The C.I.D Room

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘How’s Captain Leery today?’ asked Kerr.

  ‘Him? He hasn’t been around, thank God!’

  ‘Not much he hasn’t. He was having a natter with the van driver only a moment or so ago.’

  ‘With…with this van driver?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kerr wondered why the news should worry Evans so much.

  ‘Just recently?’

  ‘While the second rope was being unloaded.’

  Evans stared blankly at Kerr for several seconds, then realised some explanation was necessary. ‘I nipped ashore just a while back. I hope he wasn’t looking for me then.’

  Kerr nodded, but wondered vaguely what the truth was?

  *

  On Friday, when the special cargo was taken from the security cage and loaded on the Sandstream, someone impolitely estimated that there were enough policemen around to form two rugger teams and provide the referee and linesmen as well. And as one of the P.C.s bitterly remarked — it should have been his day off duty — the villains must have been having a field day since there couldn’t be a copper left in town.

  Gold charms, of an insured value of twenty-one thousand pounds, were safely loaded aboard.

  12

  For Kerr, there was one night duty which was a pleasure — the pub crawl, when he was actually paid to go round several of the pubs and drink beer whilst he kept his eyes and ears open. He had his third half-pint of the evening at the White Swan, inevitably nicknamed the Dirty Duck. It was near the docks and the area had been declared slums, due for clearing and redevelopment. Successive economic crises, however, always seemed to occur just in time to prevent any of the redevelopment actually beginning so that the decaying terrace houses, with outside communal lavatories, remained. Uniformed policemen tended to patrol here in pairs.

  Kerr was three-quarters of his way through a half-pint of bitter when, in the cracked and dirty mirror behind the bar, he saw a man limp into the room. He recognised Joe Faber, a cat burglar who several years before had become too ambitious and had one night fallen from the fourth floor of a hotel. A shattered man, Faber now scratched a living as best he could and part of his income came from informing. Kerr finished the beer, stubbed out a cigarette, and walked to the door. As he passed the end table, Faber looked at him. He left the pub and waited outside, along the road, for fifteen minutes until Faber, satisfied he had allayed any possible suspicion, came out.

  ‘I’ve got news,’ mumbled Faber. ‘Mister, it’s big. It’s about the gold. It’s worth a cockle.’

  ‘For ten quid I’d want the gold delivered by two flunkeys in a Rolls-Royce.’

  ‘But it’s big.’

  ‘There’s a couple going if the information’s really solid.’

  ‘Ten ain’t much, mister, not for what I’ve got.’

  ‘It’s eight quid too much.’

  Faber’s need for money was too great for him to continue to bargain. ‘They say the gold’s movin’. They say there’s a big wheel.’

  ‘Let’s have his name.’

  ‘Mister, two quid ain’t much.’

  ‘I’ll jack it up to three if the news is real.’

  Faber lowered his voice and whispered, even though he knew he couldn’t be overheard. ‘They’re talking about the Levantine.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Levantine.’

  ‘Who the hell’s that?’

  ‘’E’s the Levantine, mister.’

  Kerr put his hand in his pocket, hesitated, then counted out three one-pound notes. He handed them to Faber, who grabbed them, stuffed them in his pocket, turned, and left, dragging his right foot.

  *

  Fusil paced his office, careful to step over the board which had begun to creak and which set his teeth on edge. Kerr’s report lay on his desk and that report was giving him blood pressure. The gold was moving. Where had it come from? Which lot of gold was moving? Why only now? They were naming the Levantine. Heywood-Smith was so rotten that the ground he walked on should have stunk for evermore, but it didn’t: it grew roses for him. He jeered at the police and they hated him, but the very laws which they were trying to administer made certain, time after time, that they could not successfully contain him.

  Heywood-Smith was in the books of countless police forces for every stinking job a real villain could do. He’d handled women, drugs, the protection racket, anything that paid heavy money. He had been jailed in London twelve years ago, but since then he’d become clever. Occasionally the men who did the actual work were caught and jailed, but they never squealed. Either because they dare not or because they were paid not to. Honest people who might have testified against him had been threatened into silence.

