A Man Condemned Read online

  A double-decker bus stopped immediately behind them and passengers began to file aboard. A van passed them and then pulled in to the pavement outside the supermarket to unload.

  ‘It’s five to,’ said Whitehead and now there was some tension in his voice. The high street, restricted to one-way traffic, had been divided into two by an island and the left-hand lane was reserved for loading and unloading. It was easy to park temporarily, but if they had to wait for any length of time an officious traffic warden might come along.

  ‘Here it comes,’ said Cromartie.

  A blunt, battleship-grey armoured truck, looking rather menacing, passed them and pulled into the kerb behind the unloading lorry. A guard, in uniform and wearing a crash-helmet with a vizor, climbed down from the cab and went round to the back. A second guard looked out through the heavily grilled window in the right-hand rear door, then unlocked the small flap in the bottom corner of the left-hand door and passed through two black suitcases to the outside guard who carried them into the bank, accompanied by the driver.

  Cromartie put on a golfing-cap with a very deep brim, left and went round the bonnet of the Jaguar and along to the bank.

  Whitehead slid from under his seat a sawn-off automatic shotgun. Ertl drew his Walther 9mm automatic: he had been carrying that the night Brigitte had died. Both men put on golfing-caps, similar to the one Cromartie was wearing, making certain that the peaks were pulled down to conceal much of the upper halves of their faces.

  Cromartie came out of the bank and stood in the recessed doorway to light a cigarette. The first guard stepped out, letting the swing-door shut behind him. He looked around to check that all was quiet and in order and his attention became fixed on Cromartie.

  ‘The bleeder’s sharp,’ muttered Whitehead.

  Cromartie moved away and went down the stone steps to the pavement, turned left. The guard relaxed, signalled to his companion through the upper half of the swing-doors, then himself went down the steps to wait at their foot.

  The second guard left the bank, a black suitcase in either hand. As the swing-doors shut behind him, he called out something to the first man and they both laughed.

  ‘Now,’ said Whitehead. He started the engine.

  Ertl opened the door and stepped out on to the pavement. A woman, pushing a half filled shopping-trolley, saw the gun in his hand and stared at it with mouth-gaping astonishment. Another woman looked at him and then hurried on, as if to deny the evidence of her eyes would be to escape any involvement.

  Whitehead ran forward, with the shotgun levelled at the guard with the suitcases. Cromartie spat out the cigarette and ground it to shreds with his heel, drew a stubby revolver.

  The two guards tried desperately to reach the back of the armoured truck, so that the cases could be pushed through the flap, but Whitehead reached the truck first to cut them off. ‘Drop them,’ he ordered harshly.

  The guard with the cases came to a stop, but held on to them. A woman screamed. A boy in his middle teens ran into the bank and almost immediately the shrill clanging of an alarm-bell sounded.

  Cromartie reversed his revolver and slammed the butt down on the neck of the second guard, but mis-judged the angle of the blow so that it struck the edge of the helmet. The guard staggered back, but kept firm hold on the suitcases. The first guard, shouting, came forward.

  Ertl fired. The second guard seemed to be pushed backwards by an invisible hand and then he doubled up, dropping the suitcases. He reached with both hands to his stomach. Growing agony twisted his face before he collapsed.

  There was a lot of shouting as bewildered, frightened people tried to surge clear. Cromartie dropped his revolver into his pocket, grabbed the two cases and ran. Whitehead raised the twelve-bore and fired into the air: half a dozen pigeons, which had risen from the roofs of the nearby buildings at the first shot and were now gliding back in, veered with loudly clapping wings and flew away. Even before the ejected case had hit the pavement, he was sprinting for the car.

  Cromartie dropped one of the cases, wrenched open the nearside back door of the Jaguar, threw that case inside, then pulled the other in with him. Ertl reached the front passenger seat. Whitehead threw his shotgun into the back, scrambled behind the wheel and engaged first; he accelerated as he released the handbrake and they drew away from the kerb with squealing tyres.

