Sport For Inspector West

by John Creasey

  “Why?”

  “He said—he could prove—I’d killed Guy,” she declared very softly. “It wasn’t true. Guy’s death was—a terrible blow to me, but whoever killed him used—my gun.”

  She had first met Mike Scott at an RAF dance at Anmere. The dance hadn’t been confined to the station staff, and Jeremiah Scott’s brother had come. At the time, Sybil had rather liked Jeremiah, and certainly liked his brother. She’d spent a few short leaves with them in London – with another girl from the station.

  Then she and Jeremiah had quarrelled.

  Sybil’s mother had died after nearly a year’s illness, leaving Sybil on her own, with no close relatives, none whom she liked or with whom she could get on. But she had soon found the job with Boyd & Fairweather, and gone to Mrs Clarke’s. Sometimes Mike Scott called to see her. He was married, and wanted her to live with him. When she’d refused, he’d turned sour.

  Then she had answered an advertisement in a trade paper – a small firm wanted some drawings done by a freelance artist-draughtsman, and she had secured the job, adding to her already reasonable salary at Boyd & Fairweather’s. She did more and more of this spare-time work, and the pay was extremely good. Messengers brought her the designs she was to copy and paid her in cash. She loved clothes, she wanted to accumulate some capital, and she worked extremely hard.

  The drawings were varied. Sometimes of buildings, factories and warehouses, sometimes of small technical contraptions – engines, patent locks, a great variety of things. She did three identical drawings. For years she continued happily and cheerfully, meeting few friends because she spent so much time at her drawing-board – and then, suddenly, Mike had come to see her again and told her what she had really been doing.

  Cracksmen studied the drawings, made models, learned how to force them; she was helping a band of criminals.

  And she had been paid with stolen money.

  She hadn’t declared it as part of her income, either; but often it had been in five-pound notes, some of which could be traced. The amounts paid for each job had been far in excess of the usual fees, although she hadn’t known it. In a short interval, Mike had shown that she was hopelessly involved. He had then wanted her to mix with prospective ‘victims’ of planned crimes, to prise information out of managers and others, or keep them occupied while the thieves were busy.

  She had refused.

  Then alarming things had happened. Her room had been entered and searched, she had been terrified in case the police had visited it. She was jostled from crowded pavements in the traffic-filled roads. It had seemed as if there was a campaign to break her nerve, and she was sure that Mike Scott was behind it. Once she had been cornered when walking along a dark, deserted street, and only saved from attack by a car which chanced to pass and frightened off her assailant. After that, she had bought a gun and some ammunition.

  A friend had obtained it for her – one of her fellow boarders, who had left soon afterwards. She had realised too late that he was also one of Scott’s friends, who had watched her and wormed his way into her confidence. She continued to do drawings for Scott, and among them had been copies of designs of Perriman’s cartons and packages. She didn’t know why. There had been designs for other commodities, Perriman’s hadn’t been the only firm. She was still paid for this work, and hadn’t the courage to refuse to do it.

  On Mike’s orders, she went to Brighton for a weekend. There, she’d met Randall, at the hotel. She knew Mike had arranged that, but Mike hadn’t reckoned on the result. They’d danced all the first evening, spent the Saturday and Sunday together, and fallen in love.

  Realising this, Mike hadn’t tried to make her ‘work’ anything on Randall.

  She’d continued to see Randall in London – and then had discovered that she was followed wherever she went. One day her gun had been stolen from her handbag.

  Two days later Randall had been killed.

  And Mike had come to see her again, with the same demands. She was to be a decoy. He’d told her that her gun had been used in the murder, that if the police discovered who had owned it she was booked for the gallows. That was why she hadn’t told the police the truth and had refused to admit that she was being followed.

  Mike had telephoned to say that he must see her. She was to wait in the hall of the office block until a taxi drew up outside. Mike had taken her to the house in Hurlingham; she’d been locked in the upstairs room during the night, and told to stay there next day. She didn’t know why, but had been terrified of disobeying.

