Young Petrella

by Michael Gilbert

  There came a time in every day, though. The last half hour before she sought her own bed; when her charges were asleep, and the telephone had stopped wrangling. She liked to spend it out in the summerhouse. It was a beautiful little baroque temple, lovingly transported, stone by stone, from its native Arezzo by the enthusiastic Sir Louis, as a wedding present for his third wife. In it he had placed, as a sort of table, a pediment of great antiquity, unearthed at Capua. A heavy square of old, hewn stone. On it the matron would place her knitting bag, her spare glasses, and her evening newspaper. Beside it she erected her deckchair.

  Her thoughts, as usual, were on the problems of the day. That funny old man. She was inclined to believe the children, when they said he meant no harm.

  “Sometimes he talks to us,” Lizzie Ferrers had said, “sometimes he asks us questions.” What about? “Oh, anything. Getting up time. Meal time. Bedtime. The habits of the staff. The routine of the home.” Very odd, thought the matron. Looking up, she saw him.

  Clear, in the bright moonlight. Then he was gone. He had dodged in among the trees on the far side of the lawn. Her first thought was to go back and ring for the police. Being a resolute woman she decided to wait for a moment, and watch. The back door of the summerhouse led directly to the garden door of the house and there was no chance of being cut off. And there was something else, too. The matron had spent part of her professional life in a home for old people, and as the Prophet came out again into the moonlight at the edge of the trees, she noticed that he was holding himself and moving like a man of half his age.

  The next thing she saw was that he was not alone. There were flitting figures behind him, among the trees. Three – no, four – men following him.

  She decided that it was time to move. As she turned, the attack developed. Two men flung themselves at the Prophet, who whirled to meet them. A twisting knot of figures went to the ground with a thud which could be heard clear across the intervening distance.

  As the matron panted up to the garden door, she received a further shock. A police car was already coming up the drive. Sergeant Gwilliam jumped from it before it had stopped.

  “They’re over there.” She pointed. “Fighting. Quick, and you’ll get them.”

  “They won’t get out without wings,” said the Sergeant. “We’ve had the place surrounded an hour.”

  He disappeared with his followers at the double. The matron went in and mixed herself a strong drink of brandy from the emergency store.

  Chief Inspector Haxtell counted up the score later that evening with Sergeant Gwilliam and Petrella, who had got too close to a flailing Len and had picked up a black eye and a broken nose. They were in matron’s sitting room, which had been turned into a temporary first-aid post.

  “First,” said the Chief Inspector, “we’ve got the Prophet, alias Dicky Bird, alias ninety-five other things, who came out of Parkhurst three weeks ago, where he’d been doing a long stretch for burglary. As soon as we get him out of the hospital we’ll charge him with – what?”

  “Being on enclosed premises,” suggested Sergeant Gwilliam.

  “I suppose so. I take it that it’s some sort of felony to try and re-steal stolen goods.”

  “Would you very much mind explaining what it’s all about,” said the matron.

  “Certainly, ma’am. This house used to belong to Sir Louis Borderer. Just before his death Bird broke in and cleaned up Sir Louis’ collection of Italian Court jewellery – good old-fashioned stuff, gold and diamonds mostly. He was picked up two days later, and charged. Most of the loot was never discovered. The police took all his known hiding places to pieces, brick by brick. No good. It was even hinted that he might get a remission if he talked. He preferred to take the full rap. He reckoned the stuff was safe enough. It had never left the grounds. He’d lifted that pedestal in the summerhouse, and shoved it in the hollow underneath.”

  “Do you mean to say,” said the matron, “that sort of table thing I put my knitting on?”

  “That’s right, ma’am. Tonight, when he saw the game was up, he told us. I reckon he calculated we couldn’t put him away twice for the same job. Which may be right.”

  “And those others?”

  “Ah,” said the Chief Inspector. “There we’re on much firmer ground. Breaking in with intent to commit violence. And the leader was armed. He’d a loaded gun in his pocket. That ought to take care of him for a bit.”

