The C.I.D Room Page 5

  The gold had been loaded in the port locker in the lower ’tween of number five. Number five hold consisted of a lower hold, a lower ’tween, and an upper ’tween, and when the gold was loaded the lower hold had been full of cargo, but what was not yet clear was how soon after the locker was loaded had the square of the hatch outside been filled with cargo, thereby completely sealing off the locker.

  He looked at his watch. It was time to make his daily report to the divisional superintendent.

  *

  Aboard the M.V. Sandpatch, Captain Leery pulled the cargo plan across the chart table until it was squarely in front of him. He spoke to the chief officer who stood by the chronometer box. ‘Loading in four ports for four ports, Chief.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ muttered the other.

  Leery was not surprised by the mate’s tone of voice. This was a cargo officer’s nightmare — sixteen possible combinations and it needed only one crate, bag, box, or carton, to be discharged at the wrong port and the chief officer would receive a hell of a rocket from head office. ‘Your main load is here, Fortrow: six thousand tons, almost all for Wellington and Auckland. There’s a thousand tons of chemicals in bags for number three lower hold, which are quite safe except when near to acids. A hundred tons of tin in ingots for number four lower. There’s a valuable consignment of fabrics which must go into a locker, but it’s up to you which one. Two thousand five hundred bags of mail to load here and another five hundred at Liverpool. When it comes to this mail, make certain there isn’t a complete cock-up like last trip.’

  ‘The trouble was…’

  ‘The trouble was, Chief, that the ship’s tally didn’t agree with the post office’s and the ship’s tally was wrong.’

  ‘It wasn’t our fault.’

  ‘Your tally was wrong.’

  The chief officer silently cursed the marine superintendent. Leery was a company’s man. He thought the sun never stopped shining on the company. A lot of the old-timers thought like that, but these days people were realistic: you were a ripe mug if you added to the company’s profit by working a shade harder than you absolutely had to.

  ‘I want an extra cargo plan to usual,’ said Leery.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And make certain the colour legends are right.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  There was a knock on the open door of the chartroom. An apprentice in an obviously new uniform stood in the alleyway.

  ‘Yes?’ snapped the chief officer.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Please, sir, is Captain Weary here?’

  ‘Who?’

  The apprentice became still more flustered. ‘Please, sir, Captain Weary. It’s a telephone call and the line was bad…’

  ‘It’s probably me you want,’ said Leery. ‘Come on in, lad, and tell me what’s the message.’

  The apprentice stepped into the chartroom. He stood to attention. ‘Sir. There’s a telephone message that Detective Constable Burr is at the office and wants to see you.’

  ‘Burr?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sure of that.’

  ‘You don’t think that perhaps it was Kerr?’

  The apprentice’s certainty vanished. ‘The…the line’s very bad, sir.’

  ‘I’m sure it is. Ring back and tell the office I’m too busy. If the detective wants to see me before tomorrow, he’ll have to come out to my house about six-thirty tonight. Have you got that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Leery watched the apprentice leave. He suffered a sense of uneasiness. What did Kerr want? A routine matter, or something of far more importance?

  *

  In the general room, C.I.D., Kerr searched his pockets for a cigarette and failed to find one. Being alone, he must do without a smoke. Life could be hell sometimes.

  He went downstairs and out to the courtyard, climbed into the C.I.D. Hillman, switched on, and pressed the starter. The engine turned, but refused to fire. One of these days, he thought, the car was going to give one final sigh and collapse into its several thousand component parts. Maybe then the ratepayers of Fortrow would afford a new car. The public demanded police protection, but hated paying a single penny towards it.

  The Hillman finally started and he backed out, narrowly missing the chief inspector who suddenly came out of a doorway. Kerr grinned. The chief inspector gave lectures at the local schools on how to be a pedestrian in the age of the motor car.

  He reached Pendleton Bray twenty-five minutes later and found Leery’s house almost at once. As he walked up the front path, between two small well-kept lawns, he thought that the house was an investment and the kind he would like to live in. Provided he made detective superintendent or better, he’d rate a house like this: he’d make detective superintendent, or better.

  The door was opened by Leery, who led the way into the sitting-room where he introduced his wife. Kerr was shocked to see the difficulty with which she moved and the way her face kept tightening from pain.

  ‘I’ll go and start getting dinner ready,’ she said.

  Kerr, until he realised what he was doing, watched her slow, painful walk towards the door. After she had shut the door behind herself, Leery said: ‘She had a very serious motor accident and for a long time wasn’t even expected to live.’

  Kerr tried to find words of genuine sympathy. ‘She seems very brave, sir.’

  ‘It’s nice of you to say so.’ He was silent for a short while, then said: ‘What will you have to drink, if you’re allowed to mix duty and drink?’

  Kerr grinned. ‘As often as we’re given the chance.’

  ‘Short or long?’

  ‘It’s still hot enough for a beer to be just the job.’

  Leery poured out the drinks, then sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Good health, sir.’

  ‘Now — how can I help?’

  ‘It’s a case of tidying up some of the evidence, sir. At what stage was the locker sealed off by other cargo?’

