by John Creasey
“That’s right.” He opened the passport and ran a finger down the descriptive column opposite the photograph. “I use Steve Stevens for convenience sometimes—and it sticks. I was introduced to you as Steve Stevens, and there wasn’t any point in explaining. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you, did I?”
“Steve, that—that’s your real name?”
“It is.”
“Oh,” she said. “I thought—I thought you had a forged passport. I thought you were going to run away from something.”
“The trouble with you is you get too many ideas,” he said, half jesting, half roughly. “You think too much. I’m going on a trip to get more money in my belt so that I can waste it on you.” He tucked the passport into his pocket.
“I’ve changed my mind, I’m staying the night,” he went on, and the gleam lit up his eyes again. “And whether you like it or not, sweetie, you’re coming for a holiday with me to Brighton or Bournemouth – take your choice. I’m not letting you out of my sight until I step on board my ship.” He stretched out his arms and took hers and drew her to him, and crushed her close.
She lay sleeping.
He lay thinking: how am I going to work this out? Why did she have to see that bloody thing?
And he thought: she could help me to hang.
Roger went to bed at about the same time as Joyce and Steve Stevens, and for once dropped off to sleep almost immediately. He woke before any of the rest of the household, a few minutes before seven. He was wide awake almost at once, and by the time he was downstairs, making tea, had already decided what he would do during the day. Before he left, soon after eight o’clock and while the boys were still dreamy, Janet said: “You look much better, darling—Bennison meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”
“Too much,” said Roger, briskly. “I was too worked up over avenging him, but I won’t make that mistake again.” He gave her a hug which made her gasp, kissed her lightly on the nose and the forehead, so that he should not show too much of his feeling, and went off.
At half past eight, he was in the office. By the time Cope arrived at ten to nine, he had pencilled out his plans.
“We’ll send a man to each of these firms” – he gave Cope the list of places where Charley Blake had worked – “with the composite picture, and try to find out if anyone answering the description worked with Blake. If there’s a bite of any kind, I’ll go out and talk to the people myself. All clear?”
“As mud,” said Cope, sniffing. “You’ve got a hope, you have. But I daresay it’s worth trying. Who’d you like me to send?”
“Who’s in?”
“I’ll find out,” said Cope. “That reminds me, did you hear about the big job last night? Looks like a cert for you. Gang blasted a way to the vaults of the Midpro in Watford. Got away with ninety thousand quid, mostly in marked notes. One bank guard’s okay, they just knocked him out. The other might die.”
“Oh,” said Roger, and felt the sense of shock which news of big jobs of this kind always created. Cope was right: this job would almost certainly fall into his lap. “Jack,” he said, “I’m going out to see these factories myself.”
Cope grinned.
“Thought you might,” he said. “But don’t forget that if you handle the Watford job you’ll get your picture in the paper again. They like our glamour boy.”
“I’ll be seeing you,” Roger said.
He had a sense of guilt mingling with a sense of satisfaction as he drove away from the Yard. The guilt soon faded. Any one of half-a-dozen – perhaps a dozen – men could tackle the new investigation as well as he could, but no one else had the same complete grasp of the Covent Garden affair.
He drove to the market first, had a word with Revel & Son – and found that the manager, Kent, was back at his desk. Roger had not known Kent well, and was surprised to find him so old, and with a constant tremor in his right hand; that might be the result of shock. He asked more questions about Charley Blake, to refresh his memory, left the offices, and went into the market itself.
Calwin was loading up with baskets full of Beauty of Bath, the earliest crop of English apples. Two men were helping him. Roger counted seven baskets and wondered how many he would take. He stopped at nine.
“So you’ve come again,” he said, squinting down at Roger. “Thought you’d forgotten me. I’ve got to get this lot over to a van the other side of the market—if you want to talk you’ll have to trot alongside me like a good boy.”
Roger grinned.
“I’ll pick up the apples you drop.”
“Me drop a basket? Haven’t done that since I first learned me job.” Calwin strode out, deliberately taking long strides, as if he wanted to make it difficult for Roger to keep up. Other porters, trucks, boxes of fruit on the pavement, men talking and haggling about prices – all of these things made straight-forward conversation difficult.
“Dunno that I can tell you anything else,” Calwin said. “Mind that lemon. Don’t know what they pay you for. I solved half the case for you – got a letter thanking me from a cove who signed hisself Deputy Commander. You put him up to that? Mind that rotten cabbage. If you did, you forgot to tell him to put in the reward.” Calwin grinned broadly all the time; he looked more than ever like Cope, with his wobbly Adam’s apple and his half closed eyes. “As a matter of fact I was going to tell you. I’ve been thinking. Don’t knock those avocado pears over, they’re the dearest fruit in the market. Keep looking at that picture, too—the one of the killer. Keep doing what you told me, Gawd knows why, and going back to the place where I was when it happened and trying to remember anything that I’d forgotten before. Interesting—you’d be surprised. Do you know I can remember seeing seven more people, when I come to think hard about it, than I did at the time. How about that? First time, I told you I just knew there were people. Now I can tell you the colour of their hair. Funny thing, the mind. Keep your hands off them peaches. There’s one thing I remembered which might ’elp you, but then again it might not. ’Arf a mo’.”
