Gideon's Night

by John Creasey

Fraser took one look.

  “Aye,” he said, and everything but dread faded from his eyes. “Aye, don’t say - “

  He couldn’t finish.

  “I should say it’s fifty-fifty,” said Gideon, but in truth he had no idea whether the child had any chance at all. He did not seem able to keep his mind detached about this case, which seemed to be built upon unending tragedy. For there was no doubt that Mrs. Golightly had killed the other two children, no doubt that she should never have been allowed to move about freely until the doctors had made sure of the soundness of her mind.

  Her husband knew how she had behaved before, he must have known that she wasn’t normal, and yet he had left her alone.

  What made men do such crazy, criminal things?

  Criminal?

  It wasn’t legally criminal; just a moral crime.

  Appleby could say plenty about that. Whatever the reasons, Golightly had left his sick wife alone for days on end, making no arrangement for her to have company. As a result two babies were dead, and one might die, and two mothers might suffer a shock so great that the balance of their minds would be affected just as much as Mrs. Golightly’s.

  There was another instance of Appleby’s example of Bigamy Bill. The greatest crimes could be committed within the law. This woman had cunning, she had killed, she would be put into an asylum at “Her Majesty’s Pleasure.” Her husband had committed the sin of omission. Funny to be quoting and moralizing like Appleby.

  Now there was the woman herself to deal with.

  Mrs. Golightly was on her way to Scotland Yard, where a doctor was waiting for her; she would be given a sedative and put to bed in Cannon Row, the police station just across the courtyard, and in the morning she would probably wake up quite sane, but aware of what she had done and filled with new despair.

  The doctor looked up from the child, only twenty minutes after Gideon had arrived, and brushed his hair back from his damp forehead. Willy Smith had arrived; more policemen were here, as well as a nurse for the child. Gideon saw the way each man stared at the doctor, and realized that he had not been the only policeman who had felt the night’s sickening fear.

  “He’ll be all right,” the doctor said.

  No one spoke for several seconds, but all stared at the baby inside the plastic oxygen hood, its head on its side, looking peacefully asleep, and with a faint movement at its chest.

  “Sure” grunted Gideon.

  “Quite sure.”

  “Can we tell the parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good enough,” said Gideon, and nodded to Willy Smith. “Thanks. Come on.” He led the way downstairs and into the cold street, and felt as if the only thing in the world that mattered had happened now; that there was cause for supreme contentment, for easing unbearable tension.

  Fraser was standing just inside the front doorway of his house, and his wife was behind him, bundled up in a dressing gown.

  “Excuse me, sir …”

  “The child will be all right,” Gideon said quietly, and heard Mrs. Fraser’s cry, “Thank God,” and then heard her begin to sob.

  Soon, he was upstairs at Number 27, where Mrs. Harris was still fully clad but, persuaded by her husband, had lain down on the double bed.

  She didn’t speak when Gideon told her, but so radiant was her face that Gideon believed he would carry the sight of it in his mind until his dying day, as he would the look of delight, so near elation, on the father’s face.

  Two babies had died that night, but theirs had been saved. They might feel compassion but they could not share the grief or the hurt.

  Willy Smith and Gideon stood by the side of Gideon’s car, and a gust of wind came along the street, making Smith clutch at his hat, and causing Gideon to shiver. For the first time, they could now see the outline of every house in the street, and the fog eddied about as if it were anxious to get away as soon as it could.

  “Now all you want is the Prowler,” Smith said, “but it doesn’t look like our night for him, does it?’

  “Still time, I suppose,” said Gideon. “Did you hear that I’d moved men into NE? The Wide boys and Melky’s gang look as if they’re spoiling for a fight.”

  “I heard. Taking their time, aren’t they?’ Smith shrugged. “I hope they cut themselves to pieces.” He paused, but obviously hadn’t finished. “I know what I’ve been meaning to ask you for weeks, George - nothing to do with shop, but about my daughter, Peggy. You know her; she danced a lot with your boy Matthew at that teen-age dance they ran out at the Sports Club in the summer.”