  Fusil lit his pipe. No one for twelve years had been able to land anything on Heywood-Smith, so if he were behind the gold thefts what chance did he, Fusil, have? Yet if he failed… Some optimism returned. There was always a first time for even a clever man to make a slip and that was all the police wanted: one slip that would let them wrap evidence so hard around Heywood-Smith’s throat he choked. Gold was a specialised commodity and the villains had their own channels for it, some leading to the melting-pots in England, some to the melting-pots in Europe, some to the melting pots of the gold-crazy people in India. Perhaps someone along those channels could be made to talk sufficiently to implicate Heywood-Smith. If Leery were the man in the field, perhaps he could be broken and his evidence used to incriminate Heywood-Smith. An amateur was always a danger to the professional.

  Fusil had a regard for justice that was very strong. He believed in it passionately and had always fought for it as hard as he could. Men like Heywood-Smith made him so bitterly angry that he had to keep reminding himself that he was not personally responsible: they were the responsibility of society and if they had learned how to commit crime and get away with it, it was society’s fault, not his. But now, he couldn’t be even that philosophical. More than justice was at stake. It had become a personal battle between himself and whoever was behind the gold thefts and his career was the stake.

  Leery, if guilty, must be the weak link. He was an amateur and if he were questioned again and again, shown beyond any doubt that suspicion rested on him, then he would probably break. An amateur could seldom resist suspicion for long.

  Fusil decided to send Kerr to question Leery. Kerr would never do the thing smoothly. The rougher the better. There might yet, thought Fusil sourly, be an unexpected advantage to be gained from having an inexperienced detective constable posted to his division in place of the very capable Charrington.

  *

  It was the twenty-ninth of September. Captain Leery left the office at five-thirty, went along the road to the carpark, and drove back along Dock Road, up to Castle Gate, and there turned off into Abbotsbridge Road. He stopped close to a telephone kiosk.

  He dialled Heywood-Smith’s number and when the ringing note went on and on he felt this was a sign portending disaster. Just as he was about to replace the receiver, the call was answered.

  ‘This is Marshborough one five,’ said the well-rounded voice of Heywood-Smith, speaking as if there were special significance to his number.

  ‘Look, they know. He’s questioned me three times in the past week.’

  ‘Who has?’

  ‘The young detective constable. He wouldn’t go on and on asking questions if they didn’t know.’

  ‘There’s no —’

  Speaking excitedly, Leery cut short the other. ‘I tell you, he goes on and on asking questions.’

  ‘And has he yet made a single specific accusation?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter…’

  ‘Has he accused you of anything?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘Then let him go on asking questions. And whilst he goes on asking questions, don’t panic, but rejoice. It means from a practical point of view that the police are all at sixes and sevens.’

  ‘But they suspect me.’

  ‘They were bound to, from the beginning
. Suspicion never sent a man to jail, though. Keep your head. Remember Kipling.’

  ‘Kipling?’

  ‘“If you can keep your head when all about you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”’

  God Almighty! thought Leery, what a time to start quoting Kipling. But he did feel more confident.

  *

  The end of October was marked by a sudden fine spell of weather and although temperatures were not high, the sky was almost cloudless for several days. This late fine weather brought a large number of week-enders to Fortrow. The police suddenly found their leave stopped and their work doubled. The rate of petty thieving greatly increased: two teenage girls were assaulted, or claimed they were: three drunken fights ended in serious injuries: there were five serious car accidents: one smash-and-grab raid netted three thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery: four burglaries were reported: eight similarly forged five-pound notes turned up at the banks: twelve cars were stolen: two men were reported drowned at sea and after an intensive air and sea search they were found — in a hotel in the company of two ladies of easy virtue who had travelled down from London for the week-end.

