Ransom Town Read online

  ‘That’s all right. And I’m sorry if I seemed to get a bit excited, but . . . Well, you know how I feel. Look, have the other half before you go?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll be on my way. Supper should be waiting and I could eat a couple of horses.’ He put his glass down on the table and realized he’d made a mistake when Morgan hastily came forward and picked it up. ‘Betty likes to keep things clean.’

  Pity! thought Kerr.

  *

  On its south side the suburb of Ribstow was bordered by the Old Docks. A Salvation Army captain had once declared that in the streets of South Ribstow the Lord and the devil fought face to face. Certainly, the chief occupation of those who lived near the docks seemed to be either relieving visiting seamen of all their possessions or else stealing or receiving cargo. Vice was a way of life, violence and theft were endemic, and virtue was a foreign word.

  However, within this jungle there were some clearings and the further north one went the larger the clearings became. Near the borders of South Flecton there were a number of houses, often run by retired prostitutes who possessed the necessary toughness of character, where men (seldom women) could for a very reasonable amount rent a bed-sitter for the day, week, or month, and lead an uneventful life.

  Mrs Prosser had grown stout, but it was a jolly fatness, a celebration of the honest life she had finally reached. With this honest life had come a liking for respectability and now it was only when she had been drinking that she forgot to guard her behaviour and acknowledge her partiality for young men. Unfortunately, she drank rather a lot.

  She looked at her watch. It was already eleven-thirty and she swore, a habit of which she could never break herself. She went into the hall, newly polished because cleanliness was next to Godliness, and stared up the stairs. ‘Bert,’ she shouted, her voice hoarse from chain-smoking.

  An elderly man, bald except for a few straggly grey hairs, looked over the banisters upstairs. ‘I ain’t seen him around at all, Ma.’

  ‘Give him a shout: the lazy bastard can’t have got out of bed yet,’ she said with good humour. She had a soft spot for Albert Mickey because he reminded her of a pimp for whom she had once worked.

  She walked over to the mirror by the side of the elaborate coat-stand and studied her reflection. She was well satisfied with what she saw.

  There was a wild shout from above. ‘’Ere. Ma, come ’ere.’

  ‘What the hell’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh, Gawd!’

  It was obviously serious. She hurried up the stairs, beginning to pant before she reached the top. The old man was in the doorway of Mickey’s room, looking inside. ‘What is it?’ she demanded roughly. When he didn’t answer, but just continued standing there, she pushed him aside with a sweep of her massive hips.

  The bed was an old, iron-framed one with heavy uprights topped with brass balls, candy-twist framework with scrolls, and springing of the most primitive type, all now rusty and chipped. A looped length of cord had been tied to part of the largest scroll and Mickey’s head was inside the loop, his distorted face turned towards the door. His body sprawled out at an angle, so that his feet extended clear of the right-hand upright.

  Chapter Five

  Fusil said, ‘All right, we’ll look into it,’ curtly enough to make it clear that he thought the supermarket manager’s complaint was of little substance. He left the office and impatiently pushed his way through the crowd of shoppers to the outside doors. His car was parked on double solid lines and a traffic warden was preparing to write a ticket. ‘Bad luck,’ he said, ‘but this is one you don’t make.’

  ‘Oh, it’s your car, Inspector! Well, you know, we’re supposed to book everyone who parks here, even if they’re from C.I.D. . . .’

  ‘If you’re down on numbers for this week, try Ponders Road.’

  ‘It’s not that. But it is narrow just here and a parked car does cause the traffic to slow up. . . .’

  Fusil climbed into his car. He knew he’d behaved in a boorish way, but didn’t give a damn. The small-minded exercise of authority always annoyed him; that was why he worked badly with some of his superiors.

  He drove along to the traffic lights, turned left, and threaded his way through the back streets to the main Barstone Road. Once clear of the town, he reached over and picked up the radio microphone with his left hand and pressed down the transmitting switch. ‘Hullo, Sierra Sierra X-ray. Has anything fresh broken? Bravo Tango one, over.’

