Murder Among Thieves (C.I.D Room Book 3)

by Roderic Jeffries

  If you got what you ought to expect, thought Kerr, you’d be a right sore monkey. “I’ve been very busy, sir.”

  “On what?”

  “Doing a jig-saw puzzle.”

  Fusil was not amused, even after full explanations had been made.

  “Four and fifteen-sixteenths of an inch, sir,” said Kerr.

  “So you’ve already said, twice. Get a photograph — with a ruler alongside — then fix the glass on to something solid and bring it back down here and God help you if anything breaks loose.”

  “Yes, sir. By the way, I shan’t be able to return until tomorrow.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s twenty past six now and by the time I’m ready a train won’t land me down in London until midnight and there’s nothing from London… “Catch the milk train. Or walk.” Fusil cut the connection.

  The duty sergeant grinned. “No medals?”

  “No medals,” replied Kerr.

  Chapter 10

  Fusil detailed Braddon to go out to Ribstowe immediately and investigate the reported disappearance of a young girl — the mother had been anguished, but Fusil was a cynic and he suggested to Braddon that the explanation of the girl’s five-hour disappearance with a boy might not be of the tragic nature the mother believed.

  There was a knock on the door and Rowan, looking like the wrath of God, entered, walked silently over to the desk, and put a square of paper on it. Fusil picked up the printed notice that Rowan had just brought back from Miss Railton and he momentarily thought with sharp irritation that it was time Rowan discovered once and for all whether his wife was two-timing him so that he could cheer up or commit suicide. Fusil picked up a ruler, only to discover it did not record sixteenths of an inch. He sent Rowan off to find one that did and began to tap impatiently with his fingers on the desk.

  “I’ll get over to Ribstowe,” said Braddon.

  Fusil jerked his mind back to the other case. It was ten past seven, which left something over two hours to sunset. The girl had said she and her boyfriend were going to visit her aunt, but a chance and unexpected visit by the mother to the aunt had revealed no daughter. “See the mother and the aunt, have a walk over the common, try the boy’s house. If you can’t find them inside the hour, organise a full search.”

  Braddon left.

  Pray God, thought Fusil, that his cynicism was warranted and the kids had disappeared only in order to learn more about the birds and the bees. No police job was more heart-breaking, more emotionally agonising, than looking for kids who might have become the victim of a sex maniac. Four years ago he had taken part in a search which had not found the eight-year-old girl until too late. The horror of the scene there was still fresh. People could stand up in Parliament and talk their heads off about abolition of capital punishment, the Gospels, the sanctity of life, the degradation of the death sentence, but anyone who had gazed down on the battered, mutilated body of an eight-year-old child and who had looked into the whirlpool of horror in the mother’s eyes knew that there was only one way of treating the man responsible.

  Rowan returned with a ruler. Fusil’s mind again switched cases and he used the ruler to measure the longer of the two sides of the printed card. Its length was four and fifteen sixteenths inches. This might not be sufficient proof for a court of law, but it was proof enough for him.

  He telephoned Kywood and said it was now certain Glenton had taken part in the robbery and murders. Kywood peevishly demanded why it had taken so long to discover this? Fusil then made a second call to the metropolitan police and asked for the county liaison officer. The inspector had gone, but Fusil was given the other’s home telephone number. He made a third call. The inspector said he would have to have a written request from the borough police, properly signed by the D.C.I. or the chief constable, for the proposed action before he could ask the help of the metropolitan police. Fusil said the request was in the post and mentally reminded himself to put a four-penny stamp on the envelope to explain the delay in arrival.

  *

  It was nearly ten o’clock that night. Fusil read through the last of the requests for witness statements that were to be sent out to other forces, signed the pink form, put it in the stamped addressed envelope and threw the envelope into the ‘out’ tray.

  The telephone rang. It was Braddon. The girl had gone to a party with her boyfriend and the birds and the bees must have had a very busy evening. Fusil replaced the receiver. Thank God the girl was safe.

  *

  The owner of the bungalow called Balaghat — a rather pathetic reminder of the days when he had worked in Bombay — went for a swim in the river Craydon on Tuesday morning. The sun had returned and the morning was hot, although the river water was, as always, cold enough to shock him as he dived in.

  He was a strong swimmer and went upstream, enjoying his battle with the current. He reached the bend and cut through the fast moving water to the almost stagnant water that lay beyond, put his feet down on the gravel bottom. He stood up and the water came up to his waist.

  A kingfisher darted into view, flashed past, and swirled round the side of a huge weeping willow. A keen bird-watcher, he decided to wait, to see if it would return. The sun warmed his shoulders, the water cooled his legs and he was suddenly reminded of a swim he had had in an Indian river, despite the dangers of infection from the germ-laden water. Then — a man of consequence — he had stood in the shallows of the river and his shoulders had been scorched whilst his legs had been deliciously cool.

  Something by the weeping willow caught his attention, but it was not the kingfisher. There was a patch of white, just under the surface. Intrigued, he waded through the water and he was within six feet before he correctly identified the thing as a body. He was shocked, not because he had never seen death before — India sometimes seemed to be death — but to find death in the river Craydon. It was such a serene river.