  When he had knocked the story into shape, Roger went to see Chatworth.

  “Do you believe her?” Chatworth asked.

  “Mostly, yes sir. Anyhow, we know that Scott’s been the agent for a pretty big gang, don’t we? And Kirby and Relf were in it. What I haven’t fathomed yet is why Mike Scott suddenly decided to kill her.”

  “Sure it was him?” barked Chatworth.

  Roger said: “We’ve got him on that all right. Her hairs were on his clothes, where he’d carried her. There was a smear or two of her powder on his coat too. But the most important thing was found on the gas-tap, sir – a section of his right forefinger print. The same tiny print section is on one of the bullets we found in the girl’s bag too.”

  Chatworth nodded and grunted.

  “It looks as if Sybil Lennox was weakening and would soon have taken Mike Scott’s orders,” said Roger. “Just at a time when he’d got her where he wanted her, he decided to get rid of her. He may have been afraid that she could say too much – or he may have acted on instructions. He’s certainly not the leader of this crowd.”

  Chatworth grunted.

  “The fact that she had to copy some Perriman cartons might mean a lot and might mean nothing at all,” Roger went on. “The one real pointer is from her story of having to draw plans and diagrams. In several big food warehouse robberies, we’ve noticed that the thieves had a thorough knowledge of the layout – all doors and passages, for instance. I think we’ll find that these robberies were carried out by the same mob. It wouldn’t surprise me if this isn’t what Tommy Clayton of the Echo was following up.”

  “Any news of him?”

  “None at all,” said Roger gloomily. “He was certainly in Kent Street.”

  “Fellow’s probably trying to pull a fast one,” said Chatworth. “What do you propose to do with the girl?”

  “I think she ought to go down to the seaside and have a rest for a few days. I’ve seen her employer, and he’ll raise no objections. We’ll have her closely watched, there might be another attempt on her life. And I thought we might make a little departure from the usual procedure then.”

  “How?”

  “My friend Lessing could help, and if he stayed at the same hotel as the girl—”

  “Not at all sure he could do anything of the kind,” grumbled Chatworth. “One day he’ll get into serious trouble. Still, can’t stop him from staying at any hotel he likes, can we? Please yourself. But do you think you’re much farther on? This organisation – any idea who is behind it?”

  “None. It’s probably to do with food, though. Food prices being as high as they are, thieves can make a fortune out of a single lorry-load of bacon and tinned goods. I can’t help feeling that Randall stumbled across something which might have to do with Perriman’s.”

  Chatworth grunted again.

  “I can’t make up my mind about Jeremiah Scott,” Roger went on, “but I’m having a very careful watch kept on him. He has several food manufacturing companies on his list of clients. He’d be in an excellent position to go into factories and warehouses, make mental notes, put ’em down on paper as sketches as soon as he’s alone, and then have them drawn up properly afterwards. Can’t rule him out. If his story’s true, he’d never heard of Kent Street until that day when he got the SOS from his brother, but …” He shrugged his shoulders. “Odd little things keep worrying me, sir. He’s a member of the Fulham Football Club, and there were those th
ree programmes at the house.”

  “Nothing really odd about that, surely,” said Chatworth. “Even I go to see football matches! Nothing else?”

  “Nothing except routine,” said Roger. “At the moment, the only line which might give results is Tommy Clayton, and I’ve a nasty feeling we might come across his body soon. Oh, there is a line I want to follow – I can’t get it out of my head that Perriman’s are the key to this business. They’ve a virtual monopoly of some foods. I propose to send Peel to look round their Woodhall factories.”

  “Then they’ll know you’re on to them.”

  “No, sir. Peel will take a job there. They’re always advertising for warehousemen and labourers.”

  “Better Peel than your friend Lessing,” growled Chatworth.

  Roger went back to his office, to be told that a man was waiting downstairs to see him – a Mr Wilson. Wilson’s card was on the desk, and Roger read:

  James Wilson, Director

  Crown Printing & Manufacturing Co. Ltd.

