by John Creasey
Roger was at the corner of a narrow road, opposite a small garage. Peel wasn’t far away, near one of the larger garages. A few night-birds walked past. It seemed to get hotter, and in the distance there was a rumble of thunder and a dim flash; a storm was on its way. Roger eased his damp collar and thought he felt a spot of rain. He hadn’t brought a coat – there wasn’t a mackintosh among the whole party. A light from the garage shone on a girl – or someone who at first looked like a girl. She walked past quickly, and the light shone on her hennaed hair, her garishly made-up face, the flimsy dress stretched tight over her full figure.
A cabby coming out of the garage called: “Hallo, dearie!”
“Be yourself,” said the ‘girl;’ but she was in the middle thirties, Roger thought.
The woman passed, the cabby came across the road, and Roger and the detective-officer near him stepped forward. The cabby started.
“What’s this?”
“Let’s have a look at you,” said Roger. “Turn round, will you?” He looked into a burly face and smelt beer, then showed his card. “Where have you been today?”
“Usual. Central.”
“Do you know a man named Kirby?”
“Never ‘eard of him.”
“Another driver named Smith?”
The man guffawed. “Dozens, I should say!” He took out a packet of cigarettes. “What’s up?”
“Murder,” said Roger, and the man frowned. “You spoke to a girl just now. Do you know her?”
“Seen her about sometimes,” said the cabby. “She comes to meet her boyfriend, I s’pect. Some of them do.”
“Do you know her name?”
“No, and I don’t want to. I …” He stopped and scratched his stubble. “Come to think, I do. I went over to Harry Wignall’s to borrow a bit of light-cable, coupla nights ago, and she met her boyfriend. I heard him say: ‘Hallo Rosie!’”
“Rosie, was it? What was her boyfriend like?” demanded Roger. “Is he a cabby?”
“’E ‘ad a badge on,” said the cabby, touching his own enamel disc with his number on it.
“Have a look at this,” said Roger, and shone a torch on to a photograph of Kirby, taken after death and touched up. The cabby took it, and conceded that it might be the man. Roger described the near-dwarf who had attacked Harrison; short, pale, bald-headed, and with a pointed nose and receding chin.
“Oh, I know Relf,” said the cabby. “He’s at …”
He broke off.
“I said this was murder,” said Roger roughly.
“You there, sir?” Peel’s voice came softly as he approached the corner. “I think we’ve found—” He stopped when he saw the cabby. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. Who’ve you found?”
“The girl Rose, I think,” said Peel. “I haven’t tackled her yet, thought I’d leave it to you, but her name’s Rose and she comes here regularly to meet a driver named Kirby. Kirby’s got his own cab, and keeps it at Wignall’s garage.”
Roger turned to the taxi-driver.
“Does this man Relf work at Wignall’s?”
“Supposing ‘e does?”
Roger said sharply: “You’re asking for trouble.” He turned away with Peel. “Did this Rose go into Wignall’s garage?”
“Yes. We’ll stop her if she comes out.”
They walked along the road as spots of rain fell. The rumbling of thunder sounded nearer, and by the time they reached Wignall’s garage, it was raining hard; Roger turned up his jacket collar.
The garage was the largest he had seen here. Already two or three dozen cabs were in, showing up eerily in the dim, yellow light from naked electric light bulbs. The only bright light was in a corner, where a partition had been erected, wood at the bottom and glass at the top. On the glass was printed in black the word: Office.
The office was tiny, and a bald-headed man sat at a high desk, looking at ‘Rose.’ She was sitting on a high stool and swinging her legs; by her side was a bottle of beer and a mug, and a cigarette dangled from her lip. The man stared at her intently. He had a long pointed nose and a very little chin, which seemed to have been driven into his neck.
Peel muttered: “That’s Harrison’s assailant!”
“Looks like it,” said Roger.
