by John Creasey
“I won’t be too late,” he grunted. “If I don’t have to wait for a car.”
She fell behind at one of the other offices, and he glanced over his shoulder and saw her disappearing into it. She wasn’t looking his way. He hoped he hadn’t upset her by his brusqueness. It was odd how one could worry about a woman subordinate and not worry at all about a man. He ducked into one of the cloakrooms, washed, pondered the advisability of changing here and decided there simply wasn’t time. No one was in sight but when at last he reached the bottom of the big flight of steps, a car was already nosing forward, and stopped as he drew level.
“Don’t get out,” he ordered, opening the door. “Just turn off left on the Embankment.” He climbed into the car and sat back heavily, and then more by luck than judgement glanced up the steps. “Wait a minute!” he called, for Sabrina Sale was hurrying down, carrying what looked like a big piece of brown paper. He opened the window as she reached the car, and before he could comment or question, Sabrina thrust the paper inside. It was a carrier bag.
“For the dirty clothes,” she said, breathlessly. “But do change, Commander, and please do try not to be too late.”
She backed away, looking both pleasing and pleading.
He called after her: “I won’t!” and sat back, chuckling to himself as he pushed the shirt into the big carrier bag. “I wonder where she got it from,” he said aloud, then leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “The old Regality Theatre, Whitechapel. Do you know it?”
“Did all my youthful courting there, sir,” the driver replied.
Gideon chuckled again.
But there was nothing remotely amusing at the cinema theatre which was now closed and had huge FOR SALE notices written and plastered all over it in hideous colours. Outside was a cordon of police, and the back and side entrances were guarded by police, too. In the foyer were Hobbs, Upway, so tall and whippet-like to look at, several officers from Lemaitre’s division, and, at one side, perhaps a dozen newspapermen were waiting. Among these, Gideon noticed Malcolm Brill. Willis Murdoch and two other Union officials were there, obviously set on getting the dockers’ charges reduced and the hearings over quickly.
Gideon thought: I’ve forgotten that man who disappeared! He shook hands with several of the policemen whom he hadn’t seen for years, and went with Hobbs towards a wall covered with photographs set in panels once used for the glamour pictures of film stars. He saw that these were riot and pre-riot scenes and at a distance they seemed excellent. The Mirror had really gone to town! But before he went near the pictures he singled Brill out.
“Have we found the missing man?” he asked, and then the name came to him. “Alan Holmes, wasn’t it?”
Brill looked absolutely exhausted, much more so than a heavy day should explain; and he had the appearance of a man suffering under great strain.
“Alan Holmes, sir. No, I’m afraid not.”
“Is the search finished?”
“Just about an hour ago, sir.”
“I couldn’t be more sorry,” Gideon said. “Is there anything we can do?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” Brill answered. “His wife’s got her mother with her and she’s as well as she can be in the circumstances. She thinks the same as the rest of us – that he may have been dumped into the water.”
This was one of the worst possible situations, Gideon knew; tragedy for the wife and family, failure for the police, and a hovering uncertainty for both. Before he could speak again, Lemaitre came hurrying in, wearing a trilby hat on his big, turnip-shaped head and his pepper and salt suit and polka dot bow tie. He bore down on Gideon, and Hobbs and Upway came up, Hobbs saying: “He’s been to see the magistrate.”
“All fixed up, he’ll sit into the small hours if needs be,” Lemaitre said, and gripped Gideon’s hand in his, cold and bony fingers with a powerful grip. “Now all we’ve got to do is sort the baskets out, isn’t it?” He looked at Hobbs and Upway, and then all of them moved towards the photographs: characteristically, Lemaitre went on as if he were the only one with anything worthwhile to say. “Geo—Commander, one of the Fleet Street chaps thinks some of these baskets are ex-fascists, if ex is right, who volunteered for the Biafra and Congo mercenaries. He was there, taking photographs. And if they are, they don’t work for nothing any more. They attacked today like trained guerillas, the only mistake they made was not being prepared for organised opposition. The point is, if they’re being paid, who’s paying them?”
“And another point,” put in Hobbs drily, “is that if this was a professionally planned raid, then it’s even more serious than if the motive was solely political. Do you recognise any of them?”
Gideon went closer. The photographs, all blown-up, showed excellent likenesses. One, with a long, low shed in the background, showed three men with scaling ladders climbing over the dock walls, obviously preparing to take the dockers from the rear. Drawing still closer, feeling that some of the faces were familiar, he was now fully aware that he had been brought here because he could give a quick decision on whether the suspect men should be put up at tonight’s special court, and – almost certainly – released with suspended sentences, or whether they should be held all night and inquiries made before tomorrow’s hearing. He had no doubt that they should be held, and was on the point of saying so when Malcolm Brill gave a choking cry.
“Willis!” he shouted. “Did anyone search that old bike shed for Old Homer?”
The shed was so close to the gate that it could have been overlooked, or left by everyone to others, Willis Murdoch admitted. Suddenly there was both hope and dread among all who were present.
Chapter 17
THE OLD SHED
The cry from Brill came at 6.41 p.m. precisely.
