by John Creasey
He turned with relief to the typewritten sheet which the file contained. This gave details of the response from the seaside stations so far – reports presumably sent by sergeants on night duty, glad of a chance to air their knowledge of their respective neighbourhoods.
3.15 a.m. Ilfracombe. Cottage halfway up a hill at Combe Martin. Signpost near front door. But no church in vicinity, and it is passed by bridle path, not village street.
4.32 a.m. Morecambe. Seven cottages in neighbourhood could be described as halfway up hills. All are in village streets. Signposts, churches lacking.
5.48 a.m. Sandown, Isle of Wight. Cottage at Bembridge might qualify. Close to sea, near a church, and halfway up a hill. But church has square tower and no steeple, straight or crooked…
There were seven messages in all, each starting off on a note of promise, then tailing off into lists of details lacking. Were any of them worth investigating? It suddenly struck Gideon that Matt was still under orders – his orders – not to investigate. The least he could do was modify those instructions in some degree.
He reached for the telephone, and dialled Matt Honiwell’s office. A tired, tense Matt answered. Honiwell had had scarcely a wink of sleep, because he had asked Information to telephone him immediately any report was received, and – as the typewritten sheet showed – reports had come in a steady stream all through the night.
“Brodnik hasn’t slept much either,” Matt said, not without a certain relish. “Every time a report came in, I telephoned him, to ask if he sensed that this was a genuine lead. So far, he’s said ‘no’ every time. So I haven’t seen any point in taking further action. Frankly, I’m just hanging on, hoping against hope that something more tangible may come in. And if and when it does – ”
“You still want my permission to go to town?” Gideon hesitated for less than a second. “All right, Matt. You’ve got it. And don’t think I’ve been converted by a vision, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus. My reasons are a lot simpler, and have nothing to do with E.S.P. I’ve decided that if I can’t give a responsible, totally dedicated senior officer his head at a time of crisis, then I deserve to be put out to grass.”
It was perhaps the closest to making a complete volte face that Gideon had ever come. Matt was so shaken that there was a long silence on the telephone. Then he started a fumbling attempt at thanks, which Gideon cut short with a gruff, “Never mind about that. Let’s get back to the case. Have there been any more reports since this list was typed?”
“Just one.” The sleepless night was telling on Matt. There was no mistaking the weariness in his voice, the flatness of complete despair. “It was so intangible, though, that I haven’t bothered to ring Brodnik about it. Some young constable down at Bognor thinks – thinks, mind you – that he recently saw a painting by some local artist, depicting exactly the scene described. He can’t remember where or when he saw this painting; he doesn’t know the name of the artist, or even if he’s alive or dead. The Inspector in charge at Bognor has added: ‘Inquiries are proceeding.’ I’m half inclined to ring down there and tell them not to bother.”
Gideon was about to say that he’d be inclined to do the same, when there was an interruption. The door of his office opened, and Alec Hobbs came in.
“Hang on a minute, Matt. What is it, Alec?”
“The Old Man’s been on the telephone,” Hobbs said, in an urgent whisper. “Wants to see you immediately. Sounds as if he’s on the warpath.”
Gideon started. Sir Reginald Scott-Marie and he had had a difficult relationship once, but recently a deep understanding had developed between them, the sort of understanding that made phrases like “on the warpath” seem childish rubbish. Yet Alec wouldn’t have used the words without good reason. Scott-Marie’s tone must have registered pretty unmistakable anger –
Gideon remembered the newspapers; how his face was splashed across all of them; how the whole country was discussing “Gideon’s Force”. He ought to have kept Scott-Marie in close touch with everything that had happened; should have telephoned an account to his home the previous night. He had been so busy he’d been guilty – to put it at its mildest – of grave discourtesy.
He stood up, startled and chagrined, and then remembered that Matt was still hanging on. Impatiently, he turned back to the telephone … and as he did so, his eye was caught by that Brodnik sketch, which was lying face-up on his desk. He was still staring at that sketch as he picked up the receiver; and suddenly he changed his mind about what he was about to say.
