Impartiality Against the Mob

by John Creasey

He—he could kill her. Kill his Rose.

  Oh, God, dear God, dear God. Don’t let me.

  There she was! On the stairs. Here she came. She was halfway, for a stair creaked on a familiar note. In a moment she would be here. He began to shiver. He knew what he wanted to do. Wanted to do. He wanted to place his hands round her white throat, his hands, and squeeze – and squeeze.

  Oh God don’t let me kill her.

  She was on the landing; there was another creak, familiar as the one lower down. He could not bear to set his eyes upon her. If he saw her he would leap upon her; if he touched her – God! He was quivering violently. He was hot and he was cold. Hot, cold. She went past to the bathroom.

  He began to sweat.

  He would do this, when late; pass the bedroom, undress in the bathroom, come in here and slip into bed, trying not to disturb her. He had once stayed downstairs and slept on the couch and she had reproved him, playfully.

  “I don’t mind you waking me up.”

  “But I hate disturbing you.”

  “It makes me realise I’m married.”

  He was sweating; his teeth were clenched; he was shivering hot and cold, hot and cold. Water ran in the bathroom, not the flush but from the taps. He moved slowly towards the door. He knew what he must do; it was as if his prayers had been answered, and he was being saved from killing her. He knew that if he saw her he would lose his self-control. He must not see or touch her. He pulled a dressing gown from the end of the bed and went out of the bedroom. The bathroom door was ajar, light streamed out in a narrow strip. The squeak of the floorboards were drowned, even those on the stairs. He went into the front room, and lowered himself slowly on to the arm of the couch. Then, he began to shake as if his whole body were possessed. He could not stop his teeth from chattering, his hands and feet from jumping up and down.

  All thought vanished.

  There were sounds and noises in his head but no thoughts at all.

  He heard nothing from upstairs. After a while, he quietened. She did not come down. He went to a corner cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy, sipped from the bottle, and soon began to feel more in control of himself. He thought he heard the bed creak; feared she would come down, but there was no further sound on the landing or the stairs.

  “He’s still out,” Rose breathed to herself. “He’s even later than I am!”

  And then she thought: I could have stayed another half-hour with Jack.

  Entwhistle could not sleep that night, for sheer joy. Every moment at the ballet had been joy; and Carol’s delight almost unbelievable. She was in her usual bed, he was sleeping in an occasional bed in the front room in the little modern house where his brother and sister lived. He got up, dressed, and went out at the back door, making no sound at all. He had learned to move with stealth.

  He remembered what he had remembered in agony a thousand times.

  He remembered going out one night because he could not rest at his home, although he had dreamt about that for so long. He had gone out for peace and the quiet of his soul, and came back – and found his wife dead.

  In a daze; in horror; in disbelief, he had gone out again and walked the streets, and because of this had later been arrested and charged and convicted of her murder. Now he was out in the streets, walking. Alone, without fear or horror or dread. He had a peace in his heart which he had never expected to know again. There were problems and difficulties ahead and some would be hard, but he was back with his children, and the loss of his wife no longer hurt.

  The first problem would be what to do about the children.

  Should he really try to make a home for them, himself? In Australia?

  Or should he see if his brother and sister, foster parents for so long, would really be happy if they were to stay? He could pay for their upkeep now: get a job and take the financial burden away; he had no doubt about that. Nor had he any doubt that with his new-found calmness he could face any situation. His children knew he had not killed their mother, and Carol loved him.

  He walked for half-an-hour.

  He passed two policemen at one corner, and was passed at another by a small car carrying a reporter and a photographer to the scene of a bank robbery only a mile away. Their world, so much part of his, was also so far away from it. He went back to the house and let himself in quietly, calmly, and went to bed.

  This time, he slept.