The message from a police radio car standing outside the cinema went out at 6.41 p.m. and was received by a police car standing close by the Number One Gate simultaneously. The police officer in charge put his head out of the car window and shouted above the traffic noises to a P.L.A. man on duty at the gates.
“Search that old bike shed for Old Homer!”
Two dockers, coming out after a day’s work which included the glorious free fight, a search and overtime, turned and ran back and the police car moved towards the gates. The P.L.A. policeman called out to other dockers coming away from the wharves; in the distance a ship’s siren roared. Men passed on the order, and the first to reach the shed was a burly Irishman wearing hobnailed boots. He took a running jump at the rickety door and planted a foot against the rotting panels halfway up. The panels broke, the door sagged. Men and light streamed on to the rotting racks on one side, the rubbish, the filth in here. One went flying as he kicked a piece of metal which clanged and echoed. A smaller docker pushed past the Irishman – and then stopped, shouting: “He’s here!”
Every man near the shed stopped, as if switched off. But it was only a few seconds before they began to move, and at 6.46 p.m. the mummified-looking body of Old Homer was lifted off a heap of broken packing cases and carried by two men towards the open air. Inside and outside the shed the same things were being said, the same questions asked.
“They found Old Homer!”
“Is he dead?”
“Looks like a goner, mate.”
“They’ve stuck his bloody mouth up.”
“Looks like murder to me.”
“Old Homer . . . dead . . . murder . . . make way, there. Here’s the first aid.”
Almost before they had dabbed the sticking plaster with alcohol and pulled it off, very gently, an ambulance bell sounded. The ambulance men hurried with a stretcher as the sleeping bag and the strips of canvas were cut from Alan Holmes. He was limp, still, lifeless. The rumour that he was dead grew stronger, and flashed round the docks and the dock area. Before seven o’clock it was already being talked about in The Docker and other pubs
nearby.
Malcolm Brill heard it when he was with the police at the Regality Cinema, after Gideon had gone and when the unidentified men, none of whom gave a name or made a comment when charged, had been moved to Brixton Prison, the only place where there were cells enough to hold them all for the night. To Brill, the routine of the charge had become almost ludicrous. Whoever made the charge would say:
“I am a police officer and it is my duty to charge you with committing a breach of the peace, to wit . . . It is also my duty to inform you that you have the right to remain silent but that anything you say may be written down and used as evidence in court.”
Brill was torn three ways: all savagely.
He wanted to see this affair through but was desperately anxious to find out Old Homer’s condition; he wanted to help Harriet Holmes; and he wanted to know what was happening at his own home. The scene he had looked down on the previous night had been etched so deeply on to his mind that it was as if it had been branded on with red-hot irons.
A C.I.D. man came in from the street, briskly; the foyer was now nearly empty, Hobbs had gone, Lemaitre and some of his officers were dealing with the charges in what had once been the manager’s office; a few newspapermen still stood about. The C.I.D. man said to a colleague: “That poor devil Holmes has had it.”
“Dead?” asked the colleague.
“Yep.”
“Tough luck,” the colleague replied.
Tough luck, Brill thought savagely. Tough luck, tough luck! He turned and hurried out to his hired car. Tough luck, tough luck. God! This would tear Harriet Holmes into raw and bleeding pieces. Tough luck, tough luck. He drove towards the Dockside Hospital where they had taken Old Homer, and saw another newspaperman in the small, bare entrance hall, with its finger signs to various wards and departments.
“Do you know where Holmes is?”
“Accident emergency ward – along there.” The man pointed.
Brill hurried along a narrow passage, ignoring a porter who called: “Where do you think you’re going?” He saw a sign saying: ‘Accident Ward’ and turned into another passage. The astringent smell of antiseptics was very sharp. Two nurses came along, one white, one black, both giggling. He saw another sign on a door: ‘Waiting Room’. Tough luck, tough luck, tough luck. He opened the door and saw Harriet Holmes, holding the hands of an older woman, tears streaming down her plump cheeks, but certainly not tears of grief. She was half-crying, half-shouting: “Thank God, oh thank God, oh thank God!” Then she turned her head and saw Brill. Her eyes became radiant, she dropped the older woman’s hands and sprang towards him. Suddenly they were hugging each other like lovers who had been parted for an age. “He’s all right,” she sobbed. “He’s alive, he’ll be all right. Oh, thank God!”
Soon, Brill was able to leave her, more quiet of heart and mind than he had been for many hours. He had nothing more to do at the Regality Theatre or at the docks, and he had already telephoned his piece for the morning paper. The obvious thing was to go home.
He could not remember a time when he felt, as he did now, that he did not want to see Rose. He sat for a few minutes, at the wheel of his car, looking at the hospital on one side and the dock on the other. Cranes were clanking, a shift of dockers was going into the main gate, everything was normal. Suddenly, he started the engine and moved off. It was no use postponing the evil day, but what would he feel like when he saw her?
He remembered how he had felt like murder, last night.