“Ring down to Bognor by all means, Matt,” he found himself barking. “But don’t tell them not to bother. Tell them to step up those investigations, to give them first priority.”
“What?” Surprise swept all the weariness out of Matt’s voice. “I don’t get this, George. Why?”
“Call it a hunch,” snapped Gideon. “Brodnik doesn’t have a monopoly of them, you know.”
Still not taking his eyes off the sketch, he put down the receiver.
“Call it a hunch,” he had said, but it had been a policeman’s hunch, founded on observation as much as intuition.
Although he had once played a part in saving a lot of the National Gallery’s treasures, Gideon didn’t claim to know much about art. But the longer he looked at that sketch – at the far-too-perfect pattern made by the cottage, the church, the general view – the surer he became that it was a glorified adaptation of the picturesque rather than a real-life scene.
13
Human Bait
Five minutes later, Gideon was undergoing an experience that he had thought would never occur in his police career again. For the first time in more years than he could remember, he was – literally – on the carpet.
Scott-Marie was a tall, distinguished-looking man with a certain remoteness about him: only recently had Gideon begun to feel he knew him well enough to omit the formal approach he had hitherto accorded him. But now, accidentally or otherwise, Scott-Marie did not offer Gideon a seat, but left him standing, for all the world like some defaulter on a charge.
“Commander,” he began, with deceptive mildness. “I have called you in to refresh my memory on a rather important point. When we had a talk yesterday afternoon about the Wellesley case, I remember agreeing that, if the vigilantes meeting appeared to be getting out of hand, you should make a tentative proposal about a police-directed vigilante force. A tentative proposal, Commander. A topic for discussion.” The Commissioner’s manner sharpened. “I do not remember authorising you to establish a new kind of special constabulary – still less, to enrol it, equip it and send it out on immediate duty! I’ve had the Home Office on the telephone this morning, demanding an explanation. And I must warn you that the Attorney-General’s office is of the opinion that setting up such a force, without Government authority, is technically not within the power of the police to do.”
Gideon’s blood seemed to turn to ice. It sounded to him as though Scott-Marie was denying all responsibility for the concept; was failing to give him any sort of official backing.
He could hardly believe it, but whatever the situation, nothing would be gained by not holding his ground.
Returning the Commissioner’s steady regard, he said quietly: “There can be no doubt that what that meeting was planning was illegal, before I stepped in.” He went on to describe the anger of the walkers; the mood of blood-lust; the thinly-veiled talk of lynching. “Do you seriously suggest, sir, I could have changed all that by merely offering them a topic for discussion? There had to be a positive programme of action, one that could be put into immediate effect. That was what I gave them; that was what I understood that you had agreed that I could give them. And having given it, I was morally obliged to carry it out. I’m sorry that in the heat of events, I omitted to make a special report to you, but for all else I see no reason for apology. Last night – from the time patrolling started, onwards – was the first quiet night the Estate has had since Uniform gave it saturation policing. In effe
ct, all I have done is return to the ‘saturation policing’ policy – with the difference that the people of the Estate now do some of the policing themselves. At their own urgent insistence. If that’s against the law – ”
“Then the law is an ass, eh?” For the first time, there was a hint of understanding in Scott-Marie’s manner. “Thank you, Commander. You’ve certainly given me a line on what to say to the Attorney-General’s office. But there is another matter they might raise which I might find it a little harder to clarify.”
The Commissioner opened a drawer in his desk and produced a copy of the tabloid paper with Gideon’s K.O. blow splashed all over the front page.
“Do you call that a contribution to a quiet night?”
A little less sure of himself, Gideon launched into a full account of the Rowlandes incident. At the end of it, a seeming miracle occurred. The Commissioner appeared to be on the point of smiling.
