who rushed at him. He saw their upraised arms and the weapons in them and felt a flood of terror as the first blow fell, with awful pain, across the back of his head.

  He heard one phrase: “We’ll teach you to go to the police.”

  Then they rained blows on him and he sank down by the side of the car, making no sound, no longer aware of pain. Five minutes later, two motorcyclists, wearing crash helmets and goggles, roared away from Clayton’s house. No one took any notice of them, although many heard the sound of the engines – including Rosamund Clayton, so nearby.

  Chapter Six

  Near Unto Death
r />   “Good morning, Sir.”

  ‘Morning.”

  ‘Morning, Handsome!”

  “’Morning, Bill.”

  “Good morning, good morning, good morning.” Roger did not know why he was so conscious of the greetings, in a variety of tones and even greater variety of accents. Scottish and Yorkshire, Somerset and Welsh, and always the inevitable Cockney, all sounded as he walked along the passages to his office.

  It was good to be back.

  It was much better this morning than yesterday, because there was plenty waiting to be done. What a strange day yesterday had been. This morning he could expect a demand from Coppell, wanting up-to-the-minute information: he had to decide whether to recommend going back to the friends and families of the first two suicides. There should be a report from the pathologist on Sir Douglas Fellowes; if cancer were confirmed then any ulterior motive could surely be discounted. The Clayton case seemed to him far more promising. He had half-expected a call from Clayton at his home last night; had the Professor’s courage failed him at the last moment? If so, would he be at the office early? He was due at his first conference session at the British Museum, so if he were coming here he certainly wouldn’t be late.

  The two newspapers he had at home had Fellowes’s suicide on the front page. Someone, probably Venables, the sergeant who worked in the office next to him and was a kind of general factotum, had placed every London morning newspaper on his desk, neatly folded so that the main headlines showed. Three concerned Fellowes and the delicate Common Market negotiations for which he had been partly responsible. The Daily Globe came out most strongly with questions at which the other papers only hinted.

  POLITICAL CAUSE FOR COMMON MARKET EXPERT’S ‘SUICIDE’?

  Sir Douglas Fellowes, K.C.B.E., one of Britain’s most astute and respected Civil Servants, an expert on European Common Market affairs, is believed to have left a suicide note after allegedly stabbing himself to death in a West End club yesterday. The note stated that Sir Douglas believed he had incurable cancer.

  The Daily Globe mourns the loss of a great servant of the State.

  At the same time, the Daily Globe wonders whether all the truth is known. Sir Douglas was believed at one time to be a strong opponent of Great Britain’s entry into the Market. The politicians of all parties ignored his advice and opted to join, whatever sacrifice it entails.

  Was Sir Douglas’s illness in any way due to fear and anxiety about the consequences of this political decision? Or his own change of heart? Is it even possible that Sir Douglas had made discoveries about Britain’s membership which led to his death?

  Roger finished reading, sat back and whistled faintly under his breath. That was strong meat, even for the Globe, ever a bitter opponent of Britain’s entry into the European Common Market. Between the lines, plain for all to see, was the implication that the death had not in fact been suicide. Even had Coppell not been active about the suicide already, this would have forced him to make an exhaustive inquiry.

  Directly he had read the article, of course, he would send for him, Roger.

  Both of them would have vivid memories of the Globe newspaper. Not many months ago it had been taken over by an extreme right-wing political faction and its policy, at the time, had been close to reasonable. Since then it had been acquired by a small, independent newspaper group, not so right-wing as the previous owners but nevertheless reactionary in most political policies. It was strange to find it taking such a strong line now; it was almost as if there had been no change of ownership.

  Nonsense! He knew there had been; and the Globe wasn’t alone in distrusting the Common Market, in wanting Britain to withdraw in splendid isolation.

  He scanned the other headlines.

  Clearly, Fleet Street was deeply troubled by the death of Sir Douglas Fellowes. As clearly, all of the newspapers wondered if there were any connection between his death and his Common Market activities. Roger opened a folder on his desk, containing letters in this morning and reports on the three suicides which he had studied last night. There was nothing about the autopsy. He called his sergeant on the inter-office instrument and the man answered as quickly as if he had been sitting waiting for the call.

  “Venables here, sir.”

  “Good morning. Is there any word about the pathologist’s report on the cause of the death of Sir Douglas Fellowes?”

  “Nothing at all, sir.” Venables was positive.

  “Telephone Dr. Caller’s office and ask if the report is ready – we’ll fetch it if necessary.”