  At 12.13 p.m. on Monday, the T.S.S. Sandacre picked up the pilot off Stark Point and steamed up the estuary. She docked at 1.21 at number 9 berth, New Docks. Customs and Health officials and the police went aboard.

  By 9.34 that evening, the police had completed their first search. They found no trace of gold.

  *

  On Tuesday afternoon, Fusil was sitting in his office, smoking a cigarette because he had run out of pipe tobacco, working at papers, when the telephone rang. He lifted the receiver.

  ‘Bob, it’s bloody well happened again.’

  There was no mistaking Kywood’s voice. Just as there was no mistaking what had happened again.

  ‘Are you there, Bob?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Gold charms are missing from the Sandstream in Melbourne.’

  Fusil drew in his breath sharply.

  ‘What are we going to do, Bob?’

  What more could they do? thought Fusil.

  ‘I’m coming over.’

  After replacing the receiver, Fusil stood up. He stubbed out the cigarette, suddenly hating the thin tasting smoke. Kywood was rattled, rattled to the point where he was despairingly seeking help. But any help that was going Fusil needed for himself.

  Kywood, who had recovered some self-composure, arrived twenty-five minutes later. His first words on entering Fusil’s office were: ‘I’ve got to tell the chief constable when I get back, Bob.’

  ‘Haven’t you already told him?’

  Kywood was silent for a while. He looked up. ‘He’ll get really mean. Look, isn’t there anything we can say? Some sort of progress to give him to calm him down?’

  ‘Progress? We’ve heard a whisper, the gold’s on the market. We’ve heard another whisper, the Levantine’s behind it. The inside man may be Captain Leery. And that’s just as near as we’ve got, period. Proof? We can prove the time of day, and that’s all.’

  ‘When are they getting the gold off?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘How are they getting it off?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Bob, we’ve got to know. Get the blokes to work…’

  ‘They’re doing all they can. You know as well as I do that we can’t just drop all other cases. The crime graph’s mounting almost every week, as you keep reminding me.’

  ‘The papers’ll crucify us over this third theft.’

  ‘Probably.’

  Kywood spoke gloomily. ‘If it is Heywood-Smith, no one’s been able to prove a thing on him in years.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Fusil harshly, ‘they haven’t.’

  *

  The Sandacre completed her discharge of cargo on the following Tuesday. The police went aboard and carried out a search and found nothing.

  Kerr was detailed to stay aboard after fumigation and whilst she loaded, not because it was thought he would do any good but things had reached the stage where any action seemed better than none. The job was boring and it was much to his relief when he was called away on the second day to a hit-and-run case in Beaver Road, on the north side of Fortrow.

  The scene of the accident was a zebra crossing around which was the pathetic evidence that was becoming so tragically familiar. Police cones kept traffic away from the skid marks, broken glass, and bloodstains: on the pavement, by the flashing zebra beacon, stood a uniformed constable, two women, and a man: further along the pavement, a small knot of onlookers had gathered.

  Kerr spoke to the constable.

  ‘It seems like it was a van. Came along and the woman stepped off the pavement just short of the crossing without any warning and the van never had a chance to miss, even though it braked like hell. Look at the tyre marks. The woman got thrown backwards and ended up where the blood is. The van stopped, then drove on.’

  ‘Did they get the number?’ Kerr indicated the three waiting eye-witnesses.

  ‘It’s the usual thing. The old woman noted the registration number because it reminded her of something. Now she can’t remember what it reminded her of.’

  ‘And the other two?’

  ‘They might’ve been seeing different accidents.’

  Kerr went and stood in the road at the point of impact, marked by the broken glass that had probably come from a headlight. He took his notebook from his pocket and sketched the scene, noting the position of the broken glass, the tyre marks, and the blood. As he finished, a patrol car drew up and he asked them to wireless H.Q. to make certain that, since this looked as if it would be a fatal accident, a police photographer was called out.

