by John Creasey
‘And you can say good-bye to Jolly,’ he added.
There might be a touch of madness in him, but above everything else, he knew he could do what he threatened. He had always been convinced that he could get away with his crimes; had planned each move with a master’s touch.
Why?
‘And when the crowd’s panicked,’ he went on. ‘I’ll get away. Once get that mob stampeding, and it would take a regiment to control the Camp. You know it. Keep Davies away from me. Go on.’
Rollison stood up.
He pushed past Ebbutt, who didn’t glance at him. There was Jolly to save; Liz; and the unknown men. What could he do? – what should he do if Davies were coming to get Beck?
The music stopped.
A wild cheer roared out from the watchers and dancers together. The swarming mass went still. It seemed as if two thousand people gasped gustily for breath at the identical moment, and then everyone began to surge away from the floor at once. They packed the doorways; it was impossible to keep them back. The police could do nothing in the crush.
Davies reached Rollison.
‘We’re going to hold Beck,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Two of his wife’s rings are stolen goods,’ said Davies. ‘Now we know that, we can’t wait any longer.’
Rollison said slowly: ‘He’s made two threats—to kill the prisoners and to panic the crowd, if you don’t let him go.’
Davies caught his breath as that sank in.
‘What?’ breathed the sergeant behind him.
‘And I think he’ll do it,’ Rollison went on.
Davies looked towards Beck. Rollison couldn’t see the man, because he had his back towards him. But Rickett was very near, straining his ears to catch the policeman’s word. The crowd had advanced from the floor towards the tiers, and were flooding along the passages, taking every chair that was free, sitting on one another’s knees, fanning themselves, gasping for breath.
The band started to play again, this time a quickstep.
‘We can’t—let them blackmail us,’ Davies said in a toneless voice.
‘If he panics this crowd, what’s going to happen next?’ asked Rollison. ‘Half a dozen people might be trampled to death. More. It’s a bad risk.’
‘He can’t be allowed to blackmail the police!’
‘Listen,’ Rollison reasoned. ‘See that big man there—with the yellow pullover—don’t nod.’
‘Yes,’ Davies said.
‘Tell him to take his friends to the airfield—to get there through the fences and not along the road, then watch for developments. Tell him I’ll probably be there soon, as Beck’s prisoner. Understand?’
‘We can’t—’
‘If Beck stampedes this crowd he can get away,’ Rollison said reasonably. ‘I know what you feel like, but you’ll get him sooner or later. Waiting a bit now should save trouble here, and give me a chance to save Jolly and the others.’
‘Your man?’
‘Yes, gone with the rest.’
Davies said through his clenched teeth: ‘My duty’s plain enough, Mr. Rollison. I’ve reason to believe that the man is a dangerous criminal, and I must—’
Across his words, across the brisk music, across the scuffling feet and the babble of voices, there came a short, sharp explosion; and a flash. Everything stopped; even the band. Into the empty silence, there came a scream—short, sharp, piercing.
Others followed from different parts of the ballroom. By Rollison, Rickett’s wife stood up and screamed as if she couldn’t stop, loose mouth wide open, hands beating at her breast. The band started up again, but another explosion came before the music drowned the screaming.
The second explosion came from the band dais.
The men and girls in the band seemed to split up, to sway and fall in different directions. A saxophone and a trumpet went up into the air, then crashed. A girl fell off the platform. The pianist jumped up, then dropped down; and all her weight went on the keys, making a hideous cacophony.
Lights started to go out.
Blackness added to terror.
Men rushed about wildly. Davies was pushed in the back, his sergeant stumbled, Rollison felt his legs hooked from under him. He kept his balance. The rushing crowd carried him helplessly towards the door. People were calling out to friends or screaming.
‘Let me out!’
‘Dolly, where are you?’
‘Let’s get out!’
‘Ted—Ted!’
‘Where’s the door?’ ‘I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it.’
‘Charlie!’
‘Don’t tread on her!’ a woman screamed in an agonized voice.
