A Man Condemned

by Roderic Jeffries

  He said goodbye and replaced the receiver. One hundred and twenty-five thousand, three hundred and seventy-six pounds had been stolen so the reward was worth over twelve thousand pounds. Most villains would shop their own wives for a quarter of that amount.

  *

  The two guards returned to the police-station at nine in the morning and were shown into adjoining interview-rooms. There they talked in turn to an artist who used their descriptions to draw portraits of the three gunmen.

  Fusil saw the portraits at ten forty-five. He compared them with the identikit portraits which had been composed the previous afternoon and sighed as it became clear just how different they were.

  The internal phone buzzed and he automatically reached out to his left before realising that in Campson’s room—into which he’d had to move—it was on the right.

  ‘Fusil,’ said Menton, ‘have we word on when the PM will be held?’

  ‘At twelve this morning, sir.’

  ‘You’ll be attending it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ A bloody silly question, he thought sourly. After the call, he left the room and went along the corridor to the CID general room. DC Pascoe was working amidst the usual confusion of night duty lists, minor crime book, prisoners’ antecedents book, CRO files, divisional crime information sheets, lists of persons in custody, house search book, personal message book, divisional notices, county notices, fingerprint duty list, photographs of wanted men, photographs with written requests for the identification of arrowed men or women, telex messages . . .

  Pascoe was swarthily good-looking and Fusil had heard that the women fell for him like ninepins. ‘Find Kerr and tell him I want a word with him right away.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Pascoe left the room.

  Fusil remained standing by the doorway. He filled his pipe from a battered, cracked leather pouch and lit it. This was the stage of an investigation which was all frustration: the initial groundwork had been done, leads had been set up and it was a case of waiting. He was very bad at waiting.

  *

  Photographs were taken after some trouble and then the pathologist used a length of wire to trace out the path of the bullet through the body. That done, he made a few deft cuts with a scalpel to cut free the bullet which had been deflected and misshapen by striking bone.

  ‘Humph!’ he muttered, a frequent exclamation of his, especially when he discovered something of interest. He turned and peered at the exhibits officer over the tops of his bifocals. ‘A bit knocked around, but it should still be of some use.’

  The exhibits officer produced a small plastic container, filled with cotton-wool, and unscrewed the lid.

  ‘Tom, give me a pair of soft-jawed tongs,’ said the pathologist.

  The assistant limped across to the working-space on which the tools were laid out and picked up a pair of long-shanked tongs whose ends were lined with plastic. After being handed the tongs, the pathologist reached into the body and withdrew the bullet, which he dropped into the container. The exhibits officer carried the container over to a free working-surface and there wrote on the label on the lid the date, the place, the time, and the name of the deceased. Finally, he added his initials.

  The pathologist handed the tongs back to his assistant. He spoke to Fusil. ‘The bullet struck him in the chest, missed his aorta by a hair’s-breadth and was deflected by bone to lodge in his large intestine. There was never the slightest hope of his surviving.’

  *

  The sergeant from Vehicle Testing, a pug-faced man who was nearing retirement, said to Fusil: ‘There’s practically nothing to report. Dust on the floor back and front which we’ve vacuumed up, but it doesn’t look promising, and a single thread of material caught up under the bottom of the off-side front seat. It’s light pink and I’m offering ten to one it’s female in origin.’

  Fusil stared at the Jaguar in the search bay, brilliantly illuminated by the wall-, ceiling-and pit-lights. It had been stolen and the gunmen had been professionals so there never had been much of a realistic chance of finding something of significance . . . But detectives lived on a mixture of black coffee and hope. Three men, using this car, had carried out a wages-snatch and killed a guard. No crime was ever committed without the criminals leaving incriminating traces behind them. The problem always was to recognize and then identify these traces. Where were they here?

  *

  During the day, all over the country, teams of detectives questioned criminals whose record suggested they might have been involved in the Fortrow case. In the broadest sense, the interviews were all remarkably similar.

