by John Creasey
“All that matters, I think,” said Lemaitre. “There’s a flash about a girl’s body found in an apartment near Park Lane, nothing known yet – could be natural causes or accident. Patrol-car flash, just before you came in.”
“Um,” said Gideon. “Well, let me know.” He went to the door.
“George,” said Lemaitre strongly.
“Yes?”
“Be careful with Chang.”
Gideon’s slaty eyes lost their brooding look, and for a moment he smiled.
“Don’t be a blurry fool,” he said. “Snow wouldn’t melt in Chang’s mouth today, never mind about butter!” He gave that quick, paternal smile again, and went out.
On his way for the morning perambulation, he had gone almost ponderously. Now he wasn’t exactly brisk, but took long strides and passed three plainclothes men moving smartly toward the lift. He reached it first.
“Hear about that mail-van attempt at Liverpool Street?” asked one of them, a middle-aged Detective Inspector.
“Yes,” answered Gideon briefly.
A white-haired detective sergeant said: “I’ve got another six months in this cowshed, and if there’s a job I’d like to see finished, it’s the mail-van job. How many robberies is it now?”
The D.I. said: “This wasn’t one.”
“Not often they miss.”
“Thirty-nine in three years and two months,” said Gideon, “and don’t ask me whether they’re all organized by the same man. I don’t know. But I’ll bet some of them are. Picked up some of the bags from the last job in the Thames,” he went on, in the way he had of talking freely to subordinates whenever it was possible. “They make pretty sure we can’t trace ‘em back, don’t they?”
“They’ll slip up,” the D.I. prophesied.
Gideon rubbed his chin. “It wouldn’t worry me if we caught ‘em before they slip up,” he said. “Nice if our results weren’t always governed by frailties on the part of the crooks, wouldn’t it, boys?”
He sounded positively paternal.
The lift stopped, and the others made room for him to get out first.
“Thanks,” he murmured, and was walking toward the steps and his car a moment later, apparently forgetful of the others.
They watched him.
“Funny thing,” the elderly sergeant said, “he came in on the rampage this morning. Foster went off with a flea in his ear, and now Foster’s been run down. Next thing you know, Gee-Gee will be blaming himself for it.”
Gideon – his Christian name of George made Gee-Gee inevitable – squeezed into his shiny car, turned on the ignition and let in the clutch, reversed until he could swing clear, nodded to the two men who saluted him, and drove at a moderate pace onto the Embankment. He turned right, heading for Whitehall, then Trafalgar Square, then Lower Regent Street – the main road route to Great Marlborough Street. Inside the car he looked massive, and rather dull. His driving was automatic, yet he wasn’t careless and was usually a move ahead of other traffic; he changed gear smoothly, and gave no sign that he was thinking about Foster.
He was wondering whether this would have happened if he hadn’t blown his top with Foster. The earlier, uneasy fears – that he might have done the wrong thing – were darker and heavier in one way, worrying him. In another, he was relieved. There was no longer the certainty of scandal, the newspaper headlines, sneers at the Yard, and God knew, things were difficult enough without that. Still, it was a worry. It did not harass him enough to make him careless, or forgetful of the main task: to find out whether Lemaitre’s guess was anywhere near the truth. He found himself thinking of Lemaitre with a reluctant kind of disapproval. Over the years, Lem had made the same kind of mistakes, due to impetuosity. “If you ask me, he telephoned Chang, Chang got the wind up, and put him away.” Lemaitre was still capable of talking like that without a tittle of evidence, of looking upon a possibility as if it were a probability. The years of being proved wrong hadn’t cured him; it was why he would never become a Superintendent, either at the Yard or one of the Divisions.
Never mind Lem!
Gideon stopped at the police station in Great Marlborough Street, and had a word with the Divisional Superintendent by telephone from the duty sergeant’s desk. Nothing more was known about Foster’s accident, no news had come in about the car. The body was at the morgue attached to the police station.
“Want to have a look at him?” the station Superintendent asked. It was on the tip of Gideon’s tongue to say “no,” and then he changed his mind.