Then the strangest thing happened; the unbelievable. A man began to sing. He used the microphone, and the loudspeakers carried his voice to every corner. There was something strangely soothing in the sound. There were no words, it was just an air from a popular love song, so enticing, so wheedling, that it seemed to draw panic out of the air.
Someone started to play the piano.
Rickett’s voice sounded in Rollison’s ear.
‘Get moving to that door,’ something jabbed into Rollison’s back. ‘This is a gun.’
Rollison went slowly forward.
Someone switched on some lights; they were very dim, but they helped.
By the doors there was still a milling crowd, but in the body of the hall things were quieter. The pianist played the crooner’s melody. Uncle Pi, smiling, his shoulders hunched in his red coat, his hands spread out as if he hoped that he could soothe the frightened that way too, swayed from side to side. His smile was the remarkable thing; ineffable.
‘Only fireworks,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Fools, some people, aren’t they? They’re trying to scare you—but you can beat them easily. Let’s have a song—how about La Ronde? We all know the tune of that, don’t we?’
He beat time with his hand, the pianist changed the melody. Redcoats had appeared everywhere; soothing, calming, helping. A few people had fallen, a few were hurt.
Uncle Pi hummed.
Dozens took it up; hundreds; nearly everyone. It rang through the great hall, coming from each of the tiers, the corners, the doorways. These were open. There were no police in sight, they had been carried away by the first crash.
Beck was gone.
The loose-mouthed woman was still there. Ebbutt had gone; so had those of his men whom Rollison would have recognized. Davies was talking to the sergeant, as policemen came hurrying back. Davies looked about, obviously for Rollison, who was near a door – with Rickett poking that thing in his back.
Uncle Pi had won the crowd; he stopped suddenly and began to talk again.
‘Of course we’ve had a bit of trouble at the Camp, it would be silly to deny it, wouldn’t it? Some crooks, jewel thieves we believe, had been using it as a place to exchange their loot, but the police had discovered what was happening, and anyhow, didn’t the thieves know that the Toff was in the Camp?’ He laughed, as if delighted; it set people chuckling. ‘As if anything could go wrong with the Toff around! Not to mention the Redcoats, the Camp officials, and the police. The crooks won’t have a chance! Now, on with the dance!’
‘Da-da-di-da-da-da-da—’
The people began to dance and sing.
Aird, the Colonel, and Llewellyn appeared on the platform as more light went on, more of the band recovered and took their places.
Davies, near a door, was saying tensely: ‘Where’s Rollison? Where is he?’
‘All right,’ Rollison said to Rickett, ‘don’t push.’
‘Hurry,’ Rickett muttered. The gun, if it were a gun, was thrust into the small of Rollison’s back as they crossed the big hall. They were lost units in a densely packed crowd. ‘Just keep going.’
Outside, the crowd thinned out. It was very dark. Some women were crying, men tried to comfort them. In the poor light, children were still swinging and going on the roundabouts and shrieking their pleasures. More
and more people came out of the ballroom, from all the doorways.
‘Turn right,’ growled Rickett.
It might not be a gun.
But if he went, Rollison might see Jolly; and he might be followed by police and Ebbutt’s men. Had Ebbutt escaped?
‘Get moving!’ The thing hurt his ribs.
It was difficult to go much faster.
He had a chance to escape; he had often taken greater risks. He could simply miss a step and back-heel. If it were a gun, the bullet might miss, and if it weren’t nothing could go wrong. But if he escaped, what chance was there of finding Jolly?
He could shout: ‘The airport, the airport!’ and police and officials would hear him and carry the message back, but would it help Jolly? Elizabeth? Three missing men?
The crowd had thinned out. The big light over the main diving-platforms was still on, and a few youths were there; the splashes they made came clearly.
‘Straight on,’ Rickett said. ‘Don’t make any mistake.’
‘Where?’
‘By the pool.’