  “Well,” said the matron, “all I can say is that it’s very lucky you happened to be there.”

  “Very lucky indeed,” said Haxtell blandly.

  Later that evening he talked to Petrella.

  “It came out very nicely, didn’t it?” said Petrella, happily. “They’d left young Timmy outside, on guard, and he got away. We might pull him in too – but I think it’d be better, don’t you, to leave him out of this charge?”

  “If you say so,” said Haxtell. “Any particular reason?”

  “Well, they’re bound to work out that someone gave them away,” said Petrella. “Their first idea was the Prophet. But of course, as it turned out, it couldn’t have been him. Then, I think, they suspected Timmy. They knew the boy was friendly with me. If we let him off, they’ll be sure they were right.”

  “Yes,” said the Chief Inspector, slowly. “Yes, I suppose that is the best way. May lead to trouble in the future.”

  It would lead to a lot worse trouble, thought Petrella, if Len ever realised that his wife was the Bird.

  Nothing Ever Happens on Highside

  To Detective Constable Patrick Petrella the section called Highside was the least interesting part of the manor. It stretched, like the lives of its inhabitants, from the Lying-in Hospital at the foot of the hill to the public cemetery at the top; a honeycomb of tight, respectable streets constructed, as an act of faith, out of yellow brick and second quality slates by a tight, respectable builder.

  The backbone of Highside was Haig Road, and Petrella was walking up it to see a Mr. Gosport who might be able to give him some information about two other men, who might know something about alleged irregularities at the railway depot. A thunderstorm had been hanging over North London all day. The evening was heavy with undischarged artillery; and his feet kept reminding Petrella that he had been on top of them for fifteen hours.

  Ahead of him, out of a side road, came Sir Douglas Haig. That was what it seemed like at the time. It was all there, the neat, compact figure, the clipped grey moustache, the kindly, ruthless eye; the eye of Bapaume and Passchendaele, the eye of Ancre and the Somme.

  He was walking well, for a man of his age. But that was right, too, thought Petrella. Had not the Field Marshal kept his mind and his figure to the last? Suppose that, as a preliminary penance, great men were condemned to visit every street and square and public house named after them. The Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert would have walked a few miles and drunk a few pints before they won their way to paradise.

  When he reached the top of the hill the Field Marshal had disappeared. No, as you were. Petrella, standing on the corner of the pavement, could see his head. He had gone into the cemetery, and was sitting – or was he kneeling? – by one of the new white marble crosses.

  Petrella trudged on. Mr. Gosport was not at home. Mrs. Gosport explained that he was on nights now. He might be back in time for breakfast. It all depended on shifts. Or that was what he said. She had no way of checking on him. Sometimes he said he’d been working a double shift and came home full of beer. Once she’d found a girl’shairclip wedged in his top pocket. He hadn’t tried that lark twice.

  Petrella listened with a quarter of his mind and made sympathetic noises at the right places.

  When he got out he went back to the cemetery. The grey man was gone. Petrella found a new cross and squatted beside it to read the spidery, gothic lettering.

  “Arthur Millichip. The summons came for him in his 84th year. At rest awaiting the last call.”

  A boy and a girl were walking toge
ther on the pavement opposite. Petrella couldn’t see them, but he heard the boy say, “Swing in a lovely centre and Sam just nodded it into the net.” The girl said, “Go on.” She even managed to sound interested.

  Courting, thought Petrella. He won’t get away with spiels like that once he’s married.

  He could have gone home himself, to supper and bed. So far as he kept any hours he was long past the end of his duty, and the house where he lodged with Mrs. Catt was only two streets off. Instead, he trudged back to the police station.

  As he was climbing the stairs to the CID room he heard Sergeant Gwilliam laughing. It was the sort of laugh which took more than a locked door to contain it. There was sixteen stone of Sergeant Gwilliam, but very little of it was fat, and he had played rugby football for the police in the golden pre-war days when the blue jerseys had carried all before them in London Club football; and twice for Wales.

  “What’s the joke?” said Petrella.

  “Guess who just come in?”

  “I’m too tired to guess.”

