The C.I.D Room Read online

  ‘He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have blackmailed that horrible man.’

  He spoke sadly. ‘Have you any facts to show that he didn’t?’

  ‘I’m not talking about facts. I know he couldn’t do such a thing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but we need facts.’

  ‘Don’t keep talking about facts. Talk about John. You know him: you know what kind of person he is.’

  ‘As far as the law’s concerned, my estimation of his character doesn’t matter.’

  ‘John’s far too proud of the police force to commit a filthy crime and let all of you down. Why won’t you understand that? Are you all blind?’

  ‘Aren’t you rather emotionally involved?’

  ‘What if I am?’ she retorted angrily. ‘If you aren’t, why aren’t you?’

  He put his pipe down on the desk. ‘I am involved,’ he said quietly.

  ‘He came and saw me after you’d accused him of blackmail. He was terribly hurt, bewildered, and angry because you hadn’t any faith in him. You don’t like him, but he thought at least you’d trust him. I said you obviously had to take notice of any allegation, but that made him furious and he accused me of not having any more faith in him than you did. He left me, even though I was trying so hard to help him. Can’t you see that if he had done this terrible thing he couldn’t have become so angry with me like that?’

  ‘He might have seemed angry because that’s how an innocent person would have behaved.’

  ‘That…that’s a horrible thing to say.’

  ‘Much of my work is horrible, Miss Barley.’

  ‘Then you…you won’t do anything?’

  ‘The case is out of my hands.’

  Her voice rose. ‘If I were in your shoes, nothing and nobody would be allowed to take the case out of my hands. I’d fight and fight and fight to uncover the truth.’ She stood up and spoke with bitter hate. ‘I’m sorry I’ve wasted so much of your very valuable time.’

  He made no reply, but went round his desk to go to open the door. She almost ran to forestall him, went out, and slammed the door shut behind herself.

  He stood by the corner of his desk. Could there be anything in her claim that only a completely innocent man would have behaved as Kerr behaved? If this were a frame-up, it had to be because of the gold. Nothing else made sense. But Kerr knew nothing new about the gold thefts, so why frame him?

  Fusil relit his pipe. He jammed his hands into his pockets and cursed the girl for coming along and forcing him to ask himself questions once more. After another minute, he made up his mind. He looked at his watch, then left the office and drove to the police hostel. The common-room was empty except for the old caretaker, who told him which was Kerr’s room. He went up.

  Kerr had not shaved and his chin was black with stubble. There was a bleary look about his eyes to show he had been drinking heavily the previous night.

  Fusil sat down in a wicker chair. He spoke harshly. ‘Did you blackmail Walker? Let’s have it dead straight and off the record.’

  ‘I didn’t. How many more times…’ began Kerr, careless to whom he was speaking.

  ‘All right, you’re innocent and it’s a frame-up. You’re being framed because of the gold. What have you found out about the gold thefts?’

  ‘If I’d found out anything, I’d’ve reported it.’

  ‘If you’ve been framed, you discovered something. If you haven’t discovered something, you haven’t been framed.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t begin to believe in the possibility of me being innocent?’

  ‘Goddamn it, man, I’m here to try to help.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’

  ‘You interviewed Captain Leery, trying to find out what firm owned the Volkswagen van because although it was a hell of a long shot you thought it could have been that van mixed up in the hit-and-run?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Leery helped you?’

  ‘He said he didn’t know anything, but would find out what he could.’

  ‘The questioning seemed to worry him, but you never learned why?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You mentioned the fiddle over the hawsers and he wasn’t really surprised?’

  ‘He gave the impression that the fiddle’s pretty general.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can suggest to help?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Fusil crossed to the window and looked down at the green where some children were playing tag.

  ‘I didn’t blackmail Walker,’ Kerr said wildly. ‘Any more than I murdered Evans.’

  Fusil turned. ‘We could prove his death was accidental. The only mystery was why he was ever down the hold.’

  ‘Maybe he thought he was solving the gold thefts,’ said Kerr, with bitter sarcasm.

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘I was talking to him that afternoon. He was curious about how the stuff was pinched. He remarked how odd it was that all the ships carried valuable cargo, but the thefts only happened on the Sandacre and Sandstream which were sister ships.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘All I know that’s special about ’em is they’re both open between the two end holds on the top cargo deck.’

  ‘Aren’t any of the other ships like that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  Fusil thought about this. It was a coincidence and coincidences could mean nothing or they could lead straight to the heart of a case: but in this instance, could the coincidence at the very most do more than pin-point how the gold was stolen?

  There was a prolonged silence. Fusil sighed, then stood up. ‘I’d like to wish you luck, Kerr.’

  ‘You reckon I’ll need it?’

  Fusil left the room.

  18

  The Sandstream began loading on the Thursday and finished on the following Wednesday. She sailed for Avon-mouth, where she was to take on another three thousand tons of cargo.

  On the Friday, at 1.10 a.m., Walker entered Eastern Division H.Q. and asked for Detective Inspector Fusil.

  Fusil made him wait for twenty minutes in the company of a uniformed constable in one of the interview-rooms, then went in. ‘Well?’ He did not try to conceal his hatred of the other.

