by John Creasey
Ryman had considered everyone whom he knew with a child of a reasonable age, and had selected the Mountbaron infant as the most suitable.
Next he had to plan the details of the kidnapping.
He did not seriously take into account the risk to the child.
13
RIDDELL
One of the angriest and most resentful men in the Police Force, perhaps the angriest during those few days, was Chief Inspector Thomas Riddell. For some hours after Gideon had rounded on him, Riddell had felt that he could walk out of the Yard and out of the Force; for an hour, he had been very close to doing it. But he was no fool; he had seven more years to go to a full pension, and was living right up to his income. There might be easier and better-paid jobs outside the Metropolitan Police, but he had lost his chance of getting one.
He had told Gideon what he believed was for Gideon’s own good; and now, three days after he had arrived in Bournsea, he still could not read the name Gideon or hear it spoken without bridling, although he did not think that anyone else noticed that. He was pretty sure that Hill thought he resented having been sent out of the Yard on this job, but did not suspect a personal grievance.
After the newspaper huzzahs following Micky the Slob’s arrest, Riddell had felt even worse; and very bitter. Among other things, being in Bournsea compelled him to cancel two social engagements which his wife had made, and she hadn’t been particularly understanding.
To make it worse, Riddell was in poor digs. In the holiday season, accommodation wasn’t easy, and all the Yard men had to be fairly close to the police headquarters, housed in an old building at a poor part of the town – the day trippers’ end, close to the main pier. Riddell’s room was small, it overlooked a back street, and his general view of Bournsea was of countless towels and swim-suits hanging out to dry; the crying of babies; and the noise of radios turned on too loud.
All of this was Gideon’s fault.
Anger made Riddell apply himself to the child murder problem more single-mindedly than he had approached a case for years. In effect, Gideon had told him that he was a no-good lazy so-and-so, not the realist he had always considered himself. There were two ways in which he could respond; by doing damn-all, which was what Gideon obviously expected, or proving that he could pull his weight with anyone.
By the second day, he had realised that being instrumental in solving this case would be the best way of getting some kind of revenge on Gideon. Hill had assigned him to the odds and ends rather than any specific job; for instance, he was trying to find people who owned a dog without having a licence, and he was still checking the stories of those who claimed to have seen this man and the dog. He had now found three statements saying that the man had gone off on a bicycle, but still there was no good description of the cyclist.
On the Thursday evening, he was eating an evening meal in the company of a holidaymaker, his middle-aged wife and their surprisingly young family, all wanting to see the television. His thoughts were on revenge. What he needed was to discover something no one else had spotted; a completely new angle.
He finished his meal, which hadn’t been too bad, went out, and strolled along the promenade from the pier. It was very noisy, for the coaches had not yet taken the day trippers away. The beach was littered with paper, ice-cream wrappers, brown-paper bags and newspapers. The sea was calm and, hundreds of people were still bathing although it was after eight o’clock. Riddell was immaculate in his brown suit, wearing a snap-brim trilby, handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket, and tie and socks matching the spotted border of the handkerchief. He was the only well-dressed man in sight. A few girls looked at him, but he was in no mood for thinking about girls who bulged out of sun dresses or low-cut blouses, so he took no notice of them. As he studied the stretch of beach where the man, dog and child had been seen, a thousand people must have been in view. Something of the real magnitude of the task came over him.
“But there must be some angle no one’s seen,” he told himself, and paused to light a cigarette. “Two girls, one six, one seven – both strangled after being assaulted.” Riddell felt no repugnance, saw this simply as a case. “Man and dog – dog’s saliva and paw-marks, anyhow – in both cases. No footprints, no cycle-tyre prints reported”; he had studied all the reports and the photographs so closely that he would never forget them.
He called to mind everything he had seen and read, and among these was the photograph of the dead child. She had been a pretty kid, but Riddell, who was childless, was looking at the mental image of the photograph only for the help which it might be able to give.
Then he exclaimed: “They both had fine, golden hair!”
He walked on a few steps.
“That’s a point,” he told himself. “Both very blonde, both blue eyes, both fair complexion, both pretty, even for children.” Now he stood and stared out to sea, quite oblivious of a pleasure steamer which was bringing home its load of weary passengers. He went briskly to the copse where the children had been found. Only a small part was still cordoned off. A few gawpers stood by this rope cordon and the two uniformed policemen who were guarding it; uselessly, Riddell thought. He walked briskly up a narrow cutting which led from the beach to the town itself, and caught a bus to the other end of the town and the police station. He went into the office allotted to him and Hill, and was glad that no one was there. He went to a filing cabinet and took out photographs of each of the murdered children.
“Could almost be sisters,” he said aloud.