  The exit to the loading and unloading lane was fifty yards down and a hundred yards beyond that were traffic lights, turning to red. Whitehead, a brilliant driver, came out and around a slowing Austin and turned left, using the wheel to kill an incipient skid. As they passed the public library, they were doing seventy.

  They turned into a side street, went round two sides of a playing-field and stopped in front of a derelict factory whose grounds where filled with rubbish.

  Whitehead said—and these were the first words spoken since they’d completed the snatch: ‘You were bleeding quick with the shooter, weren’t you?’

  ‘Was necessary, to get cases,’ replied Ertl.

  ‘I only hope you didn’t croak him.’ Whitehead’s concern was for himself, not the guard: the police pressed a murder case with even more determination than an armed robbery.

  They changed from the Jaguar to their getaway car parked in the quiet back road three quarters of an hour earlier. Whitehead again drove, this time at the legal speed in order to avoid attention. Trigger-happy Kraut, he thought, trying not to feel a sense of admiration for a man who could shoot another merely to hurry up a robbery.

  Chapter Four

  Fusil looked up at the clock on the far wall of the bank. Twenty-two minutes since the wages-snatch. By now the villains must have transferred to their getaway car and made it clear of Fortrow.

  A uniform sergeant entered and came over. ‘We’ve had word from the DC at the hospital, sir. Badger, the security guard, has just died without being able to make any statement.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He walked the length of the bank, past the cash-points shielded by bullet-proof glass, to the enquiries counter. He called out that he wanted to use a phone and one of the male clerks hurried across and pressed a button to release the half-door to his left. He lifted the flap, pushed open the door and made his way round to the first working space with a telephone.

  He dialled county HQ and reported to Menton that the guard had died so that now this was a murder case. Menton said he would be down immediately to take over command of the investigation. As he replaced the receiver, Fusil swore.

  He left the bank and stepped out on to the pavement. Five uniformed policemen were carrying out crowd control—there was little to see, but a large number of people wanted to see it. Traffic had been refused entry into the last half of the loading lane and a temporary bus stop had had to be set up. The armoured truck stood where it had been parked; near it on the pavement was a small smear of dried blood. Yarrow, making use of the truck to protect himself from the sharp wind which was being funnelled down the street, was questioning the two guards. That was all right, thought Fusil. Yarrow, suffering from far too much self-assurance, was inclined to be a bit sharp in his questioning, but the guards were used to discipline and, despite his faults, he was always on the ball. Twenty feet away, beyond the armoured truck, DC Welland was talking to three housewives of varying ages. He was the right man to question women who were flustered or shocked because he was the kind of person with whom they would immediately feel at ease. Nearer, and well this side of the truck, DC Smith was looking his usual mournful self as he spoke to a man in a shabby pin-striped suit: Smith was a plodder but reliable. Between Smith and the bank, Detective Sergeant Campson and DC Bressett were talking to a postman. Ten to one, Bressett had started the interview and Campson had gone over because he didn’t trust Bressett. But, if Bressett could at times be strangely naive, he was at all times good with ordinary people so Campson could, and should, have let him carry on unaided.

  Fusil crossed to Yarrow. Yarrow said: ‘I’ve a good description of two of the v
illains, sir. Neither guard was close enough to get a reasonable butchers at the third one.’

  Good description? wondered Fusil, not critically but matter-of-factly because experience showed time and time again that when a violent event happened unexpectedly eye-witnesses’ accounts were seldom accurate. ‘Get through to HQ and give ’em the descriptions as preliminaries. Then take these two guards down to the station and work on identifit portraits and mug-shots.’ He spoke to the elder of the guards. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve very bad news for you. Your mate has just died in hospital.’

  The guard sucked in his breath with an audible hiss. His companion said, in tones of bewildered resentment: ‘But I was talking to him just before it happened.’

