Ransom Town Read online

  Menton, a man who couldn’t help being over-precise, asked several questions which Fusil reckoned totally unnecessary before ringing off. Fusil then telephoned New Scotland Yard and asked to be put through to the Anti-Terrorist section. He spoke to an inspector and briefly described events. ‘Have you come across the Organization for Social Equality before?’

  ‘It doesn’t ring any bells right away, but hang on and I’ll check.’

  He waited, tapping on the desk, as always impatient.

  ‘Hullo . . . No, we haven’t met it before. But nowadays that doesn’t mean overmuch: sometimes it seems as if every other day there’s a new outfit sprung up and trying to get in on the act, shouting for this, that, and the other. You’ve nothing else to go on: no background, no idea of what they’re really after or what other outfit they might have contacts with?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Leave it with me, then, and I’ll ask around. In the meantime, I presume you’ll be calling us in?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes.’

  ‘Someone will be down, then, but God knows who – we’re so short-staffed we’ve forgotten what time off means.’

  ‘Snap.’

  The inspector laughed. ‘Oh, well, as I always comfort myself, we may die from perforated ulcers, but it won’t be from boredom.’

  *

  Detective Constable Kerr, standing in front of the large, leather-topped desk, ran his fingers through his brown, curly hair as if to try to shake some order into it. He smiled disarmingly. ‘I know just how you feel, sir.’

  The bank manager, a thin, sniffing man, sniffed. ‘I doubt that. Perhaps you are unaware that this must be the fourth or fifth visit from the police I have suffered?’

  ‘I’m afraid these things usually do drag on for a long time.’

  ‘Surely, though, not for months?’ Detective constables were becoming even younger and brasher, the manager decided sourly.

  He hadn’t been asked to sit, but Kerr sat. ‘It goes like this. We reckon the mob must have had inside information which means a member of the staff was either bribed or blackmailed into giving it. If it was blackmail, that won’t show up in the man’s accounts, but if it was bribery, then it probably will. If the regular housekeeping money isn’t drawn for a few weeks, or there’s a large cheque paid in . . .’

  ‘Constable, would it not be possible to credit me with an understanding of the more simple financial facts of life?’

  Kerr grinned, making him look younger than his twenty-four years and underlining the fact that there wasn’t much in life which he took too seriously. ‘Then that saves me trying to explain. . . . Do any of the staff’s accounts look at all interesting?’

  ‘“Interesting” is hardly the word I would use.’ The manager rested his elbows on the desk and joined his thumbs and finger-tips together: he stared at Kerr over the top of the triangle formed by his fingers. ‘As you may know . . .’ He sniffed. ‘. . . All bank staff are obliged under the terms of their contracts to maintain their banking accounts with their own bank. I therefore am fully conversant with all the accounts of my staff and I can state quite categorically that not a single one of them shows any noticeable variation in income or expenditure.’

  ‘Not even that of Brian Morgan?’

  ‘I believe I said, not a single account.’

  ‘That’s one lead unfortunately closed right up, then.’

  ‘It is strange to hear honesty regretted, Constable.’

  Kerr grinned again. ‘It’s just that in our job obvious dishonesty makes life a lot easier.’

  ‘No member of my staff is dishonest. No member would ever have passed on any information concerning the alarm system.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, but we have to keep on plugging away. What’s this bloke Morgan like?’

  ‘Why do you keep referring specifically to him?’

  ‘Because he did raise his life style after the robbery: colour TV, a new car, a holiday abroad with his wife . . .’

  ‘All of which is – as I would have thought you knew – readily explainable. His father-in-law gave him a present of three thousand pounds. At the beginning of this very protracted investigation, the selfsame point was raised with me and I was able to confirm that a cheque for that amount drawn on his wife’s stepfather’s account was paid into his account.’

  ‘I wish my father-in-law could afford to slip me three grand. . . . And you can’t help me turn up something in anyone else’s finances?’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, then. With any luck I won’t have to disturb you again.’