  “Ginny Lewis.”

  “Came in, or was brought in?” asked Petrella. Ginny was a hard character, past his first evil youth; a middle-aged bully grown callous in wrongdoing.

  “Walked in on his own feet. The joke is what he came here for.”

  Petrella could think of nothing save force which would bring Ginny to a police station.

  “He came,” said Sergeant Gwilliam impressively, “to see could he have police protection.”

  Petrella laughed too, but absent-mindedly. Something was nibbling at the edges of memory.

  When he got home, he was almost too tired to eat, and fell into his bed, and to sleep. It was not the easy sleep of comfortable tiredness and relaxation. He was so near the surface that he saw the lightning, and was wide awake before the thunder rattled the slates of the little house. Then the rain came, in a steady drumming roar, and passed on.

  It was in the silence which followed that the still, small voice of conscience said to Petrella, “Of course, you fool, you were looking at the wrong grave.”

  It took no more than three minutes to throw on some clothes and then he was out in the street, belting his raincoat as he went. The stars were hidden, but the air felt cooler, and there was a tinkle of fresh water running down the gutters. He climbed the cemetery railings without difficulty – they were designed to keep the children out, not the dead in. On the gravel path he paused for a moment. It was not going to be so easy to find the exact spot he wanted.

  When he had stood on the pavement earlier in the evening, he had seen the grey man’s head. And the man had been sitting, or squatting down. Later, when he himself had knelt beside one of the graves, a young couple had passed, and he had been quite unable to see either of them. Therefore he had been too far down the slope. A good deal too far.

  The best plan would be to locate Arthur Millichip and move uphill and to the right from there. He used his torch sparingly. There were houses overlooking the cemetery and the last thing he wanted was a prowl car on the scene.

  He could almost hear Sergeant Gwilliam laughing.

  Away to the south, over the Kent and Surrey hills, the lightning played and the thunder cracked and grumbled. An occasional, single, heavy spot of rain fell on to him out of the black ceiling of the clouds.

  He found Arthur Millichip when he had almost given up hope. At rest, awaiting the last call. Up the hill now. When he saw the other cross it was obvious how he had made his mistake. Both were white and both were new. Mass produced, probably by the monumental mason who had his little shop outside the gates. Petrella hooded his torch, and squatted down beside it.

  The moment he read what was there, all his fears became cold certainties.

  He stepped back onto the path, trotted to the gate, and hauled himself over. A rapid calculation. Two minutes to the nearest call box. Say ten minutes if he ran, straight down the hill, to the police station. Speed was impossible under the black pall of darkness. He chose the phone box.

  Sergeant Gwilliam answered the call himself. It took him a few seconds to understand what Petrella was talking about. Then he said, “I’ll get a car to pick you up at Four Ways.”

  Less than three minutes later – perhaps five, in all, from the moment in which he had read what was engraved on the tombstone, Petrella was in the CID room talking to Sergeant Gwilliam.

  “Annie Lewis,” he said, “wife of George Lewis, née Cole. And it was Cole I saw this afternoon. I’m sure of that, although I’ve only seen photographs. He was sent up before I came here.”

  “Slowly, lad, slowly,” said Sergeant Gwilliam. “Let’s look at the fences before we jump them. I know Harry Cole well enough. It was me pulled him in. And his daughter, Annie, married Ginny Lewis sure enough. And Lewis and Cole worked as a pair. Housebreaking, screwing, a little smash and grab. But mostly plain, quiet screwing.”

  “When you sent Cole up for his long stretch,” said Petrella, “why didn’t Lewis go with him?”

  “It was five years ago,” growled the Sergeant. “I believe there was some trouble between them.”

  “Did Lewis buy himself out by turning Cole in?”

  “Not exactly. But there was something. . .” The Sergeant put his hand through his hair and stared at the discoloured spot above the door, which looked like old dried blood, but was really a leaking water pipe.

  “I’d say that Cole stood the rap for both of them,” he said at last. “Lewis was a younger man. And married to Cole’s daughter, you see.”