  “Pretty kid,” said Gideon, remembering well. “Must have taken after her mother.”

  “I helped,” Smith grinned. “Don’t know whether I ever mentioned it, but she’s quite handy with the violin. Not in the top flight like your Pru, but not bad for an amateur, and she’s as keen as mustard. I wondered if Pru would give her a few tips, help her to find out if it’s worthwhile taking up lessons and going in for it seriously. I shouldn’t think it is,” added Smith, with an airy nonchalance which didn’t deceive Gideon for a moment, “but if she could find out, it would put her out of her misery.”

  “Shouldn’t think Pru would like to sit in judgment,” Gideon said. “She doesn’t take after her father. But if she can help I know she will. I’ll tell you what. Sunday afternoons or evenings, when she’s not playing with the orchestra or at the BBC studios, we usually have a kind of musical evening at home. Kate plays the piano a bit and …”

  “Dad sings,” put in Smith.

  “Not on your life. One verse of ‘Old Man River’ is my limit these days. But next time Pru’s going to be in, I’ll call you and suggest you come over for an hour or two. Have your youngest bring her violin, and let’s see what goes on from there.”

  “First rate,” said Smith. “Thanks, Gee-Gee. Now I’ve got you for a minute, there’s another thing, too. You know I run a series of lectures over at Divisional headquarters once a fortnight. General police routine and special subjects, particularly anything that will help to make them think there’s some fun in it. We get too many resignations from the chaps who come in full of enthusiasm, find it a bore and resign in their first year,” Smith went on. “This is my way to try and get ‘em to stay. I’ve always found out that if you can hold ‘em for three years you’ve got ‘em for keeps.”

  “S’right,” agreed Gideon.

  “Well, you won’t believe it, and I did my damnedest to kill the idea, but a lot of the chaps seem to think that George Gideon is the Big Cheese. Would you …”

  Gideon chuckled, a deep, pleased laugh, for that had come so unexpectedly and yet with such obvious sincerity.

  “Yes, I’ll come and talk to ‘em,” he said. “Any time you like, within reason.”

  “I’ll fix it soon,” Smith said. “Thanks, George. Well, it’s time I went to see how crime’s getting on in CD Division; been quietish except for that baby job until now. Hell of a relief that’s over.”

  “I know how you feel,” said Gideon.

  Smith went off. Gideon got into his car, watched by the only two uniformed police who were now in the street. He didn’t start the engine immediately, but adjusted his coat and told himself that he seemed to betaking up more room these days, because the car wasn’t shrinking. He hadn’t been on the scales for months. He flicked the radio to life, and the medley of London’s night sprang into the car: odd phrases, odd words and, unexpectedly, a background of dance music. One of the Squad cars was probably near a place where music was being played, but at this hour it seemed odd.

  He called Appleby.

  “How are things, Charley?”

  “You’re a fine one,” Appleby said. “First time tonight I get a chance of forty winks and you have to wake me up. Things have gone quiet, everywhere a deathly ‘ush. If you really want the details …”

  “Not if there’s nothing big. I thought I’d drive over and see Hemmingway while I’m out.”

  “I’ll hold the fort,” Apple
by promised. “That plane from Paris arrived, the French chap is on his way, should be here inside the hour. Still foggy out at Hounslow and the Great West Road, but not so bad.”

  “If the Paris chap really seems to have anything, have the airport police ask Forrester to come to the Yard with them for questions,” Gideon said. “If you don’t think it’s strong enough, let him go and have him tagged.”

  “Oke.”

  Gideon hesitated, reluctant to put the receiver down until he knew for certain that there was no news in about the Prowler, but knowing that Appleby would have passed anything so important. The hiatus lasted only a second or two, but he was very conscious of it; then he asked almost too quickly:

  “How’s the Lewis girl?”