  Kerr walked along the High Street, then stopped in front of one of the show windows of a large furniture store. On display was a sectional, curved sofa, in light green. Two nights ago, he and Helen, after leaving the cinema, had walked past this store and she had suddenly come to a stop and stared at the settee and after a while she had said, in a wistful voice: ‘If only we could afford that. It’s just what I’ve been wanting ever since we were married.’ He would have given anything to be able to go inside and buy that settee on H.P., but the deposit alone would have wrecked their budget for months. He ought to have gone up to the Midlands to work in one of the car factories: no discipline, no excessive and often unpaid overtime, no fear of having to face an armed and desperate villain so that a hospital bed or a grave was just a hairbreadth away, but instead a wage which would buy any settee his wife wanted. . . . He was not a very deep thinker, being a person who largely lived for the present, but he did sometimes wonder about the paradox by which modern society most devalued the work of those on whom it most relied to maintain its standards.

  He turned away from the show window and as he did so a Ferrari, blood red, its exhausts growling money, came to a momentary stop abreast of him. The driver was about his own age. The line of traffic moved once more and the Ferrari continued on its golden way into the late afternoon which was already turning into dusk. Some people enjoyed a very different world. Was the driver on his way to pick up a luscious blonde who was both promise and delivery? Would they eat in a restaurant where the prices were so high that the average man’s wallet would faint at the sight of them? He suddenly laughed aloud. What the hell! Life played more jokers than aces. In half an hour’s time, that epicene driver might be a gory mess after trying to do eighty round a thirty corner.

  He continued past several expensive shops to the traffic lights, where he turned right. Here there had been no need for major reconstruction after World War 2 bombing and the shops were small and old-fashioned and some of them were obviously having to struggle really hard to meet the competition of the supermarkets and chain stores.

  At the police station he went up to the detective sergeant’s room which lay between the D.I.’s and the general room.

  ‘Sarge, I’ve been to the bank. There’s nothing fresh on offer. The manager swears none of his staff could have passed on information and all their accounts are whiter than white.’

  Campson spoke with bored superiority. ‘I could have told you that before you started.’

  ‘Why didn’t you, then, and save me the journey?’

  ‘It was the old man’s picnic.’

  For once, Kerr maintained a tactful silence. One didn’t have to be very perspicacious to understand that the detective inspector and the detective sergeant would never, see eye to eye over how to run the divisional C.I.D. ‘Do you want a report on the interview?’

  ‘That’s a bloody silly question! In triplicate, with all the underlining in red.’

  ‘I’ll be off, then, and get it started.’ He looked at the clock on the wall: three-quarters of an hour before he could safely finish work.

  ‘See Morgan when he gets back home,’ said Campson. ‘Question him about his life style – how he managed to go to Crete for his holidays when most of us can’t get any further than a grotty hotel in Mallorca.’

  ‘Sarge, that’s all been sorted out long ago. His wife’s step-father gave them thre
e thousand smackeroos. The bank statements have been checked and Coutts did draw a cheque for three grand on his own account . . .’

  ‘Mr Fusil wants it all checked again.’

  ‘But what’s the point? What can I ask that’s fresh?’

  ‘You’ll think of something – you’re never short of words.’

  ‘“Their’s not to reason why . . .”? All right, I’ll see him tomorrow morning and . . .’

  ‘You’ll see him this evening,’ cut in Campson, with pleasurable authority.

  *

  The Dutch barn was to the right of the old-fashioned farm buildings in an area cleared from the rough woodland which stretched north to the Heathcote road. When full, it held three thousand bales of hay.

  The wind came from the south-west, harassing the remaining leaves which stubbornly clung to the branches of deciduous trees. A number of yews grew near the Dutch barn and their needle-laden branches threshed against each other to make a noise like that of distant, heavy surf.

