by John Creasey
He slept soundly once he did get off, but telephoned Brown first thing next morning. Blake seemed to be resigned to his situation, Brown said, and nothing else had turned up.
‘You let yourself go, Skipper,’ Brown advised. ‘All there is to do here is tidy up the odds and ends. Why, even our Arthur’s beginning to admit the worst.’
‘Make sure the ends are really tied up,’ Roger urged. ‘Anything new about Richardson’s discharged prisoners?’
‘Only one there could be any doubt about is Ragg,’ Brown told him. ‘The others are married, settled down, and have alibis for the Jensen murder. Ragg’s got a kind of alibi, too – he was playing darts at a pub in Corby.’
‘Does he own a car?’
‘No,’ said Brown, as if that settled that.
When he rang off, Roger saw that massive Martin-called-Scoopy was in the room, watching him, and tall Richard called Richard was just outside, saying: ‘Come on, Scoop.’
‘Worried about this job, Dad?’ asked Scoop.
Roger said: ‘I am a bit, old chap, but you go and do whatever you’re planning to do.’
Martin hesitated, but soon went off.
Had he been at home, Roger would have been preoccupied all the time, but the high spirits of everyone else infected him. He went to bed late that night, and slept soundly until after nine. A telephone call at ten o’clock brought Richard springing up the stairs, calling: ‘For you, Dad. The Yard.’
Roger couldn’t get downstairs quickly enough, taking it for granted that this was something to do with Corby, even though it didn’t come from there.
It was Hardy, working on Sunday like so many of his men.
‘Sorry to worry you this morning,’ the Assistant Commissioner said, ‘but Brown tells me everything’s over at Corby bar the shouting.’
‘Looks like it,’ Roger said.
‘Good. Then come back here tomorrow, will you? And think over the Sparkham job today. There’s some talk of a defence alibi – we don’t want a slip up over that.’
‘My God we don’t!’ Roger exclaimed.
He drove the family back to London early on Monday, and went straight to the Yard. The Sparkham case was in a state of confusion, chiefly because a Divisional man had unearthed what seemed to be an alibi. Roger spent Monday checking.
There was no change at Corby, where Brown said tidying-up was nearly done. Ragg’s alibi for the night of the murder had a weakness – he could have been away from the pub for an hour – but perfect alibis were as often suspect.
It was at half past ten on Tuesday when Brown came on the line. His voice told of trouble, and Roger’s heart began to pound. Had Blake tried suicide again, and succeeded? Surely he would be too closely watched.
‘Don’t know whether it’s anything to do with our job or not,’ said Brown. ‘Very peculiar thing’s happened down here, Skipper.’
‘What is it?’
‘You remember the Composing Room?’
‘Of course I do.’ Brown could be prosy when he was worried.
‘You know that as the operators work on the type-setting machines, the Monotypes, they punch little holes in spools, which are sent downstairs to have the wording cast in metal.’
‘I know how it works,’ Roger said, and stifled his impatience.
‘Well, they don’t always go straight to the machines,’ Brown went on. ‘They’re marked and indexed, then stored – sometimes for two or three days, sometimes for a week or two. This lot’s been there for ten days, put aside for another edition of the big text-book order they gas about. The casters often fall behind the keyboards, too – the spools are kept in readiness for weeks at a time.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, a whole box of these things, about sixty of them in all, have been found destroyed,’ said Brown. ‘There may be more. Someone has been at them with a hammer and acid. Made a proper mess. The thing is, they were in that box last Wednesday, so the damage could have been done same time as the murders.’
‘Any sign of blood anywhere?’ Roger demanded. ‘Any indication that the hammer used to kill Jensen was used on those spools?’
‘There are some marks, and they’re almost certainly blood,’ Brown told him. ‘I’ve had some of the spools sent to Dr Arnold here for analysis, but he’s out on his morning’s round, and it might be a couple of hours before he’s back. Could get the job done at a hospital by a junior, but you know what a stickler Arnold is for red tape. I thought you’d better know right away, though.’
‘Quite right,’ said Roger gruffly. ‘I’ve got a hell of a day here, but I’ll come up first thing in the morning. You keep me posted. Any news about the three old lags and that car?’