  Every policeman soon learned that life and death moved far more closely together than most people imagined, thought Fusil. That was why policemen found it easier to enjoy an everyday life and did not forever long for something different. ‘We’ve got to nail the bastards who killed him,’ he said briskly, knowing the value of treating tragedy in a matter-of-fact way. ‘This is where you can help a lot by going with this detective to the police-station.’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ muttered the elder man.

  ‘You’ll probably like to phone your firm to give them a first-hand report.’

  A PC hurried up to where he stood. ‘Message from the station, sir. A Jaguar, dark maroon, registration number PKN three one four T, has been found in Harper Road. It was stolen from London early this morning. No search of it has been made.’

  ‘Get back on to ’em and say I’ll be along immediately—and they’re to continue to leave everything alone until I arrive.’ That should have been an unnecessary order, but someone might suddenly become over-enthusiastic.

  The PC left. ‘Campson,’ Fusil called out. The detective sergeant left Bressett and the postman and walked over. ‘Have you organized the cartridge-cases?’

  ‘A patrol car’s on its way to take ’em to Ballistics.’

  They had found one brass automatic case and one plastic twelve-bore case on the pavement.

  ‘I’m going over to Harper Road—they’ve found an abandoned Jaguar. If Mr Menton turns up, tell him where I’ve gone.’

  Fusil walked along the pavement to his car. One of the crowd-control PCs forced people to move to let him drive out of the loading and unloading lane on to the road.

  In Harper Road, a panda car was parked immediately in front of the Jaguar and a PC was standing in the road, good-humouredly making certain that a number of children kept their distance.

  The PC saluted. ‘Nothing’s been touched, sir.’

  ‘Good. You picked it up smartly.’

  The PC was both pleased and surprised by the brief praise: amongst the ranks, Fusil was known as being too sharp for his own or anyone else’s good.

  Fusil studied the Jaguar. It had been stolen that morning, its colour was the same as given by some of the eye-witnesses outside the bank, its number was almost the same and Harper Road was en route to the motorway. It was odds on, then, that this was the car the gunmen had used. He spoke over the radio in his own car to divisional HQ and asked them to send out a driver with an emergency kit and to arrange for a fingerprint expert to be at the station as soon as possible.

  Back at the Jaguar, he used a handkerchief to open each of the four doors; there was nothing of interest inside. There was no key in the ignition so he could not open the boot.

  Ten minutes later, a dog-handler’s van arrived and a sergeant climbed out of the passenger seat, carrying a shabby, battered suitcase. ‘’Morning, sir,’ he muttered. It wasn’t very long since Fusil had reprimanded him for a mistake someone else had made and he still resented the fact.

  Fusil, who seldom bothered about other people’s feelings, said brusquely: ‘When you’ve got the Jag back to the station, tell Vehicles to get moving on it the moment Dabs has cleared it.’

  The sergeant put the suitcase down on the pavement and took from it a sheet, wrapped in a plastic bag, a pair of thin cotton gloves, an extension steering-wheel and three bunches of keys. He put on the gloves, opened the driving door, extracted the sheet from the bag and draped it over the driving-seat: he sat and, using the four clamps, secured the extension steering-wheel. He tried each key in turn and found one that fitted on the second bunch.

  ‘If Dabs isn’t there by the time you get back, put a stick of dynamite under him,’ said Fusil, through the opened window.

  I know just where I’d like to put that stick of dynamite, thought the sergeant as he drove off.

  *

  Kerr spoke in turn to each of the occupants of the homes along Harper Road. When he knocked at the door of number seventeen, the door was opened by a woman whom he immediately labelled a nice bit of crackling.

  ‘I’m not buying anything,’ she said.

  ‘That’s fine, because I’m not selling anything.’

  She had not missed his look of admiration. She primped her hair with fingers whose nails were blood-red. ‘What are you on about, then?’

  ‘I’m from the police. What I’d like to know is, have you been in all morning?’

  ‘Except when I did the shopping, yes. The factory’s been on short time for the past few months so I don’t work on Fridays. What’s all this matter to anyone?’