  *

  Kerr had arrived in London just before midnight the previous night and had caught a train out of London at one-thirty in the morning which arrived at Fortrow at four-thirty. There had been no taxis and he had had to walk from Central Station to the police hostel, carrying his suitcase and the parcel in which was carefully packed the bits of windscreen.

  His reception at the police station at eleven-fifteen the following morning did little to cheer him up. “You’re either very early or very late,” said Welland, with boisterous cheerfulness.

  “You’re late,” said Braddon, not in the least cheerful since he had not yet forgotten the rudeness of the girl whom he’d taken home the previous night — from a party that was the nearest thing to a Roman orgy he was ever likely to witness.

  “You’re bloody late,” snapped Fusil.

  “I did spend the night travelling,” said Kerr tightly, as he stood in front of the D.I.’s desk.

  “That’s no excuse for turning up in the middle of the day.”

  Kerr was about to say something more when he checked himself. Fusil had dark shadows under his eyes and there was a nervous rush to the way he spoke that suggested he was in a very sharp mood indeed.

  “Where’s the glass?” demanded Fusil.

  “In this package, sir.”

  “Then let’s have a look at it, man. It’s not much good to me wrapped up like that.”

  Kerr put the parcel down on the desk, undid the string, unwrapped the brown paper, and took out the square of hardboard on which the glass had been stuck.

  Fusil studied the glass and the paper marks on it, then used a ruler to check the length. He leaned back in his chair. “This must have taken you quite a time to sort out and put together.”

  “It did, sir.”

  “Was it your idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Congratulations, you’ve done a good job. We’ll make a detective of you yet.” Kerr was so surprised that for several seconds he did not realise this was genuine praise.

  Fusil stared at the glass on the hardboard. It
must go off to the laboratories to see if the fibres of paper could be matched with those from one of the unused notices. It had been a good choice to send Kerr up north rather than Braddon. Admittedly, it was a slice of luck that it had been Kerr who interviewed Miss Railton and so learned about the notices, but Braddon would never have thought of piecing together the shattered windscreen of the Ford, even had he been the one to interview that formidable spinster.

  *

  Detective Constable Haver of the Metropolitan Police was a man whose career had at the start been full of promise, yet it was one which — for no readily apparent reason — had never attained such promise. Within four short years of joining the C.I.D., he became known as a conscientious detective, capable and reliable, yet most unlikely ever to make detective sergeant. At first, he had cursed his fate, blaming superiors who were both jealous and stupid, but in the end he had come to accept that there was no one to blame but himself. On that day, he buried all ambition.

  He had been attached to Branders Road Police Station, in south London, for 6 years and he knew his manor and the people who lived in it better than did any other officer at the station.

  He spoke to Irish Sal in a pub on Tuesday evening. She was not Irish, but she had a fiendish temper and a liking for Guinness that was proverbial amongst the public houses of the area. She looked an attractive thirty — in fact, she was only twenty-five and had a body that had men chasing hard, but she was not all that generous with her favours.

  “Evenin’, Sal,” said Haver, a tall, thin man with early greying hair that was receding, brown eyes that usually looked sad, and a slow way of speech.

  “It was,” she retorted. She drained her glass.

  Haver took her glass over to the bar and ordered a Guinness and a shandy.

  He sat down at the table opposite Irish Sal, brought a ten packet of cigarettes from his pocket, and offered it to her. “I haven’t seen you around for a time,” he said.

  “What d’you want?” she demanded.

  “Seen Robert Glenton recently?”

  She drank. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but could not hide her bitter anger and hatred.

  “They tell me,” said Haver, “that you and he made a couple.”

  “I’ve been out with him,” she muttered. She finished her drink.

  He took her empty glass back to the bar for refilling. The barman was obsequiously concerned to know how he was keeping. Haver said he was very fit. The barman said that was wonderful news and the drinks were on him and Haver didn’t argue.

  He sat down before speaking to her again. “How d’you find Bob?”

  She called Haver a lead-tongued bastard.

  “Of course, of course,” he said, as if memory suddenly returned, “he’s moved on.”

  “I told him to move,” she answered, even though she knew that he knew the truth.

  “I suppose that’s what made him mad enough to rough you up a bit? Someone said that Rosie was around at the time?”

  The lines of hatred deepened, making her look older than before.

  “You know, Rosie’s an attractive girl — all dewy-eyed, like she’s just left home.”

  “Are you calling me worn out?”

  “Well, we can’t hide our ages, can we?”

  “Rosie ain’t as young as me.”

  “No?” Haver sounded very astonished.

  “You know bleeding well she ain’t.” She drained her glass. “She’s an old bag. I’m telling you, she’s been on the game.” Her voice coarsened and she crudely cursed the other woman.

  “I did hear Rosie’s been having a chuckle.”

  “On what?”

  “On the way you got down on your knees and pleaded with Bob to keep you on.”

  “She’s… she’s sayin’ that?”

  “Says it’s the funniest sight she ever saw.”

  “I’ll give ’er funny sight,” cried Irish Sal, eyes alight.

