by John Creasey
At half past six, when Riddell had been gone for an hour, the telephone had been quiet for twenty minutes, and Gideon was looking through some reports and making notes and queries, the door opened and Rogerson came in. Gideon’s first thought was that Rogerson looked very pale indeed, and that his eyes seemed too bright.
“Busy, George?”
“Just finishing.”
“Didn’t think you ever finished.” Rogerson closed the door, went to Riddell’s desk and leaned against it. He watched Gideon sign a couple of letters and fold them into their envelopes, then he went on: “You’ve cooked your goose, George. Why the dickens didn’t you tell me you were going to come out with that bombshell?”
“Didn’t know myself,” answered Gideon, and concealed the way his heart dropped at that ‘you’ve cooked your goose’. It sounded as if Rogerson had been talking to the Commissioner. “Needed saying, anyhow.”
“Pity I didn’t say it,” Rogerson said; “but if I weighed in too much it would have looked like a put-up job. George, I was going to tell you today that I’m going to have to throw my hand in. I spent yesterday with two specialists, and they give me twelve months unless I drop everything and go to grass. I spent half an hour this morning telling the Old Man that he’d be crazy to look farther than you as my successor. God knows what he thinks now.”
“Can’t have a rebel AC,” said Gideon, and made himself grin. “He wouldn’t have had me anyhow.”
“Why not?”
“Wrong tie.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Rogerson said. “All the Old Man wants is results.”
“We’ll have a chance to see,” said Gideon, and then realised that he had been so preoccupied with the way this would affect him he had hardly noticed that ‘they gave me twelve months unless I drop everything and go to grass’. How self-centred could man be? “I hope you’re not serious about those doctors,” he finished belatedly.
“Believe it or not, I am. So is my wife, who’s delivered an ultimatum; I’m to give up quickly.”
“I’m not going to believe it,” Gideon said. “I’m damned sorry, anyhow.” He felt awkward, and the gleam of humour in Rogerson’s eyes did nothing to help.
“It’s time I was taken in hand,” Rogerson said, and his smile was positively droll. “My heart isn’t what it should be, but it’s in the right place! What can I do to help you prepare this case for the Old Man?”
He meant: ‘What can I do to get you out of this mess?’ and also meant that he did not intend to dwell on his own troubles.
Gideon’s grin seemed genuinely bright.
“Just get me a couple of secretaries and a few clerks to do the research,” he answered.
“You’ll do, George,” Rogerson said, and went on soberly: “But you’ve probably misjudged Scott-Marie. You forgot he’d been trained in the Army. You don’t kick against the pricks in the Army, and you don’t argue with authority. Might have been better if you’d had a word with him in private first, but—”
“You’re worrying too much about it,” Gideon interrupted. “It needed saying, even though I might have chosen the time and place better. I’m going to have a hell of a job trying to convince him, but that’s no reason why I shouldn’t try. Think he’d like to get rid of me?”
“I’m damned sure he wouldn’t, especially as I’m on the move,” said Rogerson. “Well! I must be off. Thought I’d warn you. I’ll be going at the end of the month, so you’ve a week or two to show him how right you are. Shouldn’t overdo it, though.”
“I won’t overdo it,” Gideon assured him.
He knew exactly what Rogerson had meant: he had blotted his copybook badly, and must be very careful, or he would lose this chance of promotion. The AC took it for granted that at this stage Gideon wanted to step into his shoes. Gideon did not think much about that when, at seven o’clock, he finished the desk work and left the office after a word with the Chief Superintendent on duty for the night. He knew his own reactions very well, and knew that his subconscious pondering and reasoning often enabled him to see the solution to a case which had been puzzling the Yard for a long time. He deliberately left a problem to ‘soak’, knowing that he would do a great deal of subconscious thinking about it, and that the result would force its way into his conscious mind at the most unexpected time.
Had his manpower shortage been soaking? Had his outburst been the result of deep subconscious thought and anxiety?
Whether it was or not, he had to go and tell his wife, and prepare her for a dull evening companion. He was getting into his car, which was parked in the courtyard, when Joe Bell turned in at the iron gates. Gideon waited until Joe, looking rather tired, drew up alongside him.
“Going home already?”
“Just having an afternoon off,” retorted Gideon, and Big Ben began to chime seven. “How’s Eric Jones? All crocodile tears and promise of good behaviour if he gets just one more chance?”
“As a matter of fact, George, I’ve a nasty feeling that between the time he left here yesterday and the time we picked him up, he salted away about fifteen hundred quid,” Bell said. “I don’t know whether we’ll be able to find that, either.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Gideon.
“You don’t exactly look depressed about it,” Bell observed.
“You’d be surprised how depressed I am,” said Gideon. “Anything else special?”
“Only one job,” Bell reported. “I’ve arranged for Syd Taylor to work overtime, he’s watching for Micky the Slob. Don’t argue about signing his overtime chit when it comes in, will you?”