Beyond the pool were lawns, flower-beds, and, beyond them, a shrubbery and a wire fence which bordered the road. Cars with their headlights on travelled along the road, and in the shrubberies several men showed up against the glare; they ducked. Anyone following must certainly see them.
‘Keep moving.’
A bullet, and he would be dead. A knife would do, or a silk stocking or a cord tied tightly. He was still alive – perhaps only while they were in the Camp. More likely, Beck wanted to find out what he knew.
A car was moving along the road, visible in the glare of the swimming-pool light, and its own sidelights. Men clambered over the wire fence. A second car stood behind the first, engine going.
‘Over,’ Rickett snapped.
Rollison climbed over. He couldn’t look round. He had no idea whether they had been followed. He recognized no one. He climbed the wire fence, and then a man standing by one of the cars struck him savagely over the head. The unexpectedness of it was decisive. Rollison didn’t dream that it was coming then. He felt as if his skull had been split in two.
He collapsed.
Rickett and the man who had struck Rollison bent down, lifted him and bundled him into the first of the two cars. A third came along. All three cars moved off, headlights blazing.
Rollison was slumped in a corner, with blood oozing from the wound in his head.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Last Hope?
Rollison felt a pain at the back of his head, and a stinging coldness at his face and forehead; and at his neck and chest. He was aware of nothing else – until suddenly it felt as if a hose of ice-cold water had been turned on him. Water shot into his face. He banged his head on something, and pain shrieked through him, but he didn’t lose consciousness again.
A man said: ‘He’s awake.’
‘Make him talk,’ said another.
It was dark; but Rollison opened his eyes in spite of the pain, and saw the stars; and a gentle crescent moon. He could see the shapes of men, standing round him; and the shape of a building; and the branches of trees.
His arms were tied behind him, to a stake or a small tree.
Cigarettes glowed very red.
Beck said: ‘Did you tell them where we were going, Rollison?’
Rollison didn’t answer. It wasn’t because he wouldn’t speak; he had that pain at the back of his head, and felt numbed; silly. The question only just made sense.
Beck slapped him across the face, his bony fingers like steel. It was dark, and the only light came from the stars and the cigarettes, but it was possible to imagine that Beck’s eyes glowed.
‘Did you tell the police?’
Rollison croaked: ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘It could be a lie,’ the man said.
There were several people here; four or five. They were all standing beneath the trees. The shed – it couldn’t be more than a shed – was quite near. Four cigarettes glowed, and Beck wasn’t smoking, so five in all.
‘Rollison …’ Beck said.
‘I didn’t tell them!’
‘Did Jolly?’
‘Did he—know?’ The question didn’t matter, all that mattered was gaining a little time, so that at least he could think. He began to think. They had escaped from the Camp and were at the airfield. Probably they were waiting for an aircraft to come and pick them up.
A car passed along that road, at speed, its headlights blazing. Everyone stood and stared at it; two drew in their breath sharply.
How long had he been here? Was this the airfield? If not, where were they and what were they waiting for?
Davies and Ebbutt knew about the airfield, but was this Butlin’s? Perhaps there was another near by.
‘How much longer?’ a man asked.
‘Can’t be long.’ That was Beck. ‘Only takes two hours each way.’
Two hours; almost certainly across the Irish sea.
‘We don’t want Rollison any more,’ a man said. It sounded like hard-faced Jake.
‘That’s right,’ another agreed.
They were killers; there was the atmosphere of murder about them, from Beck downwards. No one said so, but some were thinking that one more murder would make no difference. For their safety, they depended on getting across the Irish sea. Once over, they would know what to do; they were sure that they could get away. They wouldn’t want to take him.
Beck said: ‘We take him with us and make him talk. We’ve got to know what he’s told the police and what he thinks he knows.’
‘S’right,’ someone said.
‘Beck—’ began Rollison.
‘Shut up.’
‘Beck,’ said Rollison, ‘is Jolly alive or dead?’
‘That’s right,’ Beck said.
It was a sneer. It was meant to keep Rollison in suspense; and it did. It made his heart beat more fiercely and the throbbing pain in his head worse. He knew that he was tied to a tree; that there wouldn’t be much chance to free himself.
