They went through to the manager’s office. The assistant manager sat down behind the large desk, rested his elbows on the desk, joined the tips of his fingers together, and spoke in a voice in which condescension battled with self-satisfaction. “You’re interested in the bank account of Mr. Fish? Not one of our larger accounts.”
Rowan’s mouth twisted more than usual. Did this pimp think his own middle name was Rockefeller?
“I’ve had prepared photostat copies of his account over the past year. You’ll no doubt note that the largest credit paid in is for twenty-five pounds.”
Rowan took the three sheets and briefly scanned them. There was clearly no sign here of any large payment of money for information. “Has his wife an account with you?”
“No other member of the family has.”
“Has he any deposits of securities or other valuables?”
“No, nothing, Inspector.”
“Constable,” retorted Rowan sourly.
“Well, well, I’m sure it’s only a question of time before promotion overtakes you.” The assistant manager giggled.
Rowan folded up the photostat copies and put them in his docket. “I’ll give you a receipt.”
“Don’t bother.”
“Regulations.” Rowan wrote out the receipt and left, escorted to the side door by the ever-loquacious, ever self-satisfied assistant manager.
Back on the pavement, Rowan stood for a moment in the hot sunshine. He had now checked at the two banks on the accounts of Fish and Blether and neither account showed any payment in of any sum of money over twenty-five pounds: he had spoken to the man at the post office and Young had a savings account but that also had only recorded small sums. There remained the trustee savings bank.
Heather was modelling at this very moment. A month ago, he’d demanded she stop work and she’d laughed in his face. Who was going to pay to keep their standard of living as high as it was if she didn’t earn some money? But how in God’s name was she earning it?
*
Welland was a large, cheerful man, with an amiably boisterous manner that sometimes led people into believing he was a bit of a mutt, an impression heightened by his somewhat lopsided face. In fact, although he was not particularly clever, he did have a fund of common-sense. If he lacked anything, it was enough realistic ambition to make him realise that life could not always be so happy and easy as it had been for him since his marriage: he was a man who would never fulfil his potential.
He interviewed Mrs. Locksley, mother of Boyd Locksley, in her council house on an estate on the west side of Fortrow. He should, as a matter of courtesy, have let Western Division know he was in their territory, but he had forgotten to do so. They sat in the front room, filled with non-matching furniture that had obviously been bought at sales. She was an elderly woman, dressed in black, whose face bore the lines of a hard, sad life. She spoke in a flat voice, seemingly devoid of emotion. “Boyd was a good boy. Ever since his father died, he’s been looking after me.”
Welland was vaguely surprised she was so calm — he did not bother to note the expression in her eyes and so understand the extent of shocked grief she was suffering.
“He gave me five pound a week,” she went on. “He used to like going out with his friends, but he always gave me five pound.”
“D’you know where he used to go when he went out with the lads?”
“Where?” She looked briefly at Welland. “There’s a club down Fairlight Road where him and his friends went a lot. Did you know he was courting?”
“I didn’t, no.”
“Sally. She ain’t been near ’ere since… since it took place.”
“Where does she live?”
“Number forty-four. Boyd’s dad used to say her dad was a twister: can’t say I likes him.”
“Did your son run a car?”
“He’s always ’ad a motorbike and many’s the time I’ve said — seeing ’im race about — you’ll kill yourself…” She gripped the arms of the imitation leather armchair she was sitting on.
“Did he keep on changing his bikes?”
She shook her head and said nothing for a few seconds. “The one he’s got now he bought off a pal of his. Didn’t go proper ’til Boyd spent a lot of money on it.”
There were obviously no signs here of suddenly acquired wealth. Welland questioned her for another ten minutes, then thanked her and left. He drove in the C.I.D. Hillman to number forty-four and spoke to a sharp, vinegary woman who said that her daughter was working at the local plastics factory, but would Welland not go there in case people got the wrong impression. Welland said he was sorry, he’d have to. Locksley, she said venomously, never had been anything but a trouble-maker.
*
Fusil left his house at ten o’clock that night, after promising Josephine he wouldn’t be away for more than half an hour at the most. “Liar,” she said affectionately and kissed him goodbye.
He drove the two miles to Durall Park and stopped by the east gates, now closed and locked in a futile attempt to stop the rubbish dumping that had been increasing over the years. Ten minutes later, a man appeared from out of the shadows, opened the near-side door and sidled into the car. “Evenin’, Mr. Fusil,” he said, in his whining voice.
Fusil switched on, started the engine, and drove off. “Well?” he demanded, as he turned left.
“It’s difficult, Mr. Fusil.” The man had a wrinkled, tired, dirty face.
Fusil took his left hand off the wheel and pulled some notes from his breast pocket. He threw them on to the other’s lap.
The notes were twice counted, with extreme care. “There’s only five ’ere, Mr. Fusil.”
“D’you think I’m offering a century before I know what you’ve got?” replied Fusil contemptuously. He hated and despised informers because they were traitors, even if it was only criminals they were betraying.