“Sit down, George,” he said. (It was always a good sign when “Commander” turned to “George”.) “Between ourselves, I don’t mind confessing that in your shoes, I would probably have obliged young Rowlandes with a punch on the jaw myself.” His face became grave. “But there’s one thing you did last night that I could never have done.”
Gideon glanced up sharply, prepared for the worst. It was one of the biggest surprises of his life when Scott-Marie stood up, came round the desk, and extended his hand. As Gideon took it, he said handsomely: “No one but you could have turned an ugly mob scene into the start of a completely new chapter in police history. You used the highest skill, and it was unpardonable of me to mistake it for high-handedness.”
“It was unpardonable of me,” Gideon responded, “not to have kept you more closely in the picture.”
Scott-Marie, turning back to his desk, gave the ghost of a grin: “There I must agree with you. I do not feel completely in the picture yet. And shan’t, until you have provided me with a full report, detailing the need for this special emergency force, its duties, its limitations, its complete modus operandi. And I’m afraid it must be good enough to stand the closest examination, not only by our own legal department, but the Attorney-General and the Home Office experts, too. Do you want to be relieved of all your other duties for, say, twenty-four hours while you get on with it?”
Gideon thought of Lemaitre and Orsini, due in his office almost immediately. He remembered Matt Honiwell and Gordon Cargill, following incomprehensible leads, with time running out on their last desperate hopes. He had a composite mental image of the people in the Wellesley case: the now confident but still vulnerable Riddell; John Rowlandes; Marjorie Beresford; Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Gideon’s Force volunteers themselves. It looked as though the mysterious enemy on the Estate had been checked – but for how long? It was possible, even probable, that it would strike back; and that blow was more than likely to come tonight.
“I know no one’s indispensable,” he said at last, “but I honestly doubt if I can be spared for the next twenty-four hours.”
The faintest of smiles relieved the curtness of Scott-Marie’s tone.
“Curiously enough, George, I honestly doubt it too. So I’m afraid you’ll have to tackle the report on top of everything else. That’s the sort of penalty one pays for making history …”
Gideon left with his right palm still tingling from the warmth of that Scott-Marie handshake. And his spine still tingling from the ice that had so recently – if so completely – melted away.
When he got back to his own office, he found that Scott-Marie had already taken action to help him. He had sent round Sabrina Sale, the most efficient secretary in the building – a woman whose services were so highly prized that they were shared by all the senior men in the C.I.D., each of them calling her in when there was some high-pressure paper-work to be done at high speed. Gideon was never entirely sure that it was only Sabrina’s professional services that were shared. He was never entirely sure of anything with Sabrina; not even whether he ought to feel quite as he did about her.
She was a beautiful woman, probably just into her fifties, with a flawless figure and a gentle, mischievous air that belied her formidable reputation for efficiency.
Everything she said disturbed Gideon; and sometimes he suspected it was aimed to do just that.
“Commander,” she told him now, “I’ve been ordered by the Commissioner to put myself entirely at your disposal, for as long as you want – er, require me.”
Sabrina’s switch from the all-embracing “want” to the businesslike “require” was accompanied by a smile that somehow succeeded in being both demure and a covert invitation. Or was it only his imagination that made it seem so?
Gideon took a deep breath and told himself severely that he really had enough on at the moment without this kind of complication.
“Thank you very much, Sabrina. I may well be wanting – er, requiring you very shortly. May I ring for you when I do?”
“Of course, Commander. I’ll be standing by from now on.”
When Sabrina had gone, Gideon walked to his desk, by no means unimpressed, and picked up the telephone. He rang down to the canteen, and asked them to send up coffee and biscuits for four. The Lemaitre-Orsini-Major Davison meeting was likely to be a tense session; coffee and biscuits would help to establish a calmer atmosphere. He glanced at his watch, and saw that it was just before eleven thirty.
Lemaitre and Orsini, who had had to travel halfway across London, arrived dead on time; Major Davison, who had only to stroll from another part of the Yard building, had not shown up after ten minutes. Another example, thought Gideon, of the Special Branch trying to put the C.I.D. in its place, and he took a childish pleasure in seeing the Major’s coffee cooling in its cup.