  Gideon woke to his alarm clock, at a quarter to eight, hurried down to find the newspapers in the letter box, made some tea and scanned the headlines, then had a quick bath and drove to the Yard, arriving there at a quarter to nine. He saw the pile of reports on his desk, showing that Hobbs had been busy. He skimmed them all. None was important enough to make him want to see the superintendent-in-charge. He rang at once for Alec Hobbs, who came in from the adjoining room. Hobbs was a man of barely medium height, compact in close-fitting clothes. He had a curious kind of elegance – or, Gideon wondered, was it fastidiousness? Of all the men at the Yard Gideon had come to like, respect and trust him more than any, although Gideon was London Elementary School and thereafter self-taught, while Hobbs came of a wealthy and old family, had been to Repton and Kings, Cambridge. His dark hair had a suspicion of a wave; his dark grey eyes, sombre for so long during the illness and eventual death of his wife, could sparkle as brightly as Penelope’s. This morning he wore a suit of lightweight medium grey worsted; Savile Row tailored.

  “Good morning, Alec.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “How was the ballet?”

  “Brilliant,” Hobbs replied. “It was a thousand pities Penny missed it.”

  “There’ll be others.”

  “None quite like that. Natasha is superb.” Hobbs standing now by the side of Gideon’s big, flat-topped desk, with the trays marked In, Out, Pending, Urgent, was obviously assessing Gideon’s mood. He smiled faintly as he went on: “I somehow don’t think the Bolshoi Ballet is on your mind!”

  “No,” Gideon said. “Two things are, Alec. Sit down.” He told Hobbs what he could of the dockers’ strike and the Strike Breakers, and paused for a reaction. It wasn’t long in coming.

  “The moment the news breaks, you’ll tell Yew-Yew, I suppose.”

  “Yes. But I won’t tell him that I had fore-knowledge.”

  “No,” Hobbs conceded. “Of course he could still rush in and cause a lot of trouble thinking he’s really staving it off.”

  “So,” Gideon said.

  “It might be—” Hobbs began, and then smiled drily. “You’re a step ahead, no doubt.”

  “Of what?”

  “The one thing which could keep Yew-Yew from overdoing it would be a direct warning from the Commissioner,” Hobbs said.

  Very slowly, Gideon agreed: “Yes.” A variety of thoughts were passing through his mind, including the fact that Hobbs was right and the time might have to come for someone to approach the Commissioner, the top official of the Metropolitan Police. Hobbs was being groomed for the Assistant Commissionership of the C.I.D., and when he was commissioned he, not Gideon, would be the man to go direct to the Commissioner. Was this as good a time as any to start? “Yes,” he repeated more crisply. “Will you get in touch with him?”

  Hobbs, for once, looked startled, and there was a noticeable pause before he said: “If that’s what you would like – of course.”

  “Keep me posted,” Gideon said, and went on in the same breath so that the two things appeared to be connected: “I’ve plenty on my hands over the immigration problems. I spent an hour with Honiwell last night.” He explained what Honiwell had told him, watching Hobb’s dark eyes closely all the time. “I’d like to concentrate on that problem for a while, Alec. It worries me.”

  Hobbs said, slowly: “That I can well understand. But—” His voice trailed off.

  “But what?”


  Hobbs still hesitated. He seemed in a way to have withdrawn within himself, to be further away from Gideon, even aloof; and this was how he had seemed to Gideon when they had first started to get to know each other. At that time Gideon had been suspicious of it; now, he knew that Hobbs was simply being very cautious, not of offending but of being right in what he said. There was an admixture of deference, too. Gideon did not press him again.

  “George,” Hobbs said, “it’s not really a job for us.”

  “You mean it’s a job for the Home Secretary and the local as well as the Whitehall government?”

  “That and more,” replied Hobbs. “If we do more than we should we could easily be reprimanded, and afterwards it might be difficult to do even as much as we should. There’s the thinnest of dividing lines between what is our job and what is the Ministry’s.”

  “Yes,” Gideon agreed. “That’s why—” He hesitated.

  Hobbs did not press, either, but stood very still, very intent. They made a remarkable contrast, Gideon so much bigger and more massive, the other so compact. Each in a different way gave an impression of power under complete control.

