The minutes passed. The ice-blue flame of the burner bit into the metal, glowing red sparks sprayed out, glowing red metal dripped down from the slowly forming circle.
Glenton went round to the cab and checked on the two guards: both were still unconscious. He touched the pocket of his coat and felt the bulge of the .38 revolver and suddenly became aware of how much he was sweating.
After twelve minutes, Riley lowered the cutter and took a thirty-second breather: after twenty-one minutes, he lowered the cutter and turned off the gas. He used his clenched fist to hammer out the centre circle of metal, which fell inside and on to the floor of the truck with a reverberating clang.
Glenton pulled out his revolver and held that in his right hand and a torch in his left. He shone the beam inside and saw the two guards standing against the far bulkhead.
“Open the doors,” he ordered harshly.
They did not move.
“Open ’em.” He held the revolver so that they could see it.
Blether came slowly forward and Glenton stepped back six feet. They heard the rasp of metal on metal as the locking bars were swung clear, then the right-hand door was opened.
“Get back up against the bulkhead,” ordered Glenton.
Blether returned to stand alongside Locksley.
“Switch off the alarm.”
They did not move.
Glenton raised the revolver and Locksley suddenly dashed across to the switch and pushed it up.
“Sling the radio on to the floor.”
Blether and Locksley had to struggle to release the locking bars which held the radio in position, but eventually they succeeded. They wrenched the wires out of the set and threw it down.
Glenton nodded at Croft, who climbed into the truck and dragged the three strong-boxes to the tail. He jumped out and then lifted out the strong-boxes. They were locked and the keys in the pocket of the unconscious Fish, but Croft unlocked them in fifteen seconds flat with a set of skeleton keys. Inside were bundles of notes of the same denominations and a very little silver. It took scant minutes to divide up the money and stuff it into the cotton bags they had brought. Glenton took six bags, one of which was Holdman’s, and the others had one each.
Glenton whistled twice and Holdman returned to the clearing. “Get the other car,” ordered Glenton. Holdman crossed to the tall oak tree at the far edge of the clearing and backed out from behind it a yellow Austin that had been hidden there three hours previously. He parked it by the Jaguar.
“Get moving,” said Glenton.
Riley, clutching his cotton bag, stared at him, his small, peaked face alive with doubt and worry. He started to speak, stopped. He turned and followed Croft and Weston into the Jaguar.
Croft switched on and started the engine. “All right?” he asked, his voice hoarse. He was tough in body and mind, but couldn’t stop feeling sick in the stomach at what was about to happen.
Riley, in the front passenger seat, said shrilly: “I don’t like the shooting.”
“You can’t leave ’em to grass to the cozzpots,” argued Weston angrily, trying to conceal his own doubts.
“We could’ve worn stockings right through…”
“And let them two guards learn ’ow we walk, talk, and dress? The law would’ve grabbed us. A little runt of a bloke, the guards would say, did the burning: Burner Riley for a fortune, the law says. One of ’em, the guards would say, was as big as a gorilla and ’is ’air was red. Stirling Croft, the law says.”
Croft backed the car and turned it. As he drove up the track to the road, they heard the sound of a sharp explosion, followed by a second one.
“I don’t like the shooting,” said Riley.
Chapter 5
In his room, Detective Sergeant Braddon stubbed out a cigarette. He yawned and looked at his watch. Almost four o’clock: give it another hour and a half and he could start making tracks for home. To him, nothing in the world was as attractive as the police house where he lived with his wife and where he could put up his feet and watch the telly and sip a beer — if there was any beer left.
He was not an ambitious man. He knew he would never gain further promotion and the knowledge failed to stir him. His sights were set on completing his service with the force and retiring on a pension. Some of the men thought him stupid because he was content with his lot: the laugh was on them since they couldn’t realise he was one of the few really contented persons in the world — he had all he wanted.
The telephone rang. A man, difficult to understand because he spoke so quickly, said he was the manager of the Moxon Security Company and one of his trucks was supposed to have delivered a hundred and eighteen thousand pounds to the Arcoll factory, but a clerk at the factory had just rung up to ask when the money was coming. The truck was half an hour overdue. What could have happened?
“The truck’s got radio?” said Braddon, in his slow, lazy voice.
“All our trucks have radio and the men have orders to report anything in the least suspicious, but I’ve heard nothing, absolutely nothing, and I’ve tried to call the truck up but there’s no answer.”
“Have you been on to the bank to see if they drew the money?”
“They last reported just after they had. I can’t think — ”
Braddon cut the other short and said he’d ring the bank — which one was it? — and check exactly. He replaced the receiver and rubbed his drooping chin that did so much to suggest the look of a tired bloodhound. If the armoured truck had radio and would report the first sign of trouble, surely no report meant no trouble? Yet it was half an hour adrift and if it had a hundred and eighteen thousand quid aboard, then half an hour was a long time.
The bank said the money had been drawn at a quarter to three, exactly as arranged.
Braddon lit another cigarette. The armoured trucks of the Moxon Security Company were very strongly defended and it was difficult to see how anything serious could have happened to one of them without the alarm being given — yet half an hour was half an hour.
