by John Creasey
Janet had left the bedroom door open.
These days, they slept in twin beds, hers near the window so that if he were called out during the night, or came in late like this, he could get in and out of the room easily. Only her dark head showed above the bedclothes. He went into the bathroom, where his pyjamas were on a hanger behind the door, warm with the rays of a wall heater, and his slippers were by the stool. This was another refinement; he would be less likely to disturb Janet if he changed here!
He was in bed within ten minutes; asleep almost at once. Snoring lightly very soon.
Professor Oliver Clayton was still under sedation but vaguely aware of light, and of being conscious. A police officer sat in a corner of his private ward; a nurse or doctor looked in at regular intervals.
Rosamund Clayton did not really sleep, but dozed; both of her daughters were with her, in a room they had shared since childhood, and each slept soundly.
Hubert Fellowes, also under sedation, was in a ward for two people in the Charing Cross Hospital, but the other bed was empty. He had undergone the same operation as Clayton, carried out by the same surgeons. He was utterly oblivious; only the oxygen tent kept him alive.
Helen, his wife, slept fitfully in a small room at her mother-inlaw’s apartment. Lady Fellowes, under strong advice, had taken a double-strength sleeping pill, and was fast asleep in a bigger room across the passage.
Ida Spray slept as fitfully as Helen, never for more than a few minutes at a time. In fact she did not think she really slept at all because in her waking moments she was as clear minded as if she had been wide awake all the time. She could picture Kevin in his rage, and Oliver in his agony and now at death’s door; she could ‘see’ the face of the policeman who had called to see her: Superintendent West, referred to in some of the newspapers as ‘Handsome’ West. He was certainly that! Thought of him actually made her smile. Occasionally, a vivid picture of Oliver’s wife would come into her mind, too; the lovely, lovely Rosamund who must now know such anguish.
Would she ever know the whole truth?
Would the police tell her why her husband had been attacked? Simply because he had gone to the police about the blackmail?
And Kevin – under arrest!
He wasn’t really, she knew; he was being questioned ‘because’, a radio news broadcast had said, ‘he might be able to help the police in their investigations’. That wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible, it mustn’t be possible!
Only when she was thinking of Kevin and the possibility that he had been one of the two men who had attacked Oliver, did she feel real distress, and, partly because of the sleeping pills she had taken, even that was not so acute as it had been. There was at the back of her mind another realisation: she had been shocked and horrified by news of the attack on Oliver, but her real concern was not for him, only for her son. The years had brought acceptance of the situation and had strengthened affection, but the love she had once felt for him had gone.
It did not really matter whether he lived or died.
What mattered was that Kevin should not be proved guilty of attacking him.
In one of her deeper sleeping spells, the telephone bell rang. At first it startled her, and she did not know what it was but gradually the persistent ringing found its way into her consciousness. The telephone – Kevin! She sat up in bed and switched on the bedside light, then snatched up the telephone: who else would call her in these small hours?
She cried into the telephone: “Kevin!”
After a moment of silence, a man said: “No, I’m not Kevin, but the police have let him go.”
“Oh, thank God!” she cried. “Where is he? Who is that? Where—”
“Take it easy,” the caller said, with a laugh in his voice. “I’m a friend of Kevin’s, but he wouldn’t think so if he knew I was calling you. He doesn’t feel so proud of you as he did.”
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“Listen to me,” said the caller, “he’s asleep and he’s safe. He’s going back to Scotland Yard to answer more questions in the morning, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they keep him next time.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Ida demanded in a high-pitched voice.
“Just a friend,” the man replied. “If you want to get evidence that will prove your son is innocent and save him from being sent to prison for life, you’d better get a move on.”
“Where is he?” she cried.
“Meet me at the all-night café at the Strand Corner House at half past six,” the man ordered. “I’ll be wearing a green suit, and I’ve got red hair. I’ll be at the counter, just inside – just come and sit next to me. I’ll keep the place for you with a raincoat. Do you understand all that?”
“Yes, but—”
“Where are you to come?”
She answered breathlessly: “The Strand Corner House, at the all-night café, you’ll be at the counter in a green suit, and you’ve got red hair. But—”
The man said: “Just come. And if you want to help Kevin, don’t tell a soul.”
He hung up on her.
She kept the receiver to her ear and cried “Hallo, hallo!” several times but there was no response. Slowly, reluctantly, she put the receiver down. Her heart was beating wildly, and suddenly she shivered. A button at the neck of her nightdress had slipped free as she had stretched for the telephone, and the flimsy material gave her little protection. She shivered again and clutched at the nightdress, fastened the button, and then stretched forward for a woolly wrap, which she pulled around her shoulders. Questions, most half-formed, crowded her mind. She was both frightened and hopeful; and she was wary, not knowing what was the best thing to do.
She knew she wouldn’t get to sleep again. What time was it? She had pulled the bedside clock over as she had reached for the telephone, and now she straightened it and exclaimed: “Half past five!” She scrambled out of bed, and pulled back the curtains; the first pale light of the new day was spreading over the rooftops, enough to show smoke curling from some chimneys; even to show the chimney stacks and the slate roofs.
