by John Creasey
“So you come along and try to sell me a lot of phoney information for a fiver.”
“It’s not phoney!”
“What was the name of the street?” demanded Murdoch.
“I tell you I don’t know,” protested the man called Tig. “All I know it was Highgate, in one of those long roads that lead off from the High Street. I don’t know which one. I was on my bike and I’d just passed a copper, so I didn’t waste any time worrying what street it was. I can tell you one thing,” added Tig, with a sudden swing to dignity. “The house next door had a lovely lot of tobacco plants, night-scented stocks don’t they call them? Lovely, it was. And the place I went in was in darkness and they’d left a window open in the downstairs toilet. As soon as I got in, they came in.”
“Did you see them?” demanded Murdoch.
“No, I never, I’ve told you I got out p.d.q.”
“All right, I’ll believe you but thousands wouldn’t,” Murdoch said. “And those tobacco plants are called nicotiana, if you give a damn. Told anyone else about this, Tig?”
“Who the hell would I tell?”
“Just answer the question,” ordered Murdoch, equably.
“No one, no one at all.”
“Well, keep your trap shut,” said Murdoch. He took out a worn leather wallet. “Here’s a couple of quid to keep the wolf from the door. If they turn up we’ll be ready for them all right – and you’ll get a fiver.”
“On top o’ this?” asked Tig eagerly.
“Yes.”
“That’s the nearest thing to money in my pocket I know.” The wizened man stuffed the two pound notes into the breast pocket of his tatty tweed jacket. “I’ll be seeing you, Will!” He got up and moved towards the door, grinning in a lop-sided way. “But don’t expect me near the docks around midday tomorrow. I wouldn’t go there for all the tea in China!”
Chapter 3
‘RELIABLE MAN’
Gideon went into the main entrance of the Daily News, at two- fifteen that afternoon. Behind him was routine, half-an-hour with his deputy, Hobbs, about a variety of cases most of them under investigation and none, as far as one could judge, near solution; also behind him was an hour with the commanders and their deputies, and a discussion on what steps to take if a strike really came about. There was probability but no certainty that the military would be called in to move foodstuffs and other perishable cargoes vital to daily living, but there could be grave trouble if that happened; clashes, or attempted clashes, between the military and the dockers, and the police – including the Criminal Investigation Department – would become deeply involved. Plans for such an emergency were always ready, of course, and under review from time to time; this morning’s session was simply a refresher.
He had felt a twinge or two when with Upway of Uniform. Known throughout the Yard as Yew-Yew Upway, with his overbearing self-confidence had said: “Get ready to hit anyone who threatens trouble before they start on us.” Behind him, also were a sandwich lunch and twenty minutes of dictation; as well as a return call to Edward Mesurier, the news editor of the Daily News.
“Can you spare me half-an-hour today, Mr. Mesurier?”
“Yes, of course. What time would suit you?”
“Is two-thirty all right for you?”
“I’ll make it all right,” the other man had promised.
Now, waiting at a wrought iron grille for someone to come forward from the ‘Enquiries’ office, Gideon pondered his reasons for thinking first of Mesurier; in fact, why he had given no one else in Fleet Street a thought. He didn’t know the man well, and did not greatly like what little he knew. But of all the national press, the News was the one which seemed to him to present the most unslanted stories. Every newspaper had its axe to grind, its owners to satisfy, its advertisers to please and its readers to cosset but the News seemed to achieve all of these things without a lot of fuss or self-advertisement. That was probably why its circulation was not far above the million mark. Despite this, however, the Daily News weathered every storm of strike or economic crisis, every squeeze and cut back in advertising revenue. It was privately owned by a family trust which, as far as Gideon knew, kept in the background and allowed its managers and editors to do their job unshackled. It suffered when the printing chapels ran into trouble with the bigger newspaper groups but was usually the last to be shut down.
“Good afternoon, sir,” a girl said from behind the grille.
“Mr. Mesurier, please. He’s expecting me.”
“Are you Mr. Gideon?”
“Yes,” Gideon answered.
“Then if you would go up to the fourth floor, sir, someone will be waiting there to take you to Mr. Mesurier.” She made the name sound like “Mesuray” but used it as if with long practice.
“Thank you.” Gideon turned to the lifts, almost directly behind him. One attendant stood by the closed entrances to the four lift cars, all of which needed repainting and some renovation. But one opened smoothly, and when he pressed the fourth floor button the doors closed silently and the lift rose easily, too. The short journey took a long time. Gideon had a moment of apprehension in case it should stop midway between floors, but no, the doors opened with a faint whirr of sound. As he stepped out a woman in her middle-forties, trim, primly-dressed, with greying hair drawn tightly back from her forehead and into a bun on the nape of her neck, came along a passage which had a high wooden wall on one side and what looked like frosted glass partitions on the other. Silence died. Bells rang, typewriters clattered, footsteps tapped or thudded, a dozen people seemed to be talking at once – including the plain-looking woman.
