Young Petrella

by Michael Gilbert

  They were known to be in England. The Special Branch had confirmed it. And they were thought to be operating from the area of the docks where they had friends. But, apart from that, there was nothing but speculation.

  A quarter to midnight. The last pubs had shut some time before and thrown their noisy contingents into the streets. In eight and a quarter hours’ time, Petrella’s relief would arrive, and he could go home and sleep. Ten hours was a long spell, when you couldn’t relax for a minute of it.

  Heath Hill Mansions was not a difficult fortress to defend. It was a great deal easier than a private house. The Judge had a flat on the second storey of the annexe. Underneath him, on the ground floor, lived a South African dentist. Above the dentist, a woman journalist, above the journalist the Judge, and above the Judge a practising faith healer. All the tenants had been there considerably longer than the Judge; and all had been carefully and unostentatiously checked, with the result that the faith healer was now strongly suspected of being a receiver of stolen goods. Such were the unexpected by-products of criminal investigation.

  A single main staircase led to the flats, and ended in a front hall conveniently commanded by the porter’s cubbyhole, in which Petrella sat watching the clock. This part of the block was L-shaped; and in the angle of the L at the back was a small walled courtyard, the gate to which was locked at night. In ordinary times an iron fire-escape staircase led up from this courtyard to the back doors of the flats; but, by arrangement, the bottom section of it was removed at night. After all, as Chief Inspector Haxtell pointed out, there was very little chance of a fire starting undetected if they had a policeman actually on the premises.

  What else, thought Petrella. There was a goods hoist beside the back staircase, which was locked during the hours of darkness, and was in any event far too small for the smallest terrorist to use. And to baulk assault from the roof with packets of explosive swung from cords – a method developed in Palestine – a fine wire mesh had been fixed across all the windows of the Judge’s flat.

  A car – no, not a car, a heavy lorry – rumbled past the end of the road, slowed for a moment, then changed its mind, and went on, picking up speed.

  Could any precautions be effective against determined, accomplished killers? Were there not a dozen ways into the fortress, even without physical access? The vegetables, the groceries, the milk. All carefully examined, it was true. Likewise the letters and parcels, the books from the library, the shirts from the laundry.

  But the men they were up against were ingenious and ruthless. They had learnt the art of secreting a damaging charge of explosive in a minimum of space. Petrella thought of the story the Judge had told him of the Inspector of Constabulary, who had lived in a similar state of siege for three months in Haifa. And how, in the end, Irgun had bribed or terrorised the local cobbler, and repaired his shoes with hollow heels full of explosive which had blown both his legs off the first time the Inspector wore them. Or the case of the Governor’s bodyguard, whose ammunition pouches had been filled with explosive timed to go off at the moment when the Governor was inspecting them; a plan which had failed because the Governor, on this occasion and most unusually, was two minutes late.

  “I can tell you an even sadder story,” Judge Vereker had said, swinging his legs and looking like a mischievous boy. “About my predecessor in Cyprus. It was not a story which received any publicity. AKEL had sworn to kill him. He was closely guarded, more closely than I am here. Perhaps too closely. You must always preserve a sense of proportion in these matters. It lasted for three months. By the end of that time, AKEL had made no move. But they had succeeded.”

  Judge Vereker paused, and added, “Poor fellow. He went mad. I saw him the other day. He’s a little better now, but he’ll never be much use. The slightest unexpected sound or movement makes him scream.” That, thought Petrella grimly, was a type of assault that was very unlikely to succeed in this case.

  He guessed that at that moment Judge Vereker was sleeping soundly. A lot more soundly than the anxious policemen who were trying to guard him, or, for that matter, than the men who were working to destroy him.

  Funny – what was that?

  A faint, scintillating light had appeared, over the trees and bushes in the strip of park that ran along the closed end of the road. If it had been the fifth of November he would have written it down as a cheap firework. It rose, dipped, and went out. Nothing else happened.

  One o’clock. A dog barked. Then another. He heard footsteps coming along the next street. Two pairs of feet. They stopped at the corner, and then the voices started. Too low to determine sex. Much too low to hear what was being said. One was insisting, Petrella thought, the other protesting.

  The voices stopped abruptly, and the footsteps came on. Peering through the open front door, Petrella saw them. A man and a girl by their silhouettes. They reached the porch two doors away, and the footsteps stopped and the voices started again, louder this time.

  They were just outside the range of his comprehension, but the cadences were clear enough. The man insisting, repeating. The girl saying no. No. No.

  Suddenly they broke off. There was a muffled scuffling noise. A cry. Then the man slipped out of the porch, turned his head for a quick look up and down the road, and took to his heels.

  Behind him, from the porch, came a little sobbing moan, and the girl staggered after him. Took two paces, stumbled and went down on her knees in the middle of the road. Clutched her stomach, and pitched forward and sideways onto her face.

  He’s done her, thought Petrella. His hands were on the door. He jerked it open, and his foot was actually lifted to go through, when reason took charge of his instinct.