“I haven’t much time,” she said feverishly.
She put on a dressing-gown, made of beautifully soft Australian merino wool, a Christmas gift of a few years ago, from Oliver. She thrust her small, nicely-shaped feet into fur-lined slippers, and went to the kitchen, put on the kettle and busied herself for a few minutes in the bathroom, while it boiled. Then, warm and wide awake, she made the tea and took it back to the bedroom. She did not drive a car in London, and would have to go by bus or taxi to the Strand Corner House. Would there be any taxis about at this hour? And what time did the buses start?
Why should this ‘friend’ of Kevin want to meet her?
It was all very peculiar, and as she drank the scalding hot tea she seemed to hear the policeman’s voice: “If anything is at all strange, or anything unusual happens, and if you hear from your son, let me know.” God alone knew, this was strange! But Kevin had been caught, and it was too early for ‘Handsome’ West to be in his office. She began to dress quickly, in a smooth-textured trouser suit of bottle green; she hadn’t the figure for trousers but she loved their warmth. It was nearly six o’clock when she was ready to go, and she thought, almost in panic: I’ll be late! Then, she thought: nothing can happen to me in a place like the Corner House. By night as well as by day there were always people there.
She went out, and into the street. It wasn’t until she closed the front door that she realised she should have called a taxi by telephone. She hurried towards Holborn, the nearest main thoroughfare, looking in all directions and down every street for a taxi.
A small private car passed her.
A motorcycle engine roared, from a side street, so startling her that she swung round. A motorcyclist with a crash helmet and goggles was only fifty or sixty yards behind her, roaring nearer. Quite suddenly, simply because of this, she felt an awful surge of panic and began to run.
S
he did not see the small car which swung out of the next side street, for she was in blind panic.
She heard the roar of the motorcycle engine and the hum of the car, and suddenly a shout, a high-pitched whistle, followed by the wail of a police siren. She stopped running, and turned. The car which had just passed her was slewed across the roadway, and the motorcyclist, trying to mount the pavement in order to get past it, crashed on his side. Half a dozen white balls fell from him and rolled about the roadway into the gutter. A police car, siren wailing, was approaching from the far end of this street, while the driver of the first car jumped out and ran towards the motorcyclist.
A tall, ungainly-looking man appeared, on foot; and as he drew up he showed her his card: he was Detective Sergeant Venables, of the Metropolitan Police. In a brisk incisive voice which few of his colleagues at the Yard ever heard, he said:
“You’ll be all right now, Mrs. Spray. Please tell me exactly what happened.”
She hardly came up to his shoulder, and had to bend her head back in order to see him. Before she could begin to answer and before he spoke again, there was a shout from farther along the road, which sounded like: “Look out!” Next moment a concrete ball hurtled from the roof of a house opposite, missed Ida Spray’s head by inches, and shattered into a hundred pieces when it struck the ground.
Chapter Seventeen
More Arrests
Ida gaped upwards until a dark shadow blotted out the sight of the roof, a man on it with his arm drawn back, and the morning sky. The sergeant flung his arms around her and almost smothered her as he lifted and carried her into the doorway of a house close by. As they reached shelter another cement ball smashed against the wall just outside. Chipping flew off, into Ida’s hair, over Venables’s back.
Car engines snorted and men shouted, and then a man spoke from the street by their side.
“It’s all clear, Sergeant. He’s on the run.”
The sergeant released her from his great bear hug and looked down into her eyes; there was anxiety deep in his.
“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.
“I—I’m okay,” she answered. “Were those sons of bitches trying to kill me?”
“If they weren’t, the sergeant did his stuff for nothing,” the other man said jocularly, and then actually backed a pace because of the expression in Venables’s eyes. “Just my joke, Sarge. They were after you all right, lady.”
Venables looked along the road, spotted a car with the word ‘Police’ on the windscreen some fifty yards away, and said: “Get that car nearer, I want to call Mr. West.” The man hurried off, and Venables looked hard at the woman and went on: “Why did you come out so early?”
She explained, quite simply.
“It’s a good job Mr. West told us to watch you night and day,” said Venables. He did not add that it was also a good job that he, after waking early, had decided to come and see the precautions for himself, even luckier, that he had come here before he had checked the Fellowes’ home.
The police car pulled up and he moved towards it. He seemed reluctant to let go of Ida Spray.
Janet West heard the telephone before Roger, who was on one side and sleeping heavily. She was tempted to let it ring, but that would serve no purpose, so she pushed back the bedclothes. Brr-Brr! the bell went and Roger stirred. It was chilly. She shivered and drew a dressing-gown round her shoulders as she went round the two beds and plucked up the instrument.
“This is Janet West.”
“Er—ah—” a man began and she knew at once that it was Detective Sergeant Venables, to whom Roger had taken a great liking in the past few months. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I—er—and Mr. West, but—”
“Who is it?” Roger asked in a husky whisper. His eyes were wide open now and he was looking straight at her.
“… something’s happened I think he—I—”
“Venables.”