“Mr. Gideon?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Mr. Mesurier’s secretary.” She gave an unexpectedly attractive smile. “He’s on his way down from a meeting, and he may just be a minute or two late.”
“I’m early,” Gideon declared.
“Oh, are you?” She sounded surprised but he had a feeling that she had been fully aware of it.
She led him past the clatter and ringing, all the perpetrators hidden by the frosted glass walls which were little more than partitions, into a room at the far end of the passage marked ‘News Editor’ in black on a solid oak door. As this closed on Gideon and the woman, the noise was shut out; for a split second absolute silence reigned in this small, square room which had an old, richly- coloured carpet, a Chesterfield suite in dark green, worn a little at the arms but comfortable-looking. In the middle of this room was a round table on a pedestal with magazines and newspapers neatly set out. A door, closed, led to Mesurier’s office, where Gideon had been once before at a time of acute pressure in the relationship between the Press and the police. At that time, Mesurier had been a representative of a journalists’ association.
A small electric clock on the wall, star-shaped, was slightly incongruous. It said twenty-five past two. Gideon sat in one of the armchairs which was comfortably large enough, and picked up a copy of the Daily News, saw a short paragraph about the newspaper strike, a column about the dock strike and two main stories about a British ship lost at sea and an Air France jet plane crash killing a hundred and seven people in the Pyrenees.
The inner door opened and Mesurier came in.
He was a man of medium height, with a lean body and a narrow face, short-cut hair, fine brown eyes. His lips were full, somehow not in keeping with the rest of his face, and he had a pointed chin. He was immaculate in a pale brown suit.
“Commander, how good to see you after so long.” The words were right even if the tone lacked warmth, the handclasp was firm enough. “Please come in.” He stood aside for Gideon to enter a room at least twice as long as this, book-lined wherever bookshelves could be squeezed, with a large desk of mahogany with trays also of dark wood. It had the air of a scholar’s room, nothing of the controlled bustle of a newspaper new
s editor’s. A companion suite to the one next door was at the far end of the room and Mesurier motioned to one of the chairs, then sat opposite Gideon. He seemed lost in the big chair.
He waited.
That was characteristic; he always left the opening moves to the other man, and it could make one uncomfortable and ill-at-ease.
Gideon said: “I would like your advice and probably your help.”
“That sounds most intriguing,” declared Mesurier.
“In a very tricky and potentially dangerous situation,” Gideon went on.
“Dangerous to . . .” Mesurier allowed the ‘to’ to hover, and gave no help at all. There was no expression on his face, no twist or curve to his lips.
“All of us,” Gideon stated
“I see,” said Mesurier, quietly. “Presumably, you mean the dock troubles.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I would have expected a politician to come and discuss it or else industrialists who fear the effect of a strike,” Mesurier remarked. “But not you, or any policeman.”
Could there be the slightest hint of reproof in his voice? Or was this just an unfortunate manner? It made Gideon wonder whether he had been right to come to this man; like the lift, it made him feel very slightly apprehensive. And there was still time to switch themes, not to confide.
“Don’t have any doubts, I’m here because I’m a policeman,” Gideon told him gruffly. “May I be sure that everything I say will be held in complete confidence?”
“Yes,” Mesurier answered simply.
“Thank you.” Gideon settled back in his chair, stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. He weighed his words for a few moments and then went on: “I have information from what I believe to be a reliable source that a group of right-wingers, extreme right-wingers, calling themselves the Strike Breakers, plan to break-up the dock gates meetings which have been called for tomorrow at noon.” He went on to tell Mesurier all he had learned from Lawless and Sir Giles without going into too much detail and without naming either man. All the time he looked into Mesurier’s expressionless face. Those fine eyes were half-hidden now, by lids which drooped, while his mouth seemed thinner, as if he were pursing them. Disapprovingly? Suddenly, a new thought flashed: that Mesurier might already know about the Strike Breakers, might even have decided on a course of action.
At last, Gideon finished, and they sat in silence. Gideon remembered once sitting with the Minister of Power a few years ago, and having a similar kind of feeling: that he was getting nowhere, that he might as well stand up and get out. But he sat there as if fully relaxed, prepared to wait a long time for Mesurier to speak. He noticed that the other man had a plain gold band on his ‘wedding’ finger; and reflected that he knew nothing at all about Mesurier’s personal life.
At last, Mesurier spoke.
“And you suggest that you reason that if the story is leaked at the right time, the police can take some kind of quick action without appearing at the docks so early as to make the dockers feel you’re after them alone, but in time to prevent the Strike Breakers from attacking effectively – while allowing them to assemble and show their hand so as to be able to charge any who attempt violence? You want them to assemble because you want to learn their strength and to find out who their leaders are.”
“That’s it, precisely,” Gideon agreed. He felt much better, for this man comprehended the situation absolutely.
“You know we’ve a complete shut down threatening in Fleet Street, too, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Gideon answered.
“Supposing we don’t get a paper out tomorrow?”
“Is it really as serious as that?”
“Yes,” Mesurier answered, flatly.
“Then I would have to use B.B.C. radio.”