  ‘Hullo, Bravo Tango one. There is a reported male suicide by hanging from Ribstow.’

  ‘Are any details in?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Who’s gone from C.I.D.?’

  ‘I think it was D.C. Yarrow.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Nothing of any consequence, sir.’

  ‘I’m on my way to county H.Q. I hope to be back by fifteen hundred hours. Over and out.’

  A man had hanged himself. What torments had driven him to that? Fusil could see himself committing suicide if suffering from an incurable disease and to do so would be to release his family from the heavy burden of his illness, but in no other instance because he believed every man should have the courage to fight through to the end. Yet he was not blind to the fact that strength of character must to some extent be dependent on security. The man with a family and home was so much better armed than the man who was alone and homeless: the selfish man was better armed than the compassionate one. Had this man lacked any security so that he had surrendered when if he had had it, he would have fought? If so, who with security had the right to call him a coward? . . .

  *

  Kerr parked by a call-box. He climbed out of the car and although the wind was keen and he had not brought an overcoat, he stood for a moment enjoying the scene. In front of him was a playing field, with a few houses on either side, and beyond this the land dipped away: by the time it rose to come in sight once more, it was all fields. Hedgerows held oaks and ashes, newly ploughed fields were geometrically patterned, winter wheat was a sharp green. One day, he and Helen would buy a place in the country, fulfilling a long-held ambition of hers. He finally turned away and entered the call-box.

  Because he was in a foreign division, he rang their H.Q. and asked the detective sergeant if it would be all right if he had a word with Henry Coutts, who lived in Mayfield. After a bad-tempered beginning – all detective sergeants seemed to develop a jealous possessiveness with regard to their territory – he was finally given permission.

  Coutts lived in an old farmhouse, with peg-tile roof, red/blue bricks set on a ragstone base, exposed beams in the inside walls and ceilings, and a large inglenook fireplace in the sitting-room. ‘Sorry to bother you like this,’ Kerr began breezily, ‘but we’re having to check up yet again on the bank robbery back in July.’ He grinned. ‘You probably know what authority can be like: tell ’em the same thing twice and they demand to hear it a third time.’

  Coutts, an elderly, thickset man with heavily featured face, dressed in polo-neck sweater in a Fair Isle pattern and grey flannels, said: ‘That doesn’t really explain why you’ve come to see me again.’

  ‘Well, it’s like this . . .’

  There were several sharp knocks on the floor above which sounded loudly below because the floorboards were set directly on the beams. ‘That’s my wife,’ said Coutts. ‘She’s . . . rather ill so I’d better go up and see what she wants. Excuse me a moment.’

  The tone of voice and Coutts’s quick expression of anguish told Kerr that Coutts accepted she was dying. Kerr seldom concerned himself with other people’s troubles, but as Coutts left the room he did wonder if he could have shown such self-possession had Helen been dying. He shivered. There were times when a policeman was forced to learn that life could be very red of claw.

  He heard footsteps cross the floor overhead, the quick creak of a bed, and a murmur of voices, the woman’s petulant in tone. After a while, the footsteps recrossed the floor. Coutts returned downst
airs.

  ‘I’m sorry about that. Do sit down. Now, what’s the trouble?’ Coutts crossed to the rather small window and stared out at the lawn.

  ‘After the bank robbery the police had to make the usual kind of enquiries and this meant checking up on all the staff because it did seem possible that someone had told the villains the layout of the alarm system. One way of checking up . . .’

  ‘Let me cut you short. You are looking for someone whose standard of living has risen sharply. In the past few months Brian Morgan has bought a new television set, a new car, and he and Betty went to Crete for a holiday in the summer. So where did the money come from?’ His voice was flat and expressionless. He turned round. ‘I explained some time ago to another detective. . . .’

  There were several more knocks from above.

  Coutts looked up at the ceiling, an expression of tired resignation on his face. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, speaking in the same level voice, ‘but I’ll have to go upstairs again.’ He left.