  “Sir,” said Venables. “Yes?”

  “I telephoned the office twenty minutes ago.”

  “Well?”

  “No one will be in until ten o’clock, sir – Dr. Caller was working late, and so was his chief assistant.”

  “Call them again at two minutes past ten,” ordered Roger, and rang off on the other’s: “Very good, sir.” He put the receiver down and caught one of the newspapers in the broad leather strap of his wristwatch, so that the whole pile slid towards the edge of the desk. He grabbed, to save them. The newspapers fanned out, rather like a hand of playing cards, and he caught sight of a few lines in red print beneath the Stop Press notice.

  He went very still.

  It was one of the unbelievable things; so unbelievable that although he read and understood the words he wasn’t at first convinced by them. That was only momentary: he read again and the words struck at him as savagely as a physical blow.

  ANTHROPOLOGIST ATTACKED

  Professor Oliver Clayton, British representative at today’s British Museum Conference of Anthropologists from all over the world, was brutally attacked in the grounds of his Hampstead home last night. Clayton rushed to Hampstead Cottage Hospital. Divisional Police seeking two motorcyclists.

  A.P. News

  He breathed “My God!” and snatched up the telephone, saying as the Yard operator answered: “Get me Hampstead Cottage Hospital.” He rang off, and then scanned the other newspapers but there was nothing more about the attack on Clayton. The telephone bell rang.

  “Here’s your call to Hampstead Hospital, sir.”

  “Thanks. And—you still there? … Get me Hampstead Division, whoever is in charge, and hold them until I’m through with this call.”

  “Very good, sir … You’re through.”

  It took Roger three minutes to get through to the secretary, whom it appeared was the only official who could give him any news about Clayton. A brisk-voiced man, the secretary said: Professor Clayton had emergency brain surgery during the night, Superintendent. He is in the intensive care ward, and on the danger list. His wife is at the hospital, one of his daughters is also here.” Without a pause the man went on: “The Superintendent on night duty at your Divisional Headquarters has been fully informed.”

  “Yes. Thanks,” Roger said. “Has anybody else inquired about the Professor?”

  “Several newspapermen, naturally.”

  “Anyone else?” insisted Roger.

  “Not to my knowledge,” replied the other man, and for the first time sounded more human being than automaton. “Would you expect someone?”

  Roger said quietly: “In confidence – yes.”

  “Who?” asked the secretary.

  “A close friend of the Professor might call. Can you arrange for her to be given the latest information in strict confidence?”

  “I will give instructions that if any close friend telephones the call shall be put through to me at once.”

  “You’re very helpful,” Roger said appreciatively. “Thank you – I expect to be in touch soon.” He rang off, and sat back for a few moments, wondering whether that had been wise, assuring himself that the hospital secretary would certainly be discreet. Confidential, he thought, and seemed to hear Clayton’s voice and to see his troubled face as he had sat in this very office. “My God!” Roger muttered aloud. “He probably went straight home from here and ran into this.” On the word ‘this’ the teleph
one bell rang again and he picked up the receiver.

  “Chief Inspector Lovell of Hampstead Division is on the line, sir.”

  “Put him through,” said Roger, and a moment later: “Jack Lovell?”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “What’s known about the attack on Professor Clayton?” demanded Roger.

  “We’re gradually getting the picture,” Lovell answered confidently. He was a man fifteen years junior to Roger, likely to have a long and successful career at the Yard. “Two motorcyclists arrived at the back of the house ten minutes before the Professor. They were seen by a man walking his dog, and who is vague on time but is sure about the sequence of arrivals. The garage is at the side of the house, screened from the road – Beacon Drive – by bushes and trees. The Professor arrived in his M.G. and turned into the garage driveway. Judging from the blood which splashed the car and congealed on the drive, he was attacked as he got out of the car. Two motorcycles were seen later at Whitestone Pond by one of our chaps. According to estimates of timing, this must have been about ten minutes or so after the attack. The couple split up at the Pond. One went down towards Swiss Cottage, the other down past Spaniards Inn.”

  “Descriptions?”

  “Both wore crash helmets and goggles,” Lovell answered, “but both were small men, each rode a Hokki, each wore a black or brown jacket of leather or plastic, and each wore jeans. I was going to ask for a general call to go out on both.”

  “Call Information and say I authorised it,” Roger said. “Aren’t Hokkis those powerful Japanese machines fairly new to England?”

  “Well – they’ve only just started to arrive in a big way.