“Yes, thanks, mind if I go in on my own? I’m in a hurry.”
“Help yourself,” the other said.
There were two other bodies in the morgue; only one light was on, over a stone bench where one man lay and two others worked. Gideon moved among the stone-topped benches, until he reached the working-men, and saw that Foster lay there. They’d almost finished, and didn’t look up until one of them drew a white sheet over Foster’s body, up as far as the chin. From where Gideon stood, he had a foreshortened view of Foster; he realized that he had been a strikingly good-looking man.
One of the others, a police surgeon with black hair and a bald patch, looked up.
“Hallo, George.”
“Lo, Harry.”
“He went out as quick and clean as a whistle,” said the police surgeon. “It’s always a help when you know that. Cracked the back of his head, and crushed his stomach, but the face is hardly damaged. Worked with you sometimes, didn’t he?”
Gideon nodded.
“Married?” asked the police surgeon.
“No,” said Gideon. “One sister, no other close relatives.” Asked about any of the men who worked with him regularly, he could have given an answer as promptly and as accurately. “Well, there we are.” He turned away, and walked with the police surgeon toward the door of the morgue.
They didn’t say much.
Back in his car, Gideon waited long enough to pack the pipe loosely with a mixture, and to light it. Two loose pipes in the morning, two in the afternoon and as many as he wanted in the evening were his rule. He brushed a speck of glowing tobacco off his trousers, then moved off.
It wasn’t far from here to Winter Street, Soho, where Chang had his club.
There was no room to park. Gideon drove round twice and then spotted a constable.
“I’m going to leave this here, double-parked,” he said. “Keep an eye open, and if it blocks anyone who wants to get out, move it for me.” He took it for granted that he was recognized, handed over his ignition key, and walked toward Chang’s, which was just round the corner.
For a district in the heart of the biggest city in the world, this was a disgrace and degradation. It was almost the only part of London Gideon disliked. The buildings were mostly dilapidated, none was impressive; it was like a shopping centre in the East End, except for the masses of cars parked bumper to bumper. Most of the shops looked closed. A laundry, a shop advertising: WE MAKE NEW COLLARS FROM SHIRTTAILS; a butcher’s shop open, with a woman with brassy hair and talon-like red nails, smoking a cigarette and talking to the butcher, showed a glimpse of Soho life as it really was.
Gideon knew the woman; she’d been up before the magistrate at Great Marlborough or Bow Street regularly for the past twenty years. She lived close by, and bought her groceries, her meat, her milk, all the things of daily life, from these small shops. Well, why not? She had to live somewhere.
A corner shop was filled with dark-haired men and women, all shorter than the average Londoner; they were southern French, Italian and Spanish – and mostly Italian, Gideon knew. In the windows on the shelves were delicacies brought from the ends of the earth – literally from the ends of the earth. If you wanted a specialty of the Chinese, the Japanese, the Javanese, of India, Brazil, the south of Spain or the north of Italy, from Yugoslavia or from Russia, you could buy it here. Inside, everyone was chatting, all were dressed in black, and Gideon scented a funeral party preparing for the meal to come.
>
The pavements were dusty, the gutters littered with chaff, pieces of paper, cigarette ends, bus tickets. Dust carts and street sweepers could come through Soho half a dozen times a day without ridding it of this hint of squalor in the worst streets; and Winter Street was one of the worst.
By day, Chang’s looked harmless.
The name, in mock-Chinese lettering, was on the fascia board, and the weather or years had worn it so badly that most of the “h” and part of the “g” were obliterated. Chang had been here a long time. It was a double-fronted shop, and the windows were blotted out with dirty looking muslin curtains, but the bill of fare, showing what Chang had to offer in an English hand which would have suited a Billingsgate pub, looked clean enough. It was a restaurant by day and club by night.
Gideon went in.
He knew that he had been seen approaching; probably when he had driven past here he had been recognized. Word spread in Soho as quickly as it did to the Yard. He knew that the broad smile on the face of the diminutive Chinese who came toward him, hands covered in the folds of his snow-white apron, hair shiny with oil, and expression one of friendliness and delight, could hide anything from thoughts of murder to honest curiosity. “Good day, sa, you like good lunch?”