  Kerr heard the wife talking, the words indistinguishable, but their querulous import obvious. Feeling cold, and this was not wholly a physical experience, he stood up and went over to the fireplace in which several logs were burning on firedogs set over a bed of ash. He studied the various knick-knacks set out on the mantelpiece, which included a triptych of family photos. A much younger Henry Coutts, his face alive with fun, stood with a woman – he was in a dark suit, she was in a smart frock and hat and she held a posy of flowers in her hands: their wedding day? A boy and girl were sitting on the far side of a table, in a garden, laid for a birthday tea: he looked about fourteen, she about twelve and her sexuality was obvious despite the clumsy clothes she wore – had Betty been a Lolita? A dog, a mixture of terriers, looked up at the camera and grinned, plainly ready for any devilment that was offered.

  Coutts returned. ‘I’m afraid my wife is not at all well today.’ He made the statement so unemotionally that it was obvious any expression of sympathy would have been very unwelcome. ‘I see you’ve been looking at those photos. When we take them, we never seem to realize how badly they may hurt years later.’ Just for a second, his self-possession slipped and his mental agony showed. Then he regained control of his emotions. ‘You’re here to ask the same old questions? Do you expect anything but the same old answers? I gave my stepdaughter and her husband three thousand pounds in the summer and told them to go out and spend it all on luxuries. They’re young and can enjoy luxuries: my wife and I can no longer do so. It was all done legally and with due regard to all our iniquitous tax laws. Surely you know all these facts?’

  ‘Yes, but we do have to check.’

  ‘To check the checking? If the police have already made certain that I did give Betty and Brian three thousand pounds, why return here to ask whether this was so?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s the way police work often goes.’

  Coutts shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of tired indifference. Kerr remembered earlier asking Campson what was the point in covering the same old ground. Campson hadn’t been able to give a reasonable answer either.

  Kerr was saying good-bye when the knocking started yet again. He was glad to get out into the cold, windy air, away from the woman who tapped away her remaining life.

  *

  Detective Chief Superintendent Menton, standing, said in the tones of a peevish toast-master calling the roll of honour, ‘This is Detective Inspector Lancome from A.T.’ The two men vaguely resembled each other to look at because both had thin and authoritative faces, rather secretive eyes, and heavily lined foreheads: but any closer similarity was prevented by the mouths, Menton’s suggesting a cold, distant character, Lancome’s a warm, cheerful one.

  The other three greeted Lancome each in his own manner: Detective Superintendent Weal with a measure of condescension because he was always very conscious of rank, Detective Chief Inspector Adams with a brief, ‘Hullo, haven’t seen you in fifteen or sixteen years,’ and Fusil with no more than a couple of words.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ said Menton, as if bestowing a favour.

  The four chairs had been carefully grouped around the large desk in a semicircle and on each was a single foolscap sheet of paper. Menton, behind the desk, said in his colourless voice which could become so boring after a while: ‘Fusil, you’d better give us the latest report.’

  ‘Nothing much to add, sir, except that we’ve started making all routine enquiries. But, first off, I would like to discuss the letter.’ He tapped the sheet of paper which had been on the chair before he sat. ‘I don’t think this is from a nutter – the style’s wrong and the details, as far as they go, too practical.’

  ‘I imagine we all agree with that.’

  ‘So it would be reasonable to assume it’s from a terrorist gang who call themselves the O.F.S.E. They’re trying to hold Fortrow to ransom to obtain funds. The scale of the operation seems larger than usual, by which I mean it’s a whole town which is threatened and not any individual target, but I imagine that that’s quite conceivable?’

  Lancome said easily: ‘It’s difficult these days to conceive what isn’t conceivable.’

  Weal nodded his head vigorously. ‘A bloody H bomb. It’s going to happen one day.’

  Menton looked annoyed by so extreme a flight of the imagination.

  Fusil said: ‘So the letter’s from a terrorist organization or from villains being paid to do a job by terrorists. . . . Or from villains masquerading as terrorists in order to scramble the trail.’