He pulled up a chair and sat down, with a feeling that he might have found what he was seeking. Then he opened the various files on the case; there were dozens of these, the way Hill had set the local men to work was an eye-opener. Riddell knew exactly what he was looking for, and found a file marked:
Children Reported Missing Past Twelve Months
Inside this were seven photographs of different children, and to each was attached written or typewritten notes. Of the seven, four were blonde, and although they were not really alike, in general appearance there was considerable likeness. Riddell now found himself almost uneasy with excitement. He put aside the cases of the dark-haired children, and read the reports on the others; two had been missed from the beach, one from her home, one had got lost on the way from school to home. In three of the four cases there was a note:
Child states she was offered sweets by strange man.
Riddell put all seven cases together so that each of the photographs was side by side. Then he checked the notes carefully, and decided that in five cases the circumstances were identical except that in three the child had been allowed to get safely away.
In these, the man had taken the child for a bus ride; or for a walk; or for a bathe. In no case had the local police been able to trace the man.
Riddell had enough sense to realise that this was simply because nothing serious had developed; the police had not had reason to expect murder or assault.
Riddell heard footsteps, and frowned, suspecting that they were Hill’s. They were. Hill opened the door, and stopped suddenly in the doorway, his big mouth drooping open in surprise. ‘If he makes any sarcastic remark about overtime,’ Riddell thought, ‘I’ll tell him to go to hell.’ He stared up with a curious mixture of defence and aggression, as Hill came in.
“Hallo, Rid, got anything?”
“Could be,” said Riddell.
“Pretty lot of kids.” Hill looked at them all. “Could almost be sisters, couldn’t they?”
“That’s what I thought. See what I’m driving at?”
“Dunno that I do,” said Hill. He sat down on a corner of the small desk, and took out a tobacco pouch and a patent cigarette-making machine. “Let’s have it.”
Riddell said: “I think it’s possible these four girls”—he tapped photographs—”were taken away by the man we’re after, but he didn’t harm them. It might even have started harmlessly enough, with just a pervert’s liking for blonde children with long fair hair a
nd blue eyes. We don’t need to go into the motive of the maniacs, do we? “
Hill was looking at him steadily.
“Damn good point. Where do we go from there?”
“How many girl children about this age are there these days?”
“Not so many,” said Hill, and finished rolling his cigarette, which he seemed to do without a glance at the machine or the tobacco and paper. “We could soon find out, though. Get in touch with every primary and kindergarten school, public and private, and find out. Shouldn’t take much more than an hour or two in the morning. Like to handle it?”
“Yes.”
“Ta. Any other bright ideas?”
“No,” said Riddell, and was not sure whether there was a hint of sarcasm in the remark or not. “I just concentrated, and—but you know how it is.”
“Gideon always says that he’d rather spend one hour thinking over a case than ten hours collecting clues,” said Hill. “Amazing how often Gee-Gee’s right.” Riddell did not speak. “I just came in to have a look at the postmen’s reports again,” he said. “Funny about that dog, too. There just isn’t one answering the description as far as we can see – how many dogs did we look at yesterday?”
Riddell grinned.
“Seventy-five.”
“Oh, lor’,” said Hill, and lit his cigarette; a little flame shot up at the end where a few strands of tobacco hung down, and the smoke was very blue and the smell pungent. “Well, I’d say that this dog’s been killed, but why hasn’t anyone missed it?” He puffed and blinked, and Riddell knew that he was genuinely deep in thought. Now and again his big jaws moved in a chewing-the-cud kind of motion. “I’d have laid odds that a postman knew every dog on his round.”
“Couldn’t be a postman, could it?” asked Riddell.
“Could be anyone,” Hill said musingly, and pondered again. “Can’t say we ought to spend much time on that possibility yet, but there’s a different angle.”
Riddell could not see one, and kept silent.
“The dog would have been about on Saturday, so Saturday’s postman would have seen it. It would be missing on Monday. So—”
“Any postman who changed his round this week and started a new one wouldn’t know anything about the dogs or people on the round,” Riddell put in, suddenly bright- eyed.
“That’s it,” agreed Hill. “Had that in the back of my mind, I suppose, knew I wanted to think about it a bit more. What kind of digs have you got?”
“Bloody awful.”
“Bad luck,” sympathised Hill. “Mine aren’t bad, I’ve got a room over the Pier Inn. Noisy at night but I don’t mind that, my wife always says if I can sleep through my own snoring I can sleep through anything. What about coming over and having a drink? We might think up some more bright ideas between us.”
“I’d like to,” Riddell said, with almost too much alacrity.
They stayed in the Pier Inn’s saloon bar until half past ten, closing time, and each had three whiskies and sodas. Then Riddell walked back to his lodgings. On the way, several cyclists passed him, and he found himself remembering that a cycle had been mentioned in the case. You could never tell: the killer himself might be passing any minute. He thought that several times and, when he reached the front door of the house where he lodged, he stood looking up and down the road, reminding himself that he was getting as bad as Hill and Gideon.
A cyclist passed him.
It was George Arthur Smith.
