The C.I.D Room

by Roderic Jeffries

  The C.I.D. Room

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1967

  Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1967 by John Long.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  1

  Fortrow, built on both banks of the river Fort, had been a port from the time of the threatened invasion by Napoleon. After Waterloo, peace produced a decline in importance and trade, a decline that was only halted, just short of the port’s extinction, by World War I. Within one year, Fortrow had been jerked out of its long torpor into a busy, thriving port where there were often more ships waiting than berths available. The depression after the war laid its bitter hand on Fortrow and the wharves became deserted, their tall movable cranes were motionless and rusting, the large warehouses lay empty, the railway lines no longer rumbled to traffic, and rubbish blew everywhere. Came the end of the depression and World War II and Fortrow port once more boomed into life. In 1940, the town was bombed every day for a week and much of the centre and half the dock area became rubble, but somehow the shipping was kept moving. After the war, the export drive brought fresh trade as did the general state of the country, since the number of emigrants increased until there were hardly enough ships to carry them.

  Fortrow was a mélange of market town, shopping centre, light industrial estates, and port. In a half-mile drive one could pass the market-place with its pens of bewildered, sometimes terrified animals, a scent factory which should have been built out on one of the estates but whose managing director had been very friendly with one of the town councillors, the centre of the town rebuilt in what contemporary reports had called a refreshingly daring style, and arrive at the dirty, ugly ten-foot-high brick wall that surrounded the old docks and looked Victorian in age although it had been built in 1915.

  *

  Fortrow had its own borough police force. The autonomy of the force had often been threatened by Home Secretaries who demanded amalgamation with the county force, but to date the civic authorities had won all fights on this score. The force was divided into two divisions, West and East. Eastern Division covered less territory, but had far more work to carry out since most of the dock area fell within its boundaries. There were more fights in a week here than the Western Division had in a month: the murder rate was out of all proportion to the national rate.

  Detective Inspector Fusil was in charge of the C.I.D., Eastern Division. He was forty-one, tall, lean, and although he disliked any reference to the fact, his hair was beginning to thin above each temple. He was a man whose hatred of criminals had an edge to it. People who knew him frequently said he was too keen, too sharp, and that it never paid to look on the task of catching criminals as anything more than a job. There was truth in these observations, but when a case called for something extra if it was ever to be solved, Fusil could provide that extra something because of his sharp hate. It was a double-edged weapon, though, and it could hurt the wrong man. Fusil had been hurt over the Burchell case. He’d been called before the chief constable and only just avoided appearing on a disciplinary charge. Nothing would ever erase the black mark in his files.

  His office was upstairs in the wing of Eastern Division H.Q., a squat, ugly building looking vaguely as if it had meant to be Georgian in style before something went wrong. The room was large, cold in winter and hot in summer, in need of decoration, and at all times draughty. On the south wall hung a photograph of a past detective inspector — no one could remember why the photograph was there, gathering dust and slowly turning more and more yellow.

  Fusil’s desk was large and battered: it had come from the divisional superintendent’s room. On it were a number of files, an ‘In’ basket that had overflowed into an ‘Out’ basket, a small pile of law books, and the morning’s mail. Fusil read through the mail. There were circulars from the borough and county forces, requests for witnesses’ statements, an anonymous and very obscene letter, an advertising brochure for a cruise in the Caribbean, and the latest list of stolen cars which was an endless succession of registration numbers that was virtually useless because of its size.

  The telephone rang. He lifted the receiver. ‘Detective Inspector.’

  ‘D.C.I. here, Bob.’

  ‘’Morning, sir.’ It was his immediate superior, Detective Chief Inspector Kywood, in charge of borough C.I.D.

  ‘I haven’t had that list of car expenses for the past quarter.’

  ‘It’ll be with you tomorrow.’

  ‘Good, good.’ There was a brief pause. ‘Bob, there’s a change in staff coming your way.’

  ‘What kind of a change?’

  ‘Charrington’s being posted to county C.I.D.’

  ‘Charrington?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Look, sir, he’s my best bloke. Why take him when I’ve enough crime on my plate for six divisions? Can’t you…?’

  ‘It’s all fixed, Bob.’

  ‘You could have a word…’

  ‘I said, it’s all fixed.’

  Fusil swore.

  ‘Tell Charrington to report to C Division next Monday. Married quarters are available. He’ll get the usual allowances for the move, of course.’

  ‘Why do we let county take all our best blokes?’

  ‘It’s no good shouting, Bob, and you ought to know that as well as me.’

  ‘Who’s taking his place?’

  ‘Detective Constable Kerr, from G Division.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Just finished six months as aide and posted to C.I.D.’

  ‘Are you telling me he’s still wet behind the ears?’

  ‘It’ll give you a chance to dry ’em. All right, Bob?’

  ‘No, sir, it’s bloody not all right. If I’m expected…’

  ‘You are.’ Kywood cut the connexion.