  Walker’s cheeks seemed to have sunk slightly so that his cheek-bones were even more prominent than usual. He had developed a nervous habit of constantly licking his lips and his tongue was a dirty mud colour. ‘I’ve a deal to make,’ he said. He jerked his thumb at the constable. ‘Tell ’im to scram.’

  ‘He stays.’

  ‘Then I ain’t nothing to say on a split what’s ’eading straight for the nearest nick.’

  Fusil took his pipe from his pocket and slowly filled it.

  He lit the pipe. ‘O.K., Sumner,’ he finally said.

  The uniformed constable replaced his notebook in his pocket and left the room.

  ‘I’ve a deal to make,’ said Walker, for the second time.

  ‘A deal? You’re going to be in so much trouble you can’t talk about dealing in anything but life sentences.’

  ‘Mr. Fusil, you’re not worried about a spot of receiving or an ’it-and-run. Your time’s taken up with a D.C. what’s going down for putting the black on me.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You’d bust a gut to get ’im off the ’ook. Me — I’d bust a gut not to go inside for a fiver, or maybe even ’alf a lifer. So let’s get together, all friendly like. You make things straight for me, I’ll talk about Mr. Kerr.’

  ‘I can’t bargain with you.’

  ‘Yes, you can, Mr. Fusil, if you really want to.’

  ‘Start talking about the gold.’

  ‘Mister, you’ve ’ad the offer. Your D.C.’s for the nick. I’m offering to keep ’im out of it. Now you wouldn’t want a nice man like ’im to be put inside for something ’e maybe ain’t done, would you?’

  Fusil drew on his pipe and the bitter anger within him grew. Walker’s offer made so man
y things clear. Kerr had been framed, clearly in order to distract the attention of the police away from the gold, which had still been aboard when Walker had originally laid his complaint. Kerr had discovered something which might have led the police to the discovery of that third lot of gold: but now the gold had been taken ashore and the whole operation was over, except in respect of Walker — and his offer made certain he would end up in the clear. Someone with far more brains and cunning than a dozen Walkers, and far more experience than a dozen Leerys, had worked out the plan. Walker’s offer couldn’t be refused and the moment that it was accepted the last chance to solve the gold thefts would be gone.

  The man with the brains had allowed for everything. He’d made certain the last consignment of gold was recovered and that the police investigations must end in failure. What could the police do now? Go and interrogate Leery? They’d never been able to discover what he spent his money on — they still couldn’t be certain, provable certain, that he was the ‘contact’ man — so what lever had they over him? Interrogate Heywood-Smith, who must be the brains because this carefully executed plan was so typical of his work? How many times in the past twelve years had the police interrogated him and got nowhere? It was no good knowing the truth: the truth had to be proved in a court of law where the guilty man was given a long head start by the rules of evidence.

  From any angle, the police were neatly tied up…and his career had become a joke: a bad joke. He’d always been ambitious, determined to succeed, driven on by the urge that sent a man to the top. He’d aimed at assistant chief constable: now he’d be lucky if he even ended his working life in the force. When the gold cases fizzled out, his career disappeared down the drain without a dying gurgle. His ambitions had been killed and buried by a man who’d out-guessed and outplayed him.

  Walker’s offer had to be accepted because to refuse it would be to condemn Kerr to imprisonment for a crime he had not committed.

  Fusil walked across to the window and stared out. The whole strength of Heywood-Smith’s plan rested on the fact that no detective inspector would ever turn down the offer because to do so would be to condemn one of his own detective constables to being falsely imprisoned. But, Fusil’s mind insisted, and try as he might he could not silence it, strength that rested on only one leg must carry with it its own weakness — in this case the weakness was that no other action could be envisaged. Suppose, his mind went on, overriding the surge of self-scorn, a very ambitious man knew that to give way meant the end of all his ambitions, but that to take the risk of not doing so might yet allow them to live on, provided only that the terrible price to the detective constable of failure was ignored… Would he have dared consider the risk if the detective constable hadn’t been Kerr, a man for whom he had had an antipathy from the word go?

  ‘Well?’ sneered Walker.

  Fusil turned round and his expression showed, like the tip of an iceberg, just some of the conflict within. ‘I’m locking you up.’

  For several seconds, Walker was too shocked to speak. ‘You can’t,’ he suddenly shouted, with the passion of stupefied fear.

  Fusil was silent.

  ‘Lock me up and your D.C.’s for the nick.’

  ‘That’s my problem.’

  Walker swore violently. Fusil called out and Sumner hurried into the room. ‘Take him off and charge him,’ said Fusil. ‘Make it receiving to start with. Bail to be opposed all along the line.’

  Walker ran towards the door. Sumner grabbed hold of him, but received a blow to the face that sent him flying backwards. Fusil threw himself forward and slammed home a knee into Walker’s groin. Walker bellowed with pain and collapsed to the floor.

  Fusil stepped back. ‘Add assault.’

  Sumner rubbed his cheek where he’d been hit, then dragged Walker to his feet and out of the room.