  In a snooker-hall in Banbury Lane in Birmingham, the elder of two detectives, a lugubrious-looking man, said to one of two players: ‘’Morning, Ted.’

  Pickard, taking his time, potted the last of the reds; his opponent, far more nervous, kept to the far side of the table. He decided to pot the black, sighted and shot: the white struck the black a shade too much to the right and the black cushioned just short of the pocket.

  ‘If it’d been me, I’d of gone for the blue,’ said the elder detective.

  Pickard straightened up. He chalked his cue.

  ‘We can finish the game later on,’ said the second player. He hurriedly put his cue in the stand, smiled weakly at the detectives and hurried out of the hall.

  ‘Seems all of a dither,’ said the younger detective, whose manner was belligerent.

  ‘Just particular about the company he keeps,’ retorted Pickard.

  The elder detective took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it first to Pickard, who hesitated before accepting one, then to his companion.

  ‘Give over,’ snapped the younger detective. ‘You know I’m trying to give it up.’

  ‘I can never remember whether you’re on or off.’ He flicked open a gas lighter and Pickard and he lit their cigarettes. ‘We’re interested in Friday morning. Say between ten and midday.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There was a wages-snatch outside a bank down south, in Fortrow. The villains carried shooters.’

  ‘It’s getting to be a nasty habit.’

  ‘They shot and killed one of the security guards. Plenty of eye-witnesses, all giving good descriptions. One of the three villains looked just like you.’

  ‘Poor sod.’

  ‘I don’t know. Find a woman who likes men hairy and she might call you handsome. Where were you?’

  ‘Round and about.’

  ‘Round and about Fortrow?’

  ‘Do you mind. I was here.’

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘With Steve.’

  ‘Who’s Steve?’

  ‘You don’t know Steve?’

  ‘That’s right. I don’t.’

  ‘Steve Playfair. And, if that ain’t enough for you, ask Stud Reynolds, Mick Coggan or Al Baker.’

  ‘You’ve left out Uncle Tom Cobbleigh,’ sneered the younger detective.

  Pickard ignored him. ‘We was playing knockout, ten quid a frame, winner scoop the pool.’

  ‘Who won?’

  ‘I lost. Cost me thirty quid.’

  The elder detective dropped his cigarette on to the bare wooden floor and ground it out under the heel of his right shoe. They’d check, of course, but he was satisfied that Pickard had been playing snooker on Friday morning.

  *

  Menton called the conference at ten o’clock on Friday, one week after the wages-snatch and murder: Passmore, Fusil and Campson were present.

  He said, in his pedantic, toneless voice: ‘We’ve reached the time when we need to review every aspect of the case. But first of all I hope it is not necessary to point out that . . .’ He pointed out, at length, that it was now a week since the murder and because of the publicity the case had received the pressure on the police to succeed, and to be seen to succeed, was becoming greater and greater. Finally, Fusil was called on to review the evidence to date.

  Fusil opened the folder on his lap and brought out several sheets
of paper. It was all written down, so why waste time discussing it? Crime was solved out in the streets, not sitting on chairs in an office. ‘The job was professionally carried out and the three gunmen were fully in view for only a short time. They were observed by fifteen people in all, two of whom—the guards—were to some extent trained to observe. Not surprisingly, the descriptions vary very greatly and cannot be regarded as being of overmuch use. The two guards have gone to London to see how they get on with the new computerized identification unit. Identikit pictures, and artist’s drawings, of the three gunmen have been very widely circulated, both throughout the force and the general media. There has been a large response from the public and their reports are still being checked out. However, in my opinion it would be unrealistic to expect any very definite progress here.’

  ‘It’s far too soon to speak like that,’ snapped Menton.

  A little of Fusil’s weariness showed in his face.