  “Old Bob is supposed to have said he might have kept you on if you weren’t so raddled.”

  She clenched her fists and her face worked as her memory tortured her with the picture of the scornful way in which Glenton had finished with her… Haver signalled to the bartender, who hurried over with another Guinness and a shandy. She drank even more quickly than before. She demanded a second cigarette and as Haver struck a match she said, her voice ugly: “What d’you want?”

  “To know where he’s been hanging out recently.”

  “You tell that little tart, Rosie, that if I catch ’er I’ll stripe ’er — she won’t go looking at no more mirrors. You tell…”

  “I’ll pass the message on.”

  She finished her drink. “’E’s been living in Challon Place.”

  “What number?”

  “Up near the end with a green door.”

  “Who’s he been mixing with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Sal, let’s have all the news.”

  “I ain’t no grasser.”

  He stood up. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Just give ’er the message.”

  He left.

  *

  A detective sergeant, a detective constable, and two P.C.s, drove up to Challon Place in the C.I.D. Riley. The car stopped at crossroads and the D.C. and one of the P.C.’s got out and walked down the road to the dirt lane than ran behind the houses in Challon Place.

  The detective sergeant drove slowly and parked at the end of the road. He and the P.C. then walked back to No. 24 and he knocked on the front door. After a short wait, he took a bunch of keys from his pocket (they had belonged to a small-time housebreaker) and tried them: the sixth one turned the tumblers. They put on gloves and went inside.

  The house smelled unpleasant. The detective sergeant told the P.C. to stand by the front door and he went through the hall and the kitchen to the back door, unlocked it, and let the other two in.

  The kitchen was in a shambles. The sink was filled with dirty dishes and cutlery and the draining board was stacked high with them. On the table were the remains of a meal, eaten by three people: unwanted food on the plates was going bad and growing mould. Empty beer bottles littered table and floor and by the side of the gas stove were opened bottles of gin and whisky.

  “A load of pigs wouldn’t live like this,” said the detective sergeant disgustedly. “O.K., let’s get moving. Joe, you stay downstairs and we’ll search the upstairs rooms, but for God’s sake don’t touch anything that’ll take prints even if you are wearing gloves.”

  “We’ve got ourselves a job,” muttered the detective constable.

  “You’re dead on target there,” replied the detective sergeant. “You won’t be seeing much of your wife tonight.”

  The D.C. sighed. He was newly married.

  *

  Wednesday morning was another fine and sunny one and the streets of Fortrow were filled with people. Although no holiday town, there were good beaches nearby and people who were staying around these beaches came into Fortrow to do their shopping.

  Fusil, driving over to borough H.Q. which was housed in the same building as western division H.Q., was brought to a halt by the press of traffic opposite the market. Men were cleaning out the pens, following market day which had been the previous day, and vehicles were trying to turn into and come out of the area. Fusil heard the deep chimes of the cathedral clock. Eleven o’clock, the time of his appointment with Kywood. Kywood was going to be unlucky.

  He yawned. Josephine had been on at him again, telling him he was overdoing things — but what option had he? There was always enough crime in the division to keep a detective force twice their size busy, so when a really big case came along they could only cope by working endless overtime. When a man went into the C.I.D. he knew that he was not going to see much home life, so it was no good beefing when, in fact, he didn’t. But usually it was the wives who beefed, and who could really blame them? Many a good detective had been lost to C.I.D. because his wife had
said it was either the C.I.D. or her. Josephine would never deliver such an ultimatum, but she was very, very worried by the amount of work he was having to do now.

  The traffic sluggishly moved forward. He turned right at the crossroads, where luckily the lights were in his favour, and carried along that road until he passed the new ten storey hotel that was popularly supposed to be losing someone a hell of a lot of money. Borough H.Q. was down the next road to the left.

  Kywood was in one of his ‘I-know-life’s-difficult-for-you-but’ moods. He explained how he fully understood that any big case must take a long time to crack and this one was undoubtedly much more difficult than most, he appreciated how everyone was working flat out, he was equally aware that there were all the other crimes which had to be dealt with… but wasn’t it about time there were some concrete results? The newspapers were still devoting a lot of space to the case and one of them had even had a leader that very morning saying the police were failing to get anywhere. He named the newspaper.

  “That rag,” said Fusil scornfully.

  “It’s read by a lot of people,” protested Kywood.

  “More fools them. The paper’s been gunning for the police ever since the proprietor was had up for being drunk in charge of his car.”

  “But it doesn’t look good, Bob, whatever the paper’s policy is. Look how things are with all the amalgamations of the police forces being pushed through by the Home Secretary. If a really major crime isn’t solved by a small borough force…”

  “It won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last.”

  “Your attitude hardly helps.”

  “Nor does the attitude of the people who are stupid enough to think the police can work miracles and start shouting when they don’t.”

  Kywood flushed — was he one of those ‘stupid enough’?

  He decided Fusil had been referring to disgruntled and embittered newspaper proprietors and changed the subject. “What about this identification of Glenton — has that led to anything?”

  “Nothing’s come through from London yet, sir.”

  Kywood massaged his square chin. “D’you think it’ll give us a worthwhile lead?”