  “That’s why I asked Mesurier last night if he’d take the whole thing up and make a public outcry,” Gideon remarked.

  “Try to arouse the public conscience, you mean?” How well he understood Gideon! “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Ten to one he declined with thanks,” Hobbs said drily. He pursed his lips and went on as if he were thinking aloud: “Now if we could get one of the popular papers to take it up, the Mirror or the Express, for instance—” Hobbs broke off, and looked startled, for Gideon burst out laughing, and after a moment his own lips curved in amusement.

  Gideon waved a hand.

  “That was exactly what Mesurier suggested,” he explained, “and with much the same look on his face!” He sobered quickly, and went on: “He wasn’t optimistic but said he would sound some of the newspaper owners out.”

  “Then he must think there’s a faint chance,” Hobbs remarked. “Whether we ought to talk to any prospects, I really don’t know. If anyone does it must be you, sir. Yes,” he added in a decisive voice when Gideon waved his hand in disclaimer. “I don’t know what it is about you, but you come nearer to bridging the gap between the police and the Press than anyone in London.” When Gideon made no comment, Hobbs went on, wholly serious although in a musing voice: “I’ve never really understood the relationship, and I doubt if you do. You simply have a sense of timing and a knowledge of your man. It’s a kind of armed peace. When we’re not complaining bitterly about them, they’re complaining we never give them a story in time and never ask for their help until it’s too late. Do you know why we’re always suspicious of each other?”

  Gideon, surprised by the question, and by what amounted to an outburst from Hobbs, made no attempt to answer quickly and in fact was considering several different aspects of the question when there was a tap at the door and a messenger came in. It was a large, loosely packed envelope, addressed in a bold hand in deep black ink: Commander George Gideon, Scotland Yard, Urgent.

  This was the newspaper with the inspired ‘leak’.

  Chapter 12

  CLASH

  Gideon tore open the envelope and pulled out three copies of the same newspaper, handed one to Hobbs and scanned the Stop Press column on the front page. There in bold black type was the statement:

  Clash at Docks?

  Indications at several London docks are that a clash may be expected between dock workers at their dock gate strike meeting at noon today and a right-wing organisation called the Strike Breakers. In later editions see story on Page 1.

  Hobbs looked up as Gideon did; and as their eyes met, Gideon’s telephone bell rang. Gideon moved round towards it, saying: “Tell the Commissioner at once, Alec. I’ll take one of these papers to Upway.” He lifted the telephone. “Gideon.”

  Hobbs was already on his way back to his own office. Gideon was reading the ‘leak’ again.

  “Seen it?” The voice was Percy Lawless’s.

  “Just this moment,” Gideon could not keep the satisfaction out of his voice.

  “Nice work, George!”

  “I hope so. I’m going to see Upway right away.”

  “Best of British luck! I won’t keep you.” Lawless rang off as Gideon put his receiver down and then dialled Upway’s number on the internal telephone. He could almost see the elation on Lawless’s face; he could picture Malcolm Brill’s expression, too, and Mesurier’s.

  A man answered.

  “Commander Upway’s office.”

  “Gideon,” grunted Gideon. “Is Mr. Upway in?”

  “Well, sir, if it’s urgent—”

  “Put him on the line!” roared Gideon.

  There was a moment’s pause, and voices sounded in the background before Upway spoke. He had a rather high-pitched but well-controlled voice which always had a faintly artificial sound. At this moment it seemed to smack of resentment, too.

  “This is Commander Upway. I understand Commander Gideon wishes to speak to me.”

  Gideon asked, without preamble: “Have you seen the Daily News Stop Press?”

  “I have not.”

  “I’ll send one over,” Gideon said. “It looks like a clash between the dockers at their dock gate meetings, and some people who call themselves the Strike Breakers, and that could mean a hell of a lot of trouble. I’ll talk to City and P.L.A. to see if they’ve heard anything. If I can help at all, let me know.” He took the receiver from his ear but before he replaced it, he heard Upway’s almost shrill: “George!”