For the first time, Mesurier smiled and his eyes lit up; and for the first time Gideon felt completely at ease. Moreover, he felt increasing admiration for this man, bedevilled by the possibility of a strike of his own printers, yet who had so promptly agreed to see him.
“You’ve really thought it through,” he said. “Are others with you on this?”
Gideon didn’t answer, and Mesurier’s smile became almost droll.
“I see. Well, of course I can help; I can help perhaps two ways. I will have a Stop Press item in the morning’s paper if we get it out, on the other hand if we’re obviously not going to, then I’ve a newsroom contact at the B.B.C. who will put this little titbit out for me. There is one other thing I would like to do.”
Gideon thought: there can’t be a question of any major significance, but he checked both his comment and his thanks, waiting until Mesurier went on: “I’d like to send a man down to the docks at once.”
“Wouldn’t you, normally?” asked Gideon.
“Not until the dock gate meetings were about to start – dock troubles have been going on for so long that they’re not exactly headline news until they really erupt in some way or other. If I send a man down to make a few enquiries now, then it will look more natural when we break the story. And I’d like to find out whether the docks have any intimation of a threat from these Strike Breakers.”
Gideon said heavily: “I see.”
“Does it worry you?” asked Mesurier.
“I wouldn’t like your man to draw attention to the possibility of trouble,” Gideons said.
“You would have no need at all to worry. I would make sure he knew exactly what he had to do, and if he discovered anything I would inform you. I would not use anything without your specific agreement. Is that satisfactory?”
“Perfectly,” Gideon answered, all his reservations broken down. “I can’t thank you enough.”
He did not know why, but something in those heartfelt words affected Mesurier and his expression again became one that could be taken for disapproval. Certainly there was nothing commonplace about this man or his reactions. Gideon waited in the uncomfortable silence, having been given all he could have hoped for, watching the other but sitting upright now and probably looking no more relaxed than he was. Slowly, Mesurier leaned forward and spread his hands, gesture and expression both of resignation.
“Commander,” he said, “have you the faintest idea how privileged I feel that of all the men in Fleet Street who could have helped in this matter, you selected me? I am very—moved. And more than moved: I am deeply impressed. Like everyone on the Street I have long had a great respect for you as the one policeman who will come to us on equal terms – never trying even remotely to use police or Home Office pressure. I doubt if you have any idea how many friends you have in this strange, closed world of ours. If we’d needed any telling, the Notting Hill affair when you discovered such overcrowding among immigrants showed your compassion as a human being. Now this . . .” He spread his hands again and smiled more widely but with some tension; perhaps suppressing an emotion he did not want to show. “What usually appalls me is how few people, even in high positions in all fields of endeavour ever see beyond the immediate situation. You and your anonymous friends see that clumsily handled, this situation could lead to acute bad feeling in the docks and make all the difference between a strike and no strike. Possibly between hunger and sufficiency for some; even between success and failure in the nation’s economy. And you – well, you are one of those few men.”
Gideon was at first startled, then warmed, finally felt a touch of embarrassment. He marvelled that he had assessed this man both so rightly and so wrongly, and spread his own big hands and said gruffly:
“But surely those things are all obvious.”
“Obvious?” echoed Mesurier. “Glaringly obvious, yes, Commander. God, how right the simple axioms are, how difficult it is to see the wood for the trees!” Now he raised his hands high and there was fire in his eyes and life in his whole face. “Commander, sometimes I think the m
orons are right, that we would be better off if we grabbed everything we could for ourselves and devil take the hindmost. Tell me, do you know whether a man without a conscience is as happy and untroubled as he often seems to be? Do you know why a man with a conscience seems always likely to be more worried, troubled, anguished—”
He broke off.
He drew his hands into the sides of his head and pressed lightly, as if he wanted to squeeze himself to silence. In a curious way his eyes seemed to become huge and round and his mouth to purse into a kind of rosebud. He was like that only for a few seconds, and then he took his hands away and spoke with a comical expression on his face.
“I’m sorry, Commander. Truly sorry. I had just come from a meeting of employers where the nicest of men, the most honest of men, were as obdurate and unseeing as morons. And this morning I had a meeting with some of the Union leaders, just as nice, just as honest, just as obdurate and unseeing. I had expected you to want co-operation in some campaign against crime of great importance but to me secondary – do forgive me. And instead I find you a far-seeing police officer, obviously one of several. In my enthusiasm, I talked too much. Do forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive,” mumbled Gideon. “I will admit you shook me a bit, but I know exactly what you mean.”
“I believe you do,” Mesurier said. “And I should have realised it before. At least be sure that I’ll do what I’ve promised with very real pleasure.” He got up, and Gideon rose slowly, hesitated, and asked as they went towards the door: “Do you really think you’re in for a strike, Mr. Mesurier?” He pronounced the name Mesur-i-ay. “Or can you avoid it?”
“I’ve a most uneasy feeling that the best we can do is postpone it,” Mesurier answered. “And if it has to come I’m not really convinced that it wouldn’t be better to have it now.”