  ‘There’s not much contact between the two parties,’ said Lancome. ‘They each hold the other in pretty deep contempt.’

  ‘Then that leaves terrorists or villains. I think we’re dealing with villains.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Menton.

  ‘When I checked with A.T., they said they’d never heard of the organization.’

  Lancome answered the point. ‘I don’t think we should try to read too much into that. These days everyone with a grudge sets up as a terrorist, threatening to burn and blast. Brand-new organizations are two a penny. We can’t keep track of ’em all.’

  ‘But surely you’d at least have heard a whisper before an outfit reached the stage of going into a production this big?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I think I’d better make a point here. Terrorists are a different species from villains, not just a different breed. We all know there’s something in the average villain which drives him on to seek the admiration of his fellows and so, for instance, he spends like money’s going out of fashion just to show he’s Mr Big. The average terrorist does just the reverse. He wants to be Mr Nobody, so he moles away, hiding as hard as he can. I’m perfectly prepared to learn that here is a terrorist organization, the O.F.S.E., about which we haven’t previously heard a single whisper.’

  ‘That seems clear enough,’ observed Adams.

  Fusil said: ‘Then take the letter. There’s to be a little fire to show they’re not fooling and then bigger and bigger ones if we remain unconvinced, screwing down the pressure. That’s the psychology of a professional.’

  ‘Why can’t a terrorist be professional about a crime?’ asked Weal.

  ‘No reason at all,’ answered Lancome.

  ‘If he’s professional in attitude,’ objected Fusil, ‘he must have been around to learn. Then surely A.T. would have heard of him?’

  Menton said: ‘A man doesn’t have to have had twenty years’ practical experience to work out the most effective way of forcing people to meet his demands.’

  ‘Maybe not, sir. But wouldn’t the amateur terrorist – which by definition is who we’re dealing with – be more likely to start off with a thumping big fire to hammer his point home and then threaten another as big or bigger?’

  ‘The sledgehammer rather than the subtleties of ever-increasing threats,’ said Weal, who was inclined to make a point after it had been made.

  ‘If I were to look for subtlety,’ said Lancome, ‘I think I’d be more inclined to
look for it in the terrorist than the villain. Generalizing – which we must – the villain comes from a background where education is scorned while the terrorist so often comes from a background of good, even very good, education. Which makes one wonder whether education really is as valuable as it’s cracked up to be.’

  No one bothered to comment on that.

  Fusil said, now sounding a little weary: ‘There’s a sick humour in the letter.’ He tapped the sheet of paper. ‘The ransom doubles after each fire. That’s the kind of threat which would really appeal to a villain. And the letter ends by saying people will find life getting too hot for comfort. A villain would laugh his head off at that play on words.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t a terrorist have a twisted sense of humour?’ asked Adams.

  They looked at Lancome.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said, making it clear that this was a point over which he wasn’t going to be very definite, ‘that since a terrorist usually manages to convince himself that what he is doing is justified whereas the rest of the world knows it is horribly unjustified, he must be mentally twisted. So why shouldn’t he have a twisted sense of humour? But in my experience, terrorists are notable for a complete lack of any sense of humour, twisted or otherwise.’

  ‘I wouldn’t describe this as a very valid point,’ said Menton.

  ‘All right, sir,’ said Fusil stubbornly, ‘I can’t give a single reason which stands up to argument. But my instinct still says that this letter comes from villains, not terrorists.’

  ‘We need more than instinct to go on.’

  Weal, who fancied himself as a committee man, said: ‘In practical terms, how important is the point right now?’

  Lancome answered him. ‘That’s very hard to answer. If we know we’re dealing with terrorists, we concentrate on identifying their cause and likely sphere of association because this should give an indication of their background and whether they’ll have been in touch with other, known organizations: if we’re certain we’re dealing with villains, it’s the old established routine of checking up on names that C.R.O. picks out and also offering an attractive reward for a good grass. But I wouldn’t have said that these two lines are necessarily exclusive.’