Ring of Terror

by Michael Gilbert

  5

  When Luke reported what Daines had said, Wensley looked up from a photograph he was studying, thought about it briefly and said, ‘Report weekly, in writing,’ and returned to the photograph. As that seemed to be all he was going to say Luke edged towards the door.

  Wensley said, ‘Come here a moment.’ He pushed the photograph across the desk. ‘What do you make of that?’

  It was a close-up of a dead man’s face. The only remarkable thing about it was a sickle-shaped slash on each cheek.

  ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t mean much to me, sir.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say it was the sign of a secret society?’

  ‘Difficult to say, sir.’

  ‘Very difficult,’ said Wensley.

  Luke thought he looked tired and worried and said as much to Joe who had been waiting outside.

  ‘Of course he’s tired,’ said Joe. ‘Poor old sod. Like I told you, he gets landed with any sticky work that’s going. A body turns up on Clapham Common, which is miles from his division. But because it’s a Russian Jew and because a likely suspect is another Russian it gets shovelled on to Fred’s plate. I expect he can live with it. What were his orders for us?’

  ‘To report in writing once a week.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘That we do what we like and tell him about it once a week.’

  ‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘I’ve no complaints about that. Sounds like the recipe for a rest cure. The only thing is, what about Josh? He likes to keep an eye on the Detective Branch.’

  What Superintendent Joscelyne thought about it transpired later that day when he summoned Luke and Joe to his office. His ears were still tingling both from Winston’s criticisms and from the indirect but even more hurtful comments of other senior police officers, which had made him truculent in temper and violent in speech.

  He said, ‘I gather that your job will be to keep an eye on those fornicating Russian bastards. Right? And if keeping an eye on them involves getting a bit rough with them, I’d say get as rough as you like. Don’t worry. I’ll support you. You understand?’

  He glared at each of them in turn. Luke said, ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘No kid gloves. Give them the sort of treatment they gave Tucker and Bentley and Choate. Work together. Watch your step. Keep your eyes open. Don’t get caught. Don’t get shot. Any questions?’

  Since neither of them could think of any questions to ask about these instructions, they were dismissed with an injunction to get on with it and not fuck about.

  ‘Don’t get caught,’ said Joe. ‘I should worry. A champion dodger like me. If a squad of gamekeepers couldn’t catch me, what chance have a mob of heavy-footed Ruskies got?’

  Luke said, ‘Daines isn’t stupid. If he thought they were dangerous, I’ll go along with it. We keep our heads down.’

  ‘Now you’re talking sense,’ said Joe. ‘Lead me to a comfortable bed and I’ll get my head right down on it, no fooling.’

  Luke ignored this. He was pursuing his own thoughts. He said, ‘You remember what happened, that night I got coshed?’

  ‘I remember what you told me about it.’

  ‘I was following young Tomacoff. He’s not important. Just an errand boy. He’d been given a message and told where to go and when. From the way he kept looking at his watch his instructions seem to have been to hang about and not get there before a stated time. Right?’

  ‘Seems logical.’

  ‘But is it? If he’d simply got a message, why couldn’t he get there whenever he liked? If the man it was meant for wasn’t in, he could always wait. So what was he hanging round for? A dangerous thing for him to do, at that time of night.’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think. I think certain precautions had been taken. Routine precautions for men like that. Tomacoff was waiting until his guardian angel was in position. If he was followed, his guardian angel would follow the follower. You follow me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it’s obvious. And it’s just the sort of drill they would adopt. They’re professional terrorists. People who’ve lived for years in their own country with eyes in the back of their heads. Which is why they’ve survived.’

  ‘OK,’ said Joe patiently. ‘You followed Tomacoff. An angel with a sand-bag followed you. So what does it add up to?’

  ‘It adds up to something we should have thought about before. If the man that Tomacoff was going to see was important enough to warrant such elaborate protection he must have been one of their top men. And a man like that wouldn’t have been lodged any old where. He’d be in a safe house. Kept by a trusted person.’