  “Yes,” said Petrella. He knew enough about professional criminals to know that this could be true. “But if Cole thought Lewis hadn’t kept his part of the bargain. . .”

  “If he thought that,” said Sergeant Gwilliam, simply, “there’d be trouble.”

  The telephone sounded.

  Sergeant Gwilliam listened like a man who had been expecting nothing but bad news, and at the end of it said “Thank you very much,” and replaced the receiver reverently on its cradle.

  “That was Control,” he said. “I put an enquiry through to them. You are quite right. Cole was released from Chelmsford after breakfast yesterday morning.”

  Petrella caught a glimpse of himself in the glass as they went out of the door. His pyjama collar had somehow escaped from the neck of the sweater he had pulled hastily over it and was sticking up through the collar of his raincoat. He jabbed it back with nervous fingers.

  The car was still waiting.

  “Cadsand Cottages,” said Gwilliam to the driver. “Stop when you get to the end of the road, and turn your lights out.”

  And to Petrella, as they ran along the empty High Street, “No wonder Ginny asked for protection.”

  Petrella agreed. He had seen Harry Cole’s face only twice; once in a photograph, once that evening. It was a face with the composed remoteness of a thinker or a killer.

  “Stop here,” Gwilliam told the driver. “You can put the car across the end of the road, with the lights out. If anyone comes running, grab them.”

  The driver, a long, gloomy man, called Happy, said, “If you say so, Sergeant,” and Gwilliam and Petrella got quietly out. They took care not to bang the car doors. It was very dark but the rain had stopped.

  “Ginny lives in the end cottage,” said Gwilliam. “He’s alone now. Since Annie died.”

  That was the last thing said. After that, they felt their way. Down the stone-paved lane, across the litter that was part garden, part builders’ yard; round the side of the ramshackle brick building.

  The Sergeant gave a grunt of displeasure. The back door was ajar. Then they were standing in a small room, a kitchen by the stale smell of it. And a tap was dripping somewhere.

  Gwilliam’s big torch opened up like a searchlight. It was aimed at the ceiling. In the middle of the grey plaster was a darker mark, the size of a plate. In the middle of the plate something gathered; and another drop fell down to the stone floor with a soft splash.

  Upsta
irs, on the floor of his over-furnished bedroom, lay the empty carcass of Ginny Lewis. He had been neatly butchered and left to lie. There was no one else in the house.

  After that there was a lot to be done. For Petrella, pressed down by the double weight of the night and of a mortal weariness, things seemed to pass in slow motion. First the cars arrived, then the doctor, then the men with flashlights and cameras, and policemen, and more policemen, and a real, white-haired Superintendent who, although it was only five o’clock in the morning, had somehow found time to shave his pink chin before coming to Cadsand Cottages.

  Petrella, forgotten, propped up the jamb of the kitchen door. The bulk of Sergeant Gwilliam loomed down upon him. “Go to bed,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

  “Any sign of Cole?”

  “Not a sausage. But we’ve put the net out. Incidentally, it looks as if Ginny was carrying a gun. Only he didn’t reach it quick enough.”

  “Then Cole’s probably got the gun in his pocket now.”

  “Probably,” said Sergeant Gwilliam. “It won’t make any difference. We’ll pick him up as soon as it’s light.”

  Remembering that calm and masterful eye Petrella did not feel so sure. He cadged a lift in a returning car to the foot of Highside and walked off up the hill.

  The storm, which had been grumbling about in the background like a much-enduring woman, put out a last long venomous tongue of lightning, and showed Petrella Harry Cole.

  He was sitting on a flat gravestone in the cemetery, his head on his hands.

  Petrella’s first thought was, if they hadn’t all been half asleep, that was just exactly where the search should have started.

  Then he had jumped the railing, and was walking steadily along the grass verge.

  Cole was sitting up now. He had Ginny’s gun all right. It was in his hand, and his hand was resting on his knee, steady as the stone he was sitting on. There was enough light in the sky now to see by. Morning was not far away.

  “Sit down,” said Cole. “Don’t come any nearer.”