He stopped at an open lorry which was heavily laden. A porter called out to him, cheerfully. Two men came from one of the shops, as Calwin did that curious acrobatic body twist, and lowered the baskets.
“There you are, not a scratch on ’em. Sign here.” He pulled a small book from his paper pocket, with some carbon paper between the sheets. “Nine boxes filled to the brim—ta.” A man scribbled a signature, Calwin tore off one sheet and handed it to him, and grinned. “Can’t stop, I got to see a man about a cop.” He rested a big calloused hand in comradely fashion on Roger’s shoulder. “Betcher couldn’t guess what I’ve remembered.”
“You win your bet,” said Roger, trying to conceal his impatience.
“Notice you never put no money on it. Are all coppers mean? All right, Handsome, I won’t keep you in suspense no longer. The cove what used the knife had had plenty of practice, you know that. But he had something else—a look of surprise. Get me?”
Roger said, softly: “A startled look? As if he’d seen something he hadn’t expected?”
“Or someone,” Calwin breathed. “Now tell me you’d already guessed that.”
Roger didn’t tell him so; but he felt more hopeful than he had before, as if this were a good omen.
“One of these days I’ll buy you a dinner,” he said.
“Never mind buying me a dinner, my wife feeds me all right,” said Calwin. There was a different, almost anxious note in his voice. “Tell you what I would like—me and me kids. Got three, all boys. I’d like to have a dekko at the Yard. Kind of Crooks’ Tour, see.” He did not laugh at his own joke. “Think you can fix it?”
“I can and I will,” said Roger at once. “You can call it a date.”
Calwin’s eyes lit up.
“How about Monday week?” he said. “The kids have got a half-da
y, and I can take one off. Okay?”
“Monday week it is. Two-thirty at the Yard, and if it’s at all possible I’ll take you round myself,” promised Roger. “Thanks for the latest clue.” He put his hand to his forehead and hurried off.
As he got to the wheel of his car he felt another surge of excitement and optimism.
Sitting on the verandah of the hotel room overlooking the sea and the piers, Steve Stevens alias Joseph Bennett trimmed his nails. Joyce, stretched out on a low chair with only a flimsy pair of panties on, and loving the sun, reached across and took the scissors from him.
“I’ll do that right thumb,” she said.
“Okay,” said Steve, and grinned and stared at her legs. “And then I’ll give you a nice rub all over with sun-tan oil. How’s that for a treat?”
Chapter Seventeen
No – No – Yes
Roger came down the steps of the big Hoover Factory, after a futile half-hour. Everyone had been eager to help, and several people remembered Charley Blake, who had left because the journey from his Fulham home was too long, but no one remembered anyone who might fit in with the description of a tall lean man who was also a friend of Charley, or else knew him well.
The same story came from Wimpey’s, except that Charley Blake had left the job at Wembley because the firm had wanted a younger man.
It was half-past twelve when Roger reached Linstone’s, who had a sprawling two-storey building on the Great West Road, not far from the Gillette Tower. It was painted white. He noticed an armoured van at the side of the building, and two men came up to him as he approached the gate.
“Mind waiting for a few minutes, sir?” one asked.
“Why?” inquired Roger.
“Security reasons, sir.”
“Glad to see some precautions being taken,” said Roger. “Wages money?”
“Hardly any business of yours, sir, is it?” The big, burly man now standing just outside the car was respectful but firm.
Roger chuckled.
“You’d be surprised,” he said, and lit a cigarette.
He saw the armoured car, which was facing the Great West Road, and backed on to a little loading bay. On the right of the bay was a white building marked: Trade Stores. On the left were offices which were not marked. As far as he could see, the loading bay was in a recess, and anything wanted for or from the Trade Stores went into or came from it. Presumably the wages office was approached from the door on the other side of the bay.
He did not give that any thought, except the normal ones – what kind of a security risk was it? With as many guards about as this, he didn’t think there would be much. He counted two at the gates – the man who had made him stop, and another – and there were at least four inside up by the armoured van.
At last, it moved off.
“Mind if I have your name now, sir?” this guard said.
“West,” said Roger and handed over a card. For a moment it was held in thick, flat-topped fingers – and then the half-expected explosion came.
“Superintendent West?”
Roger put his head closer to the open window, and looked up.
“Think your warehouse people could spare me a few minutes? And your chief security officer?”
“I am the chief security officer, sir—name of Soames. Can’t understand why I didn’t recognise you, I really can’t. My office is just round behind the gate house. Like to drive round, sir – I’ll meet you there.”
Roger noticed that Soames was watching the armoured van. The other security men dispersed, and cars began to move, so there was a restriction of movement during the actual unloading of the money. Soames was pretty thorough.
Soames was in his small office.
“I wasn’t at the Yard or the Divisions, sir – Transport Police, that was my job before I came here. All the same, I should have recognised you.” That failure obviously worried him. “Now if there’s anything I can do to help—”
Roger explained.