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘The Jaguar was stolen in London early Friday morning, which perhaps suggests—but certainly no more than suggests—that the villains come from London. The thread found under the front passenger seat has been traced back to a dress belonging to the wife of the owner. The dust collected from the floor is described by the lab as ‘non-particular’, which means, as far as I can make out, that there’s small chance of any successful comparison tests.

  ‘Two shots were fired, one from a shotgun, one from an automatic: both cases were recovered. A bullet was found in the dead man’s body. Ballistics have reported both on the cases and on the bullet.

  ‘The brass and plastic twelve-bore cartridge was made by Eley-Kynoch and was shot size five. Similar cartridges are obtainable all over the country. The hammer-mark on the precussion-cap and the ejector-marks will provide a base for comparison tests if and when we find the suspect shotgun.

  ‘The bullet in its passage through the body was deformed, but not so badly as to prevent comparison tests. The case from the automatic bears certain individual and peculiar marks which identify the pistol as a Walther Model nine: we would call it point two five calibre. The origin of the ammunition has not yet been identified as the identifying marks on the head of the case are unknown.

  ‘The bank has provided a list of the numbers of stolen notes of ten and twenty pounds—they don’t keep a record of the numbers of smaller denomination notes any longer. These numbers have been widely circulated.

  ‘Country-wide, all men with appropriate records have been interrogated, but without significant results. Since the villains were professionals, we must accept that either the guilty men have somehow slipped through the net or else, more likely, their alibis were too good.

  ‘There is a reward of over twelve thousand pounds for the usual information and in addition the security firm is offering a thousand pounds to anyone who helps identify the gunmen. The chance of thirteen thousand quid has had every grasser talking his head off, which has meant a great deal of work for us sifting through the evidence—to date, none of the information has been of any value.’ He put the papers down on top of the folder. ‘That’s the lot.’

  ‘Will you sum up, please,’ said Menton.

  ‘Unless the thirteen thousand gets us a really good grass, the outlook isn’t bright.’

  Menton looked annoyed. It seemed, thought Passmore with ironic amusement, that Fusil would never learn that the wrapping of a parcel could help to make its contents more acceptable.

  Chapter Six

  Ada Tompkins woke up and stared into the blackness of their bedroom. Damn! she thought. After clearing up the two bars, she’d been so tired she’d felt she could sleep the clock round: yet here she was, awake, without the energy to look at the bedside clock to see what the time was. Then she heard a sharp, quick sound from somewhere downstairs. Mice, she thought, really knowing it was unlikely a mouse could make that much noise.

  After a while there was a second and louder noise: she identified it as a bottle breaking. She reached over and prodded her husband.

  ‘Norm,’ she whispered. ‘Come on, wake up. My God, why do you men sleep so hard?’ She shook him and the bed creaked and that made her abruptly stop.

  ‘What’s up?’ he finally mumbled.

  ‘There’s someone broken in downstairs.’

  ‘You’ve been dreaming.’

  ‘I’m telling you, I’ve just heard a bottle smash.’

  To add emphasis to her words, there was a thumping sound.

  ‘You’re right,’ he whispered fearfully. ‘I’ll lock the door. You get the phone under the bedclothes and dial nine nine nine.’

  He was a big man, made portly by his love for the real ale which he served, but he managed to get out of bed and cross the carpeted floor with only a whisper of sound to mark his passage.

  *

  Once PC O’Connell had checked that the premises were clear of intruders, he used the telephone in the sitting-room to speak to the duty sergeant. ‘I’ve had a good shufty round. Someone broke in through a rear window and helped himself to a load of booze. The landlord’s only made a rough check, but he reckons he’s lost a couple of crates of gin and three of whisky from the cellar, around three thousand fags of different brands from a strong cupboard, which wasn’t, and a load of loose bottles which were out on the bars—maybe a dozen all told. All the takings were upstairs and they’re safe.’

  ‘How did the breaker get through the window?’

  ‘He used glue, mutton-cloth and a stone. The window overlooks the car-park, so loading up was easy.’

  ‘Did anyone in the pub get a butchers at the vehicle that was used?’