  “Did you say something?” Gideon asked.

  “Yes, George – who are these Strike Breakers? Are they fascists?”

  “I don’t know anything about them. I only know that once the local Communists see the piece in that Stop Press they’ll be bound to have a go. So there could be a hell of a lot of trouble if we don’t do something fast.”

  “Yes. Would you—” Upway hesitated.

  Gideon, always surprised how poor one’s judgement could be on people, especially those whom one did not particularly like, was surprised now. Obviously Upway was taken off balance; as obviously wanted some advice, yet he had never seemed to Gideon a man who would take advice gladly. So, in a less brisk voice, Gideon said: “Would I what, Jim?”

  “If you were me would you treat this as an emergency?”

  “I’d have every available man ready in case it became an emergency,” Gideon said in the most positive of voices. “Stop off duty for the next few hours and call on everyone you can get hold of. I think I’d move men from the outer London divisions into the East End but keep ‘em out of sight. Unless you’ve some other big job on.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Upway said. “I—er—my A.C.’s away. I’d normally see him, of course. Would you go direct to the Commissioner?”

  “Once you’ve put the precautions in hand, yes,” Gideon said.

  “Thanks, George!”

  “Let me know if I can help,” Gideon said again.

  He rang off, paused for a few moments, and then rounded his desk and sat down slowly. He wanted to see the Commissioner, of course; Sir Reginald Scott-Marie. It had been a great effort to delegate that task to Hobbs, yet he was a man who lived by delegating work to others. Why did this matter? He shrugged the question off. Hobbs and Upway between them would really take over now, he had done his part. Was that what he didn’t like? The fact that he couldn’t see this thing through? He waited only for a few moments before putting in a call to the N.E. Division, where an old friend – who had once done the job which Hobbs was now doing – was in charge. This was Lemaitre, one of the real ‘characters’ of the Force. Almost as soon as Gideon had asked for him, Lemaitre was on the line.

 
“Betcher I know what you’re on about,” he said with supreme confidence.

  “Guess,” said Gideon, humouring him.

  “Docks, cops and Strike Breakers!”

  Gideon had to laugh.

  “You’ll do,” he said. “You have to be right sometimes! Lem, had you heard of the Strike Breakers before this?”

  “Nope,” Lemaitre admitted. “But I’m going to find out p.d.q.”

  “Let me know anything you come across, will you?”

  “Yes! Oh, and George, before you ring off—”

  “What is it?” Gideon was anxious to get other men on the move, but showed no sign of haste or impatience. He wondered how many other Yard men or policemen in London had already heard about the impending danger.

  “I had a tip from an old friend of mine at Shoreham in Sussex. He thinks a shipload of Pakistanis came ashore not far from Shoreham last night, but he’s not sure and doesn’t want to raise an official alarm, in case he was wrong. Bloody funny way he come on to it, as a matter of fact.” Gideon was now tense with eagerness to hear the rest, but did not prompt Lemaitre. “Actually smelled them out! He was down by the old harbour, it’s not used much now, only by a few fishing smacks and private yachtsmen – too much dirt and smell from the coal and oil nearby. Well, he went down for a walk around one o’clock, couldn’t sleep, and strolled on the breakwater. There was a motor vessel of about sixty tons, fast alongside, no one aboard, hatches open. And he said the smell coming out of that hatch was curry. You know, the Pakistanis eat a lot. He didn’t think of it until he woke this morning – didn’t identify the odour, that is. Then it dawned upon him and he called me.”

  “How long ago did he call?” Gideon was already near anger because much time had been wasted.

  “Twenty minutes. I was just going to call you.”

  “Thanks.” Gideon was quickly reconciled. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He put down the receiver and picked it up again almost immediately, and when the operator answered he asked: “Get me Mr. Debenham of Brighton.” He put down the receiver and the internal telephone rang before he drew two breaths. He plucked it up. “Gideon.”