“No, thanks,” Gideon said. “Is Chang in?”
“Chang, sa?” The slit eyes widened, the hands performed strange gyrations, still beneath the apron. “I find out, sa, name please?”
“Gideon,” said Gideon. “Never mind, I’ll find out for myself.”
He walked across the sawdusted boards, past several Chinese eating English food, a Malayan couple eating rice and an Indian woman in a pale pink sari, sitting in front of a metal tray with several metal dishes on it, and pushed open a door. Beyond was the kitchen; this was spotlessly clean, with two Chinese women working in the steamy heat. Beyond again was a staircase. Gideon went up the staircase, without hurrying. The boy would have warned Chang.
Gideon sniffed.
There was a strong smell of paint, and it became more noticeable as he approached the landing. The narrow stairs creaked. A strip of hair carpet ran in the middle of them, and along both passages at the top. One door, closed, was marked: OFFICE. The other door, open, was marked: CLUB. “Club” had never been more than a name used so as to obtain a late liquor license, and until recently Chang had done nothing to invite being closed up.
Two painters were busy in the clubroom, one lanky Englishman with a sniff, the other a sturdy handsome youngster, obviously not English. “A Pole,” Gideon thought, as he spoke to the lanky man.
“When did you start this job?”
Wary, watery eyes turned toward him.
“S’morning.”
“When did you get the order?”
The lanky man’s eyes were now narrowed so tightly that they were nearly closed. The Pole was working steadily, using a small brush fat with crimson paint. The big clubroom stank of oil paint and distemper.
Gideon heard the other door open, although it made little sound.
“None of yer bus’ness,” the lanky man drawled nasally.
Gideon didn’t argue. “I’ll know you again,” he said, and turned round.
He wasn’t surprised to see Chang in the office doorway. He was surprised to see the woman behind him, standing up and looking somehow unsure of herself, like someone who’d had an unpleasant surprise. She was quite a good looker. Gideon had once danced with her at a police ball. She was Foster’s sister, and her name was Flo.
4. Chang
Chang was smiling diffidently.
Flo Foster wasn’t really smiling at all, just looking bewildered. Gideon did not start guessing what she was doing here; it was better to find out for certain. He felt sure that something Chang had said, perhaps about his arrival, had startled her. She was not the type to look bewildered for long, and Gideon had another thought, the kind he would pigeonhole and bring out for examination whenever he felt it necessary. Only a sharp shock would have affected her like this. She came from the same world and had much the same poise – overconfidence – as Foster himself. He did not know her well enough to wonder whether she had the same capacity for error as Foster. “Error” was one word! He judged that she was quite free from the taint of drugs, heavy drinking or any kind of debauchery; she looked not only handsome but wholesome and healthy. She was undoubtedly touched with arrogance.
All this took only a second or two to pass through Gideon’s mind.
Chang was moving forward, hands held a little in front of his chest in a gesture which was already self-deprecatory. He had a big, wide forehead and a small shallow chin, and his face tapered down in the proper proportions from his forehead. One first noticed his face, which was as smooth as yellowed alabaster, and then his small ears, which stuck out almost at right angles and seemed to thrust a way through his dark hair; his hair, like that of most Chinese, was as straight as a woman’s in need of a perm. The rest of Chang was not, perhaps, important. He had the facial characteristics of the Oriental; but only those who knew The Orient well could have said whether he was Chinese, Javanese, or one of the other races. His small month was faintly pink, a dirty pink. His eyes were dark and pinched a little at the corners; that didn’t stop them from being blackly bright. His nose was slightly flattened and the nostrils were dark. For the rest, he was beautifully tailored in pale grey, with a discreet blue tie, a blue handkerchief making a triangle in his breast pocket and, almost certainly, blue socks to match.
He was not effusive. His English was good, with more inflection than accent. He had been born within five miles of this spot, and knew no other language; but he could use pidgin English effectively at times, and pretend not to know English fluently.