In a way, though, he was glad to have the opportunity of a few minutes alone with Lemaitre and Orsini. He needed to confirm for himself that the extraordinary things he had been told about the Italian were true.
At first, it seemed hardly possible that they could be.
Dino came blundering into the room, looking for all the world like a not-very-funny stage comedian. He was so nervous that sweat was already beading his forehead as he said, “Good morning, Commander. Is great pleasure meeting you.” As he advanced to shake Gideon’s hand, he knocked against a chair.
Gideon helped him to straighten it, and noticed in the process that the man’s whole body was shaking. He looked away with a mental shrug. The very idea that this crazy character would be capable of actually going through with anything dangerous was surely preposterous.
“Mr. Orsini,” he said crisply, “Mr. Lemaitre has told me about your courageous offer to turn yourself into human bait. But there are some things I must point out to you. This is not Sicily, nor is it old-time Chicago. The C.I.D. are perfectly capable of taking care of men like Jack Rocco on their own. We have had our eye on Rocco for a long time, as a matter of fact, and we are only waiting for him to make one slip-up – ”
Dino suddenly spread his arms wide.
“Slip-up? Why wait for a slip-up? I give him a bloody big push!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gideon saw Lem bury his face in his hands in a comical gesture of despair. He decided that it was high time to cut out this element of farce. Too much stark tragedy lay underneath, and was showing through.
“Are you sure you won’t be making a bloody big fool of yourself, Orsini?” he said, sharply. “If you arrive at this Jack Rocco pub, and start shaking and falling about as you’ve been doing here, all you’ll get for your pains is a punch in the stomach or a clout over the head, and the intense strain and anxiety you’ve caused your wife and family – to say nothing of the trouble you’re causing Mr. Lemaitre – will have been in vain.”
Orsini sat down heavily on the nearest chair. His shivering did not stop – on the contrary, it started the whole chair quivering; but a subtle change had taken place. Gideon had the distinct impression that he was shaking not from fear, but from an inner passion th
at came close to fury.
“It is not true that Jack Rocco’s mob will laugh at me. And I tell you why. I have worked out a story that will put the bloody wind up them. I shall say that my brother Mario left me enough incriminating evidence to put Jack and all his top men inside for good. I shall say that unless Rocco pays me a big sum of money – ten, fifteen, twenty thousand pounds – in twenty-four hours, that evidence goes to the police.” Suddenly Orsini’s voice became remarkably steady, and his eyes had a positively dangerous glint. “It is true that when I say all this, my voice will croak and my body will be doing the shakes. But what harm will that do? I am delivering an ultimatum to the murderer of my brothers. It is natural that I show some fear. All that matters is that my message is delivered to Rocco loud and clear. And I tell you exactly what he will say to himself when he get it. ‘These Orsinis are nothing but trouble. But I have killed two of them, and got away with it. Why should I not do the same with the third?’ And he will order his hatchet-men out without thinking twice about it. Do you not agree that this will be so?”
Gideon frowned and glanced at Lemaitre.
“What do you think, Lem? You’ve had dealings with Rocco.”
Lemaitre didn’t hesitate.
“This will be so, all right, with a ruddy vengeance! If Dino gets near any of Rocco’s henchmen and delivers that spiel there’s no one in Soho who’d give tuppence for his chances of living through the next twenty-four hours.”
“That I don’t mind,” Dino said simply, “as long as I am the last person whom Rocco ever kills.”
Gideon could not help being impressed, but he did his best to dissuade the plump restaurateur.
“You can’t tell me your wife shares those feelings. Have you asked yourself if you are being fair to her?”
“Repeatedly, Commander, but you see – Nicholas and Mario had wives and children too.”
There was a tense pause. Gideon, defeated, retreated behind his biscuits and coffee. The biscuits stuck in his throat; he gulped down the rest of the coffee and then turned to Lemaitre.