“It’s terrible difficult.”
“So you said.” Fusil drove to the end of a cul-de-sac, where he parked. “Cut the griff and tell me what you know.”
“It weren’t none of the local boys, Mr. Fusil.”
“Go on.”
“There ain’t much to go on with,” said the other uneasily.
“There’d better be something.”
“Well, there ain’t been no outside mobs about.”
“If it wasn’t the locals, there’s been an outside mob in the territory. This job wasn’t planned in an afternoon.”
“Mister, there just ain’t been no foreigners.”
“You mean you haven’t heard about them.”
“I’ve done me best…”
“And it’s not worth a kited farthing.” The man’s hand went to the pocket in which he’d put the five pounds.
“Listen,” said Fusil, his voice harsh, “I want real information. Go and get it.”
“Mister, I’ve done me best.”
“If you don’t want to be run in, you’ll do a hell of a lot better.”
Fusil said he was off and the man left the car, crossed the road, and scurried into the shadows. Fusil backed in the entrance drive to a garage, returned to the crossroads where he went left, then threaded his way through the side streets to the docks.
The dock area was a noisy, boisterous, sleazy drunken, violent place where sailors, tarts, pimps, thieves, and the indigent, lived, made love, drank, fought, and died, sometimes violently. The crime rate was double the national average and the clear-up rate was only just over half. Victims remembered nothing, eyewitnesses were blind, the guilty could have sailed to any of the seven seas.
Fusil parked his car by a street lamp and got out. Two tarts walked down the road, studied him and came to the right conclusion, walked on. On the far side of the high brick wall that ran the length of the old docks, an ancient steam engine gave a wheezy toot on its whistle.
He walked the hundred yards to the pub and went into the public bar. The place was well filled and the bar was surrounded by a bunch of Swedish
sailors who were drinking heavily and arguing loudly. He ordered and paid for two double whiskies and when they were handed to him he went over to a corner table that was free and sat down. He noticed a young apprentice at the next table, in a shiny, new uniform who was drunkenly trying to paw a woman well over twice his age and determined to take him for his last penny.
Fusil drank. This whole area, almost a different world, intrigued, mystified, and infuriated him. Why did men behave as they did here? How could they drink themselves silly every day and night they were in port: how could they throw their money away: how could they change so completely from the people they really were? And how could any detective inspector hope to cut down the crime rate and increase the clear-up rate? A woman walked into the bar, looked round and saw him, came over to his table. She picked up the second glass of whisky and drank it straight down. Women informers were rare, but they were excellent: villains never seemed to expect a woman to grass on them. She was good looking in a hard, brittle way that suggested she would eventually become raddled: she seemed always to be trying to degrade herself and had found informing to be the best way. Fusil didn’t begin to understand her, but she was one of his most valuable contacts. “Have you heard anything?” he asked.
“Got a fag?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then get us a packet, love. Not tipped.”
He bought her a packet of twenty. She opened it with fingers that trembled and when he struck a match for her he saw for the first time in the burst of light a large bruise on her right temple.
“It wasn’t a local mob,” she said. Her voice was thick and coarse — he was certain she deliberately coarsened it.
“Can you be sure?”
“Don’t fret on it, Mr. Fusil.”
He took his pipe from his pocket and began to fill the bowl with tobacco. “Then there’s been an outside mob in the territory.”
“No,” she said flatly.
“There must have been. This job took planning.”
“There’s been no outside mob.”
He felt angry and baffled. He’d obviously known it was no good really relying on informers, yet, perversely, he had been expecting one of them this evening to give him a worthwhile lead. “You’ve got to be wrong.”
She drained her glass.
“There’s a couple of centuries going for the right information,” he said.
“That won’t change nothing.” Goddamn it, he thought angrily, both informers gave the same story — yet they had to be wrong.
Chapter 8
Weaver, in his office in the old warehouse, peered through his horn-rimmed spectacles at Detective Sergeant Braddon. He shook his head. Through the opened window came the distant sounds of the peal of bells being rung in Fortrow cathedral and the more immediate noise of some children playing.
“It’s impossible,” said Weaver testily, his voice raised. “I tell you, it’s quite impossible.”
“Nothing’s really impossible,” replied Braddon heavily, as if he had had cause to know.
“I’m telling you, every guard employed by this company is beyond suspicion: quite beyond suspicion. D’you think we don’t check their references?” He was highly indignant.
“References can be faked.”
“But this is all nonsense. Two of the guards were murdered and two were badly gassed. D’you think if one of ’em had been in on the raid he wouldn’t’ve made certain he wasn’t hurt?”
“He wouldn’t have known exactly what they were going to do, would he? And what’s the best way of making certain a man can’t tell what he’s been up to?”
“You’re not saying they might have killed him because…” Weaver was genuinely shocked as he realised for the first time that to be killed was not automatically to be innocent.
Braddon scratched his neck. Weaver, as if unable to keep still, stood up and began to pace the length of threadbare carpet behind his desk.