Outside, the rain pattered down and a clap of thunder sounded very loud. The man and the girl glanced towards the door and the two detectives made clear silhouettes against a flash of lightning which lit up the street behind them. For a split second the man sitting at the desk seemed transfixed. Then in a flash he was off his stool – and he stood only a head above the desk.
The girl exclaimed: “What’s biting you?”
The man pushed her off the stool towards the doorway, and for the first time Roger saw another door, leading out of the office.
The girl shouted as she toppled over. The bottle of beer fell on to the floor, the mug followed and smashed into dozens of pieces. As the noise of the smash came, Roger put a whistle to his lips – but the shrill blast was drowned in another loud clap of thunder. The door of the office opened and the dwarf disappeared.
Roger blew again, and this time the blast was deafening. The girl hadn’t yet started to pick herself up, but was shaking her right hand, which was bleeding. Roger reached her a yard in front of Peel, put his hand on the desk inside the office and leapt over her. He went through the open doorway and saw a flight of wooden steps. Now he could hear a man walking above his head.
Peel was close behind him.
He wished that he had brought a gun, and Chatworth would have given him authority; but that couldn’t be helped now. He reached the top of the stairs and found himself in a huge, dimly lighted loft. Only part of the loft was boarded over to make a floor, and on it were piled tyres and boxes of tubes and other accessories.
The little man, Relf, was behind a stack of tyres. He had something in his hand, and hurled it at Roger – it was a tyre-lever, which crashed on a rafter, aimed much too high, but as it fell the end struck Roger lightly on the shoulder. He stooped to pick it up – it was better than no weapon at all.
Relf disappeared again. Peel was just behind Roger.
“Shout down that he’s up here,” ordered Roger. “Let’s have some more men up, but watch the street and the roof. We—”
A thunderclap burst out immediately above their heads, and a vivid flash came through two small windows. The only light when the flash was over came from the dim bulbs downstairs and on the staircase. Roger crept forward cautiously, clutching the tyre-lever.
Then he caught a glimpse of Relf, slipping from one pile of tyres to another.
Near Roger’s hand was a rack in which were dozens of loose sparking-plugs. He slipped half a dozen into his pocket, took one in his hand – and the next time Relf appeared he hurled the plug. It struck a tyre and bounced off. Relf was getting close to one of the windows and also near the end of the flooring. He seemed to have no other weapon.
Roger was now no more than ten yards away from him, with another sparking-plug raised. He saw a shadow on the wall, a large, vague shape, cast by a lamp below. The brief quiet was uncanny. Several of his men were now upstairs, others were probably on the stairs, and more in the garage and in the adjacent street, but everywhere was still – except for the pattering of the rain.
Then something flashed across his eyes, and he darted back. A knife stuck quivering in a wooden upright close by his side. It hadn’t come from Relf, but from the other direction; there must be two men up here.
A clap of thunder roared and reverberated, a man gave a high-pitched, unnatural scream, tyre-levers hurtled towards the police; and the shadow moved.
It was Relf’s shadow right enough – Relf was now close to the window, glancing behind him. The man on the other side of the loft was hurling everything he could lay his hands on at Roger and those police who were approaching Relf. To reach the little man, Roger would have to pass through that barrage.
He ducked and scudded ac
ross the loft, with tyre-levers and spanners hurtling above his head. He heard a thud and a gasp as one of his men was hit. Something brushed across his head and he felt a stinging sensation in his scalp. All this, while Relf opened the window and, being small, squeezed through without difficulty.
He slammed the window behind him.
Roger swung the tyre-lever and smashed the glass. He glanced to his left, where Peel and three other Yard men were advancing on Relf’s ally. The man was defenceless and backing towards the wall. He was uttering an unintelligible gibberish in a reedy, horrible voice.
But he’d helped Relf to get away.
Another man joined Roger as he thrust a piece of steel between the window and the frame and levered sharply. The hinges broke and the window leaned drunkenly to one side; there was hardly room to get through. A flash of lightning lit up the whole sky. In a fantastic second, a hundred things were shown in that vivid light. Chimneys of all shapes and sizes, roof-tops, glinting windows, the scintillating rain.