“Gimme,” Roger said, hoisting himself up to a sitting position. Janet handed him the telephone and watched him for a moment, then moved away, but he spoke and gripped her wrist at the same moment. “Where?” he demanded. “Where is she? … What? … Have you sent someone to the Corner House? … No, I wouldn’t expect anyone to be there, either, but there might be … What’s the time? …”
As he talked, Roger’s hand slid up Janet’s arm. The dressing-gown was only loose over her shoulders and she wore a short-sleeved nightdress. He was touching the warm flesh of her shoulder and she felt herself sitting down on the side of the bed; relaxing. “Well, I can’t get there, so you take her along and let her go in and see if this redhead in the green suit is waiting for her … Eh? All right, redheaded man … Will Mrs. Spray – here, let me talk to her.”
He shifted his arm to Janet’s waist, and brought her closer to him, although all his attention seemed to be on what he was saying.
“Hallo, Mrs. Spray, I’m sorry you had a bad fright … What I want you to do is to go to the Strand Corner House and do exactly what the man told you to … He may not be the one who arranged the attack on you, someone else may have overheard the conversation and it could be an invaluable help … You can rely absolutely on Sergeant Venables … Yes … Go ahead, Venables, but make sure nothing can happen to her or to the man, if he’s there.”
Janet heard a faint sound as Roger put down the phone; it sounded like: “I won’t sir.” He eased himself over to one side and put his telephone arm round her, drawing her down towards him.
“Good morning, darling,” he said.
“Good morning, great detective.”
“Ah, there are disadvantages in being a Chief Superintendent,” Roger said. “Occasionally you can tell someone else to get on with the job while you do what you want to do yourself.”
“When, for instance?” Janet asked.
“Now, for instance,” he said, and with a twist of his strong body and arms he lay by her side while she was on her back, head raised a little in the crook of his left elbow. “How long is it since I told you you were a very beautiful woman?”
She didn’t answer; just smiled, showing a glint of teeth. His heart began to beat very fast, and he kissed her lightly on the lips. She was as beautiful as when they had first married. More mature but just as lovely. The suntan gave her a glow she hadn’t had before they left home, while the rest and the excitement of the trip had put a glow into her eyes. “And desirable,” he said, placing his right hand on her waist.
“Darling, Richard might come in.”
“You haven’t known Richard wake up before his alarm goes at seven-fifteen for weeks – months,” corrected Roger hastily. “I like these shortie nighties. I can see how shapely and brown your legs are.” He drew the hem an inch or two higher. “Now if my memory serves me, there remains on that body delectable of yours a narrow, a very narrow strip of the original genuine paleface skin. Well, pale skin. I think I want to find out if the tan is fading.”
He kissed her again, still gently but lingeringly. He kissed her again, less gently …
There was no man with red hair and a green suit in the all-night café at the Corner House. Venables allowed Mrs. Spray to wait there for half an hour before going and joining her. She had recovered from both shock and disappointment well, and was finishing bacon and eggs and toast.
“Coffee, please,” Venables ordered when a Pakistani girl came up for his order.
“You must be hungry,” Ida said.
“Hm, hmm,” Venables agreed.
“I was famished,” Ida said. “I’d like some more toast and coffee. It wasn’t until I sat down that I realised I haven’t really eaten anything substantial since the night before last.” She smiled at the girl who brought the coffee and ordered more toast, and: “Bacon and eggs for you, Sergeant?”
“Well, jolly good, thanks,” Venables said. “But I mustn’t be too long eating them.” He signalled to a Yard man in the doorway and told him: “Anyone who wants to have breakfast now can – we’ll give the red-haired
man another twenty minutes.”
“Right, sir!” the other said, and went and told two others who had followed him and Ida Spray here. He passed on the message, and added: “That’s the same kind of thing Handsome always does – makes sure we don’t kick our heels while he eats. That Sergeant Venables is going places, if you ask me.”
Roger entered his office later in the morning as Venables opened the communicating door, and the outside telephone bell and the internal telephone bell rang simultaneously. Venables, filling the doorway, mouthed a name Roger understood only too well: “Coppell.” The internal call was probably the Commander. He lunged forward and picked up the receiver, barking: “West.”
“Come to my office at once,” Coppell said. “Drop everything else.”
“Right,” Roger said, and put down one receiver and picked up the other. “West.”
“There’s a Lady Fellowes on the line, sir.”
“Hold her on one moment,” Roger said, and swung to Venables. “Any news of Hubert Fellowes?”
“Still hanging on.”
“Professor Clayton?”
“Much improved.”
“Any word from Mrs. Spooner – of Godden’s?”
“No, sir.”
“Call her home number and ask her if she has her report ready,” Roger ordered.
“Sir, the Commander—”
“Hurry! Put Lady Fellowes through now, please.” Roger watched Venables dodge back to his own room; the door slammed as a woman spoke. “Good morning, Lady Fellowes.” Roger put as much warmth into his voice as he could. “I’m glad that your son had a reasonable night.”
“Mr. West, I want to talk to you, urgently.” She sounded almost breathless.
“Of course. Can you come here to the Yard?”
“No. I would like to meet you somewhere privately.”
“Where do you suggest?” Roger asked. He heard Venables talking in the next room, he was thinking as hard as he could, he was anxious not to upset Coppell but the job was more important.
