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  CALL BACK TO CRIME

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1972

  Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1972 by John Long.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter One

  The fire was first seen by a man who was on his way to work at the small clothing factory nearby. As he turned the corner he saw a surge of flame behind the left-hand upstairs window of the detached house and he immediately braked the motor-bike to a stop. There was another surge of flame which seemed to consume the curtains in a flash and the glass in the window shattered with a sound that reached him over the clatter of the motor-bike engine. A column of black smoke, illuminated on the underside by the street lighting, gushed out of the window and swirled upwards.

  He engaged first gear and accelerated across the road to park head on between two cars, ran across the pavement and up the path to the front door. It was locked. He hammered the knocker, in the shape of a lion’s head, with one hand and rang the bell continuously with the other. From inside came the frightening roar of the fire and when next the flame reached out of the shattered window he could feel the heat. Yet, incredibly, he was still the only person alarmed.

  A low wooden fence separated the two gardens of this house and the next one and he vaulted it and hammered on the door of the adjoining house. After a few seconds a window above was opened and a man leaned out: ‘What the hell . . .?’ He stopped as he saw the smoke and the flames.

  A car coming up the road braked harshly. ‘Our phone’s out of order,’ shouted the man from the bedroom. Just before he raced back to the pavement the motor-cyclist saw a woman join the man.

  ‘Find a house with a phone working!’ the motor-cyclist bellowed at the motorist. A second and then a third car stopped.

  The motor-cyclist returned to the door of the blazing house and called for help. Two men from cars joined him and they tried to batter down the door, but failed. By now the flames were continuously spiralling out of the window and the smoke stretched up into the darkness to be lost before the light southerly breeze had begun to disperse it.

  A householder ran up with an axe and with a series of wild swings he smashed through the wooden panel of the door so that one of them could reach inside and turn the handle of the Yale-type lock.

  Inside, they were frightened in a way none of them would forget: the roar of the fire was louder and far more menacing and the air seemed drained of oxygen so that either because of that or their fear they found it difficult to breathe. To the left of the hall were stairs and these turned a right angle, providing a half-landing. The walls flickered to the flames and smoke was curling down the stairs in snake-like movements. Each of the four men saw himself being trapped by the collapsing floor, to be burned to death.

  The motor-cyclist, middle-aged and normally no hero, ran across the hall and climbed the stairs. He reached the half-landing, then was stopped by the scorching heat which prickled the skin of his unprotected face. His head was just high enough to let him look along the corridor. Flames filled the end of it and came swirling towards him, sinister in motion and utterly terrifying. Smoke choked him and he turned and ran down the stairs. ‘There’s not a hope up there,’ he shouted.

  Two of the men immediately left the house. The motor-cyclist and the man with the axe searched downstairs. There was the sitting-room in the front, untidy and with a couple of empty gin bottles in the grate, the dining-room, which was neat in an impersonal way, suggesting it was seldom used, a lavatory, a kitchen with the remains of a meal on the table and a jumble of dirty cutlery on the draining board, and a larder well stocked with food. Certain now that there was no one downstairs, they ran out of the house.

  Dawn was close, and to the east the peaceful sky was lightening, but in this road the flames spoke of fury and destruction. Frightened householders, dressed in their night-clothes and overcoats or mackintoshes, were hurriedly evacuating the houses on either side of the burning one and their expressions were strikingly similar: each of them was shocked to discover how shatteringly quickly his or her world could become disorganised.

  The two-tone note of an emergency vehicle grew louder. A fire engine turned into the road, blue light flashing, and picked its way through the crowd of people and vehicles, travelling half on the pavement at one point where there were no parked cars. Firemen jumped down from it and raced across to the front door of the burning house and went inside. They came out and returned to the fire engine for a ladder which they raised up to the right-hand window which was some twelve feet from the flaming left-hand one. A fireman climbed it and used his axe to smash the glass of the window. Thick smoke gushed out. He scrambled inside.

  A police car arrived and immediately the driver and observer organised crowd and vehicle control. When that was done, the observer switched on the loud-hailer and broadcast an appeal for anyone to come forward who could say how many people lived in the house or who knew anything about how the fire had started.

  The fireman retreated out of the upstairs bedroom and climbed down the ladder. His face was blackened by smoke and his eyes were bloodshot. He shrugged his shoulders when one of the onlookers shouted a question at him.

  The police driver went across to him. ‘Were you able to find out anything?’ he shouted.

  ‘There’s no one in the bedroom I got into. Beyond that the place is a flamer and it’s impossible to move.’

  The policeman stared upwards. The flames were gushing out of the window, scorching the surrounding brickwork. Anyone in that room must surely be dead.