  Fusil replaced the receiver. He cursed Kywood. There was an agreement between borough and county forces which allowed easy transfer of men from one force to another. In theory, this made for good relations between the two since there was a wider field of promotion and, of course, it was a good argument against the proposed amalgamation, but since in any amalgamation it would have been the county force which did the swallowing, they were in the far stronger position and the easy transfer of personnel tended to become a flow of the better men from borough to county force. Yet if Kywood had been of a stronger personality, he might have stopped much of this.

  Fusil picked up his pipe, cleaned out the bowl, and packed it with tobacco. He lit it. Charrington was a first-class detective constable: who and what was his replacement? A kid, just finished his stint as C.I.D. aide, quite unable to do half the work that Charrington had been doing.

  He searched for and found the telephone number of G divisional H.Q. and spoke to the divisional D.I.

  ‘Kerr?’ said the other. ‘Not a bad bloke.’

  ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic,’ replied Fusil sourly.

  ‘He’s young.’

  ‘What’s that? Fact or excuse?’

  ‘He’s all right, Bob. A bit happy-go-lucky, that’s all. I expect even you were, at his age. He’s keen and he’ll make a good policeman.’

  ‘When? After I’ve
retired?’ Fusil’s pipe had gone out. He put it down on the desk. ‘Let’s have it straight. Does he know anything at all about the job?’

  ‘I’m telling you, he’s O.K. He just needs to learn that life isn’t all beer and skittles. What’s got you moaning so hard? Got some crime in the division?’

  ‘Crime? You blokes don’t know the meaning of the word. Two stabbings this week and one last down at the docks.’

  ‘They say it either kills you or keeps you young.’

  ‘Stabbing?’

  ‘Being D.I. in Eastern Division.’

  Fusil rang off. He relit his pipe. Normally of a reasonably cheerful nature, he felt as if life was kicking him hard exactly where it most hurt. Why the hell should he be made to suffer a transfer at this moment: why should a first-class detective constable be replaced by a youngster just when the crime figures were mounting? He swore.

  Fusil had once been described as a man who was inevitably drawn to crime so that he had had to become either a first-class policeman or a very successful criminal. The amateur psychologist had gone on to say that subconsciously Fusil knew this and he both hated and was frightened by the fact that he could so easily have become a criminal — that was why he was so sharp. The amateur psychologist could just have been correct — for once.

  2

  Twelve thousand three hundred and six steaming miles from Fortrow, on the fo’c’s’le of the T.S.S. Sandstream in Sydney harbour, the bos’un threw a line to the tug, then bent the line to the hawser. The docking telephone rang and the chief officer answered it. He shouted to the bos’un to get a move on as the bridge was waiting. ‘Let ’em wait,’ muttered the bos’un, who’d been at sea for so many years that the gold braid on a man’s arm meant nothing to him.

  The eye of the hawser reached the tug and was dragged across to the huge hook on the moving arm. The tug’s whistle sounded once to show all was fast, then she moved forward until the hawser was under strain. Aft, near the stern of the Sandstream, a second tug waited, the heavy rope fender on her bows lightly held against the ship’s side. The Sandstream went upstream and then, like an invalid cow being eased into its stall, was slowly berthed.

  She was made fast with three bow ropes, a for’d backspring, an after backspring, and two stern ropes. The gangway was lashed in position and shore people boarded. They went to the captain’s cabin, the chief officer’s cabin, the chief engineer’s cabin, and the chief steward’s cabin, with forms to be filled in and a thirst for duty-free spirits. Customs men carried on a desultory search.

  Two greasers, ignoring orders, went ashore and hired a taxi out to Paddington where their fiancées lived: two middle-aged men left the bungalow by the back door just in time. An ordinary seaman, detailed to chip and red lead the after end of the boat-deck, told the lamptrimmer exactly where to put the red lead. The chief officer logged him. He went ashore, met a tart, got tight, passed out in a taxi, and woke up eight hours later in a park to find he had been robbed of twenty-three pounds.

  The stevedores boarded. They rolled back the tarpaulins, lifted and stacked the hatch covers, and began to unload the cargo, using the ship’s derricks. One of the winches at number 3 broke down almost immediately and the ship’s electrician took a quarter of an hour to mend the fault. In this time, the idle stevedores had ripped open a dozen of the cartons stacked around the square of the hatch, but to their annoyance found nothing worth stealing. The watchman, who wanted to return home to wife and family that night, carefully failed to see what was happening.

  In his cabin on the starboard side, the chief officer read the advice note telling him that cargo destined for Sydney was now to be carried on to the next port but one, Gladstone. He cursed, poured himself out a pink gin and lit a cigarette.

  There was a knock on the door and a round-faced man pushed the curtain aside and entered the cabin. ‘May I come in, Chief?’ He sat down on the settee. ‘Mind if I sit down, Chief?’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’m worn out, straight I am. Been on the trot since eight this morning.’

  ‘I’ve been around since four,’ retorted the chief officer.