  ‘The widow Triboff. That smelly old bag.’

  ‘Old bag she may be. But I’ve a feeling that if we shook her hard enough something useful might fall out. We’d jumped to the conclusion that her lodger was there by chance. I don’t believe it. I think the Triboff house is one of their centres of activity and must be watched.’

  ‘By us?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Starting when?’

  ‘Starting tonight.’

  ‘I thought that was what you meant,’ said Joe.

  ‘Most of police work,’ Wensley had said, ‘is waiting and watching. I once kept it up for thirty-six hours on end. It was a wasted effort. I was watching the wrong house.’

  Luke thought about this, as the sky began to pale over the roof and chimney stacks of the widow Triboff’s home. This time they had a more comfortable observation post than the doorstep on which he had squatted on the previous occasion. They had broken into an empty house and established themselves at an upstairs window.

  Joe was beside him, flat on his back and snoring. It was gone half past seven before he rolled over, grunted, sat up and said, ‘How long’ve I bin asleep?’

  ‘Difficult to say,’ said Luke. ‘It was two o’clock or thereabouts when you started to snore. You might have been asleep before that.’

  ‘Is that a fact? Well, seeing as how no one turned up, it didn’t matter whether I was awake or asleep, did it?’

  ‘What makes you think that no one turned up?’

  ‘If there had been anyone for us to follow, I suppose you’d have woken me up. I mean, we’re on the job together, aren’t we? Correct me if I’m mistook.’ Like most people who feel that they’re in the wrong, Joe managed to sound aggrieved.

  Luke said, ‘I never supposed we’d be able to follow anyone. All I wanted to do was to see if someone turned up.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘Two people. Neither of them stayed more than a few minutes. The first one’—Luke looked at his scribbled notes—’dropped in at 3.15 and the second at 4.25. Both were youngsters. One of them could have been Tomacoff. I imagine they were dropping in written messages for collection later. If we’d followed them we might have found out where they lived. Hardly worth the trouble, though.’

  So what do we do now?’

  ‘We pay a visit – an official visit – to the widow Triboff. Look as fierce and formidable as possible.’

  ‘I can’t look formidable when I’m dying of starvation.’

  ‘Work first, breakfast next.’

  A double rap on the Triboff door, repeated with increased emphasis, produced an untidy old lady in a dressing-gown with her hair in rags. Luke showed her his police identity card and pushed past her into the room at the back of the house which seemed to do duty as sitting-room, kitchen and bedroom combined. The old woman followed him, squawking indignantly. Joe followed her to cut off her retreat.

  Standing with his back to the window, Luke surveyed the dirty, cluttered room in silence until the old lady’s protests had died down to a mumbling and clucking. Then he said, ‘Your name is Triboff?’ All he got was what might have been a nod. ‘I want to know who the two men were who visited you last night. What they came for, and if they brought letters, what you’ve done with them.’

  The widow snapped her toothless jaws shut
and said nothing. Luke stepped up to her. When he was so close to her that he could smell her breath and her fear, he repeated the question; with the same result.

  He thought, with disgust, she expects me to hit her. Followed by a second thought. However much I hurt her she isn’t going to talk. He appeared to change his mind. He said, ‘When you’ve got dressed you’ll come along to the police station in Leman Street to answer some questions. If you’re not there by nine o’clock you’ll be fetched. Which may not be so pleasant. You understand?’

  The old woman bobbed her head. Luke could see that she was deeply relieved by this change of plan.

  ‘Then get on with it.’ He strode out into the front passage, followed by a mystified Joe. When he reached the front door he snibbed back the catch on the lock and slammed the door behind them. Then they walked away until they were out of sight of the house.

  ‘Give her two minutes,’ said Luke.

  When they got back they eased the front door open and tiptoed along the passage. The living-room was empty, but someone was moving upstairs and they heard a metallic sound.

  ‘Come on,’ said Luke. ‘Quickly now.’