  *

  Detective Constable Kerr entered the waiting-room and saw there were three patients waiting. They looked at him with vague interest, then their expressions returned to their previous state of boredom and discontent. Hell! thought Kerr, if ever he found life that serious a matter he’d take a couple of bottles of aspirins and end it. There was a walled-off reception area and he knocked on the frosted-glass window. This was opened by a prim, severe, hollow-cheeked woman with tight, thin lips. ‘’Evening,’ he said cheerfully.

  As she studied his face with its unmistakable air of light-heartedness, her manner became still more disapproving. ‘Have you an appointment?’ she asked.

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘You can only see Doctor with an appointment unless it’s an emergency,’ she said, with some pleasure.

  ‘As far as I know I’m not dying on my feet, but I’m from borough C.I.D. Tell his nibs I’d like a word with him, will you?’

  ‘The doctor . . .’ She paused, to underline the proper form of address, ‘is very busy.’

  ‘I won’t hold him up for long.’

  She snapped shut the glass door. Kerr turned away. If anyone ever had to tap her veins, he’d get vinegar instead of blood. Kerr crossed to the centre table and shuffled through the magazines on it and final
ly picked up a copy of Punch. He sat down.

  When he’d looked through the magazine he checked on the time. Six-forty-five already and he’d told Helen he’d be with her at her home—for one of Mrs. Barley’s excellent suppers—by six-thirty at the latest. He stared into space. Not very long now before their marriage, which had been delayed because of the necessity of saving a reasonable amount of money. If only he were rich! A honeymoon de-luxe. . . . The beautiful yacht slid through the smooth, azure-blue waters of the Mediterranean without a quiver. The white-coated steward coughed discreetly. ‘A little more caviar? A glassful more of champagne?’ A twitch of the finger dismissed him. Helen was wearing a little informal number from Dior. . . .

  ‘Well?’ said the receptionist disagreeably. ‘Do you want to see Doctor, or don’t you?’

  Kerr regretfully jerked his mind back to the present, stood up, and replaced the magazine on the table. A young woman, attractive in a brittle way, had come in and was sitting down opposite and he was momentarily intrigued by the very large and ostentatious brass loop to the zip down the front of her dress: in case of emergencies, pull the rip-cord?

  ‘We haven’t all night,’ snapped the receptionist.

  The doctor, seated behind a large, plain desk, was a small, neat man with a toothbrush moustache, horn-rimmed spectacles, and the abrupt manner of someone who found life to be one long rush. ‘Have a seat. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you, sir,’ said Kerr formally, as he took his notebook from the pocket of his coat. ‘We’ve been told that Mrs. Laura Selby of fifteen, Acton Road, is a patient of yours?’

  The doctor swivelled round on his chair and pulled out the third drawer of a slim-line filing cabinet. He riffled through the cards, then pulled one out and turned back to face Kerr. ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘There was a bad fire at her house this morning and later a body was recovered. It was very badly burned, but it has been identified as female. We’re wondering if you can help us make a positive identification?’

  The doctor read through the card in his hand, then leaned back in the chair. ‘She was forty-seven, five-foot-seven high, and weighed just over nine stone. Three years ago she fractured her right femur in a fall at home and this took an unusually long time to heal—we might still hold copies of the X-rays taken. For some years she’s been taking barbiturates.’ He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes and forehead in a gesture of tiredness. ‘I presume the husband isn’t around?’

  Kerr shook his head. ‘No, sir. The neighbours say he’s on the Continent. We’re trying to trace him through his company.’

  The doctor held the glasses by the stems and swung them backwards and forwards. ‘She’s an alcoholic, a neurotic, and one of the most unhappy women in my practice.’ He sighed.

  ‘What made her so unhappy?’

  ‘In one word, marriage. Mrs. Selby is a woman who needs to complain and to have her complaints listened to with an obvious sympathy: clearly, this is something her husband can’t or won’t do. Her constant complaints—really only a desire for an assurance that someone cares about her—have always irritated him and he’s never hidden that fact. This further upsets her to more complaints and the vicious circle is completed. She drinks when he’s away to help herself through the loneliness, she drinks when he’s back from a bitter sense of frustration.’ He replaced his glasses. ‘As I said, a very unhappy and distressed woman.’

  Kerr stared at his notes as he checked he’d all the information Fusil would want. ‘When did you last prescribe barbiturates for her?’

  ‘Four days ago, on Monday. Fifty tablets of Medinal.’

  ‘Do you know much about the husband?’

  The doctor shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not really. He’s seldom at home and even more seldom ill, but he’s clearly a man of little warmth and sympathy . . . but who’s to say whether anyone would retain either after so many years of matrimonial troubles?’ His voice suddenly expressed a weariness that was more than personal.

  Kerr stood up. ‘One last thing. D’you think you could be kind enough to look for those X-rays you mentioned?’

  ‘Tell Mrs. Burden to see if she can turn them up.’

  Kerr thanked him and returned to the waiting-room. He knocked on the little glass door and passed on the message to the receptionist, reflecting as he did so that her husband—if he had the misfortune still to be with her—must surely reckon she was well named.

