by John Creasey
Yes, her coat had several tiny tears in it.
‘It seemed hours before I got free,’ she went on, ‘and before I went to the house they drove off in a car. I saw two men, anyhow. David’s car was there, with the ignition key still in it, so I got in and followed them.’
And he had suspected her!
‘Did you—’
‘The car was difficult to start, and that delayed me; I knew I couldn’t catch up with them, so I drove back here. It’s been quite a night, Roger.’
‘Quite a night,’ he echoed faintly. All this, and plainclothes men had been nearby; they would hear plenty soon.
‘I’m a fool,’ Lissa said. ‘You must be cold.’ She hurried out of the room, and he heard her running up the stairs, walking overhead, then running down again. Her story didn’t account for the man in the dining-room, but if there had been one outside there might well have been another, who could have got in and reached the dining-room, keeping quiet after Roger had moved from the cupboard under the stairs.
Lissa brought blankets, wrapped them round him, tucked them in, bathed his head once again; and all the time gave the impression that only he mattered.
‘Now I’ll make you some tea,’ she said. ‘Or would you prefer coffee?’ From the door, she asked: ‘What should happen, after I flashed that light?’
‘Chief Inspector Sloan should soon be here.’
In fact, Sloan arrived as Roger was sipping hot, sweet coffee, and as Lissa was standing in front of a mantelpiece mirror, drawing a comb through her hair with slow, almost sensual movements. Sloan had two plain-clothes men with him. He had come across the river in a launch, held ready, and been prepared for trouble. Roger didn’t like his expression; and one of the others looked as if he were suffering from shock. Roger didn’t tie that up with the accident Lissa had mentioned.
He didn’t know anything more about the accident until the doctor arrived, to examine his head wound. An incautious remark earned a scowl from Sloan, and told Roger something was badly wrong. Once he forced questions, Sloan didn’t hold out. The two plain-clothes men who were ‘soon going to hear plenty’ had been patrolling the main road right and left from the private road, there simply to watch and report all corners. They met every fifteen minutes, to compare notes. They had been comparing notes when a car had run into them. One was dead, and with the other it was touch and go.
All of this was in keeping with the tempo of the crimes. Drugging, kidnapping, a slashed throat, now crushed and broken bodies. The car was a hired car, the driver had escaped. The ‘accident’ must have happened just after Shawn had arrived. No one was known to have seen Gissing and then Shawn come – except Roger. There seemed little doubt that Roger had been left for dead.
As he listened, with a thick towel round his neck while the doctor snipped blood-matted hair, Lissa was stand-in for a nurse.
‘You’d better have a bandage,’ the doctor said, ‘You won’t like it, but you need it. The cuts aren’t too bad, I don’t think anything’s cracked. Might X-ray, to make sure. What you need is rest.’
‘I can’t rest!’
‘You try getting about,’ said the doctor ominously, ‘and you’ll go out on your feet.’
‘I’ll take you home,’ Sloan offered.
No one asked the obvious question, which was stabbing into Roger’s mind. They had killed Ed, crushed the watching police, yet they hadn’t killed him. Why not? Had they left him for dead? One shot or one slash with a knife would have made certain, but they hadn’t been ruthless with him.
He had to be helped to Sloan’s car, and helped inside. His head seemed twice its usual size, and it kept lolling about. Sloan held one of his arms, Lissa the other. When he was in the car Lissa tucked blankets round him, and her touch comforted.
‘Take care,’ she said. ‘Do what they tell you, Roger. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ Roger replied.
Sloan moved off, cautiously, and they were past the scene of the accident and on the way to Hammersmith Broadway before he spoke. Then it was almost to himself, wonderingly; and it wasn’t about the slaughter.
‘Some woman,’ he said.
Roger didn’t answer.