  On the south face of the hay in the barn there appeared a quick flame. A gust of wind bent this flame right over and seemed to extinguish it, but seconds later it reappeared, grown astonishingly. Within fifteen minutes, flames were rising higher than the ridge of the main span.

  Chapter Four

  D.C. Welland had earlier made it clear that in the course of duty he needed the C.I.D. car from six o’clock onwards, but he wasn’t a man to hold a grudge for long, so Kerr used the car to drive to the north-western suburb of Dritlington.

  He parked close to number fourteen, Clevis Road. It was a road of semi-detacheds, each with a small front garden and a slightly larger back one. The kind of housing into which a detective superintendent might retire if he’d been careful with his money all his life.

  The front garden of number fourteen, seen in the light of the nearest street light, was immaculately tidy with not a weed or a dead leaf in sight. It reminded Kerr that he really ought to do something about their place, as Helen kept suggesting: but gardening irritated him because it was literally never-ending – one couldn’t ever sit back and say, ‘Well, that’s it.’ He rang the bell and heard a short chime.

  The door opened. He couldn’t remember when he’d last seen a woman who so immediately reminded him of rumpled sheets. She was carefully built and her main attractions were obvious but not ostentatious. Her eyes were dark, velvety brown and her lips were very full and moist and they curled as if to ask ‘When?’ ‘Mrs Morgan?’ he asked, in what he hoped was a level voice.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My name’s Detective Constable Kerr. I’d be most grateful for a quick word with your husband, if that’s at all possible.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she answered, with obvious reluctance. ‘But he really does like to rest completely when he gets back from work.’

  If he came home to a wife like this, he wouldn’t be at all concerned with resting. He smiled as he stepped inside. ‘I promise to make it as short as I can.’

  ‘Brian’s out at the back, playing with his woodwork, so you’d better come through. I’m afraid the kitchen’s in a bit of a muddle.’

  He followed her across the attractively furnished hall and through the kitchen. When he wasn’t watching the voluptuous way her hips moved, he noticed that the kitchen had all the latest labour-saving machinery. A wife who’d have made Miss Troy and a generous Mr Coutts seemed to be overdoing one man’s good luck.

  The back door led out on to a small tiled area and the far side of this was bounded by a wooden shed, ten feet by six, from which light streamed through the single window. She opened the door, but at that moment a power saw created a shrill whine which made any speech impossible until the sawing had finished. ‘Brian. There’s a detective to see you.’

  ‘Who d’you say was here?’

  She ignored the question, turned, and walked back into the house. A man looked out of the shed. ‘What’s the matter?’ Sawdust had sprayed the sweater he was wearing.

  Kerr introduced himself and explained the purpose of his visit.

  Morgan turned and pulled a plug out of its socket, switched off the overhead light, came out and shut the door. ‘I can’t think what you want to talk about now,’ he said petulantly.

  ‘Just trying to tie up a few odds and ends.’

  ‘I thought it was all over and done with. I suppose we’d better go into the sitting-room. . . . No, it’ll have to be the dining-room because Betty will be watching the telly.’

  Betty. What a totally inappropriate name! She should have been christened Penelope or Consuella.

  The dining-room, not very large, was over-furnished. There was a mahogany leaf table with ball and claw feet, elegant but too heavy for the space, and six ladder-back chairs whose homespun style failed to suit the table. There was a sideboard with elegant brass handles, on the top of which was a large cut-glass bowl containing fruit, and a pair of four branch candelabra with fluted stems. On the wall opposite the fireplace was a heavy gilt-framed portrait of an elderly man with mutton-chop whiskers and the face of a petty tyrant.

  ‘I suppose you’d like a beer?’ asked Morgan. Then, realizing he’d hardly framed the question politely, he hastily added: ‘Or some sherry, if you’d prefer that?’

  ‘I think I’d like a sherry, please. When it gets this chilly, I go off the beer.’

  ‘If you’re cold, I’ll put the fire on.’