  *

  The four men were round the back of the Wayfarer’s Halt, by the lavatories which had been built out to the side of the old village pub. Further along there was a wall light, but they were in deep shadows.

  ‘Don’t be bleeding soft, Banger,’ said the ginger-haired man.

  Conrad Downring moved slightly to his right to gain more protection from the wall behind him.

  ‘There’s a grand in it for you.’

  ‘I ain’t interested.’

  ‘Just the one job.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Banger, you’re joining.’

  The ginger-haired man closed in and the others followed. Downring looked quickly to his right at the road—it remained empty. The odds were all against him. They hadn’t left the pub until it closed and now only the elderly publican and his wife remained inside: true, they could telephone for help, but by the time it arrived it would be too late.

  ‘I’m going straight,’ Downring said, his deep voice strained but showing no fear.

  ‘You can’t turn down a grand.’

  ‘Lay on someone else.’

  He’d been round the twist to agree to meet them, thought Downring. But then he’d always met trouble head on, as if afraid to duck for fear of being named coward. That was why the Army had tried to get him to sign on again: they’d soon recognised that he’d either die young or become a hero.

  ‘A grand for the one job,’ said the ginger-haired man, gaining a perverse pleasure from prolonging the scene.

  Downring tried to estimate their next move. They were muscle men, so their job was to beat some sense into him, if necessary, but not to wreck him to the point where it would take a hospital weeks to put him together again.

  He acted, with a speed that caught them by surprise because they were not used to victims who deliberately bucked odds of three to one. He slammed his knee into the ginger-haired man’s groin and knew a savage pleasure when there was a choking scream. He turned and lashed out with his right foot. The ginger-haired man went down on to the ground. Downring tried to stamp on his head, but missed and only just raked the cheek.

  A cosh caught Downring’s neck, filling his head with whirling patterns of light. A second blow from the cosh and a heavy kick to the thigh jerked him back to full consciousness.

  His right leg was wrenched sideways and but for the wall he would have fallen to the ground; as it was, he bounced back off the wall and kicked out with his left foot, catching one of them so heavily it jarred his foot. He grabbed an ear and twisted, managed to bite down on a hand that came too close to his mouth.

  Unexpectedly, he dropped to the ground and rolled sideways, crashing into them. When he came to his feet two of them were still struggling to regain their balance while the ginger-haired man was on all fours. He kicked out, used the edge of his hand to chop the nearest man’s nose: there was a burbling cry.

  He had the chance to run, but stupidly didn’t, having become fighting mad. He went forward with boot and fist and although he landed one heavy blow his right leg was caught and twisted, pitching him to the ground. Immediately, they jumped him, driving their boots into him. He tried to roll over, but was caught by two quick kicks that made him cry out from the pain. Desperately he grabbed for a leg, made contact, and twisted: a man crashed over.

  He came to his feet, despite a blow from a cosh, and he closed with the third man. He jabbed at the other’s eyes, kneed him, and chopped him. Given a second chance to break free, he had the sense to take it. He ran on to the
road and round the pub to the car park.

  The starting handle of his rattling old pick-up truck was in the back and he reached over the side and grabbed it. Keeping the starting handle in his right hand, he took the key of the pick-up from his coat pocket, reached inside, inserted it in the dashboard, switched on and pulled the starter. The engine was clapped out and fired quickly only once in a dozen times. By luck, this was the once. He jumped into the cab, engaged reverse, and backed with stomped-down accelerator so that if anyone were creeping up from behind he’d get flattened. Then he drove out of the car park and up the hill towards the village of Entington. Only now did he become aware of how much his body ached.

  Chapter Two

  Josephine Fusil shook her husband awake. He uttered a few strangled grunts, opened his eyes, then abruptly rolled back the bedclothes and swivelled round to sit on the edge of the bed with a determination that showed this was his only way of making sure he didn’t fall asleep again.

  ‘It sounds as if it’s raining,’ she said. She had an oval face with the kind of unremarkable but peaceful features which matured slowly so that only now were the first lines of approaching middle age visible.

  He felt fully middle age, even worn out, as he rubbed his stubble-blackened chin.

  ‘How I hate the end of September,’ she said. ‘It means the whole of winter has to come. Give up your job, Bob, and let’s go and live on a little Greek island and beachcomb?’ She turned and smiled at him, a warm, soft, loving smile.

  ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘And we’ll never get up in the morning until it’s drinking time.’

  ‘You’ve obviously a very grand idea of a beachcomber’s life!’ She loved it when he ceased to be serious, hurried, and tied to responsibilities, and he joined with her in the kind of inane conversation which had so amused them when they were young and newly married.

  He stood up, yawned, and walked through to the bathroom. Josephine put on a housecoat over her nightdress and went downstairs to the kitchen to cook his breakfast.