He telephoned Fusil’s home. Fusil said he was on the point of leaving and unless the whole of Parliament had been assassinated — which certainly would call for celebrations — he wasn’t interested. Braddon told him about the armoured truck and after a brief pause Fusil said he would get back as soon as he could. Just before the connection was cut, Braddon heard a woman’s voice raised in anger.
He asked the switchboard operator to put him through to operations room at county H.Q. and he spoke to the duty inspector. The latter said that nothing unusual, other than a brief spell of intense static, had been reported from any vehicle in the area, nor had there been any 999 calls.
Braddon crossed the room to the far wall on which hung a large-scale map of Fortrow and as much of the surrounding district as came under the control of the borough police force. The route the armoured truck would have driven along from the High Street to the Arcoll factory, which lay just inside the divisional boundary, was not a long one and the journey, barring heavy traffic, shouldn’t have taken more than a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Had there been any unusual hold-ups of traffic? He used the internal telephone to speak to the duty inspector who said that traffic in Fortrow was always snarled up like his grandmother’s knitting, but no more today than usual.
Braddon went along to the general room. Rowan was at his desk, typing out a report. “Fred, an armoured truck of the Moxon company seems to have gone missing — picked a load of cash up from the High Street branch of the Westminster Bank at a quarter to three and set off for the Arcoll factory, but that’s the last anyone’s seen of it. Get out in the C.I.D. car and drive along the route and see if you can discover anything.”
Rowan stood up. He was a tall man, with a long narrow face and a slightly twisted mouth that always seemed to be set in discontented lines. It was common knowledge that he wasn’t certain whether his wife was faithful to him, or not. “Sarge, all those trucks have got a blower. If there’s any trouble,
they’d be on it.”
“Just get moving,” said Braddon, still good humouredly but with a snap to his voice which could not be ignored.
Rowan left. Braddon stared round the room. It was in its usual state of near chaos. No matter how often he told them to tidy it up, it was always littered with stuff that was meant to be elsewhere: recovered stolen articles should have been in the downstairs room, all forms in the far cupboard, typewriter covers on typewriters, waste-paper in the wastepaper basket…
Kerr came into the room. “Hi, Sarge! How’s life? Bloomin’ wonderful or bloomin’ terrible?”
“What’s got you so bouncy?”
“I just feel good.”
“Let’s hope you manage to stay that way,” said Braddon.
*
Fusil stopped pacing his office, took his pipe out of his pocket, filled it with tobacco, tamped the tobacco down, and lit it. He checked on his watch. Half past four and still nothing. Only one fact was beyond argument. Something unusual had happened to the armoured truck.
Braddon had, as was to be expected, coped with the situation, but without imagination. He had taken some of the obvious steps, but no more. He hadn’t, for instance, put himself in the place of hijackers, worked out where the truck was most open to risk, then called county H.Q. and asked them to send a patrol car to the woods to the west of the factory to search there for any signs of anything.
How in the name of hell could one of the armoured trucks vanish without a bleep? If the orders had been observed, guards would have been locked inside the compartment and the cab, supported by radio, roof alarm, an engine immobiliser, and four gas guns. If an attempt had been made to rob the truck, the men inside must have had time to sound the roof alarm, use the radio, immobilise the engine… The telephone rang and the caller was Detective Chief Inspector Kywood. What had happened, how had it happened, what was being done, who was doing it? The questions were never ending. As always, Kywood had the wind up because it looked as though a big case might be breaking. Kywood’s one ambition in life was to run the C.I.D. in such a manner that the chief constable had no cause to moan or the county force, who were trying to take over the small borough force, reason to point the finger at him. Solution of crime was of secondary importance.
“A hundred and eighteen thousand pounds is a terrible lot of money,” moaned Kywood. “You’d no idea this much was going to be moved?”
“I had been informed, sir.”
“Then did you ask for a special escort?”
“No.”
“Why not? Surely you know the rules? You’re supposed to ask for a special escort in any exceptional circumstances.”
Fusil silently swore. Passmore the previous week had asked him what he was going to do and he’d confidently replied that he wouldn’t ask for a special escort from Traffic. It looked as if events were going to prove his decision a very bad mistake and he’d be deep in the muck unless everything were very quickly cleared up.
“Why haven’t you discovered for certain if something’s happened to the truck?” demanded Kywood petulantly.
“Would you care to suggest, sir, what more I can do at this moment?”
“It’s not my job to instruct you in your work.” Kywood rang off.
Fusil’s pipe had gone out. He re-lit it. He was on edge, wanting to be doing something constructive, yet unable to break away from his office until he knew some of the facts and thus the action called for by them.
The telephone rang again. It was the duty inspector in operations room at county H.Q. Patrol car Zebra Zebra one four reported that an armoured truck belonging to the Moxon Security Company was in a clearing to the east of Bellamy Wood. There were two guards in the cab and they were only semiconscious, obviously in a serious state. The rear compartment of the truck had been forced. There had been a fire with an intense heat inside and the bodies of two guards were partially burned to destruction. Equipment used by the villains had been thrown on to the fire and mostly destroyed. Also in the clearing was a breakdown truck.