  Anyone watching Petrella at that moment would have seen something as shocking as a car that is rolling forward being thrown suddenly into reverse. For a count of seconds, he stood quite still. The girl lay motionless in the road, the lamp casting a pool of light round her. Then Petrella moved, like one released from a spell.

  Very slowly his hand unfolded, and he let the door swing shut. Very slowly and very softly he walked back into the porter’s cubicle, picked up the telephone, and dialled a number.

  “Police,” he said. “It’s Detective Sergeant Petrella. On duty at Heath Hill Mansions. There’s been some trouble. Out in the street. A girl’s been hurt.”

  The other end of the telephone said something.

  “Yes,” said Petrella. “I thought so, too. Perhaps if you closed both ends of the street. Just in case.” He replaced the receiver and, almost on tiptoe, walked back to the street door.

  As he stood there, for the second time that night, a faint glimmering light arose, over the line of bushes at the end of the road, hung for a moment, and disappeared.

  In the succeeding blackness and stillness he heard a sound, small but distinct.

  It came from behind him. From the courtyard at the back.

  He ran across the hallway and jerked at the back door. It refused to budge. He put his shoulder to it, but realised that he was wasting his time. The door was built to open inwards.

  Quickly. Think quickly. He pressed the doorbell of the ground-floor flat. Almost at once the door was opened. The South African dentist was wearing a dressing-gown. He seemed surprisingly wide awake.

  “Trouble?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” said Petrella. “Would you stand here a minute? Shout if anything happens. There’ll be a squad car along any moment.”

  “Sure,” said the dentist. “Sure.”

  Petrella ran past him, into the kitchen, and snapped on the light. The back door of this flat also opened on the court. It was bolted, but when he had slipped the bolt it swung open.

  The light from the kitchen window lit up the little enclosed space. It was quite empty. Petrella had had visions of a ladder spanning the missing section of the fire-escape, but there was nothing at all. And all the upper windows were dark.

  He went out cautiously. A wire, he discovered, had
been passed through the handle of the door that led into the hall, and secured to a window bar opposite. And the back gate into the street behind swung open to his touch.

  Petrella walked thoughtfully back into the kitchen, bolting the door carefully behind him. He found the stout dentist on guard.

  “Here come your chaps,” he said.

  It was Haxtell, who must have been sleeping in his clothes. “Where’s the girlfriend?”

  Petrella peered out into the street, lit now by the powerful spotlight of the police car. It was empty.

  “We had both ends of the street blocked within three minutes of your phone call,” said Haxtell. “She moved pretty quick for a dead girl.”

  “It was a put-up job, all right,” said Petrella.

  He told him what had happened, and they went back into the courtyard.

  “We’d better move the wire,” said Haxtell. “We’ll leave the rest as it is. The boys may get something out of it in the morning.”

  They thanked the dentist, who observed that it had been quite an evening.

  “What do you think it was all about?” said Haxtell as they stood together in the hall.

  “Plainly,” said Petrella, “they expected me to run out and help the girl. I don’t know what was next on the bill. Possibly they planned to cosh me as I was bending over her. They had the back door ready wired, so something quite elaborate was planned to happen in the yard. Maybe a ladder up to the start of the fire-escape. And they’d have had a shot at breaking in through the Judge’s kitchen. It wouldn’t be easy. The back door’s locked and bolted and the windows are barred and wired.”

  “Maybe,” said Haxtell. “What about the fireworks?”

  “Some sort of signal?”

  “Signal of what?”

  Petrella considered the matter. “Suppose,” he said, “that they had the telephone from the flat tapped. Somewhere down the road. The first signal would be to start operations. The second would mean, ‘Break it off. He hasn’t fallen for it and he’s telephoned for reinforcements. Get out quick.’”

  “Could be,” said Haxtell. He was still worried. What he really wanted to do was to go up and see if the Judge was all right. But he realised that it might be difficult to wake up a sleeping man simply to explain that something was going on which he couldn’t understand himself.

  In the end he said, “All right. Keep your eyes open,” and drove away.

  Petrella was troubled, too, but about something else. He was trying to place the noise that he had heard, in the darkness, after the second light signal. At first he thought that it was the back gate of the courtyard. He even went out and tried opening and shutting it, but he couldn’t induce it to make the right sort of noise – a rackety click.

  He was still worrying about it as the sky paled and the light came back and a new day hauled itself sluggishly over the horizon.

  At seven o’clock the milkman arrived. He had, besides the milk, a box of fresh eggs, butter, and two loaves of bread for the Judge. Petrella knew him well by now. Nevertheless he went through the careful routine of search, even unwrapping and piercing each loaf with a steel needle.

  “Wooden like to search the eggs as well?” suggested the milkman, who was a cheerful young cockney.

  “That’s enough of that,” said Petrella. “You can send ’em up.”

  The Judge, who was an early riser, used to take the stuff in himself and cook his own breakfast. His daily woman wasn’t due till nine. Petrella was just reflecting, with pleasure, that by nine o’clock he would be safely in bed himself, when he heard the noise again.

  Unmistakably, the same rackety click.

  He jumped to the back door and jerked it open. Outside, the courtyard was empty. The milkman had gone. Nothing moved. It came again, above his head this time. Then he saw the wheel rotating and the wire running. It was the goods lift going slowly upwards.