  “Nothing new,” said Appleby. “Piper’s back; he did quite a job. The mask will be trotted round to London suppliers in the morning, telephotos of the heel print will go out tonight. If you ask me, you could take everyone off the cordon now. We’re not going to get Mr. P. tonight.”

  “You could be right,” conceded Gideon. “Give ‘em a bit longer - if he’s still out he won’t be able to hide all night, so we might catch him yet.”

  “You’re a sticker, you are,” Appleby said, and then suddenly burst out laughing. “Stickier than glue. Three G’s for you in future, Gee-Gee!” Still tickled by his wit, he rang off, and Gideon flicked the radio off ruefully. Anyone who lived or worked regularly with Appleby must need the patience of Job; he didn’t think he could last a week without getting fidgety.

  He drove to the Embankment and then over Battersea Bridge, less to test the police who were blocking the bridge at the other end than to drive in a roundabout way to the East End, covering the area where the Prowler had struck. There was one good thing: the Prowler wouldn’t strike again tonight. His activities always finished soon after eleven o’clock.

  From now on the night should be one of straight routine, except the East End gang job, the tail end of the hunt for the Prowler, and anything he didn’t know about.

  The last affected Gideon as much as anything: the countless crimes being committed at that moment, cloaked by London’s darkness. Four out of five of the night’s offences would not be discovered until next morning, and, as he drove, he was probably passing a dozen crimes actually being committed, yet was oblivious to them all.

  Now, his mood was reflective and mellow.

  A three minutes’ hold-up at the far side of the bridge where two cars in the other direction were stopped by the police, their drivers being questioned and their shoes examined, cheered him further. No one would get through the cordon easily. Probably thousands of motorists had been stopped, hundreds of buses held up; the old job of looking for a needle in a haystack was on again. But they’d found at least one needle tonight.

  So as he headed toward the East End his thoughts were easier than they had been for some time. Willy Smith had high hopes for his daughter. Willy and the lectures, too - good idea, those lectures, it wouldn’t be amiss to have them at all the Divisions. Might be a good idea to make them a bit more interesting than the usual run, and pep things up a bit. Get a couple of crime reporters to talk on the newspaper angle of crimes, for instance, a pathologist or two for the grisly stuff; that always went down well, put a bit of humour into it. Willy was right in one way; the uniformed branch had a heavy rate of loss by resignation, and the Force’s manpower position was going to be really acute before long. The plain-clothes branch was always kept at full strength and there were those - including people at the Home Office, who ought to know better - who thought that if the C.l.D. was at full strength everything in the garden was lovely, and the conquest of crime should be well on the way.

  Idiots.

  The conquest of crime wasn’t the C.I.D.’s job. Conquest began before a crime was committed - conquest would have begun with Mrs. Golightly, for instance, if her husband hadn’t left her on her own. The conquest of crime was simply a matter of prevention, and the job of the C.l.D. wasn’t triumph over crime but a war against the criminals after they’d done their job. The real fight to win began with the uniformed men out on the beat - men like that chap Rider. And the uniformed branch was at least forty per cent understaffed because they couldn’t get enough of the right men to stay.

  Was better pay the answer?

  It might be part of it; that was all. The job wasn’t really attractive yet, there weren’t enough youngsters who felt like young Matthew. That gave him a warm glow. Here in the small hours, driving through the quiet with his headlights behaving as if they were driving the fog away in writhing defeat, he could feel the satisfaction at knowing that Matthew wanted to follow him at the Yard. It ought to be possible to persuade him to sit for the university scholarship, and make him realize that he would do much better for himself in the Yard’s legal department, for instance; but if he did start out as a copper -

  Gideon put the thought aside as he crossed Lambeth Bridge, was held up for a minute, then drove past the yard. The radio kept silent, so there wasn’t much doing; Appleby would make sure that he was kept informed.

  He thought again, in the mellowed, untroubled mood, of the crimes that were being committed now and would not come to light until later, and he felt almost philosophical, so deep had been his relief at the finding of the Harris child.