“Have you made out the list for us?” asked Braddon.
“It’s there.” Weaver stopped by the desk and picked up two sheets of foolscap, held together by a paperclip. “You… you’re saying it was either Blether or Locksley who gave the criminals all the information about the armoured truck?”
“I’m saying nothing of the sort, Mr. Weaver. If one of the guards did give the information, it could equally be Fish or Young — the gang might have reckoned the gas would kill. But there’s nothing to say it was any of ’em. The gang could have got their information from another employee of your firm, or from the people who do the conversions to the trucks.”
“But then… You’re even saying… saying it could have been me,” he cried, horrified.
“It could have been,” replied Braddon, not bothering to add that nothing was less likely.
“It wasn’t… I swear it wasn’t. I’ve faithfully worked for this company ever since it started.” Weaver slumped down onto his chair as if his legs would no longer support him.
Braddon was given the lists and he skimmed through the information in them. Fish had been in the army for twenty years and with the Moxon Security Company for the whole of its twelve years: he was married and had two children, lived in Fortrow, and his wife had a job as a part-time nurse. Young had been a garage mechanic before joining the company five years before: at first he had been a member of the small maintenance staff, then he had been transferred to guard duties: married with one son, he lived in Astey, a suburb of Fortrow. Blether had served with a northern police force until his wife died three years before and then he’d resigned, come south, and joined the company: he lived in digs, in a house belonging to a middle-aged widow. Locksley had been with the company four years and before that had worked as a labourer: he lived with his mother.
Braddon put the lists down on his lap. “What happens about references?”
“They naturally have to be first-class, absolutely first class.”
“Do you check them?”
“Of course we do! Either a member from head office or a branch manager personally speaks to whoever signs the written reference that each applicant has to give.”
“And you’ve got copies of the references of these four men?”
“Haven’t I given them to you…” Weaver searched the top of his desk. He found another sheet of paper which he passed across.
Braddon read the photostat copies of the references. The army spoke highly of Fish, the northern police force of Blether: the garage stated that Young was efficient and honest and the building contractors said that Locksley was perfectly honest, but that he did not seem quite suited to work as a labourer.
“I’m absolutely certain it couldn’t be anyone working for the company.”
You mean, thought Braddon with some amusement, it couldn’t possibly be you!
*
The borough police sent their specimens for scientific examination either to the county forensic laboratory or the metropolitan one, depending on the complexity of the work involved: in either case, the borough force was charged for the service, a charge that was forever rising, much to the anger of the borough watch and finance committees.
Abbotts, a scientist on the staff of the county forensic laboratory, was big and burly and there was a swing to his shoulders as he moved that falsely suggested an outside working life. He was not only a good scientist, he also had a flair for uncovering evidence that another might have passed over.
The charred scraps of clothing yielded nothing other than confirmatory evidence that the fire had been of petrol and magnesium origin. He turned to the oxy-acetylene equipment that had been placed on a canvas sheet in the middle of the laboratory floor. The rubber hoses had been burned away and the nozzle was a tortured jumble of twisted metal. Even the surfaces of the gas bottles had melted slightly at the ends which had been nearest the centre of the fire.
He put each piece of equipment in turn in the ventilated cabinet in which was a large old fashioned bath that had been carefully plumbed to discha
rge its contents outside through a filter and he used a volatile, but reasonably safe, wash to remove all the carbon and dirt. After each wash, the filter was changed, the discarded one being labelled and stored in a plastic bag.
The nozzle, with its mixing-valve gear, was far too distorted to be of any use. He turned his attention to the bottles of gas and found now that they were clean that one of them had been filed at the end, pretty obviously to erase identifying marks. He lit a small blow-lamp and carefully heated the metal until it was just too hot to touch, then while it was cooling down he mixed two solutions, one containing hydrochloric acid, copper chloride, alcohol and water, the other a relatively weak solution of nitric acid. These two solutions were applied alternately, each for about a minute, to the area he had previously heated.
The minutes passed. Latent impressions formed, yet were too indistinct to make sense. Carefully, patiently, without thought to time, he went on swabbing the metal and was rewarded in just under an hour. He saw the letters and figures N.B. Co. 3126. He quickly photographed the impressions and then tried to fix them with clear nail varnish, but within a few minutes they were once more too indistinct to be recognisable.
In the next room, a female laboratory assistant examined under a microscope samples of the dust which had been vacuumed out of the breakdown truck and the yellow Austin. The work was wearisome, boring because of the monotonous regularity of actions, and at the end of it she had discovered nothing of any significance.
*
Detective Sergeant Ambleside sat in his office in Cressfield Central police station and struggled to type out the report, swearing freely every time his fingers hit the wrong key. The telephone rang and thankfully he left the typewriter and answered the call. It was Dabs: the prints of the dead man were those of Robert Glenton, aged forty-one, with enough form including armed robbery for any two ordinary villains.
Murder Among Thieves (C.I.D Room Book 3) Page 7