  The room above the widow’s sordid den was, as they saw when they burst into it, an altogether superior apartment. Neat, well warmed and lighted, with a big desk alongside one wall and a bed pushed back against another; it was an office-cum-bedroom, comfortable and ready for use. The heating came from an old-fashioned iron stove into which the widow was trying to push a sheaf of papers. When she saw her visitors she screamed, but did not stop what she was doing.

  ‘Grab her,’ said Luke.

  Joe sprang into action, twisted the widow’s left arm behind her back, frog-marched her across the room and banged her right wrist down on the corner of the desk, loosening her hold on the papers which fell on to the floor. In her anxiety to get rid of them, the widow had rolled them into a sheaf which was too large to go between the bars of the stove. All she had succeeded in doing was charring the ends of them.

  ‘Sit her down in that chair,’ said Luke.

  ‘Tie her up?’

  ‘No need. She won’t run away.’

  The events of the last few minutes had knocked most of the fight out of her. She sat in silence as Luke gathered up the papers. He said, ‘Now listen to me, Mother Triboff. Do you know a man called Weil? Molacoff Weil?’

  The widow started to shake.

  ‘I see that you know the sort of man he is. All right. Unless you answer a few questions I’m going to let him know that you handed over these papers to us, to get yourself out of trouble. And that you let us take them away. So what do you think he’ll do to you?’

  ‘Feed her into the stove, like as not,’ said Joe. But the widow took no notice of him. Her eyes were on Luke and on the papers, which he had unrolled and started to examine. Her lips were working.

  Finally she said, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to know where the messages are that came last night.

  You can’t have sent them on yet, because no one has left the house. Also I want to know who’s the man who uses this room.’

  ‘And if I tell you, you won’t—’

  ‘If you tell us, that’s the end of the matter.’

  ‘You’ve got the messages there.’

  Most of the documents were anarchist literature, handbills and circulars, printed by the Anarchist Press in Jubilee Street. From among them Luke extracted two grubby envelopes, neither of them sealed. The notes in them were in Russian, unheaded and unaddressed. The first said, ‘The usual place, tomorrow. Bring your two friends with you.’ The second said, ‘When you go to your workshop watch your back. This is important.’

  Luke said, ‘What’s this “usual place” and this workshop they talk about?’

  The old woman shook her head. She knew nothing. All she had to do was pass on messages to people who came to collect them. This seemed reasonable. Luke changed tack. He said, ‘Tell me about the man who uses this room. He seems to have made himself pretty comfortable. He must have been here some time.’

  ‘Trout. His name was Trout.’

  ‘Sounds fishy to me,’ said Joe, predictably.

  ‘Is that all you can tell us?’

  ‘I know nothing more. He came, he paid his rent, he hobbled away.’

  ‘He had some difficulty in walking?’

  ‘Yes. He was lame.’

  Looking through the printed papers whilst he was talking, Luke had spotted one that was handwritten. It seemed to be a receipt of some sort and the important thing was that it had an address on it. 22, Cundy Street. Careful not to seem too interested in it he pushed it into his pocket with the two messages, rolled up the anarchist literature and gave it to Joe. The widow watched him, blinking fearfully.

  ‘If he—if anyone asks,’ she said, ‘you will tell him that you took the papers by force. That I tried to burn them, but you prevented me.’

  ‘Very well. That shall be our story. Only changed a little. You didn’t try to burn the papers. You succeeded. That puts you in an even better light, yes?’

  The old lady nodded. Now that Luke had started to speak in Russian she was following what he said closely, her button eyes gleaming.

  ‘Second point, if Mr Trout reappears, you get the news to us at the police station in Leman Street. You know it?’

  ‘The police house, yes.’

  ‘Good. Then, for the moment, goodbye.’

  ‘What next?’ said Joe, as they slammed the widow’s door behind them.

  ‘Breakfast,’ said Luke. ‘Then we might have a look at this Anarchist Press.’