Whether he liked it or not, Roger knew he would be off duty for forty-eight hours, and it might be much longer. He was hazy about what happened after he reached Bell Street. Janet had been warned, everything was ready, Sloan helped her to undress him and get him to bed, the doctor looked in and gave him a shot which blacked everything out. He was only vaguely aware of Janet’s ministrations, of light and movement, and he couldn’t think clearly, although he knew that there was plenty he ought to think about. He was cut off from the case of a missing child and tormented, half-demented parents, and that all-compelling reason for secrecy.
He hadn’t even asked Sloan or anyone else whether Marino had agreed to giving a hand-out to the Press.
Roger slept until after midday. When he awoke he felt much better, his head now shrunk to proper size, and only a threat of pain when he moved it, or when he ate and drank. Janet knew there was no hope of keeping the newspapers from him, and had bought all the dailies. In each there was a picture of Ricky Shawn, and a story which told the world this was kidnapping for money. There was a picture of Belle Shawn, too, a laughing picture of a lovely woman. There was none of Shawn. The papers told Roger nothing, except that he’d had his way. Reading, he was teased by an uneasy thought, that he had forgotten something significant – something he’d heard which could be a key to the puzzle.
Marino telephoned to enquire after him, so did Hardy. He expected a message from Lissa, but it didn’t come. Sloan looked in, told him that Shawn had been taken away from ‘Rest’ by two men who arrived from the Embassy; Sloan didn’t know what had happened to Shawn. The blanket of official secrets fell like a dead hand on the case. Roger felt irritated and glum, and put it down to the obvious – that the Yard had been consulted but wasn’t being allowed to work properly. The Yard should have tackled Shawn. The Special Branch or even MI5 might be working on the case with the Americans, of course – but if so, why had the Yard been consulted in the first place?
With time to think without the pressure of events chasing him, Roger thought he understood. In the early stages the Yard had been needed, to deal with the local police, neighbours, everything. If he hadn’t been injured he would probably still be working on it, but by the time he was able to get about again, the case might be over.
That forgotten factor still teased him.
Now and again, resting and even dozing, his body would grow tense. An image of Gissing’s face in the doorway of the dining-room would come, showing all the evil and the dead-lines. As Lissa was beauty, so was Gissing ugliness; corruption. It was thinking extravagantly, but he couldn’t rid himself of the thought. Gissing – corruption. In the moment of revelation the man had been stripped of the veneer covering his unholy, deadly self.
In the evening, the boys came home, commiserated, and went off, Scoop to his exhibition, Richard to see a film.
The next day passed, and Roger learned nothing more. Lissa had not enquired. There was nothing new from the newspapers, from Sloan or from Marino, who telephoned again. This time, Roger spoke to him from the bedroom extension, wanted to ask questions, to prompt Marino to talk about the case, about Lissa; but Marino would talk of neither, just told him not to worry and hoped he would soon be on his feet.
‘Tomorrow,’ Roger said grimly.
‘You stay in bed,’ Marino advised.
Roger put down the receiver, stared at the ceiling and felt as if there were a conspiracy against him. It probably meant the end of the case for him, and if it hadn’t been for that bloody blow over the head, he would have been in it up to his neck. Finding Ricky Shawn was his job; and finding the man who had run down the police officers was also his. He mightn’t be able to do it – oh, to hell with it all! He picked up a newspaper and began to skim through the headlines, then to read ‘American Letter’ in th
e Telegraph. He was halfway through a hotch-potch of political guesses when there was a rat-tat at the front door.
Martin, who was in for once, went to open it,
‘A cable,’ he said, marvelling. He came striding up the stairs and burst into Roger’s room, calling: ‘A cablegram, Dad – Western Union.’
Roger slit it open eagerly, heard Janet coming upstairs, wondered without trying to think deeply, and read:
‘Get well soon sorry I had to leave without seeing you Lissa Meredith’
The cable was from New York.
Roger stared at it, and the name especially. He didn’t realise that Martin was looking at him in bewilderment, or that Janet had come in. When he did wake up to that and look round, Janet was watching him with a strange intentness, and in an unfamiliar, even voice she said: ‘Put a kettle on, Scoop, will you?’ When the boy had gone, with obvious reluctance, she closed the door. ‘What is it, darling?’ she asked.