“I won’t argue,” Gideon promised, but he didn’t smile. “Is Syd on his own?”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t there be two men after Micky?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’ll matter,” said Bell. “Syd knows what he’s about, and if he thinks there’s the slightest danger, he’ll send for help. Can’t afford two men to watch where one will do, didn’t you know?” Bell kept a straight face. “We nearly lost a certain Eric Jones because of that last night. Remember?”
“Go and check with the Night Super, and see if he can spare another man to join Syd Taylor,” Gideon said. “If he can’t, make sure that the Division checks with Taylor regularly, and ask Squad and Q cars in that district to keep an eye open. Micky the Slob can be a nasty customer.”
“See what you mean,” agreed Bell, “but Taylor can look after himself. I’ll see what I can do, anyhow.”
“Good,” said Gideon.
For ten of his twenty-minute drive home he was thinking not of the overall problem but of Detective Sergeant Syd Taylor, one of the older sergeants on the Force. First and last, Gideon was a detective and a policeman, and his interest was in cases and criminals, in detectives and the job; administration came second. He was uneasy about Taylor only because he would have been uneasy about any one man watching for a near-cretin like Micky the Slob.
Many men at the Yard and in the Division feared that one day Micky the Slob would do murder.
A switch of thoughts carried Gideon back to contemplation of the fact that he had to tell Kate exactly how he had stuck his neck out. He could not be sure whether she would say he ought to retract as soon as he could, and so safeguard his present position, or advise him to stick to his decision. Four hundred pounds a year, even with income tax and other deductions taken off, made a big difference to comfort and a sense of security. Their large family – they had six children living and one had died – had made it impossible to save until a few years ago; now they were both saving and spending more, and living a pleasant life.
“She’ll leave it to me,” Gideon told himself, and then thought almost idly about Syd Taylor.
One thing troubled him more than anything else about the man; he must be tired. He would be able to cope if he were fresh, but could he tonight?
“The trouble is that I want something to go wrong,” Gideon grumbled to himself. “Time I shook myself out of it.”
CHILD KILLER STILL AT LARGE
That was the Bournsea job. A seven-year-old girl had been lured from her friends by a man whom no adult had seen; the child’s body had been found, two days later, after a search which had stretched the nearby Divisions and the Yard to danger-point. The child had been criminally assaulted and strangled; an ugly job. There was not a policeman in the country who would not work through night after night to find the beast who had committed the crime. Whether he was insane or not, they hated him with a kind of personal hatred.
The killer was still at large, so the old poster was not really dated.
Gideon had reviewed the investigation only two days ago, after the Yard Superintendent and his two aides, a Detective Inspector and a Detective Sergeant, had been recalled from Bournsea, where they had been assigned to help the local police. Although he had not thought of it at the time, Gideon knew that if the Yard had been able to call on plenty of reserve staff, he would not have withdrawn the trio; but after three weeks without result, it had seemed reasonable to leave the job to the local chaps, promising specific help if it were needed.
Gideon made a mental note of that, and then drove on and passed the newspaper shop and that poster.
CHILD KILLER STILL AT LARGE
The hell of it would be if another child was taken.
The killer still at large was sitting in a deckchair on Bournsea Beach. The sands were truly golden in the evening sun, the beach was comparatively empty, for it was nearly dinnertime in the resort’s hotels and boarding-houses, and the restaurants and cafes were full. Most families had gone away by then, but some children played.
There was a group of four – three girls and a boy. The boy and two of the girls were nine or ten, and more adventurous than the youngest girl, who had shining, fair hair, red, round cheeks, and curiously rosebud-shaped lips. She wore just a pair of faded pink pants, and her little body was firm and beautifully brown.
The killer watched her at the water’s edge.
The other children played fifty yards out in the sea, laughing and screaming, splashing and ducking each other. The smallest child turned, as all children will, when a dog went racing across the sands, and she crossed her arms over her unformed breasts and stood frightened, for the dog was nearly as tall as she.
The killer jumped up.
“It’s all right,” he called. “It’s all right, don’t worry.” He shooed the dog, a happy-looking mongrel, part spaniel and part setter, and went to the little girl. “He won’t hurt you,” he assured her. “He’s a very friendly chap.”
Bright dark-blue eyes made it clear that the child doubted it.
“Look,” said the killer, and took a bag of sweets out of his pocket. He put a toffee on one hand and held it out to the dog, who put its head on one side, showed its pink tongue and white teeth, made quite a job of getting the toffee off, and then began to chew as if he were used to toffee sticking to his teeth.
The child laughed.
“Like a toffee?” asked the man.
“Yes, please.”
“Take one,” he offered, and held out the bag. As she took one, he asked: “Do you often come and swim here?”
“My brother and sisters swim – I can’t swim,” she announced. “I can paddle.”
