by J F Straker
Dead Man Walking
J F Straker
Copyright © J F Straker 1968
The right of J F Straker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1968 as ‘Sin and Johnny Inch’ by George G Harrap & Co. Ltd.
This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
SUNDAY
MONDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
TUESDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
WEDNESDAY
1
2
3
THURSDAY
1
2
3
FRIDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
SATURDAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
SUNDAY
IT was September outside, but with more than a hint of December down in the cellars. To the men waiting there the coldness suggested damp, but the roughly plastered walls behind the shelving were dry to the touch. It was also dark. They had used a pencil torch to light them down the steps; but once down, and familiar with their surroundings, they had not used it again. Nor had they ventured to switch on the electric light. The single unshaded bulb was set high in the ceiling, and its glow would have been visible through the dusty panes that gave on to the basement area. In the small hours of a Sunday morning the street outside was probably deserted, but they were taking no chances. Uncomfortable on wooden crates, they sat in the dark and waited. When they spoke it was in whispers, although there was little need to whisper. Occasionally one would yawn and stretch, and get stiffly to his feet to shuffle up and down between the rows of shelving, flapping his arms to restore the circulation. But no stamping of feet on the stone floor. Stamping was out.
The shelves were stacked with bottles, reposing uniformly on wire racks or pigeon-holed in separate compartments, with corks unadorned or wrapped in coloured foil. More bored than thirsty, one of the men selected a bottle at random, prised the cork loose with a penknife, and drank.
“Tasty?”
“Ugh! Cheap sherry.” He spat the liquor from his mouth. “Like bloody varnish.”
He put the bottle back on the rack, not bothering to replace the torn cork. Liquid poured on to the floor, slowed to a trickle, and stopped.
“Try the beer. It’s over by the door. Saw it as we came in.”
“Too bloody cold. Where do they keep the hard stuff?”
“No hard stuff, cock. Tonight we keep sober.”
The shortest of the three, a little man with spectacles loose on his nose, was perched on a step-ladder with a two-way radio on his knees. Earphones clamped over his bald head, he spoke at intervals into the microphone, passing idle comments on the cold and the boredom in a low whisper. At first the others listened, straining their ears to catch the answering voice. But as time passed the monologue got on their nerves, and eventually one of them said irritably, “Nark it, for Chris’ sake! If you must play family favourites try another record. That one’s cracked.”
“Sorry. I just want to make sure she stays awake.”
The apology sounded sincere.
The coming of dawn was a relief to them all. There was work to be done, and as soon as the light was sufficient two of them got cracking, welcoming the need for action after the hours of inertia. Bottles and crates and racks were cleared from the shelves lining the east wall, and dumped carefully at a convenient distance. Now the shelving itself had to be moved, and that called for particular care. Fixed to the wall by nails driven into the brickwork, it would have been a simple task to wrench it free with a crowbar. But force was out. They knew what lay on the far side of the wall, but they did not know the type of alarm system guarding it. Undoubtedly it would be sophisticated — photo-electric, radar beacon, vibratory — and it was the last they feared now. One careless jerk with a crowbar could set it off, and they tackled each nail separately, picking at the surrounding brickwork until they could prise it smoothly free. It was slow going, but they were in no hurry.
By the time the last nail was out and they had lifted the shelving bodily away from the wall both men were sweating. One of them took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. The other used his sleeve.
“How’s the enemy?”
Throughout the operation the man on the ladder had checked constantly over the radio. Now he shifted the headphones from his ears, adjusted the slipping spectacles, and peered at his watch.
“Twenty to eight.”
Nine-thirty, the notice had said. Nearly two hours to go.
Slowly the town outside came alive. Cars and lorries passed along the street, footsteps rattled the pavement: church-goers, tradesmen, early morning dog-walkers. But the buildings themselves were quiet. This was a business and shopping district. People passed through it, but they did not stay. Not on a Sunday morning.
“When do you reckon it’ll be safe to leave?” asked the man on the ladder.
“Around midnight, perhaps. Not before.”
They had known the waiting would be long, but they had not realized how slowly time would seem to pass. Cigarettes were out — a mislaid butt could be tell-tale evidence — and to the radio operator the craving for tobacco was becoming well-nigh intolerable; he was a heavy, compulsive smoker. To ease the longing he spoke more frequently into the microphone, ignoring the caustic comments of his companions. None had thought to bring cards or a book; their planning had been all for the job itself, not for the hours before and after. But as nine-thirty approached boredom gave way to tension. They were relatively new to crime, and not yet inured to its risks; and here the risks were doubled. Success, if it came, could be richly rewarding. It could also be more dangerous than failure.
“Come on, come on!” one of them said. “What the hell’s keeping them? It’s after time.”
“Why should they worry? To them it’s not important.” Minutes dragged by. They sat down, stood up, prowled impatiently round the cellars, sat down again. As one of them started to rise the man on the ladder said sharply, “Hold it!” and spoke into the microphone. Then he looked up and nodded, the spectacles jumping on his nose.