And it revealed Relf.
A fire-escape, just an iron ladder, sloped upwards from the window to the roof of the next building. Beneath was a drop of forty or fifty feet. The little man was crouching on the other roof and looking towards Roger. He moved as the lightning faded – but hardly had the darkness fallen than a detective behind Roger directed a powerful torch on the man. Relf was getting behind a chimney-stack.
“Shall I go, sir?” asked Roger’s companion.
“No,” said Roger. “Take this.”
He gave the man the tyre-lever, and hauled himself through the window. He gripped the sides of the ladder, finding it slippery with the rain, which soaked him in an instant. It was only ten feet up to the next building, but if Relf had a gun …
“Keep me covered,” he muttered.
“What’s that, sir?”
Roger didn’t speak again; in any case, a rumble of thunder followed and the rain splashed down with greater violence. Roger crawled up the ladder, and was half-way when a lightning flash revealed Relf standing behind the chimney-stack with a gun in his hand.
So this was it.
Roger saw the flash, heard the report, and felt the ladder quiver, but no pain. Then darkness again – and the man behind him switched off his light. All was safe until the next flash of lightning, but he daren’t hurry; if he hurried he would slip.
He let himself go forward, then eased himself up the sloping roof until he touched the rough-cast of the chimney-stack. He was able to grip the chimney, and drew himself up to his full height.
A torch beam shone out, striking the roof not far away; others came on quickly. Only a few were behind Roger; others came from men standing on the roofs across the road. Windows were lit up, some bright, some little more than dim, yellow squares. One powerful light was coming from a window some way off; there was searchlight power in its brightness, and it showed the whole of the roof on which Roger was standing – a fifty or sixty yard expanse broken only by chimney-stacks. The slope from the guttering on either side was gentle; it would be possible to walk safely but for the streaming rain which ran and gurgled over the slates. Through the silvery streaks he could see men standing on other roofs – and saw Relf, when lightning flashed.
Relf was crouching only two stacks away from him.
Roger began to move forward. A man shouted: “Wait, sir, wait; don’t let him get you.”
Some sense in that – but caution wasn’t good enough. Relf might kill himself; and he had to be caught alive. Roger crept forward. The roof wasn’t as slippery as he had feared. Lightning came again, and the thunder which followed was farther away. The rain was easing a little.
He caught another glimpse of Relf, near the far end of the roof; he seemed to be looking for a way of getting across to the next block. He looked round at Roger and fired.
Roger didn’t know where the bullet struck; he heard nothing. He reached the next stack, the last one between him and Relf, and crouched out of danger. Peering round, he could just see the little man. Although not bright, the light was good enough. Touch and go now. If Roger left his chimney-stack, Relf would have him at point-blank range; if he didn’t, Relf would have time to find the ladder which connected this roof to the next. It looked as if he’d found it. He bent forward and touched something, then looked round again. Roger dodged back, out of sight. This hide-and-seek could go on for a long time; they wanted someone on the next roof, and – two men appeared there.
So it was nearly over. Relf couldn’t go forward and couldn’t come back. He had seen the two detectives, who wore hats and raincoats; Relf was standing upright, with his gun in his hand. He was moving towards the far side of the roof, away from Roger and the others, walking crabwise, as if trying to watch them all at once.
One of the men on the other roof threw something – Roger couldn’t see what it was. He shouted, but his voice was drowned in a clap of thunder. What were the fools playing at? If they hit Relf, he’d fall, and Roger wanted him alive. He shouted again, as something else was thrown; but the shout was futile, the missile hit Relf and he lost his balance.
The end came suddenly.
He screamed, missed his footing and plunged over.
The fools – to kill him! They weren’t worth their rank, whatever it was; they were utter idiots.