Another car sped along the road; and then two more, in quick succession. Where were the police? And Ebbutt and his men? The road was at least half a mile away, and he could only see it for a short distance; trees hid it for the rest, and also hid this spot from the road. If he shouted, the owls or the bats or the rabbits or the rats might hear him, and the sleeping birds might be disturbed; but that was all.
He began to work at the cords, but the knot was very tight.
Beck said abruptly: ‘Listen!’
Tension sprang into the group. One man dropped a cigarette and trod it out. Rollison sensed that they all stared upwards. There were the stars and the pale moon and wisps of cloud – and there was a slight droning sound.
A man breathed: ‘That’s it.’
‘Won’t be long now,’ Beck said. He moved nearer to Rollison.
The aeroplane was drawing much nearer. Suddenly several beams of light shot out at ground level some way off: landing-lights. Men showed up against the glow. Rollison was facing the landing-field; the aeroplane would come down only a hundred yards or so away from him.
The cord was painfully tight about his wrists.
He said: ‘Why kidnap Jolly? Why snatch Liz? Why—’
‘Shut your trap,’ Beck growled.
‘I can tell you why,’ another man said, and there was no mistaking his voice.
It was Middleton.
The other men were watching the aircraft, a dark shape now very near the ground. Middleton fell silent, after that one sentence; and Beck stared at him. Rollison sensed the sudden tension, sensed burning hatred between these two men.
Then: ‘I can tell you,’ Middleton repeated. ‘He had to kidnap Liz because she knew too much—and she knew too much because I told her just before he snatched her. And I talked because Beck tried to murder me.’
‘Listen, Dick—’ Beck began.
‘You’re doing the listening, and I’ve got the drop on you,’ Middle
ton said. A gun showed dimly in his hand. ‘Nice partners, aren’t we? Hear that, Rollison, we’re partners. We smuggle jewels and men out of England to Ireland and then to the li’l ole United States!’ His voice thickened, as if he were drunk. He was close enough for the words to reach both Rollison and Beck, although the engine was still roaring and the aircraft was about to land. All the other men were staring at it, some distance from this trio. ‘I arranged the Camp end of it,’ Middleton went on. ‘We needed a spot near the Irish coast where we could hide-out crooks who’d made things too hot for them over here. Didn’t we, Beck? We—’
‘Listen, Dick—’ Beck began.
‘Shut up!’ Middleton said viciously, ‘or I’ll shoot your guts out.’ The aeroplane had landed and was running along the landing-strip. The very ground seemed to tremble.
‘What better place than the Camp?’ Middleton asked shrilly. ‘Go on, tell me that, Rollison—can you think of one? We booked single chalets for imaginary people, and when we wanted to hide a wanted man, he came and took over a reserved chalet. It was fool-proof. The only difficulty was in getting them up in the air. They took the free transport to the airfield with other Campers, didn’t they Beck? Every now and again we run a charter service to Ireland, so we took them across. No trouble at all, it was a brilliant idea. We had to bribe some of the ground staff and the pilot, and fix airfield jobs for Beck’s men. It was easy—except for one thing. Liz got suspicious about something she heard Beck and Clark say on their first visit. She told Campion, the first missing Redcoat. He tried to find out what it was all about, and we had to kidnap him. He took a ride in the bus to the airfield and didn’t come back.
‘Liz told me she was worried.
‘I convinced her there was nothing to worry about,’ Middleton went on hoarsely. ‘I said that I’d do all the necessary. And I did! Campion had talked to the other missing Redcoats—we snatched them the same way. They just stepped into the free transport to the airfield and were knocked out among the trees. Easy! Then whenever we had to send a man to Ireland we took a prisoner over, too. We packed their bags and tried to make it all look voluntary, but Aird was worried, and he told the Colonel, and that brought you, Mr. Ruddy Toff.’
‘Listen, Dick, you’ve got—’ Beck began.
