by John Creasey
He was smoking a small black cigar.
“Come in, George.” Gideon was already halfway in. “What can I do for you today?”
“What do you know about an operation called Keyboard?” asked Gideon bluntly.
“Keyboard!” Ripple almost dropped the cigar.
“You heard me.”
“We were talking about it at the commanders’ conference last week, remember?” Ripple said.
“It was mentioned in passing but no one elaborated on it,” Gideon replied. “Can you tell me more?”
Ripple toyed with his cigar, as if gaining time for his reply. “What’s on your mind, George?”
“What operation is it exactly?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s the project for manufacturing the smallest reactor yet known to the physicists – a portable reactor not much bigger than a typewriter,” Ripple answered. “You can carry it about with you. As far as we know we’re pioneering it in this country. It’s got enormous economic and industrial potential, could be the biggest boost our exports have had for fifty years.”
“Very hush-hush, then.”
“Absolutely top secret,” Ripple said. “And well on the way to completing the prototype. The only stumbling block left is the carrying case. Lead’s much too heavy, and it’s got to be absolutely safe from radiation. They’re working on it at Harwell. What’s up, George?”
Gideon told him.
“My God,” breathed Ripple. “I’ll see that Travaritch is watched closer than a hawk. Thanks a million.”
Gideon eased his collar.
“Thank Dancy,” he said.
It did not occur to him that this could be even remotely concerned with the election.
While Ripple was talking to his opposite number at the Home Office, while Parsons was talking to a frightened girl at the divisional headquarters, showing her the different photographs including one of Jefferson Miles, while Gideon was reporting to Scott-Marie, while candidates up and down the country, including Libby and Benwell, Quatrain and Talmad, were taking a breather (or a respite, according to their phraseology), most Londoners who worked in the City and the West End were on their way home. Millions of them were reading the Evening News. One of these was Fred Wilcox, who was going straight from work to a meeting where he was to be a steward; he went to meetings straight from work on most nights. He saw a short paragraph about the bogus doctor, put in for no apparent reason, gritted his teeth, and stared straight ahead.
He made himself look at the paper, made himself read the snippets of London news, and saw the little headline about the “Office Thief Jailed” and another “Candidate’s Home Burgled.” Nothing really sank in. He just wished he could get the hatred for an unknown man out of his mind.
When he got to the British Legion Hall, where the meeting was to be held, no one but the caretaker was there, putting out the chairs. Fred helped, for the sake of something to do.
“These elections,” the caretaker complained. He was in his seventies, grey-haired, grey-faced; and he was crippled from rheumatism. “Always a lot of bother, they are, and what for, that’s what I want to know. How many do you expect tonight? A dozen?”
“Oh, there’ll be more than that.”
“Not many more if the other two parties is anything to go by,” the caretaker declared gloomily. “What with television and meetings at street corners, no one attends indoor meetings these days. If I put out fifty chairs, that ought to be plenty.”
A man came stamping in from the end of the hall.
“Couple of hundred, more like.” He was the local agent, a youthful, bony, optimistic man, his arms overflowing with posters and leaflets. “Hallo, Fred, you’re just the man I want. Here’s some drawing pins – put up these posters, will you? You know how. Dolly Gray is coming in to put a leaflet on every chair, and she’ll look after the literature stall. As more of our chaps arrive, get them to help with the chairs, will you? I’ve got four more meetings to go and check.”
“All a waste of time,” muttered the caretaker.
“That’s the trouble with you young chaps, you’ve got no faith. You never do get big meetings early in a campaign, but mark my words, we’ll be spilling out of the doors and windows before this one’s over. It’s going to be big, and I mean big.” The agent heard footsteps, and turned to see a middle-aged policeman in the doorway. “You chaps will have your work cut out, I can tell you. Look after grandpa here.”
He breezed out.
Fred, pinning the posters up round the walls and round the platform, felt almost cheerful.
12: Opportunity Knocks
In other parts of London, where the paragraphs were read avidly, London gossip being a staple diet of Londoners everywhere, three men were together in a public house. They were in a corner, on their own.
“Well, me lucky lad!” said Barney Spicer, the biggest of the trio. He thumped his cronies – both small men – on the backs, then spread his great hands over their heads and bumped them together. “Who are we going to vote for, eh? Let’s have it.”
“Pack it in,” Shins Mason protested.
“Lemme go!” squealed Wilf Darlington.
Spicer gave their heads another bump and released them.
“Trouble with you is you don’t know your own strength,” protested Shins. He earned his nickname from his habit of kicking in the shins anyone who threatened him; many a policeman in the NE Division had carried bruises left by Shins Mason. Shins was easy to identify because he was pigeon-toed, and his thin face was vaguely like a pigeon’s too. “What’s it matter who we vote for, anyway?”
“It matters plenty, don’t it, Wilf?”