“Okay,” he said, his eyes bright. “They’re off!”
The leader of the group, a blond, thick-set man, crossed to the light switch and depressed it. The bulb in the ceiling gave no answering glow.
“Right!” He picked up a crowbar. “Tell her to keep her eyes skinned. Now get over by the door — both of you. And remember — if she gives the word, drop everything and run. Turn right, and make for the alley. The car’s in the park opposite.”
He waited until they were ready. Then he swung the crowbar against the wall, dropped it, and joined the others at the door. The noise reverberated round the cellar walls and died.
“Well?” he demanded, after a pause.
“Nothing yet.” The radio operator still wore the headphones, the set clutched to his chest. There were beads of sweat on his bald dome.
“Still nothing?”
The radio operator repeated the question into the micro-phone.
“Just the usual traffic, she says.”
The leader glanced at his watch.
“Five minutes. If they’re coming they should have been here by now.” He looked at the others, who nodded. “That’s i
t, then. Let’s get weaving.”
MONDAY
1
THE four policemen viewed the disorder in the bank strongroom with detached, professional interest; to at least three of them it was not an unfamiliar scene. The manager was less objective in his view. His responsibility for safeguarding the bank and its contents was limited to ensuring that the security arrangements provided were properly observed; it was not his fault that they had proved inadequate. Yet there was guilt as well as anger and disbelief on his face as he surveyed the scene for the third time that morning.
“Incredible!” he said dismally. “Quite incredible! I was assured that this just could not happen.”
“And now it has,” Sherrey said. “Which just goes to show, doesn’t it? The impossible is always with us.”
The room was a mess. A large hole gaped jaggedly in the wall beyond the steel grille, the wooden shelving sagged, broken and splintered where it had been wrenched away from the brickwork to allow a passage. Rubble littered the floor, together with bank stationery and deed boxes and sundry documents, swept from the shelves when the thieves had broken through. Of the two safes, one had been turned to face the wall and a neat oval hole burned in its back. The other was intact.
Detective Sergeant Humphrey Nicodemus gave the rifled safe a disparaging pat.
“It’s a bit long in the tooth, sir,” he said. His voice was cultured, the words clipped. “To an expert peterman it’d be as easy as shelling peas.”
“But the alarm, man, the alarm! That’s what I don’t understand.” The manager sounded in anguish. “It was installed only recently. Any noise, any undue vibration, and the police station down the road is immediately alerted. Yet these men knock down a wall, break through the shelves, cut a hole in the safe — and nothing happens. Like I said, it’s incredible.”
“A fault in the system,” Sherrey suggested.
“No. It’s working perfectly. I tried it.”
“Then there must have been a power cut,” Johnny Inch said, with cheerful confidence. “I mean — well, there’s nothing else, is there?”
The local chief inspector, an austere, authoritative man, eyed him coldly. The chief inspector was a man with a grudge. He resented the chief constable’s action in summoning the Crime Squad without first giving his own force a chance to work on the case. Detective Superintendent Sherrey was too exalted a policeman to be treated lightly — over the past eighteen months his name had been constantly in the news — but his two young minions must be kept in their places if life around the nick in the immediate future were to be bearable.
“I very much doubt, Sergeant, if they would plan a job like this on the off-chance of a power cut putting the alarm out of action.”
Johnny flushed, the freckles on his round face merging into the colour scheme of cheeks and hair.
“A cut, sir, not a failure. If the Electricity Board had work to do on the mains they would have given prior notice. Or aren’t they so considerate in these parts?”
Sherrey looked his approval. “It’s a thought, certainly. How about it, Mr Cole?”
The chief inspector shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, sir. I only came back off leave this morning.”
“Then perhaps you would be good enough to find out.” The other nodded but did not move. “Now, Mr Cole.”
The chief inspector went, his erect mien and squared shoulders indicative of his resentment. The manager said, “I’ve seen no notice myself, Superintendent. If there was one my chief clerk must have forgotten to advise me.”
“You had no power cut at home?”
“No. But then I live out of town.”
“When was the robbery discovered? When the bank opened?”
“Before that, actually. Mrs Bollender’s agent has a temporary office over the wine merchant’s. He was due at a conference in London this morning, and called at his office around seven-thirty to collect some papers. He found the back door open, and went down to investigate.”
“And who is Mrs Bollender?”
“The Independent parliamentary candidate for this division. We have a by-election pending.” The vestige of a smile appeared on the manager’s face. “You should meet her, Superintendent. Lucinda Bollender is quite a woman.”
The superintendent said it was a pleasure he would probably have to forgo.
Johnny and Nicodemus came scrambling back through the hole in the wall, smudges on their faces, their hands grimy, the knees of their trousers grey with dust. They were eager, efficient young men, but neither eagerness nor efficiency had been rewarded in the wine merchant’s cellars. A few empty bottles, some scuffed footprints in the dust, and a dog biscuit.