  Time stood still.

  Then Petrella was in the passenger lift, the sweat pouring off him in a steady stream. First floor, second floor. And he was pelting down the passage. He placed a finger on the bell and kept it there.

  After an eternity the door opened and Judge Vereker looked out.

  “Why, Sergeant—”

  “Have you lifted them out?” croaked Petrella.

  “Lifted what?”

  “I’m sorry.” Petrella recovered his breath and his heart stopped pounding. “The stuff that was coming up in your service lift?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’d just opened it when you rang.”

  “But you hadn’t touched anything?”

  “No. It looked all right to me, though.”

  “The stuffs all right,” said Petrella. “I examined it myself. It’s the lift. They tampered with it last night.”

  As he spoke they were walking into the tiny, spotless kitchen. The doors of the service lift stood open, and the cardboard box of groceries lay where the milkman had placed it.

  Petrella said, “Have you got a torch?”

  The Judge hobbled off to his bedroom. When he came back with the torch Petrella said, “It’s right, isn’t it, that no one else can use this lift while your doors are open?”

  “Quite right,” said the Judge. “That tiresome woman in the flat underneath once went away for the weekend and left hers open. What’s the catch?”

  Petrella was on one knee, shining the torch through the tiny gap between the bottom of the lift box and the top of the boarding.

  “There’s something there,” he said. “I’m going to get help on this. If we leave the doors open and the lift where it is, it can’t hurt us.”

  He went into the Judge’s sitting room, and dialled a number which is not in the telephone book. A bored voice said, “Heath Hill Mansions. No. 27. All right. We’ll send a car round straight away.”

  Five minutes later a man in a raincoat, carrying a heavy bag of tools, and looking like a superior plumber, had arrived and introduced himself as Sergeant Oliphant.

  “Is it safe to watch?” said the Judge. “Or do you want us to clear out?”

  “Safe enough now you’ve spotted it,” said Oliphant. “Neat, though. Very neat.” He got a long steel rod with a tiny lightbulb at the end of it out of his bag, and inserted it under the lift.

  “Care to look?” he said.

  Petrella saw that three solid-looking blocks of some dark toffee-like substance had been clamped to the underside of the box. Oliphant took a thin pair of pliers, slid them in, and snipped twice.

  “Clever, really,” he said.

  He lifted off the box of groceries, and as he did so the whole floor of the lift rose for a fraction of an inch then checked.

  “They’ve slipped in a double floor. See? The sort of thing you get in a passenger lift. Spring loaded. The weight of those groceries would be quite enough to keep it down. That makes an electrical contact. When you lifted the box off, you’d touch off the stuff underneath. About six pounds of gelignite, I should say. Do you no good at all. By the way, how did they know your man’d be the first to use it?”

  “He had a special early delivery,” said Petrella. “Every morning.”

  “Great mistake,” said Oliphant, “if you don’t mind me saying so. Never do things the same every day. Not with these types. It’s playing into their hands. I’ll get up the steamer from the car and disinfect this lot.”

  Petrella stood for a moment, listening to Oliphant’s footsteps disappearing down the passage. He felt both breathless and deflated. Then he was aware that the Judge was speaking. “I notice,” he said, “that our friend has left his tool bag behind. I think we’d better get moving.”

  Petrella stared.

  The Judge gripped his arm. “There’s really no time to waste,” he said urgently. “Come on!” The next minute they, too, were out in the passage, and running.

  “Down the stairs,” said the Judge. “This’ll do. You won’t catch him now.”

  Together they flopped down on the stairs. Two floors below th
em a door slammed and they heard a car start. Then all sounds were blotted out in the solid roar from the flat they had just left.

  Petrella raised his nose from the stair carpet. His ears were singing. Fragments of plaster were still dropping from the ceiling and the air was full of dancing dust.

  “How did you know that that man was a fake?” said Petrella.

  “It was Antar,” said the Judge. “I recognised him as soon as he came in. He’s very like his brother.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He had a gun. Neither of us had. It seemed safer to let him think he’d got away with it.”

  “The tool bag was full of explosive.”

  “With a very short time fuse, yes.”

  “How did he know—” Petrella started. And then stopped. He was asking himself questions to which he knew the answer: “Of course. They had the telephone line tapped. It was a double precaution, in case we spotted the lift.”

  “They’re very persistent people,” said the Judge. “I expect they’ll get me in the end. You’d better go and comfort our lady journalist. By the sound of it, she’s having hysterics.”

  Lost Leader

  The late-afternoon sun, shining through the barred skylight, striped the bodies of the four boys sprawled on the floor. Nearby, the Sunday traffic went panting down the Wandsworth High Street, but in this quiet, upper back room the loudest noise was the buzzing of a bluebottle. The warm, imprisoned air smelt of copperas and leather and gun oil.

  The oldest and tallest of the boys was sitting up, with his back propped against the wall. In one hand he held a piece of cloth, something that might once have been a handkerchief, and he was using it to polish and re-polish a powerful-looking air-pistol.