‘Can’t trace any car with 5.50 x 15 size tyres to any of ’em,’ answered Brown. ‘I’m not satisfied with Ragg’s alibi, but I can’t really break it.’
‘Keep trying,’ said Roger. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well, there is rather a queer development,’ said Brown. ‘You remember Sydney Richardson’s daughter, Rose?’
What the hell was the matter with Brown this morning?
‘Yes.’
‘She’s been going round asking a hell of a lot of questions, and had a blazing row with her father,’ Brown said. ‘I dunno what it was about.’
‘Try to find out,’ urged Roger.
He stepped up the pressure on the Sparkham case, interviewed nine witnesses, and established that Sparkham’s alibi was phoney; at least that case was going well. It was midnight before he was home, though, and he was anxious to be off at crack of dawn.
In a strange way, he was glad about the Corby development, for it would make sure that he cleared up any lingering doubts. This time he would stay at Corby for a month, if needs be, rather than leave anything to Brown and Tenterden. He had an odd feeling which made no sense; he was glad that Charlie Blake was going to have another chance.
Yet Blake was in a better position than most to sabotage those spools – and if he knew that Richardson had tolerated his wife’s affaire with Jensen, then he might hate the managing director, and so the firm.
Chapter Ten
Rose
Rose Richardson heard about the discovery of the smashed spools just before lunch-time, when she came in from visiting three members of the works staff who were ill. Her father’s chair was empty, his desk littered with papers, and his secretary, a young and rather precocious girl with astonishingly long legs and as flat-breasted as a boy, said there was some trouble in the Composing Room.
‘Looked as if he’d drop down dead, Miss Rose, and it’s no use saying he didn’t.’
‘All right, Peggy,’ said Rose. She hurried out of the wages office and along to the Monotype Room; only a few of the machines were working, most of the men were talking, and there was an awkward pause when Rose went in. The foreman of the department covered it by coming across from his small office, rather like Blake’s in the Engineering Shop, and saying: ‘Have you heard about the trouble, Miss Rose?’
‘Yes. I thought my father was up here.’
‘He’s gone downstairs to the casters,’ the foreman said. That’s where the damage was done.’ As Rose turned to go, he went on a little awkwardly: ‘Can you spare me a moment, Miss Rose?’
Most of the operators were tapping the keys of their boards. Rose went into the little office, and the foreman pushed his hand through his hair, still awkwardly, and went on: ‘You might say that it’s none of my business, but your father seems terribly worried these days, and—well, Miss Rose, when he heard about this I thought he would faint.’
Rose said: ‘Have you any idea what’s worrying him, Mr Ward?’
‘No, I can’t say I have. Of course he’s always been the worrying kind, but it wasn’t until after the strike that he really seemed to be ill with it. I know it’s none of my business, but we older workers are all very fond of Mr Sydney, we don’t like to see him worried.’
‘I know,’ Rose said, and forced a smile. ‘And the you
nger workers don’t like the way he jumps down their throats. I’m hoping things will soon right themselves.’ She turned away and hurried across the shop, with the tap-tap-tap-tap of the Monotype keyboards like a refrain. Then she opened the door leading into the Casting Room, and was sharply aware of the acrid smell of molten metal. None of the machines was working. The operatives were standing in a group, and her father was saying in a shrill, squeaky voice: ‘One of you must know who did it. You must know!’ His eyes were glittering, and the right eye was twitching; she had never seen him look so bad. His hands were clenched and raised, as if he wanted to strike out at one of the men.
None of them spoke.
‘It’s no use standing there like a lot of dummies!’ Richardson shrilled. ‘Who did this? Look—who destroyed a week’s work by our operators? Who was it?’
He flung out his right arm and pointed a quivering finger at some high cupboards, fastened to the walls. Inside were dozens of cartons of the spools which had been punched – rather like the music of a mechanical piano player – ready for the casting. Three of these cartons had been emptied, and the smashed spools littered the floor. It looked as if someone had been let loose with a hammer, almost as if someone had gone berserk and trampled on them savagely, then poured acid over them.