  He was quite right about one thing: about the crimes being committed within a stone’s throw of him as he had driven through the streets of London.

  Among the men who had seen his car drive past, and who had crouched out of sight until there was no danger of him being seen, was the Prowler. He was still inside the cordon, still in greater danger than he knew.

  Among the women whom Gideon had passed was Mrs. Michael (Netta) Penn, until recently of 11 Lassiter Street.

  When she had telephoned the Yard, she had simply been worried and distressed; when Gideon’s car passed within a hundred yards of the cellar where she was sitting, she was terrified.

  For a long time she had gone on searching for her husband, always desperately, fearful of the reason for his disappearance. She had never found the courage to speak of it to the police, but she was frightened in case her husband, her beloved Michael, had been murdered. She had believed that, if she could persuade Scotland Yard to look for him, they would find out the best or the worst.

  That night, in the fog, she had telephoned Scotland Yard, asking for Gideon because Gideon’s name had been in the newspapers several times recently and had grown tired of talking to casual telephone men within different voices, to officials who obviously thought that she was making a lot of fuss about nothing.

  Two or three things that Michael had said before his disappearance had suggested that he was going to some money; he had talked of “being rich.” So she connected his disappearance with new-found wealth. She was absolutely certain he would not just walk out of her life; that if it was humanly possible he would telephone or write to her.

  So - he must be dead.

  He-had been so happy, so confident in his love.

  Among the people she had talked to about Michael had been the Rikkers of 11 Lassiter Street. She had called there tonight, before telephoning, to inquire for letters and messages - praying for one from Michael.

  There had been none.

  Rikker, the landlord, a middle-aged man she had never liked, had been harsh and unfriendly, and his drab of a wife no better. Without realizing that it was the first time she had told them this, she had said that she was going to make the police look for Michael; that very night she was going to telephone Gideon.

  Before Gideon had come on the line, while she had been waiting with a new sort of hope, Rikker had loomed out of the fog, opened the kiosk door, and twisted the telephone out of her hand.

  “You come with me,” he had said, and the night had muffled his voice and her fears had stifled hers.

  Now she was in terror, because she was sure that they had killed Michael and they were going to kill her.

 
11 Night of Terror

  It was a small house. Sounds would travel from it easily. It was possible to hear the rumble of the buses from the main road which ran along one end, and the cars which passed, too. It was also an old house, and had a cellar deep beneath the ground, with only a round hatch leading to the pavement through which sound could escape. The hatch was covered, the boxes standing beneath it and sacking stuffed tightly between the top box and the hatch, so that no sound escaped.

  Netta sat on an upright chair in the cellar, and she was tied to it with rope which she couldn’t loosen, and which hurt-her arms and cut into her thighs. One light burned above her head, but it was chance that it shone almost directly into her eyes, making them water, making her long to close them - although she dared not close them for long, in case she lost consciousness and so missed any sound or sight to indicate that the landlord was coming back.

  She did not know how long she had been here.

  There had been the telephone kiosk, the opening door, the landlord’s powerful grasp, her fear, the way he had hustled her back to Number 11, with a scarf round her face so that, even if she had wanted to scream, she could not. The night had been thick with fog and empty of people, and she had been bundled over the threshold of the house where she had once had her home in two furnished rooms upstairs.

  Then, she had been wildly happy.

  Now -

  Rikker had taken her downstairs into the cellar, his wife had followed and, when the door at the foot of the stairs had closed on them, she had realized how utterly silent it was down here. In part, that might be due to the stillness of the night, but here were the bricks of the walls, whitewashed, looking big and solid.

  One big section looked new. The floor was solid concrete. In one corner, beneath the manhole, there was a heap of coke, for burning.

  They had questioned her, first the man, and then his wife.

  How often had she been to the police? What had she told the police? Why had she gone to the police?

  How often?

  What had she told them?