“I know who I’m not going to vote for,” Darlington said. He was broad and stocky, with a very low forehead and thrusting eyebrows, which fooled many people into believing that he was half-witted.
“Who’s that?”
“Mr. Flicking Barney Spicer!”
“That, Wilfy boy, is exactly where you’re wrong.” Spicer, a boxer who looked exactly like everyone’s conception of a boxer, grinned from one man to the other. “You’re going to vote for me and for yourself.”
“What’s the matter? You gone crazy?”
“Never been so sane in me natural. Listen – what do we want most on a dark night, eh?”
“A bit of skirt,” said Darlington promptly.
“You’ve got a nasty, immoral mind, Wilfy. Your turn, Shins.”
“An empty house,” hazarded Mason.
“That’s it, me lucky lad – an empty house! A nice, respectable house which will remain empty for a given time, so that we can have a good forage round and help ourselves to a drink or two. What kind of houses are going to be without the lord and master and the missus in the next two weeks or so, eh?”
“Same as usual,” Shins Mason said, puzzled.
“No, you slob.”
“Then what?”
“There’s an election on, ain’t there?”
“What’s that got to do with empty houses?”
“Well, you can’t address your election meeting with wifie by your side and be at home, can you? A lot of these places will be wide open. Couple have been done already.” He slapped a copy of the Evening News on his arm. “We’ve just got to do a bit of research, and then we can get to work. All we need are the addresses of the candidates, see, and they’re all posted up outside town halls and police stations, for all the world to see. We’re in the world, aren’t we?”
“You know, Wilfy, I think he’s got something,” Shins conceded softly.
“Not a bad idea at all – good enough to have thought up myself,” boasted Darlington. “When do we start?”
“First of all we collect the names and addresses,” said Spicer, who had obviously given this a great deal of thought. “Then we make out a visiting list, see. We do six a night, in different parts of the big smoke. Six a night for three nights running, all in different dis
tricts, and then we lay off. Okay?”
“Okay!”
“Will you handle the stuff?” asked Shins anxiously.
“You know me,” said Barney Spicer. “I’ll get the best terms any fence will give us. You know me.”
That was the moment, the very moment, when the Q candidate in the Birmingham election was stepping into his car. It was a small, dilapidated old Ford Anglia which he had driven until it clanked and rattled but was still capable of a good turn of speed. He pulled the self-starter without giving it a second thought, and the front of the car blew up. He saw the windscreen crack and instantly become a mottled silvery colour, felt sharp pain as pieces flew into his forehead, and took in a deep breath of acrid, smoke-laden air.
Then flames began to leap out of the engine.
The Q man was so dazed that he did not know what was happening. He sat absolutely still, blood trickling down his forehead. Men came running from the door of the committee rooms, where the window was painted with a huge Q and with pictures of Quatrain and of the local candidate in the middle. They pulled open the car door as the flames roared and dragged the injured man out. With every passing second the flames grew fiercer and the danger became greater.
Catherine Miller hated being at the police station. It seemed to add to the guilt that was already almost unbearable, and she was tormented because she did not think that her lover would carry out his promise to divorce his wife and marry her. She was already heavy with his child. She lived alone in a small bed-sitting room and had not been to her parents for over three months because she was afraid of what they would notice and what she would have to tell them. She carried with her bitter memories of the night when she had waited for her lover, who had promised to come down and comfort her, after telling his wife what he was planning to do.
He had not come down.
She knew that in such circumstances some girls would have gone storming up to his apartment, but she had not; it was not in her. She had left Park Towers after one o’clock, scared, anguished, fearful of what would happen next. The following morning her lover had telephoned her.
“My wife’s taking it so hard, Cathy, it’s very difficult. Give me a little more time.”
She had seen him only once since then, and she had realized that “difficult” was more than a word.
She had seen the television and heard the radio requests for information from anyone who had been in the vicinity of Park Towers on that particular night, but she had been so worried by the publicity she might get if she went forward, and by the possible repercussions. When it had been repeated so often and the importance became so obvious, she had screwed up her courage to go to the police station. Its bleakness, the air of restrained activity, the passing to and fro of men in uniform and in plain clothes, the arrival at the station of two unhappy-looking men handcuffed together, all these had made her hate what she was doing.
Now she was with friendly, paternal-seeming Superintendent White, who had told her that a Superintendent Parsons was on his way from Scotland Yard. It was nearly seven o’clock. She had a nagging headache. She believed that the child stirred within her, but she could not be sure. It should be a matter of such joy, and instead of that it was one of misery and despair. She kept closing her eyes. She felt very tired.
The door of Superintendent White’s office opened, and a man came in slowly.
“No!” cried Catherine Miller, as she saw him. “No!”
She half rose from her chair, and then slumped back in a dead faint. Parsons, at the door, looked dumbfounded. White jumped up, and said: “I’ve seen fright at first sight plenty of times, but this beats the band.” He seemed to talk for the sake of talking as he poured water from a carafe into a glass, eased the girl to a more comfortable position, and put the glass to her lips. Parsons, still baffled and more shaken by the little incident than it really warranted, stood in a corner of the room watching her. She stirred. Soon her eyes opened.