This morning he had got out of bed while she had been fast asleep, and left a note saying: “I’ve an early assignment.” Even then he had hardly been able to think clearly, had they argued, and there been the slightest excuse, he might well have become violent. He could surely control himself now. He wondered if he ought to have a drink, and decided not to. He felt tired out but the relief at hearing that Old Homer would recover remained a calming factor. And he had seen the police at work, particularly Gideon and Hobbs, in a way he had never seen before. Gideon could not have given orders for that shed to be searched more quickly had they been looking for his own son.
Brill drove across the Tower Bridge, pulling in for a moment and looking down into the Pool of London. This helped to calm him further with its sense of history and of man’s own impermanence. He went the long way round to his home and it was half-past eight when he pulled up a few doors away from his house, passing the window where Dorothy had been watching, excited at sight of him. She would be in bed now, and so would her brother, Roger. He got out of the car as a door further along the street opened and a young woman whom he knew slightly, a friend of Rose’s more than of his, came hurrying.
“Malcolm!” There was urgency in her voice.
“Yes?” His heart contracted.
“Malcolm, Dorothy’s been taken ill, they think it’s poisoning.”
Brill caught his breath. “Where—”
“They’re at home, there’s a doctor with Dorothy now.”
Brill turned, ran the few yards to his own front door, jumped up the steps, key in hand. As he opened the door he grabbed to prevent it from banging. He heard a voice, upstairs. He went up, very quickly, and saw Rose coming out of the bathroom, carrying an enamel bowl. She stood stock-still, and cried: “Oh, thank God you’re here.”
“How is she?” Brill demanded.
“The doctor’s used a stomach pump. We should know, soon.”
He took the bowl from her and put an arm round her waist as they went into the children’s bedroom. A young Pakistani doctor stood at the side of Dorothy’s bed and a Jamaican nurse was wiping the child’s face with a damp sponge. Dorothy herself lay on her back, her eyes closed, breathing heavily. The doctor looked up at Brill, and as he spoke his teeth were very white against his skin.
“I have good reason to hope she will recover. You are the father?”
“Yes.”
“I have done all I can do, now, I assure you.” The man spoke with great deliberation. “I will call again later in the evening. The nurse will stay for a little while, so your wife can get some rest.” He turned to Rose. “Do not worry, Mrs. Brill. She is a very strong child. You have taken the best care of her. I am sure her powers of recovery will be very great. Now, excuse me, please. I have more patients to see.”
He moved towards and past them.
The nurse began to collect the equipment that had been in use; the stomach pump with its long tube, the surgical bowls, the cotton wool, the antiseptics. In a deeper, richer voice than the man’s, she said: “I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about now. I can manage up here very well, if you would like to get your husband something to eat, Mrs. Brill.” She almost shooed them away, and they went out and down the stairs. They were in the small, modernised kitchen when suddenly she turned to him and huddled against him and began to cry. He soothed her. Her body was soft and beautiful and unwittingly seductive against his. He caressed her. The tears streamed and her shoulders and her whole body shook, but exhausted though he was, he forgot everything but her distress.
Soon, she began to calm down.
At last, she drew away, sniffing, and when he gave her his handkerchief she blew into it heavily and then dabbed at her eyes. It was a long, long time since he had seen Rose looking so plain. The picture gradually superseded the one which had been in his mind all day.
Slowly, they returned to a semblance of normal, and she took something out of the oven.
“A sausage toad,” she said. “It will be done to death.”
In fact the batter in which the sausages had been baked looked dried up, but he could not have cared less. She also took out the remains of a creamy-looking rice pudding, she made milk dishes extremely well, and as he began to eat the sausage toad she put coffee on in a percolator and placed two cans of beer on the table. She was opening one, and he was eating with a surprising
ly good appetite, when out of the blue she said: “Don’t let me go out without you again. Don’t ever, do you understand? If you can’t come I’ll stay at home. If I hadn’t been out last night, this might never have happened. The family must come first, make me understand that!”
He thought: God give me the sense never to tell her what I saw.
It was a strange feeling; a combination of hurt and jealousy, of pain and pleasure, of gladness and sadness.
He said: “I think you do understand it, darling.”
She turned her back on him and went to the larder. She was there for so long that he felt sure she was crying, but soon she came back with a freshly opened pot of the gooseberry jam which she herself had made the previous summer. She poured coffee, and said: “I’ll take a cup up to the nurse. She’s been wonderful, I don’t care what they say about coloured people.” She pushed a cup towards Brill and then hurried out of the little kitchen.
Chapter 18
POLICY AND POLITICS
Lord Nagel picked up a decanter from the damask-covered dining-table in the long, narrow, beautifully panelled room, and asked: “Brandy with your coffee, Commander?” His voice was rather high-pitched, a characteristic of the Nagels for generations. So were his hooked nose, his fleshy jowl, his long upper lip. He was a big man but not so massive as Gideon, with iron grey hair. The portraits of the seven earls who had preceded the present one looked down at them, one hung on each panel, and at either end was a picture of a woman: the wife of the first earl, and the wife of the present one; this had become a tradition and the Nagels were great traditionalists.
Gideon said: “May I have brandy later?”