  That had been Randall’s firm. He telephoned for the caller to be brought up, and was soon greeting an athletic-looking, rather rugged young man with hair that was nearly ginger, a pair of alert, green-grey eyes, and a firm handclasp. Wilson was a little nervous, like many people who came to the Yard.

  “Sit down,” invited Roger, and pushed a box of cigarettes across the desk.

  “I’ll smoke a pipe, if I may,” said Wilson, sitting down. “Understand you’re now OC of the Randall case.”

  “I’m looking into it, yes,” said Roger.

  “Glad someone is. Guy Randall was a good chap – close friend of mine too. Made any progress?”

  “These things take time,” said Roger evasively.

  “I suppose so. Happened to be in London today, visiting our office. The manager tells me you’ve seen him. Just want to say this: if we can help in any way, we will.”

  “Thanks very much,” said Roger. “Have you any ideas about it, Mr Wilson?”

  “Well—well, no,” said Wilson. “Happiest chap alive. Engaged, all that kind of thing. Er—I wonder if you’ve any news about his fiancée? I mean, she isn’t stranded or anything like that? Glad to help, if so.”

  “I think she’s managing very well,” said Roger reassuringly.

  He went downstairs with Wilson, and watched him get into a gleaming Alvis and drive off.

  Like that of Tucktos, the biggest Perriman factory was in an outer suburb of London – Woodhall. Unlike Tucktos, it was modern. The main building was tall, white-fronted and a railway siding, which was continually busy, was on the right of it. So was the huge garage shed, with its dozens of Perriman’s big, smart vans with ‘Mr and Mrs Perriman’ painted on both sides. These and their trailers were always being serviced, while others waited at the loading platforms of the great warehouses. Perriman’s, with over two thousand multiple stores throughout the country and a great wholesale business, was invariably busy. Practically everything sold in Perriman shops and wrapped in Perriman packets was manufactured here – jam, biscuits, cocoa, different proprietary goods, soups – an almost endless variety.

  Peel discovered this when he had been working in the General Warehouse for two days. He was one of thirty male workers in the General Warehouse, a huge, five-storey building which housed all the small-packet goods – everything in two-pound containers or less. Row after row of store bins and shelves met his gaze when he was taken round the floor on which he worked.

  The foreman of Peel’s floor was a little man named Ramsay, who had an artificial leg and walked slowly about his domain. He had been with the firm for thirty years and had watched it grow. He liked new workers to take an interest.

  Peel was particularly interested in the transport arrangements, and spent some time at the main dispatch platform, where vans were being loaded. He discovered that a carefully worked out schedule of deliveries was planned, and that there was a Control Room in the Dispatch Department, run rather on the lines of the RAF or Naval Control Room. On duty day and night were several clerks who could tell the position of the fleet of vans – nearly four hundred strong – all over the country. If there was a breakdown or any kind of trouble, the van-driver telephoned Control and reported, and relief was arranged immediately.

  Peel’s main job was to help load electric trolleys which fed the Dispatch Department, and so he went between the General Warehouse and Dispatch a dozen times a day. He discovered and reported that it would be possible for a big raid to be made on the vans almost any night. Many were loaded overnight, sometimes by a night-shift, and started off soon after six in the morning. The loaded vans were near a side exit which led to the main road, and were always pointing towards the road so that they could be driven off quickly, and empty vans brought in for loading. There were two night-watchmen in this department, as well as the night Control Room staff, but as far as Peel could discover, no special precautions were taken.

  Clad in a khaki overall and wearing a cloth cap, Peel loaded a trolley and gave the driver the all-clear. The trolley moved off silently down the wide gangway with bins on either side. Peel yawned. It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, and he had been up most of the previous night.

  “Oi—Peel!” That was little Ramsay.

  “Coming!” Peel walked along to the foreman’s desk in the centre of the floor.

  “Been over to the dump yet?” asked Ramsay.

  “Dump? No, I haven’t heard about it.”