Smith was seeing visions, of girl children with lovely silky golden hair, long hair which was so beautiful beneath one’s hand, which seemed to caress him, instead of being caressed by him. He was seeing the faces of girl children, but not girls he had actually known, or had taken out for a bus ride or for a walk, feeding them with sweets, and letting them go some distance from his home. There were girls whom he had never seen; dream girls; and all the same girl, in some strange way.
They all had the same face.
They all had pink, warm, chubby little grubby hands, and they all pointed with a forefinger, the nail of which was slightly bitten.
They all answered to the name of Grace.
He did not even remember that a Grace had once lived next door to him; was dead, yet was alive.
Sometimes they stubbed fingers and noses against the glass of the shop window. Sometimes they breathed on the glass. Sometimes they were giving him money, and he was giving them sweets.
Little Grace.
She lived at 51 Penn Street, not very far from his corner shop.
He cycled past the man standing on the doorstep, without giving him any thought. A policeman was walking along the street farther along, and Smith realised that the man was staring at him, but he did not really feel worried, because there was no reason at all to think that he was suspected. In any case it was dark, and he couldn’t be seen. He cycled to the shop and then, on sudden impulse, went to the corner of Penn Street, and cycled slowly along that. There were several street lights, and one of them was opposite Number 51, but on the other side of the street. The bungalow looked bright and new even in the poor light.
Grace slept in a room at the rear, he knew.
He turned round at the end of the street, and then cycled back, very slowly. He could see little Grace everywhere, and he wanted desperately to stroke her hair. He slowed down, but a couple of young people walked along on the other side of the road, and he quickened the speed of his cycle and went past. He turned towards the shop. He was breathing rather fast now, and just had to feel that beautiful silky golden hair. He couldn’t help it, he had to go and see Grace.
There was a light in the shop, unusual so late, and then he saw his mother standing on the kerb, looking towards him. As he drew near, she called out in a shrill voice: “Is that you, Georgie?”
Why did she call him Georgie?
He could hit her.
“Yes, Mum.”
“What have you been doing along there?”
“I’ve just come from the pictures, Mum.”
“You don’t usually come home that way.”
Anger rose up in him, and he jumped off his bicycle and pushed past his mother roughly, wheeled the machine into the shop, and let it fall against a counter; it knocked off some tins of food which were stacked near the edge. His mother came following, and he heard her shooting the bolts of the door. He had longed to go and see Grace, but the spell was broken, and it was her fault; the fault of the old woman who now came in and stared at him in a way which he knew was queer.
“George,” she said, in an unsteady voice, “there’s no need to get cross. I only asked you—”
“I can come home from the pictures any way I like, and it’s none of your business,” he said roughly. “I’m fed to the teeth with you pestering me with a lot of senseless questions. You lead your life, and I’ll lead mine, and that’s all about it.”
He ate his supper in surly silence, and only grunted ‘goodnight’.
When the light in his room had gone out, his mother went to her bed, and knelt down and prayed, because she did not know what to do.
He couldn’t be the man; not her Georgie.
He simply couldn’t be the man.
But she had seen the way he looked at little Grace, and the way he stroked her hair, and she remembered that first Grace so vividly.
It wasn’t a crime to stroke a child’s hair, and these days it soothed George. Long, silky, golden hair had fascinated him since he had been very young. From the depths of her memory, Mrs Smith could see a next-door neighbour’s child with hair like spun gold, who had been a bosom friend of her son’s. The child had been found hanging from the banisters of her home after a childish game. George had been beside himself with grief, and had taken a long, long time to get over it; for years he had hated girls with that unusual kind of hair.
For some time his mother had believed that these days it soothed him; but was she right?
Keith Ryman lay in his single bed, with Helen in the bed next
to him, curled up like a kitten as she always was when asleep. The light from the street lamp in Park Lane was bright enough to shine on her hair, and it touched the mirror in the gilt-framed dressing-table, so that Ryman could just make out his reflection. It was a little after one o’clock, and he had been concentrating for a long time, with so many things buzzing in his mind that he was not sure which ought to have priority. He was aware that there might be snags in all he had planned; he must get the police searching for the baby before there was any attempt at ransom, for instance. He might decide not to go ahead with the ransom. Helen wanted the twenty-five thousand he said he was going to demand for the baby, but it was only chicken feed, and might carry a big risk. There’d be plenty for Helen out of the bank job. They could send the baby back – provided they could make sure that the kidnapping couldn’t be traced back to them.
Rather than that, they must kill and bury it.
Would Helen be like Rab Stone? Soft-hearted.
There was another snag over the two policemen, the kind of thing one sensed but could not understand. Gideon as a victim was in the back of his mind, but Ryman had gone no farther than thinking it a good idea. Its weakness might be that the police would certainly exert themselves for Gideon, and he did not want to goad them too far.
“Just get them running round in circles,” he told himself.