  Fusil left the interview-room and went up to his office where he sat down behind his desk. He wondered what Josephine would say if she ever learned the full truth. He picked up the nearer telephone and asked the switchboard operator for the police hostel. Whilst he waited to be connected, he tried to judge in its entirety the mind that had planned the false incrimination of Kerr. It was clever, but how clever? What would it do when it met and recognised another clever mind? Was it too clever to be outflanked, or was its very cleverness its weakness because it would be unable to imagine itself being outflanked…?

  The telephone rang. He spoke to the caretaker at the hostel, who told him that Detective Constable Kerr had gone home for the day. Fusil thanked the other, replaced the receiver, and pulled open a drawer from which he took a list of addresses. There was no telephone for Kerr’s home address. Fusil went across to the large-scale map of the county on the wall and checked in which division the address lay. He telephoned the D.I. of that division and asked for a message to be sent to Kerr.

  *

  Kerr’s parents were bewildered and unhappy and unable to hide the fact. His mother fussed around him to such an extent, as if her deep and unalterable affection could somehow protect him from the evils with which he was threatened, that he had to leave the house and go for a walk to escape such concentrated emotion. The village consisted of a dozen houses, two half timbered, one general store, and a pub in the garden of which grew a large mulberry tree. It was a place of seeming unchanging peace and tranquillity, forgotten by the outside world. He gained some slight sense of comfort from this atmosphere, but it was too slight to overcome his desperation and impotent anger. He was innocent of anything, but was going to be found guilty of blackmail. There was nothing more he could do to try to save himself. He was on a collision course with disaster and without any helm to turn.

  He walked past the general store, and was abreast of the chicken farm when a motor-bike stopped immediately behind him and his name was called. He turned to see the local police constable.

  ‘Wotcher, cock!’ said the constable, as he peeled off his crash helmet. His manner was over-ebullient, showing the embarrassment he felt at the meeting. ‘You’re wanted by your boss. Priority calls and my missus having to answer the telephone every ten minutes.’

  ‘What’s the panic?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Fusil requests your pleasure immediately, or sooner.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They didn’t say, and my missus didn’t ask.’

  Kerr thanked the constable, turned, and hurried over the crossroads to his parents’ cottage. His mother seemed to be on the point of tears and, although he cursed himself for the fact, he was glad to get away.

  He caught the local bus to Haverton station, waited twenty minutes and then boarded the slow train to Fortrow. At Fortrow Central, he caught another bus to Eastern Division H.Q.

  He reported to Fusil and was astonished by the D.I.’s attitude, but quite unable to make out what that attitude portended.

  Fusil fiddled with his pipe for some moments, then cleared his throat. ‘I’m bringing you back on duty,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘On…on duty, sir?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘But why…?’

  ‘D’you have to argue over everything?’

  ‘It’s just that I thought the chief constable suspended me, sir.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Has he put me back on the strength?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who has?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Why?’

  Fusil put his pipe down on the desk. ‘I want you to…to trust me and keep your mouth shut.’

  Kerr was totally surprised. ‘To…to trust you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t…’

  ‘Goddamn it, man, can’t you realise I’m trying to help you?’ Fusil picked up his pipe once more and gripped it tightly. An ambitious man became a liar very quickly and very easily. ‘Listen, and get this exactly right because it’s your last chance. You’ll go and see a man called Heywood-Smith and you’ll tell him exactly what I say and you’ll add
nothing, subtract nothing, even if you don’t understand a thing. Is that clear?’

  Kerr slowly nodded.

  *

  The taxi turned off the road into the drive and came to a stop in front of the gothic porch of Heller Towers.

  ‘Looks like a bleeding nightmare,’ said the driver, and sniffed heavily. ‘That’ll be ten and a tanner.’

  Kerr gave him fifteen shillings. The taxi left. He looked at the parked Mercedes 600, turned, and went between the columns to the front door and banged on the knocker of brass, shaped in the form of a sea monster. An elderly, ugly woman opened the door and peered at him with the frowning concentration of the short-sighted.

  ‘Is Mr. Heywood-Smith in?’

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked, in a voice broad with the local accent.

  ‘The name’s Kerr.’ He stepped into the hall. The woman hesitated, then went into one of the rooms to the right. He stared at a mounted head with enormous curling horns that was set high up on one of the walls and wondered if Heywood-Smith had shot the animal.

  A large man, smoking a cigar, came into the hall, followed by the ugly woman. She murmured something and Heywood-Smith nodded, then walked forward. Kerr was struck by the grace with which he walked.

  Heywood-Smith came to a stop six feet away. ‘You wanted to see me?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well?’ There was an unreadable expression on his thick face.

  ‘The name’s Kerr.’

  ‘So my housekeeper said.’

  ‘Detective Constable Kerr.’

  ‘The name’s familiar.’ Heywood-Smith spoke with an impersonal distaste. ‘You’re on trial for blackmail.’

  ‘That’s right. And I’ve also been suspended from the police force because these days suspicion’s as good as guilt — if you’re a policeman.’

  ‘The public has to be protected.’

  ‘That’s a lot of bloody cant. But I’ll tell you who’s needing protection, and that’s you.’

  Heywood-Smith said nothing.

  ‘You’re in dead trouble — unless you listen and listen close.’