Roger heard nothing more from Relf. The roof seemed empty, the night a void – until he saw the two men hurrying away. Then the truth flashed upon him; those two weren’t detectives, and they had deliberately sent Relf to his death.
He turned away – and a man moved near him and spoke cheerfully.
“Got a story for me, Handsome?”
Roger started; his anger about the trick fell upon this man’s head.
“How the hell did you get here?”
“Persistence, unexpected agility, and a nose for news,” said the other easily. It was the tubby Echo reporter named Clayton. “I thought I was doing the right thing by coming up, but now I wish I was down below. Coming?”
Chapter Ten
Rose
Drenched men stood about the garage, looking dejected and grim when Roger entered. He had climbed through a roof-light in the next building and come down the stairs. He had glanced at Relf’s broken body, which was now being placed in an ambulance. Near the door, moving away, were two detectives and the fellow who had uttered the uncanny gibberish while hurling missiles.
Most of the raiding force were now in the garage. A man came up to Roger with a fairly dry towel.
“Better use this, sir,” he said.
“Thanks, I could do with a hot drink,” said Roger.
“Brew of tea coming from a café across the road, sir.”
“Good.” Roger towelled vigorously, hands, face, and hair. His clothes clung to him, wet, uncomfortable. He spoke as he dried himself, using short, brisk sentences.
“We could have done worse,” he said. “Another man has gone where he can’t do any harm. I expect you know that a couple of his buddies slipped past us. Went up on the roof next door and sent him to Kingdom Come.”
Men nodded and grunted, and some looked sheepish.
Roger said: “It couldn’t be helped – we’re a mixed bunch, bound to be some men others wouldn’t recognise. Easy enough for outsiders with cool nerves to mix with us.”
A burly man volunteered: “I think I saw them, sir, but they had their hats pulled down over their eyes. I thought what lucky beggars they were to have macks.”
“The night helped ’em,” Roger agreed. “We’ve got one man and the girl.” He glanced at the office. “Where are they?”
“Across the road, in a café,” said Peel, who had just come in. “Thought we’d get ’em out of here.”
“Quite right. Has Rose talked?”
“Not a squeak,” said the burly man. “And the other one is—”
Two men appeared at the door, carrying a tray on which were a dozen or so cups of steaming tea. One was a Yard officer, the other a little fell
ow in a dirty white apron, an Italian café proprietor judging from his sallow face, long chin, and dark, lank, greasy hair.
Roger drank his tea and put the cup on the wing of a cab.
“That was good. Now—”
“I was saying, sir,” said the burly man, “the other beggar won’t be much good tonight. He’s deaf and dumb. Isn’t it true, Guiseppe?”
The Italian spread out his hands.
“Yes, pliz, Tommy no spika, no listen.” He went off into a long discourse; obviously he knew the garage and its staff and patrons well, and he was worth listening to.
Wignall was the owner, who usually left about eight o’clock. Relf was in charge during the night, and went off duty at seven o’clock in the morning. He was a skilled mechanic.
The man Tommy was a deaf-mute.
He had no home, was just a human derelict whom Relf had allowed to sleep on a heap of rags in the loft. That explained his wild fury when Relf had been in danger. The Italian also knew most of the taxi-drivers who put their cabs in this garage. They were all owner-drivers, Wignall wouldn’t take any others. Among them was a man named Kirby, and when Roger showed the Italian a photograph of Kirby, Guiseppe nodded vigorously. Then he described the cab, and made it clear that the man who called himself ‘Smith’ had been in Kirby’s cab that afternoon. He was a friend of Kirby’s.
Guiseppe’s café was immediately opposite, and obviously he missed little that went on in the garage. He didn’t know the name of Kirby’s friend, but had noticed that he usually came at night, when Relf was on duty. Rose was Kirby’s girl.
“That’s fine, Guiseppe,” said Roger. “That’s a great help – we won’t forget it. And we won’t worry you any more than we can help.”