Reed, foreman of the Casting Room, was a short, grey-haired man with a very red face and beady eyes. Rose saw him glance at the men. Several of them were looking angry, most of them were obviously ill-at-ease.
‘I want to know—’ Richardson began.
‘Daddy, Uncle Lance is on the telephone. He wants a word with you urgently,’ Rose interrupted, pushing past the machines towards her father. ‘Do you know how many spools are damaged yet?’
Her father stared at her blankly.
The foreman said: ‘So far we’ve found a hundred and twenty that are no use at all, Miss Rose. There may be more.’
‘Have you sent—sent for the police?’
‘Yes, Mr Tenterden’s on his way.’
‘That’s good,’ said Rose jerkily. She put a hand on her father’s arm, and he allowed her to lead him away from the Casting Room into the open air of the yards. His eyes were still glittering, and there was a beading of sweat on his forehead.
She had never seen his face so pale. Not far away was an alley leading to one of the side gates of the works grounds, used by a few people who lived on that side of the works. As she led the way to this, her father didn’t speak, even to ask her about the call from his senior partner.
‘Daddy,’ Rose said quite calmly, ‘if you keep behaving like that you’ll have much more trouble with the workers. You realise that, don’t you?’
She doubted whether he understood what she said. His eyes had a burning glow in them, as if he had terrible headache.
‘They simply won’t stand for being shouted at,’ Rose went on, ‘and you can’t blame them. They won’t make excuses because you’re ill, either.’
Her father moistened his lips, and said: ‘Who’s ill? What’s this about being ill?’
‘You’re ill, and we all know it,’ Rose said, in the same matter-of-fact way. ‘I didn’t realise how much you’ve been overworking, but you need a long rest.’
‘I’m not ill!’
‘You are, you know,’ said Rose. She did not know that she sounded much more adult than her own mother, and as if she were talking to a person much younger than herself. ‘I think you have been for a long time. Is there anything worrying you, apart from that?’
‘Apart from what?’
‘Apart from overwork?’
‘I’m not overworked. I’m not ill. I won’t have you talking to me like this,’ Richardson said jerkily. ‘What does Lance want? What’s this about a telephone call?’
‘There isn’t one,’ Rose said quietly. ‘If I hadn’t got you away there would have been an open quarrel between you and the men, and that’s the last thing you want.’
‘I will handle the men,’ her father retorted harshly. ‘I have been handling them successfully for the past fifteen years, and I don’t want teaching by you or by anyone else. Don’t interfere with me again, Rose.’
‘I won’t interfere unless I have to,’ Rose said patiently. ‘I wish you’d go home and take it easy for the rest of the day. You’d feel better then.’
‘Take it easy!’ cried Richardson. ‘Good God, girl, have you gone mad? How can I take it easy at a time like this. That was deliberate sabotage. A whole week’s work thrown away. We have customers pressing for delivery, publishers desperately anxious to get books out, the Machine Room’s waiting for work, and you talk about taking things easy! You haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about. Why don’t you stop playing at working, and go home and help your mother. Take it easy! Why—!’ He choked.
He closed his eyes, and it looked for a moment as if he would faint, but as Rose took his arm, he opened his eyes again, and appeared to recover. Something of the glitter went out of his eyes, he said: ‘I’m sorry, Rose,’ in a low-pitched voice, and turned and hurried away. He did not go through the Casting Room, but out towards the main gates, then into the main doorway. Rose did not go immediately to his office, but went by the roundabout way to her own. As she did so, she saw Tenterden and the big, heavy man from Scotland Yard, named Brown. Tenterden raised a hand, while Brown gave a formal: ‘Good morning, miss.’
‘Sorry to hear that there’s more trouble,’ Tenterden said. ‘Not serious, I hope.’
‘It is extremely serious,’ Rose said coldly. ‘For one thing, it seems to be driving my father mad.’
‘Upset again, is he?’ asked Tenterden.
‘Very.’
‘Exactly what do you mean, miss, by saying that it’s driving your father mad?’ asked Brown.