  He questioned each of the eye-witnesses, using the nearest shop front to give some protection from the cold wind that was rapidly getting stronger. The man said he had weak eyesight and the shock of seeing the woman knocked down seemed to have made him slightly silly so that his evidence was almost hopelessly confused. The younger of the two women had had her attention drawn by a scream, but a parked car had hidden much of the scene from her. The elder woman had had the clearest view and to begin with she was reasonably coherent.

  ‘I was walking to the shops and this van came along. The poor woman stepped off the pavement and then it hit her. It was… It was terrible. She looked like… She looked just like a rag doll — all arms and legs.’

  ‘It must have been a very nasty shock.’

  ‘Straight, it’s given me quite a turn.’

  ‘Then I won’t keep you a moment longer than I have to. Could you say whether the van seemed to be going very fast?’

  ‘I dunno. It wasn’t going no faster than the rest of the traffic. But she came out so sudden, like… It was terrible.’

  ‘I think you managed to see the number of the van?’

  ‘Like I told the constable, I saw it, but what with the shock… I just don’t recollect,’ she said plaintively.

  He tried to coax her into remembering. ‘Tell me what you think it was: it doesn’t matter how wrong you are.’

  ‘I…I think the first letter was A. I tell you, the number reminded me of something, but I just can’t remember what.’

  ‘There’s no need to worry. You’re being very helpful.’

  ‘Am I?’ She looked gratefully at him. ‘That young constable seemed annoyed I couldn’t remember the number.’

  ‘He won’t really have been annoyed. Tell you what, let’s try and find out what it might have reminded you of — have you got a car?’

  ‘We used to have one when my husband was alive, but not since.’

  ‘Could the number of the van have been like the number of one of your cars?’ Kerr tried hard to jog her memory, but he failed. He changed the subject. ‘Have you any idea what make of van it was?’

  ‘But I don’t know one from the other.’

  ‘What colour was it?’

  ‘White. But dirty, like.’

  ‘Was there any writi
ng on the side, a firm’s name, anything like that?’

  ‘There wasn’t nothing. But it was one of them with the back all open, and I did see it was all filled with ropes.’

  ‘Ropes?’

  She became very hesitant. ‘I thought they was ropes…but it was all so quick. I can’t be sure…’

  ‘They probably were ropes. Were they big ones — like the ones ships use?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said.

  He wrote rapidly in his notebook. ‘There we are then, and thanks for all your help. The best thing is for us to drive you home. We’ll get your doctor to come and see you’re all right.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ she said sincerely.

  Kerr stared down at his notebook. Had they been ship’s hawsers?

  *

  Kerr returned to the station and went upstairs to the C.I.D. general room. Rowan was there, but did no more than mutter a greeting. Kerr wondered if the other’s wife was doing more modelling than usual.

  He sat down. The woman said the van had been loaded with ropes, large ropes. As soon as she had said that, he had remembered the dirty white Volkswagen van on to which had been loaded the old hawsers from the Sandstream. This was after the cargo had been discharged and before the loading had blocked off the entrance to the forepeak. In port now was the Sandacre and she had discharged all her cargo, had been fumigated, and was now loading, so that at least the timing was similar. Was there anything here more than similar timing?

  He left, went downstairs to the courtyard, and found the C.I.D. Hillman there. He drove through the centre of town to the docks.

  He boarded the Sandacre, which had been moved to No. 17 berth, New Docks, and entered the accommodation. He went past the dining saloon, up a companionway, and for’d to the officers’ smoke-room. Evans was sitting down at one of the tables. ‘’Afternoon,’ said Kerr.

  Evans looked up. ‘Hullo, there,’ he said cheerfully. He indicated the tray on the table. ‘Have a cup of muddy coffee.’ He poured out the coffee and handed the mug over. Kerr sat down, helped himself to sugar and milk, and drank.

  Evans picked up a round tin of cigarettes. ‘Smoke?’ He winked. ‘Always provided you’re not too particular about how much duty these paid?’