  ‘There’s never a moment to sit down and relax. You blokes at sea just don’t know how lucky you are. Rush, rush, rush, that’s the world today. Is that gin you’re drinking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no to a good stiff one, Chief. You blokes buy the stuff for next to nothing, so I don’t mind asking.’

  ‘I notice that.’

  ‘Get your cigarettes duty free, too. I wouldn’t say no to a smoke, Chief. I’ll tell you something, you blokes get life cushy. Plonk cheap, smokes cheap, and a uniform to make the women wriggle. It’s life.’

  ‘Why not go to sea?’

  ‘Me? That’s a joke! What d’you think would happen to the office if I quit? By the way, Chief, you mentioned a cigarette.’

  With obvious reluctance, the chief officer offered a tin of cigarettes. His anger increased when the other took two, winked, and said his brother in China was a heavy smoker.

  The shoreman took a thick bunch of papers from his coat pocket. ‘The special cargo in number five locker, Chief — be down to that tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Should be.’

  ‘You’ll break the seals, personally?’

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘And there’ll be a ship’s officer present throughout the unloading?’

  ‘There always is.’

  ‘Good, good. Can’t be too careful with the specials. There’s a fortune in that locker.’

  ‘So they keep saying.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Chief, there’s special insurance on the lot for a quarter of a million English quid and no Australian dollars. That’s an impressive sort of a sum.’

  The chief officer stubbed out his cigarette. He watched the other finish the drink and stare with interest at the bottle of gin, but he ignored this. One drink was more than enough for any shoreman.

  *

  No. 5 lower ’tween hatch boards were moved by hand and then the stevedores used the derricks to lift up the thick insulated hatch plugs — the Sandstream carried frozen food back to England — and stack them at the after end of the upper ’tween deck. The square was filled with large bales which were cleared within an hour.

  The chief officer came down the hold to supervise the opening of the port locker in which was the special cargo. He watched the fourth officer search through his pockets for the key to the padlock and morosely thought that the fourth was the kind of bloke who was always losing things.

  The fourth eventually found the key. The chief walked across to the for’d door of the locker and checked the two seals. They were unbroken. ‘O.K., Fourth.’

  The fourth officer put the key in the padlock.

  ‘The seals first,’ snapped the chief officer. The fourth irritated him.

  The fourth, after a quick nervous look at his superior, tried unavailingly to break the wire of the top seal with his hands.

  ‘Use a hook,’ said the chief officer disgustedly.

  The fourth borrowed a cargo hook from a sniggering stevedore. He snapped the wires of the seals and unlocked the padlock.

  The stevedores unscrewed the large clamp bolts and pulled the heavy insulated door open. The first thing they did was to see if there was a chance of quickly stealing anything, but even the smallest of the cartons was too large for immediate theft.

  The chief crossed to where the fourth stood. ‘You’re not to move until the locker’s empty.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And get inside where you can watch these sons of bitches.’

  The order was an impossible one to carry out until some of the cargo had been unloaded. The fourth hated this job — watching men to try to prevent their stealing anything. It embarrassed him.

  A cargo board was lowered on to the lower hold hatch boards and the stevedores loaded cartons and crates on to it. Because these were of varying sizes and shapes, the loading was difficult and the men cursed t
heir job. Sensing the embarrassment and uncertainty of the young fourth officer, they repeatedly pretended to be broaching the cargo.

  The first cargo board was hoisted up and two derricks, working in harness, swung the board over the side and lowered it on to the quay. A fork-lift truck carried it into the cargo shed and to the Security Area, a section wired off with steel-rod netting which could only be cut with oxyacetylene equipment. A guard opened the doors and the truck went inside. Four stevedores unloaded the cartons and crates and stacked them in the far corner. Unlike the ship’s hold where, despite all the cargo clusters, there were many patches of darkness, here everything was too well lit for easy thefts. In any case, the security guards were young, tough, and not easily frightened.

  *

  A two-ton diesel lorry backed up to the Security Area and a fork-lift truck loaded three crates on to it. The door was shut and locked and the two guards and the checker watched the men on the lorry lash down the three crates.

  The lorry, accompanied by a car in which were four guards from a security firm, drove from the docks to the main warehouse of McDonnell and Havers, at the end of Patrick Street. The four guards waited until the lorry was discharged, then they obtained a signature which released them from further responsibility and left.

  A fork-lift truck took the three crates into the strong-room, a large area with walls of reinforced concrete and a heavy steel door secured by time locks.

  The assistant chief buyer of McDonnell and Havers gave the order for the first crate to be opened. It was five feet square, even though the contents were so much smaller, because experience had taught everyone the obvious — a large crate was a more difficult thing to steal than a small one. The wooden lid was prised up with a jemmy. Immediately inside was a protective steel lining that had to be cut with an instrument that looked rather like an oversize can opener. The assistant chief buyer moved closer to the crate and watched the ballast, pebbles, being scooped out. Experience had taught everyone something else that was obvious: a heavy crate was a more difficult thing to steal than a light one.