  ‘They heard it go but nothing more.’

  ‘OK. Hang on there until I get CID out to you.’

  O’Connell rang off. He left the sitting-room and crossed the passage to enter the saloon-bar behind the counter. ‘Someone from CID will be out as soon as possible,’ he said to Tompkins.

  ‘I could have done without this, and that’s fact.’ Tompkins mopped his face with a ploughman’s handkerchief. He was wearing grey flannel trousers and a sweater over brightly coloured pyjamas: his thick, curly hair was in complete disarray. ‘My old woman’s just about had hysterics. Always has been scared of burglars, though I can’t really think why for if a drunk starts getting nasty she don’t mind how big he is . . . I’ll tell you, what we both need is a glass of something to calm the nerves. You’ll join us, won’t you?’

  ‘I won’t, thanks very much.’

  ‘There’s no one don’t work better for a whisky under his belt.’

  ‘Thanks all the same.’

  ‘Well, if you won’t, I will. And the missus will as well.’ Tompkins came behind the bar and looked along the line of bottles which remained, then stepped over a broken one on the floor to choose brandy. ‘Does the nerves a power of good,’ he said, as he poured himself out a very generous measure.

  O’Connell took the notebook from his tunic pocket, opened it and read what he’d already written. He looked up. ‘You can’t get closer than a dozen for the number of bottles taken from the two bars?’

  Tompkins drank, smacked his lips, put the glass down. ‘No, I can’t, and calling it a dozen doesn’t mean much. It’s like this—some nights business suddenly gets brisk and since I don’t want to waste time going down to the cellar I always keep a good stock of extra items on the shelves. Can’t tell exactly how many bottles were around last night.’

  O’Connell closed the notebook and replaced it in his pocket.

  Tompkins finished the brandy and then poured himself another, and larger, one. ‘When the missus started prodding me, I thought it was because I’d been snoring.’ He laughed jovially. ‘Can’t think why it worries her, it doesn’t worry me! Then she whispers someone’s broken in and I tell her not to be so daft. Next thing is a thump that shows it’s me who’s being daft. Proper turns a bloke up, that sort of thing does.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘There was a bit of a
wait after dialling nine nine nine before you turned up, you know.’

  ‘I was here within six minutes of receiving the radio message reporting the break-in, Mr Tompkins.’

  ‘Now don’t get me wrong, lad. I’m not calling you slow. I’m just saying that for the missus and me it were a long, long wait.’ He drank deeply, as if to reassure himself that everything was now all right.

  ‘I think I’ll just have another look around.’

  ‘Here—you’re not saying that maybe someone’s still about?’

  ‘I’m sure they’re not, but I’d just like to check everything once more.’

  As O’Connell left the bar, Tompkins poured himself out a third drink. For his wife, perhaps.

  O’Connell had checked everywhere already, but he was obsessively conscientious and now he again went through the cellars, bars, kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room and small office. Outside, he switched on a powerful torch and checked the two lavatories which were built up against the side of the pub. He was at the far end of the car-park, where a couple of sweet-chestnut-trees provided a great deal of cover, when he heard a car approach. He left the car-park and saw the CID Hillman parked in front of his panda car.

  As he came up to the Hillman, DC Laurie climbed out on to the pavement. ‘All right, you can take it easy: the brains have arrived.’ Another man would have said that and made it a joke; with Laurie, it was a challenge.

  O’Connell produced his notebook. ‘I’ve checked with the landlord and he says . . .’

  ‘Forget it. I’ll question him myself.’

  O’Connell, not really bothered by Laurie’s manner, said: ‘I’ve searched the whole place and it’s clear.’

  ‘OK.’ Laurie nodded off-handedly.

  O’Connell went back into the pub and said goodnight to the landlord (‘You mean good morning, don’t you? Come on, lad, have a quick one for the road? Just one drink and there’s no need to call on St Christopher.’), then returned to the panda car.