  ‘Well, it’s like this. We’re interested in a Jaguar that was just along the road on the other side, opposite the old factory, and we’re trying to find someone who saw it park.’

  ‘I didn’t. And I can tell you for sure, there wasn’t no Jaguar there when I went by. I’d of noticed if there had been. I’ve always said to Dai—he’s my husband—the first thing I’m going to do after winning the pools is to buy a Jaguar.’

  ‘When did you go shopping?’

  She frowned. ‘Strewth, that’s a difficult one! . . . Look, instead of hanging around here in the doorway, how d’you like to come on in and have a coffee?’

  ‘You don’t have to ask twice.’

  Nothing more than coffee,’ she warned him archly.

  Some blokes never get lucky!’

  She led the way into the kitchen, plugged in the electric kettle and switched it on. ‘You’ve not yet said why you’re so interested in this Jaguar.’

  ‘There was an armed wages-snatch outside the National Westminster in the high street and the gunmen got away in a Jaguar. We reckon it was the one that was parked in this road.’

  ‘Go on! Did anyone get hurt?’

  ‘One of the guards was shot. I’m afraid he died in hospital.’

  She was shocked, but after a short while she began to collect together mugs, sugar in a plastic container, milk in a bottle, and teaspoons.

  ‘Now, how about working out when it was you went shopping?’ said Kerr.

  ‘Well, I’d been listenin’ to that request programme on the radio . . . it’ll have been just after ten. Call it a quarter past and it won’t make me much of a liar.’

  ‘And how long d’you reckon you were out shopping?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Could’ve been half an hour.’

  ‘Did you come back past the old factory?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘When you came past, did you notice if any cars were parked opposite it?’

  The kettle boiled. She spooned instant coffee into the two mugs, added water and stirred. She passed him one mug and said to help himself to sugar and milk. ‘There was a big white car there: new from the look of it.’

  ‘Can you remember what make it was?’

  ‘It might have been a Ford,’ she answered uncertainly. ‘You know, the big one.’

  He helped himself to two spoonfuls of sugar and plenty of milk. ‘I suppose you never noticed the number? Or part of it?’

  She shook her head.

  It might have been the change-over car, he thought. But without a far better description it didn’t really matter whether it was, or wasn’t.

  He offered her a cigarette. When a man wo
rked as hard as he did, he was entitled to a bit of a coffee-break.

  *

  Menton had noticeably high cheek-bones and thin lips; to look at him was to know that he had a rigid, conforming character. He dressed formally, even when it would have been better to dress informally, and invariably he somehow managed to appear, despite all his care, dowdy rather than smart.

  He stood by the window in the office of the assistant bank-manager and said, his voice occasionally showing traces of the Devonshire burr of his youth: ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all so far,’ answered Fusil, who’d just listed the evidence to date. ‘That is, except for . . .’ He became silent.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The witnesses all agree that not one of the three guards made the slightest move to offer any resistance; the two surviving guards have confirmed that their orders were not to fight if faced with guns; yet one of the gunmen shot to kill.’

  ‘What’s so odd about that in this day and age?’ asked Menton bitterly.

  ‘Villains still don’t normally fire their guns unless they have to: there may not be any death penalty for murder, but there is a psychological reluctance to run the risk of murdering.’

  ‘I’d never built much on that. How many poor devils were shot last year in the course of robberies?’

  ‘When there was no call to shoot them since they weren’t offering any opposition?’

  Menton dismissed the question as being, at the present stage, meaningless.

  Chapter Five

  Menton, who had taken over Fusil’s office, stared at the pile of papers on the desk—during the previous afternoon and evening, witness statements had been typed out and crosschecked—and then phoned a member of the firm of loss-adjusters who were dealing with the insurance of the stolen money. ‘Menton here again. Have you got a decision yet? . . . Good. The usual ten per cent for information leading to the arrest of the gunmen. And we can push that news around now? . . . Yes, it ought to flush some of the worms out of the woodwork.’