“I remember Charley Blake very well,” said Soames. “One of the nicest chaps you’d ever come across. Spent most of his life at sea. I’m trying to think why he left. Something to do with where he lived – kept trying to get a job nearer his home, I think. I know there was no trouble.” He studied the composite picture. “You know, it does remind me of someone,” he said. “I can’t say who, at the moment. Charley was in the stores part of the time, I remember—warehouseman most of the time in fact, gave us a hand with security on special occasions, like today. There was one tall lean man … but let’s go into the warehouse, shall we?”
They went inside, from the loading bay. The Trade Stores warehouse was very large, but on one floor only. It was a honeycomb of passages and bins of green steel – rather like a vast set of pigeon-holes. These were one side of a long counter which stretched from the loading bay door to another door nearer the gatehouse.
All the bins were stacked with motor car accessories. Several men were at the bins, and two at the counter serving three men on the counters near the door. Anyone who came to collect goods stood at this counter, with his back to the windows. The lighting was excellent – everything about the place seemed to be well-organised.
Roger noticed a youngish man with beautifully-groomed hair disappearing into one of the bins, but took no special notice.
“Will,” Soames called, and an elderly man with a fringe of grey hair and a large bald spot turned round. “I want you to meet Superintendent West, of the Yard.”
“Very pleased to meet you, sir.”
“This is the Trade Stores Manager, Mr Forsyte,” said Soames. “Will, Mr West wants to know …”
He explained as precisely and as lucidly as Roger had to him. The old man kept nodding – in understanding rather than recognition, Roger thought, and for the first time he felt almost despondent.
“Yes, there was a man answering that description,” said the manager, quite matter-of-factly. “A man named Stevens. He was here in the Trade Warehouse for a few weeks as a packer. I understood that he was a seaman but liked to spend some of the winter on land. He and Charley knew each other quite well. They’d been to sea together, and had a lot in common. As a matter of fact, I think it was Charley who introduced him to us.”
Roger’s heart suddenly began to race.
“What kind of chap was he?”
“Bit sarcastic, as a matter of fact—could be funny in a way, but he could be pretty nasty, too. I had to get rid of him because he got too fresh with some of the girls. Some of them fell for him, but he wasn’t interested in push-overs. He started some nonsense with the wife of one of the charge-hands. The only thing I could do was put him out—so he went out.”
“He resent it?”
“Didn’t seem to, particularly,” said Forsyte. He looked down at the composite drawing again, and frowned. “It is and it isn’t like him, if you see what I mean.” Roger didn’t, yet. The manager led the way into his small, tidy office, and took the picture to a window. He studied it from several perspectives, his head going to and fro like a sparrow’s. Suddenly he said in a tone nearer excitement: “Now that’s more like him. See? That shadow from the window is falling across it, it’s broken the outline a bit—here, wait a minute! I believe I’ve got a photograph of him.”
He rummaged in the centre drawer of his desk, and brought out a photograph of a big van, made up for some advertising stunt for Linstone Tyres. There were some bathing beauties on it, and several men – and in one corner was a man standing looking on.
“That’s him,” said Forsyte. “It’s not very good, mind you, but you might be able to get it blown up. We didn’t use this picture, and I don’t think he was in any of those we used for the publicity. I can easily check.”
“Will you?” asked Roger.
“How about having som
e lunch with me while Mr Forsyte’s making sure?” suggested Soames.
At three o’clock, Roger left the factory with the print carefully flattened in his brief-case. Stevens had not appeared in any of the other pictures, but under a magnifying glass this likeness showed up well.
He was at the Yard in half an hour, and went straight up to Photography.
“How soon can you rush me an enlargement?” he asked the man in charge.
“Give me a couple of hours?”
“Right,” said Roger. “Don’t be any longer.” He hurried down to his office, and telephoned Revel & Son, spoke to Kent and asked him to have someone send a message to Calwin the porter. Would Calwin either wait at the market or be at the Yard by half past five?
“I’ll talk to him myself,” said Kent. “I’ll call you back, Mr West.” He rang off, his quavering voice still choking in Roger’s ears. He was back in ten minutes. “He will come to you, Mr West—he has promised to be at Scotland Yard by half past five exactly.”
For the occasion, Calwin had had a hair cut and a shave. He also wore a white collar and check blue and white tie instead of a choker. He was exactly die same in his laconic, mock-truculent manner, but when he saw the enlargement of Stevens’s photograph, his eyes seemed to blaze.
“That’s the man all right. That’s the killer! I’d stake my bottom dollar on it.”
Joyce Conway had seldom felt happier than she did that night, the second at Brighton.
In a way, the clash with Steve had brought things to a head and cleared the air. She knew how things were now, and acknowledged the fact that Steve would never marry her; she would have to put up with the situation as it was. The fear that he might be going away for good had died, and the suspicion roused by the name of Bennett on the passport had faded, too. He was going away for a few weeks, that was all. And he had said that he loved her.
She sensed that it had been a difficult thing for him to avow, and she sensed that it had been true, too. They had thoroughly enjoyed the two days at Brighton so far – and in her commonsense way, she told herself that this was because she was being grateful for what she had, and wasn’t wishing for something out of reach.