  “Then it’s time you did,” said Ramsay. “Benny’s hurt his foot, so I want you to take his barrow to the dump and burn the muck. Can’t miss the dump, you can see the smoke over it all the time.”

  “Oh, I know it,” said Peel.

  Benny was an old labourer who swept the passages, collected the rubbish, sorted salvage, and took the real waste to an incinerator – or ‘dump.’ His wheelbarrow was already full, and Peel took it to the lift, which promptly delivered him to the ground floor near the main trading platform. The dump was between that and the railway siding.

  A five-foot brick wall surrounded the heap of smouldering rubbish, and there was only one gap in the wall. Peel walked towards it over a cement path; his rubber-tyred barrow moved freely and quietly.

  He wrinkled his nose because of the burning smell; there was something unusual about it.

  Inside the wall was a big, round, uneven dump, like a small slagheap. Flames licked here and there, but most of the rubbish was now smouldering ash. Spades, shovels, long-handled two-pronged forks and some axes were fastened in brackets to the rough brick wall.

  One or two fresh piles of rubbish had recently been dumped, and Peel turned his own over near one of them. He picked up a long fork, and turned over some of the ‘new’ rubbish to try to start it blazing, and after a while his efforts made a merry little fire. But in turning the heap, he had made an evil-smelling smoke rise … and there was a curious, sweetish odour which he thought he recognised – the smell of burning flesh. He told himself that he was crazy, that it was something from the factory which had been mixed with the rubbish.

  The smell persisted and seemed to get stronger. He plunged the fork in again and again, without quite knowing what he expected to find but disliking the smell intensely. Then the fork caught in something, and he pulled out a piece of cloth, covered with black ash! He drew it nearer; it wasn’t just a piece of cloth, it was part of a coat. The skirt and arms had been badly burned and charred, but the lapels, shoulders, and the top of the sleeves were easily recognisable when he spread it out on the ground. It had been folded, and where the creases had come it wasn’t so dirty. When he saw the pattern, it was as if an electric shock had run through him.

  This was a check coat – a large check pattern, like Tommy Clayton’s.

  Peel straightened up, took a firmer grip on the fork, and prodded and probed again. It wasn’t long before the prongs were driven into something which yielded but from which he couldn’t draw the fork easily. He left it in, picked up
a short-handled spade and, regardless of the mess to his shoes and trousers, cleared the muck away.

  He found a hand.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Body in the Dump

  Peel’s stomach heaved. He cleared away more of the muck, and the arm was disclosed – badly burned, in places to the bone.

  The arm moved easily.

  It wasn’t attached to the body.

  Peel looked round. No one was in sight nearby, no one could see him working, except people in the upper floors of the buildings, and he was too far away to be identified. He wanted to run off, telephone the local police and get a squad out here, but he had to find out more about this.

  He found a leg; that wasn’t attached to the body, either.

  Then he found the head.

  He turned away suddenly, nausea overcoming him, and was violently sick. When that was over, he took out a cigarette and lit it with shaky fingers. Better report what he had found to the manager. If he went straight to the police, he would give himself away. His legs weren’t very steady at first, but he threw off the effects of the discovery as he neared the gap in the wall. Now he could see a van-driver standing by the cabin of his vehicle, and several other workers.

  He left the dump.

  As he did so, he felt something touch his legs, looked down – and was thrown heavily to the ground. The ‘something’ was a piece of wire, with a hooked end, which had caught him round the ankle. He heard nothing, but the fall winded him.

  Then he saw the man.

  He caught only a glimpse of him – a man with a handkerchief tied round his face and a hat pulled over his eyes – and with a long shovel in his right hand. The shovel was raised, Peel sensed what was intended and twisted himself to one side. The blow caught him on the shoulder, his arm went numb and useless. He tried to shout, but the sound wasn’t loud. He kicked at the fellow’s legs, struck home and gave himself a moment’s respite. The shovel came again – if the corner struck his head it would split his skull. He dodged; the thing clanged noisily on the cement path, and something hit his ear. Then he heard a shout from some way off …