‘Production is being held up all the time, and this is a serious loss,’ Rose said. ‘And nothing like this has ever happened at the works before. This wasn’t done by Charlie Blake, either.’
‘What makes you say that?’ asked Brown owlishly.
She thought, furious with herself, ‘I’m as bad as Daddy.’ After a pause, she said: ‘It’s simply that Mr Blake was blamed for the murders, and for the delay on the guillotine, and—well, quite honestly, I’m too upset to know what I’m saying.’
‘I quite understand, Miss Rose,’ Tenterden said.
Brown grunted, and walked with Tenterden into the offices. Rose stood watching, saw the door swing to behind them, and stayed there for a few moments in vexation. As she waited a van swung into the gates, much too fast, and she had to step quickly out of the way A man at the gate shouted at the driver, whom Rose recognised as young Tom Cousins; for a moment Cousins looked scared. The incident jolted her mind off her chief anxiety. Cousins, who was in his early twenties, jammed on the brakes, flung open the door, and jumped down.
‘I’m ever so sorry, miss, I hope I didn’t scare you.’
‘If you drive that van like that again I’ll recommend that you be taken off driving,’ Rose said sharply.
The youth started to retort, stopped himself, muttered ‘sorry’ again, and went back to the van. As it crawled towards one of the loading bays, Rose found herself smiling. The man who had shouted, the gatekeeper named Gordon, came up to her.
‘That’s the way to deal with Tom Cousins,’ he declared. ‘Threaten to take him off driving, and he’ll be scared stiff. He loves sitting at the wheel.’
‘So do I, but I don’t go about nearly breaking people’s necks.’
Gordon said mildly: ‘We all drive a bit foolish at times, I suppose.’
Rose looked at him, saw the way his rosebud-shaped lips curved, and the twinkle in his light-brown eyes. He had a round, plump face, a little like a turnip, and a crop of almost white hair which looked like down. She laughed.
‘I suppose I do speed a bit,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll have to watch myself. Mr Gordon, have you any idea what’s worrying my father?’
Gordon’s twinkle died away.
&n
bsp; ‘No, Miss Rose,’ he answered, ‘I only know that something is very heavy on his mind. In the last few weeks he’s lost pounds, and—’ He broke off. ‘It really began with the strike, didn’t it?’
‘Are you really sure it began with the strike?’
‘Well, it wasn’t until afterwards that people began to talk.’ There was an apologetic look in Gordon’s eyes as he went on: ‘You know how it is in Corby, Miss Rose. Everybody talks about everybody else, and the works is no exception. It was common talk just after the strike was settled and everyone came back that Mr Sydney wasn’t the same man. It wasn’t that he was difficult, or that he tried any reprisals; as a matter of fact, he leaned over backwards to implement the terms of the settlement – no victimisation, especially. He tried to pretend that he felt just the same as always, but that’s the point, Miss Rose – he tried to look as if nothing had changed, but something had, inwardly.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Rose said. ‘And you feel sure it was the strike?’
‘Well, I know that some of us who weren’t concerned with the striking unions upset him rather badly,’ Gordon said very quietly. ‘I did, for one. As gatekeeper I’m not involved in any of the unions concerned, and Mr Sydney wanted me to use my influence with the men to defy the unions, but that kind of thing is too delicate for a man like me to interfere with. It was the same with several others.’
‘Including Charlie Blake?’
The small eyes were very steady.
‘Yes, Charlie upset Mr Sydney because he wouldn’t use his influence against the strike, Miss. Mr Sydney didn’t seem to understand that if we did anything, or even tried to, we might have made the situation worse. Things have been all right on the surface since, but underneath—well, I always had a feeling that your father still resented what we’d done. Or rather, what we hadn’t done.’
‘I see, Mr Gordon,’ Rose said, and after a pause she went on: ‘I can’t believe that the strike would have upset him like that – not for so long, anyhow. And I’m quite sure that he wouldn’t hold a grievance against anyone, especially people like you and Charlie Blake. I’m wondering if there might be some other reason for the change in him. Will you see if you can find anything out from the works?’ she asked, and added almost hopelessly: ‘Someone must have an idea what it is.’