She spoke as if she knew that it was bad news, and Roger realised in that moment that he looked as if it were deadly. He realised, too, that this was because Lissa Meredith was in New York, three thousand miles away. He had to find an explanation for Janet, to stop her from springing to the obvious conclusion. He flung the cable aside, and growled: ‘From New York. Mrs Meredith’s gone back, everything’s been transferred there. It means the case is over, as far as I’m concerned, and I wanted to see the end of it.’
Tension faded from Janet’s face. ‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ she said, but couldn’t hide her relief. ‘Don’t worry about it, darling.’ She picked up the cable and read it; and obviously she hadn’t the faintest thought that the name ‘Lissa’ had stabbed him savagely.
Chapter Thirteen
Special Request
Janet said: ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’ and Roger laughed as he squeezed her arm and then walked to the car, which she had taken out of the garage. He wore a heavy top coat and a lightweight felt hat, which hid the plaster on the back of his head and the patches where the hair had been cut away. It was a week since he had been attacked at ‘Rest’. Except for tenderness round the patch, he felt quite normal as he waved to Janet, and drove off. The first dew of the summer had been heavy, it still glistened white on the rooftops, on the trimmed privet-hedges, and, where the sun hadn’t reached it, on the pavement. The morning was fresh and invigorating, a good one to start work again. In fact, he had been working at home. Papers had been sent to the house, mostly about Yard business, keeping him up to date with cases under way when he had been taken off for the Embassy affair. He had skimmed them, as routine. The report from Hardy about the Shawn case had not been routine. He had read it several times, and knew it almost word for word. The airways tickets which the man he had thought was Gissing had given to Shawn had been bought from an agency, and the buyer had not been traced. The only cause for satisfaction was that Marino had asked that a copy of the report be sent to Roger.
The Shawns were back in their Connecticut home, fifty miles out of New York. Ricky Shawn had not been returned to them, although they had flown with Gissing’s tickets. These were the cold facts of the situation, but Roger could read between the lines, and guess that Marino and others had tried to dissuade Shawn from returning to America but had decided to use no compulsion. Did it matter as much as Marino had said?
Would Marino have exaggerated?
Only Lissa Meredith had gone from the Embassy with the Shawns; and she was still with them, officially Shawn’s secretary, actually to keep close watch on him, of course. It was hardly a woman’s job, but there would be men at hand, Marino wouldn’t be careless. There was no clear indication about the real part which Lissa played, except that she was Shawn’s shadow.
There was the detailed report on the Yard investigation, which showed little in the way of results. The driver of the killer car hadn’t been traced, and this was somehow worse because the second plain-clothes man had died. Soon afterwards, Shawn had admitted being told by telephone, before his line had been tapped, when to go to the house at Barnes. Sloan had theorised that Shawn had been followed by one of Gissing’s men who had realised that Yard officers were nearby and acted swiftly and ruthlessly. There was evidence that Ed Scammel had been thrown into the river from a jetty near Barnes Bridge, some distance from ‘Rest’. The man named Jaybird had not been found, although he was now known to have been an associate of Scammel; he might be the man in the raincoat, might also be the killer driver.
The closely packed factual account made dry reading, as Roger searched in vain for anything to give an indication of Gissing’s present whereabouts; and those of the missing boy.
Mrs Clarice Norwood was still in Paris. She had been interrogated by a Yard man sent to see her, but all she had said was that Gissing had sent her to Paris, for a ‘holiday’. Gissing kept her, and the house was his under a covenant. She was worth watching, but it was by no means certain that she knew anything of Gissing’s criminal activities.
There were a number of trifles, among them, that Ed Scammel had had a car of his own, an old Vauxhall, which he had kept in a lock-up garage, and which had been found with a broken axle.
Roger got out of his car at the Yard, waved and smiled mechanically to the dozen men of the uniformed branch who greeted him; maintained a chorus of ‘Fine, thank you’s’ to those who asked him how he was, reached his own office and rang for Sloan, who came at once, obviously glad to see Roger back. He was massive and clean-cut, with a deceptive cloak of cherubic innocence that fooled a lot of people.