“Mr. Gideon,” he said, “How unexpected. A pleasure indeed.” Now his hands touched at the tips, and he gave the slightest of bows. “You are most welcome. I was about to show my previous visitor the stairs, you will forgive me?”
“That’s all right,” Gideon said.
“Perhaps you will wait here for me.” Chang thrust a hand, fingers crooked and palm upward, toward his office, showing the natural grace so many of his kind had. His smile was not overdone.
“This way, please,” he said to Foster’s sister, and stepped in front of Gideon, making no bones about wanting the woman to go.
If Gideon showed no sign of recognition. Flo Foster now looked away from him, and moved quickly, as if anxious to get out of his sight. She looked good, but not necessarily in the sense of goodness. Her two-piece suit of mustard-colour tweed fitted well, and she had all black accessories – gloves, bag, shoes – with a touch of quality. Gideon inclined his head, ponderously.
When Chang had started down the stairs with Flo Foster, Gideon went into the office. He left the door open. The lanky painter was staring at him, his brush hanging in the air; the Pole was still working, now on distemper with a big brush. Gideon didn’t sit down, but stepped to the window and then to a spot out of sight from the surly painter. He touched nothing, but looked about him quickly and intently, missing little. Gideon was a man who, playing the parlour game of “what were the articles on that tray” would invariably win, and would seldom miss even a single item. All he saw here were a few papers, neatly arranged, a big locked safe in one corner, a carved sandalwood box containing cigarettes. The desk was a cheap walnut pedestal one, with a tubular steel swivel chair behind it, and a square of brown carpet centred on the floor had a green linoleum surround.
Chang came back quietly, shut the door and hid the English painter. He smiled with the familiar reserve, and went round to his chair. His hand moved out again.
“Please sit down.”
“Thanks.” Gideon sat on an upright chair which looked and felt too flimsy for him. He did not say that he had recognized Foster’s sister. Chang’s expression was bland: his lips didn’t close completely, and showed a glint of white teeth. The silence and the protracted stare probably put him on edge, but nothing in this world w
as likely to make him show it.
“What can I do for you, Superintendent?”
“Has Foster been here today?” Gideon asked flatly.
“Foster, Superintendent? Who is Foster?”
“You know,” said Gideon.
“I am afraid that I do not understand,” Chang declared. “Foster, Foster.” He let the name float in the air, and so declared his tactics: flat denial of everything. He did not know Foster, he had never bribed Foster, he had not heard that day from anyone named Foster. At the end of this series of mute denials there was defiance, as evident although as mute: “And you cannot prove that I know Foster.”
Gideon was convinced that Chang knew everything, now felt that he could go all the way with Lemaitre, although there was still no evidence. By his denials, Chang not only showed his hand but also made it clear that he did not think there was anything to worry about.
Confidence had always been his strong suit.
Overconfidence? Like Foster.
Gideon said: “I mean Eric Foster, a detective sergeant at New Scotland Yard, who’s been taking money from you for some time, Chang.”
“It is some mistake,” said Chang very smoothly. “Perhaps you forget I am not the only Chang in Soho, Mr. Superintendent.”
“No,” admitted Gideon, “I don’t forget.” He changed the subject but not his tone. “What are you having the clubroom painted for?”
“But that?” asked Chang, and smiled now with greater readiness; a stranger, seeing him for the first time, would have been greatly struck by his open face, the apparently friendly smile, the charm. “I have many clients and I do very well, Mr. Superintendent, and so I am giving them something more pleasant than before.”
Gideon didn’t answer. Chang did not wilt or even waver slightly under the ruthless scrutiny.
“Chang,” said Gideon, suddenly, heavily, “I want to tell you a thing or two. In this country, crimes catch up with you. You ought to know that. Murderers get hanged, thieves get jailed, all criminals get punished sooner or later. We may miss them on one job but we always get them on another. Don’t ever think you’re safe. You’ve been doing some of the foulest things a man can do, and we’re after you. That means we’ll get you.”