  Later that morning their route to Jubilee Street took them along Stepney Way and down Sidney Street. Small clumps of sightseers were still poking around, pocketing slivers of charred wood as mementoes and staring about them, although there was nothing to stare at except the forlorn carcass of number 100, half-burned timbers poking up through the rubble of brickwork and fallen tiles. A group, halfway down the street, was being addressed by a small, stout person with an aggressive moustache and a red nose.

  ‘So what do they come ‘ere for?’ he was saying. ‘And where do they come from? I can tell you that. I’ve bin watching ‘em. They come from up there.’ He jerked one thumb over his left shoulder to indicate the upper class end of London. ‘They come to see what poor people like us is forced to live in.’

  Luke though that the chain of gold links looped across his waistcoat was not one of the more obvious signs of poverty.

  ‘Forced, we are, to live among furren muck, men who think as little of using guns and bombs as we think of blowin’ our noses. So let me ask you a question. ‘Oo let ‘em in?’

  He waited for his audience to oblige with an answer. One of them offered. ‘Parliament let ‘em in.’

  ‘And oo’s responsible to Parliament?’

  This defeated his listeners, so he supplied the answer himself.

  ‘It’s the bloody ‘Ome Seggeratry oo’s responsible. Mr Winston bloody Churchill. If I’d my way, ‘e’d ‘ave bin tossed into the fire along with ‘em.’

  A policeman on the outskirts of the crowd, who had been listening absentmindedly with his thoughts on his relief and his next meal, now sharpened up. It seemed that the orater was stepping outside permissible limits.

  ‘And what did our blessed ‘Ome Seggeratry do? ‘E came down ‘ere to enjoy the fun. I seen ‘im with my own eyes, standing on this very spot, gloatin’ over the destruction.’

  At this point the policeman drew out his book and made a note and it occurred to Luke that they would be better away. As they moved off down the side street they saw another policeman at the corner of Lindley Street, and a third one at the point where Jubilee Street ran out into the Mile End Road; strategic points where they could keep an eye open for trouble.

  Joe said, ‘The Anarchist Press is number 37. That’ll be right up the far end.’ When they reached it and could see round the corner, they were in time to witness a more seriou
s piece of trouble.

  A group of four toffs, on a spree, had grabbed a passing youngster. When they found he was Russian they had evidently decided, for no very good reason, that he must be a terrorist and two of them were devoting their attention to teaching him a lesson. They had forced him to his knees and the shorter of his assailants had grabbed his hair and was hitting him in the face. The taller one was kicking him, choosing his targets carefully.

  ‘Bullying,’ said Luke. ‘And enjoying it. We’ve got to stop this before they damage him badly.’

  ‘The odds aren’t too steep,’ said Joe. ‘Help is at hand.’

  He had noted the policeman at the Lindley Street corner and before charging in, he blew a blast on his useful whistle. As they arrived, the tall attacker aimed a last kick at the boy and transferred his attention to Luke. The taller they come the harder they fall, he thought. Pivoting on one foot, he hooked his opponent’s ankle from under him and put him on his back with a satisfying thump.

  When the policeman cantered up, Joe had the shorter one with his head in chancery under his arm. The other two had bolted, pausing at the corner to look back and signal violently. The message was clear. Luke’s opponent scrambled to his feet and ran to join them. Luke watched him go, but made no attempt to follow. Joe loosened his victim, who was purple in the face, grabbed one of his wrists and twisted his arms up behind his back. After which brief flurry of action Luke and Joe introduced themselves.

  ‘Certainly we’re charging him,’ said Luke. ‘Assault and battery. Maybe attempted murder.’

  ‘Not just attempted,’ said Joe. In fact the boy on the ground looked unpleasantly corpse-like.

  ‘I don’t think he’s dead,’ said Luke. He bent down to feel his heart and stood up abruptly. ‘If you go with the constable—Perry, isn’t it?—and see to the formalities, I’ll get this one home. Mostly shock and bruises, I think. But the sooner he’s in bed the better.’