“Now you’ll be all right,” White assured her. “No one is going to hurt you. Superintendent, Miss Miller is nervous lest she get personal publicity out of this – she doesn’t want her parents to know about her – ah – predicament. I’ve assured her that she needn’t worry at all as far as we’re concerned, but if you confirm that she’ll be happier.”
The girl was staring at Parsons, her eyes rounded and huge, her lips parted.
“You needn’t be worried on that score,” Parsons told her. He hardly knew how to phrase the reassurance, because the effect he had on her was so startling.
She said weakly, “I—I thought you were my father.”
“Your father?”
“Yes, you—you’re so like him.”
Parsons said, “Well, that’s remarkable, isn’t it?” He began to understand. “And it’s your father’s attitude that troubles you over this baby, is it?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.” She sat up straighter, still staring at him. “It—it was just as you came in. Just for a moment – I suppose I’d been thinking about him so much.”
Parsons said, “Fond of him, Miss Miller?”
“Oh, he’s been wonderful to me! I hate the thought of hurting him. I think if he—if he knows what’s happened he’ll never recover from it. He’ll be so disappointed in me.” She was utterly woebegone, and yet so pretty with the promise of motherhood blooming in her cheeks. Her young breasts were full and thrusting against a dress which was too tight for her and which fitted glove-like around her spreading waist. Parsons, forgetful of the fact that Gideon was waiting for him and that so much was dependent on this identification, saw her as a pathetic young girl. For a few moments he just stared, wondering how to help.
White put in: “Fathers are often very understanding, aren’t they, Superintendent?”
“Yes,” said Parsons slowly. “Yes, very often.” He drew a deep breath. “I certainly shouldn’t worry, Miss Miller, and if we can help we will.” He became brisk. “Now, we hope you can help us.” He gave her a few moments to recover before going on: “You say you remember the man at Park Towers very clearly?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Will you look through these photographs – there are twelve altogether – and tell us if he is among them?”
Cathy stretched out her hand for the photographs as the telephone bell rang. White muttered, “Why do they have to worry me just now?” and picked it up. The girl took the photographs. “Well?” barked White into the phone and glowered, but on the instant his tone changed. “Oh, is he. Thanks, Joe.” He turned to Parsons. “Gee-Gee’s on the way up.”
The girl heard the absurd word “Gee-Gee” and looked from the pictures to the men, because this so obviously mattered to them. Heavy footsteps sounded at the door, which opened. A very big man came in. He was so solid and massive that he gave the impression of being huge, compared with the others. She looked into his face, a familiar one although she could not place it. The respect that these others had for him was apparent in their manner.
The man said in a deep voice, “So this is the young lady.” He smiled at her. The smile wasn’t broad or particularly attractive, but it gave her a kind of reassurance. He stepped to her and shook hands.
“I’m Commander Gideon of Scotland Yard,” he said. “I want to thank you personally for coming forward.”
“I—I should have come before,” she admitted. “But I was so scared.”
“I can imagine. Have you had a chance to look at those photographs yet?”
“No,” she said hastily, and dropped her gaze. The face of a man on top of the pile was unknown to her, and she put it aside on a corner of White’s desk. She was aware of the tension in all three men, even in Gideon; not until this moment had she fully understood the importance of what she was doing. She stared at the next picture even more closely before putting it aside. The third, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth were all of men she had never seen before. She looked at the seventh and on the instant exclaimed: “That’s him!”
In a very clear voice, Superintendent Parsons, who was so like her father, said, “We’ve got him.”
“Are you absolutely sure, Miss Miller?” Gideon was looking at her in a way which was almost alarming – as if he was drawing something out of her. But she did not hesitate, because there was no possibility of doubt.
“Yes, absolutely.”
“It was dark when you saw him, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but the headlamps of the car shone on him. I’d seen him before, anyhow.”
“You mean earlier that night?”
“Yes. And on other nights, when I’d gone to see—to see my friend.” Her lips quivered.
“And would you swear to this in a court of law, no matter how serious the charge against the man?”
“Well, it really is the man,” she said simply.
The telephone bell rang again. White muttered another imprecation and moved to pick it up. Gideon stepped closer to the girl and took the photograph of Jefferson Miles. White said, “I thought I told you to hold calls … Oh, I see. Yes. All right.” He held the telephone out to Gideon. “It’s for you, Commander.” The formality was used because of the girl, and he added, “It’s Lemaitre.” Gideon took the instrument, smiled at Cathy and gave her greater reassurance than either of the others had done. He said into the telephone, “Yes, Lem?”
After a pause, he caught his breath. Catherine Miller did not know, but both men knew well that only devastating news could make him show such a sign of surprise and could put such consternation on his face.