“Doggo,” Nicodemus said, holding out his hand.
The superintendent stared. “I beg your pardon?”
“Doggo, sir. It’s a brand of dog biscuit.” He came closer, to disclose a small round biscuit on his palm. “It’s primarily for puppies.”
“Is it? Very interesting. Well, find out if any of the wine merchant’s employees owns a dog. Which reminds me. No dog-ends?”
It was more a private joke than a serious inquiry. Sergeant Nicodemus was hot on dog-ends.
“No, sir. Only the biscuit. Unless the fingerprint boys come up with something.”
“They won’t. Even the kids nicking sweets wear gloves these days. Too much television.”
Despite his pessimism, Sherrey was grateful that for once a chief constable had acted promptly; it didn’t look like doing him much good, but at least it showed willing. During the past two years big-time crime had increased to such an extent that the Assistant Commissioner had formed two mobile squads of picked men, to be held in readiness and rushed to the scene of a crime immediately their assistance was requested. Sometimes they had to kick their heels while the local force went through the motions and the scent grew cold. But not this time. Within an hour of the discovery of the robbery the chief constable had been on to Scotland Yard, asking for SIN.
SIN was what the newspapers had dubbed them, after the initials of their surnames: Detective Superintendent Richard Vale Sherrey, aged fifty-three, known to his subordinates and the underworld as ‘The Boozer’; Detective Sergeant John Christopher Inch, educated at Maidstone Grammar School, aged twenty-eight; and Detective Sergeant Humphrey George Verity Nicodemus, a product of Eton and Brasenose, also aged twenty-eight. They were the Number One team, specializing in bank and office jobs; Number Two handled the theft of goods. Nicodemus was a comparative newcomer to SIN, having replaced a man named Newton. Much to his colleague’s chagrin, Johnny Inch insisted that Nicodemus had been given the coveted appointment solely because his name began with the letter N. SIN had a reputation. The image must be maintained.
Sherrey bent once more to examine the rifled safe. He said, “Do you usually carry as much as seventy thousand quid in cash at weekends?”
“Not regularly, no. But both the race-course and the dog-track had meetings last week, and both bank here. So does the bus depot.”
As Sherrey straightened a distinctive footprint in the dust caught his eye.
“I didn’t notice that before,” he said. “How come?”
The two sergeants bent to look. Nicodemus grinned. “It’s Johnny’s, sir,” he said. “Pretty, isn’t it? He makes his own rubbers.”
“Not me,” Johnny amended. “The local cobbler. He uses old car-tyres. And damned efficient they are, too.”
“H’m! Well, they may be pretty and they may be efficient. But if ever you think of turning to a life of crime, Inch, remember to change your shoes. You’ll have a short run else.”
Chief Inspector Cole returned with the news that there had indeed been a power cut the previous morning, and that prior notices had been sent out by the Electricity Board. “Nine-thirty to twelve-thirty,” he said, his tone suggesting that the Board had somehow been guilty of treachery. “This being a trading rather than a residential area, they chose Sunday morning as likely to cause the least inconvenience.”
“Was the nick notified?”
“I imagine so. It’s in the area.”
“So someone there wasn’t thinking right?”
Cole’s shrug was meant to imply that he took no responsibility for that.
“Unfortunately it’s not only the police who were at fault,” the manager said sadly. “Will you need me any more, Superintendent? The bank is still in business.”
“Go right ahead, sir. We know where to find you. We’ll be breaking for lunch shortly, anyway.”
They walked back to the hotel. Sherrey made a fetish of exercise, and seldom rode when he could walk. He was a tall man, although not so tall as Nicodemus, and Johnny had almost to run to keep pace with his long-striding progress. Johnny was only five foot nine, and short in the legs. But he was glad to be away from the sour-faced Cole, and he said cheerfully, “Those boys certainly had it handed to them, didn’t they? There were no cane marks on the back door, so they must have used ‘loids or a toothbrush to spring the lock. That was in the small hours of yesterday morning, I suppose, when there’d be no-one about. They squat on their fannies till the power is cut, and then get to work. Knock a hole through the wall, wrench away the shelves, burn open the peter — and I’m all right, Jack! No windows, so no muffling. A dead job like that could be done in well under three hours.” Talking had slowed him, and he hastened to catch up. “I’d say they waited until well after nightfall before scarpering. And with seventy thousand grand! Now, that’s quite a tickle.”
“Must you use that ghastly thieves’ jargon?” Nicodemus protested. “It doesn’t impress, you know.”
“It’s not meant to. I use it because I like it.” There was also the pleasing knowledge of his colleague’s disapproval. “It — it’s colourful. A damned sight more colourful than that slop talk of yours, Knickers.”
“Stop calling me Knickers, damn you!” Although he found the nickname objectionable, Nicodemus did not entirely resent it. It was an indication that the new boy had been accepted. “Sir! Since notices of the power cut were sent out only to this particular area, doesn’t that imply a local mob?”