  Morgan bent down and switched on a fan heater. He was a well-built man, with a broad pair of shoulders and a slim waist. He had tight curly hair, heavy eyebrows, a pleasantly shaped nose, a regular mouth, and even, white teeth. His smile was engaging. Yet Kerr saw in his face an underlying suggestion of weakness which prevented his being handsome.

  Morgan crossed to the sideboard and brought from this two glasses and a half-filled bottle of sherry. He filled the glasses and handed one over. ‘Move a chair out and sit down. I’m sorry we’re stuck in here and aren’t in the other room, but Betty wouldn’t miss her programme for anything and you know what the ladies are – you have to keep ’em happy.’

  It would take a teal man to keep her happy. Kerr raised his glass ‘First today and twice as welcome for that.’ He sat down. ‘As I said, I just wanted to find out if you could tell me anything fresh about the bank robbery?’ He looked enquiringly at Morgan.

  ‘But I thought that was finished with weeks ago?’

  ‘I wish it were – then right now I’d have my feet under my own table and not be bothering you. . . . No, I’m afraid we’re still trying to find out who the villains were and how they learned the details of the alarm system.’

  ‘I’m sure . . .’ He stopped. ‘I just don’t believe any of the staff would ever have given away the details of the alarms.’

  ‘That means you can’t think of anyone who might have done such a thing?’

  ‘It means I wouldn’t even try,’ replied Morgan, with an attempt at firmness.

  ‘Not if you knew someone on the staff was a traitor?’

  ‘I don’t know and nobody knows that for certain, so it’s a hypothetical question.’

  ‘But an interesting one, perhaps?’

  Morgan drank.

  ‘You’ve a nice place here, Mr Morgan . . .’

  ‘Look you don’t have to beat all around the bush. You’re forgetting, I’ve been through all this before.’ His voice rose. ‘I’m just an ordinary bank clerk so I don’t earn enough to buy a new colour TV, a new car, and go on holiday to a nice hotel in Crete, all within a few months. Where did the money come from? From telling someone where the alarms were? No, it bloody didn’t come from there, because I never told anyone anything. Betty’s step-father gave us three thousand pounds because we’re young and he reckoned we’d get more fun out of it than he could. There’s nothing illegal there, so why keep persecuting me?’

  ‘Steady on, no one’s persecuting you. We always have to check up on everyone in a case like this and find out who’s spending. But the moment you explain where th
e money came from, that’s it – there’s an end to everything.’

  ‘No, there isn’t. I’ve explained everything before and it’s been checked, but now you’re here, still poking and prying.’

  ‘Call it force of habit. What I really came for is to find out whether you’ve heard of anything fresh which might help us.’

  ‘To put things more crudely, will I be an informer?’

  ‘If by that you mean someone who’ll help us arrest the traitor, yes.’

  Morgan emptied his glass, hesitated, then stood up and crossed to the sideboard to pour himself another drink. ‘It’s the way you people are so ready to believe I could be a crook which gets me. Why?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, crooks don’t always come with stubbled chins and bad breath.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That it doesn’t matter what anyone’s position is, he can’t be above checking out. If there were a leak of information from our department, I’d expect to be under suspicion, along with every other member of C.I.D., until the traitor was found, even though I’m every bit as proud of my own honesty as you are of yours.’

  Morgan drank. He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘There’s no call to be sorry,’ said Kerr, slightly contemptuous of the sudden unnecessary and ingratiating apology.

  ‘But I shouldn’t get so hot and bothered about being questioned. As you said, everyone’s got to be under suspicion until you find out what happened. I’m sure you’re wrong, though. No one on the staff would have told the crooks about the alarms.’

  ‘Well, maybe we’ll know one way or the other some day. In the meantime, let’s have a recap – do you know anyone on the staff whose life style has changed very much for the better?’

  ‘There’s no one like that. Because there’s no traitor.’

  ‘You’re very loyal,’ said Kerr. He stood up. ‘Thanks for the drink.’