“You’ll be able to swim one day, too. Do you come every day?”
“Nearly every day,” she answered.
“One of these days perhaps I’ll teach you to swim,” he promised, and his hand strayed to her lovely hair; he patted her head, and then left her, sitting down for another ten minutes before going off.
He whistled faintly, and the carefree mongrel, not much older than a puppy, followed him.
3
SYD TAYLOR
Syd taylor knew that he was being watched, as well as watching; and it did not worry him at all. Thirty-one years in the service of the Metropolitan Police, twenty of them in the Criminal Investigation Department, had taught him nearly everything he needed to know about his and any other police job. He was fifty-three, big, as hard and muscular as most men fifteen years younger. Physical fitness was his religion. He knew all the holds of jiu-jitsu; he had won the MP heavyweight boxing championship eight years in a row, and had never been defeated – even today, although he had not entered for twelve years, he was likely to get into any final he tried for. He had a black belt, being one of the earliest judo enthusiasts in England. He could walk, run, jump and fight with anyone, and his athletic prowess had made him a major figure at the Yard.
If rough stuff threatened, send for Syd Taylor.
He had a wife, four children and a son-in-law. He had often been heard to say that he did not want to rise a step higher in the CID; he was a first-class sergeant, but didn’t like responsibility and seldom wielded it well. He was given as much respect as many superintendents, most Chief Inspectors and all Detective Inspectors, and in those thirty-one years he had never seriously broken rule or regulation; he was a work-to-the-book man and could quote regulations against any Yard lawyer.
Everyone in the Force liked Syd, but a great number of people outside it had good reason to dislike him, because he did not hesitate to use his strength if it was necessary. Once he had fought with Micky the Slob and two men almost as powerful, had broken Micky’s nose and another man’s ribs, and driven all three off. He was afraid of nothing with two fists.
He knew a great deal about Micky the Slob.
The nickname was justified, for Micky was a short man with powerful shoulders, very powerful arms, a short neck and a big, flabby face. He had the look almost of a cretin, with porcine eyes, very fair lashes, hardly any eyebrows. He was not a cretin, but very cunning although not at all original.
He lived in NE Division, near the docks, and his speciality was organising smuggling and pilfering from ships. He recruited his men from foreign crews, foreign sailors waiting for a ship, lascars and some of the more dissatisfied dock workers. He preferred to work with gangs, which made it more difficult for the police to separate him from the rest. He would arrange for twenty or thirty men working on a ship, either from the crew or from the docks, to gang up on anyone who wanted to search him or the particular ship, and make it impossible.
He had been inside twice, once for three and once for five years. If he were caught again, he would go down for ten years, and possibly longer. He never hesitated to use violence if cornered, but did not like fighting for its own sake.
Ten days ago, he had fought a running battle with the Dock Police, injuring two of them, and had escaped with a small packet of industrial diamonds from Holland; he had probably got away with a dozen packets during the past five years, but this time he had been caught red-handed. The police knew the places where he was likely to be hiding out and suspected one in particular – a big, rambling old house near the docks, now mainly one-room flatlets, with one or two larger flats. The police had searched this house twice, without finding Micky, but there was a strong possibility that he had managed to hide. So it had become a war of attrition, and the house was kept under surveillance by day and night. It was on a corner, and at the back was a high warehouse wall. There was only one way in which Micky could possibly escape, so it was sufficient to watch the house from one position, on an opposite corner.
On this corner was a dockside cafe.
Syd Taylor sometimes sat in a window-seat; sometimes strolled up and down; at other times, relieved by a Divisional man, he went off for an hour. It was simply a matter of patience; knowing Micky the Slob well, Taylor was quite sure that his own patience would outlast the other’s.
Sooner
or later Micky would break out, he might even try to get aboard a ship and out of the country, but that was not likely. He lived apart from his wife, but she was being watched, too, which meant that the job took the combined efforts of two men most of the time, and three during the relief periods.
Taylor knew the district inside out. He had spent years at the Divisional Station when on the beat, knew half of the men who patronised the cafe by name, and most of them by sight. Nine out of ten were as honest as he; he felt absolutely safe while he was there by day, and believed that if trouble was coming, it would be at dusk when day was nearly done. Some of Slob’s men would try to distract his attention before he could summon help, and the Slob would slip away into London’s darkness. It might be weeks or months before he was traced again.
Taylor also knew that before long the Yard would have to take off the watch; Micky the Slob wasn’t that important, and if a big job blew up, he would get a chance to disappear.
That evening, about the time that Gideon was talking to Bell at the Yard, Taylor came out of the cafe, and a big docker approached from along the street.
“Hullo, Syd, still wearing out the soles of your feet?”
“Giving them a bit of exercise,” agreed Taylor.
“Pity you ain’t got something better to do.”
“Nothing better than putting a man behind bars,” Taylor quipped.