‘You’re seeing Hardy at eleven, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Roger. ‘I don’t know what he wants, probably to tell me I’m lucky I’m not under the turf.’ It was a quarter to eleven. ‘Bill, that car of Scammel’s.’
Sloan said: ‘You beat me, you really do. You’ve seen what it means, I suppose.’
‘I’ve wondered about it. What’s the story?’
‘The axle was all right on the morning of the kidnapping,’ Sloan said. ‘I mean, the morning before. Scammel went out from his lodgings in the early evening, came back, and was heard telephoning someone, saying that he couldn’t use his car. It’s pretty clear that the Austin was used because of that, isn’t it?’
‘It looks like it. Their one slip – Scammel’s car couldn’t have been picked up so easily as a new one. They used two, of course, the Austin at Ealing and the Buick at the airport – they didn’t risk using the same car at both places. Anything else?’
‘I was able to check with Mrs Meredith – my, what a woman!’ Sloan was almost shrill. ‘The only thing all three Shawns drank or ate that night was the milk. Except for that, the boy had different food altogether. His cup and everything he used had been washed up earlier. Everything you brought away was tested, and no drug found. The only luck we had was with the car.’
‘Luck?’ growled Roger. ‘It didn’t get us far. Any idea where Gissing is?’
Sloan didn’t know, but was ready to guess.
‘If you ask me, he’s put a few thousand miles between himself and England. It’s nearly eleven, you’d better not keep the old man waiting.’
Hardy was in his office, which was plain and nondescript, a little like Hardy, who had come up from the ranks and somehow gave an impression, at times, of being insecure because of it. A big man, usually dressed in clerical grey, now looking ill at ease in a black coat that didn’t quite meet at the waist and striped trousers that were hoisted a few inches too high. He had a sallow face, grey hair with a bald spot, and lines at his pale grey eyes.
The morning dress meant an occasion.
‘Just on time,’ he said. ‘I was going to send a warrant for you. We’re due to see Marino.’ He took his hat off a steel hat-stand, and looked Roger up and down. ‘You seem all right. Been swinging the lead?’
The trouble with Hardy was that although he meant that as a joke, he sounded as if he were serious.
‘It’s one way to get a day or two off,’ Roger s
aid.
Hardy led the way to the lift, and was saluted by everyone they passed beneath the rank of Detective Inspector. His big black car was parked outside, and his chauffeur was at the ready. When they had settled in and the car moved off, Hardy asked: ‘Seen the report on the Shawn case?’
‘Yes, and I’ve talked to Sloan.’
‘Then you know as much as I do,’ said Hardy. ‘If you ask me, Shawn would be easy to handle if it weren’t for his wife.’
‘Wives like seeing husbands occasionally,’ Roger said slyly. Hardy decided not to bite.
‘The thing Marino worried about most was the possibility that the case has an espionage angle – that the aim of the kidnappers might be to stop Shawn working. Think there’s anything in that?’
‘I haven’t a clue, and Marino admitted that he hadn’t.’
‘No one has, it just has the smell of it,’ Hardy said. ‘Another thing came in this morning, and Marino called me about it.’
Roger knew that this wasn’t a cue for questions.
‘You’ve got yourself in a fix,’ Hardy went on. ‘You seem to be the only reliable witness.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of Gissing’s face,’ Hardy answered, and shot Roger a sidelong look. ‘Shawn won’t or can’t describe him, won’t or can’t try to identify him.’
Roger felt a sudden swift beat of excitement, and he damped down a wild hope.
‘There is this Clarice Norwood woman, but we can’t call her reliable,’ Hardy went on. ‘Notice from the report how few people seem to have seen Gissing? Everyone gives a different description. People have glimpsed him going to and from that riverside place of his, but only snatches of him, in the car. And one of our sergeants saw him during that Paris inquiry, but that’s all. I hope your memory’s good.’