Fusil bit down on the stem of his pipe. This was far, far worse than he had feared. The money was gone, two of the guards had been murdered, and the other two were in a dicey state. This case was going to make the headlines, no shadow of doubt.
He telephoned Kywood and reported. Kywood reacted in a predictable manner.
*
The pathologist called for a photograph to be taken from the right-hand side of the truck compartment. Detective Constable Walsh, nicknamed Sunny because he was normally so mournful, moved the tripod and then took the required photograph. The pathologist said that was all for the moment and Walsh handed his equipment to a uniformed constable and then himself got down from the truck. Fusil spoke to him. “Get some good general shots of the scene from the entrance.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fusil looked back inside the armoured truck and watched the pathologist intent on his grisly task of examining the charred bodies, then turned and went across to the cab of the breakdown truck where a detective sergeant, drafted in from county H.Q., was carefully brushing fingerprint powder over all surfaces. “Any luck?” he asked.
“Not yet,” replied the detective sergeant, without bothering to look up. He dipped a camel’s-hair brush in aluminium powder and brushed it over the black plastic dashboard.
“Don’t forget the crane controls.”
“I won’t.”
Fusil jammed his hands in his pockets. That, he thought angrily, had been a totally unnecessary order. All it had done was show the tension under which he was now working.
It had been a professional job, carried out with perfect timing, great ingenuity, and the casual brutality and indifference to life that had become the hallmark of the modern big-time villain. Crude violence had become the most valued weapon of the real pro — now the punishments were so much less severe, villains logically used violence to any necessary degree to make certain there were no valuable witnesses. The two guards had been murdered in case they memorised something about their assailants which might prove valuable to the police (this must raise the presumption that the two living guards could not have seen anything) and then their bodies and all the equipment had been burned further to destroy any possibility of leaving clues behind. It would be a true optimist who could expect to learn anything useful from the sickening mass of charred material and blackened flesh, heaped up inside the armoured truck.
A uniformed constable, accompanied by a man, came into the clearing, looked around and identified Fusil. He escorted the man across. “This is Mr. Weaver, sir.”
Weaver was extremely nervous and he kept looking across at the armoured truck, then jerking his gaze away. When Fusil thanked him for coming, he seemed hardly to understand what was being said. “I… They… they said two of the guards were dead?” he blurted out.
“I’m afraid that’s true,” answered Fusil, in a matter-of-fact tone that masked his own repugnance to the vicious murders. “They were the two in the rear compartment. The two in the cab have been taken to hospital. The police doctor says they were gassed with what must have been a near fatal concentration. On top of that the heat from the fire inside almost baked them and the only thing that saved them was that the fan kept blowing relatively cool air over them.”
“Who… who are the dead ones?”
“You’ll have to tell us that.”
“I… I can’t look at ’em. Oh, God, I can’t!” Weaver’s chubby face became twisted in an expression of sickly fear.
“I can’t stand death. I…”
“You wouldn’t be able to identify the two dead men by looking at them,” cut in Fusil quietly. “What I’m asking you to do is just confirm that this is the truck which collected the money from the Westminster Bank, then go with one of my officers to the General Hospital and see the two guards who’ve been taken there. When you’ve identified them, we’ll know who’s dead. Finally, if you’ll give us the addresses of all the guards, we’ll inform their
families of what’s happened.”
An undertaker’s van, in black with discreet lettering in purple, drove slowly into the clearing and stopped twenty yards from the armoured truck. A sergeant went up and spoke to the driver.
Fusil asked Weaver: “Is this the truck that collected a hundred and eighteen thousand pounds from the Westminster Bank?”
Weaver slowly turned. He stared at the armoured truck and for several seconds said nothing. “That… that’s the one,” he finally muttered and jerked his gaze away.
“Thanks. Now will you go with Detective Sergeant Braddon to the hospital — just wait here whilst I get hold of him.”
Weaver nodded.
Fusil crossed to the far side of the clearing where Braddon was organising a concentrated close search over ground which had already been searched generally.
“Weaver, the security company’s branch manager, is over there — the man with spectacles,” said Fusil. “Take him to the General and get him to identify the two guards, then get the addresses of all four of them. Check whether anyone can say when we’ll be allowed to interview the guards.”
Braddon left. Fusil watched the four constables get down on their hands and knees and begin the laborious search. Satisfied they were being sufficiently painstaking, he returned to the armoured truck. The pathologist, a tall rather severe looking man who was wearing light green overalls that were now heavily streaked with black, came to the rear of the compartment and clambered down to the ground. He stripped off gloves and overalls. “There’s nothing more I can do here, Inspector, so you can have them take the bodies off to the mortuary. One man was shot, but I can’t be definite yet about the other. I can only tell you that much because I’ve found the bullet.”
Fusil stared at the two blackened heaps and suffered a momentary nausea. “Is it going to be possible to identify which one is which, sir?”
Murder Among Thieves (C.I.D Room Book 3) Page 4