  ‘I suppose I could call that the sixty-four-dollar question! On average we have a ship loading every fortnight and I have to cope with each one. The Sandstream took on almost a full cargo from this port: certainly up to the upper ’tweens aft. But was the square of number five filled immediately the locker was loaded…?’ He stood up, crossed to a pie-crust table and picked up a silver cigarette-box. ‘D’you smoke?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  He passed the box across, made certain Kerr was not yet ready for another beer, and helped himself to a second whisky. ‘I can’t give you a definite answer to your question until I’ve been through my papers at the office. Shall I telephone you when I know?’

  ‘That would be fine.’

  Leery hesitated, then said: ‘You’re not beginning to think it might have been one of the ship’s officers, are you?’

  ‘We’re just checking on everything and anything. I don’t suppose it’s a state secret that right now we haven’t got very far because the leads are so spread out: Cumberland, the ship here, the ship at sea, Australia.’

  ‘Nothing definite at all, then?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  Leery sipped his whisky and tried to assure himself that he had successfully hidden the eagerness which lay behind his questions. Gladys had always told him that he could conceal his emotions. He hoped to God she was right.

  *

  At 9.05 the following morning, Detective Sergeant Braddon walked along the corridor to the general room and went in. Rowan and Kerr were present. ‘Where’s Welland?’

  ‘Went out again just after he arrived, Skipper,’ said Kerr.

  ‘Tell him I want to see him when he gets back. Rowan, there’s a witness statement wanted in a hurry — you’ll see the request on my desk. Get it sewn up this morning.’

  Rowan left without speaking.

  Braddon hitched up his trousers and sat down on the edge of Welland’s desk. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, opened it, and threw a cigarette across to Kerr. ‘Se
ttling down O.K.?’

  ‘Not so bad, Skipper, just so long as I keep out of the D.I.’s way.’

  ‘He’ll mellow when he reckons you’re on top of your job.’

  ‘When, or if?’

  ‘That’s up to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know, not with him.’

  Braddon rubbed his jaw. ‘How’d things go with Captain Leery last night?’

  ‘He couldn’t give the answers until he’d checked the records, so he’s ringing them through today some time.’

  ‘How about him, personally?’

  ‘Like a house on fire, him and me. D’you know him, Sarge?’

  ‘Not from a bar of soap.’

  ‘He looks a real mournful bastard: the kind of bloke who reckons tombstones make for light reading. But underneath, he’s all right. Nice house, all very matey, and eager to push the booze out.’

  ‘Did you take a drink?’

  ‘Two, and he’d have made it three if I’d stopped on.’

  ‘D’you know something? I’ve had a rule all my working life, Kerr, and that is that I never drink with anyone in a case until I know exactly where he fits in.’

  ‘That’s a bad rule for a dry throat.’

  ‘It’s a good one even if the throat’s parched.’

  Kerr leaned back in his chair until it was resting against the wall. He put his feet up on his desk. ‘Hell, Sarge, life’s too short to worry like that. If a bloke’s aching to feed me a drink, I don’t want to disappoint him.’

  ‘D’you stop to ask yourself why he gave you drinks?’

  ‘Stop at that point? I’m not made of will-power. Down the hatch and did it taste good!’

  ‘He’s a big man in the company and you’re a new detective constable. There could be a reason.’

  ‘What are you saying? He wouldn’t normally drink with the lower orders?’

  Braddon shook his head slowly and once again reminded Kerr of a bloodhound. ‘You youngsters these days seem to think anyone over thirty can’t look beyond the end of his nose. I’ve been in the force a long time. I’ve seen some strange things.’

  Including the Bow Street Runners, thought Kerr, but for once he had just enough tact to remain silent.

  ‘It’s not a case of class or anything bloody daft like that,’ went on Braddon, ponderously. ‘It’s common sense in your work.’

  ‘Right, Sarge. I’ll remember.’

  ‘Leave his drinks alone until you’re sure he’s in the clear.’

  ‘Sure.’

  There was a long pause. ‘D’you know his wife’s a cripple?’ asked Kerr.

  ‘Is she? Bad?’

  ‘It hurts her like hell to move a step.’

  ‘Poor devil. Kerr, the D.I. says everyone’s to get out and start finding out who’s busy selling gold. You haven’t been around long enough to make contacts and I don’t suppose Charrington left any names for you?’

  ‘Not a one.’

  ‘I’ll give you a couple to start you off. You’re allowed up to five quid from the special fund without prior permission: over five quid and you get a written O.K. from the D.I. first.’ Braddon swung himself off the table and stood up. He adjusted the waistband of his trousers. ‘You keep on remembering what I said about drinking.’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  Braddon sighed.

  7

  Braddon had given Kerr the name of Freddie Ross. After several profitless enquiries, Kerr finally tracked him down to a billiards hall.

  The billiards hall was on the first floor of an old building in south Fortrow, on the fringe of the dock area. The entrance to it lay between a betting shop and a second-hand clothes shop.

  He went up the wooden stairs, past walls of dirty, crumbling plaster and turned off the landing into the hall. A man sat at a desk by the doorway. His face was one of the ugliest Kerr had ever seen and as soon as the other turned in his chair, he realised the man was a hunchback.

  ‘’Morning, Joe,’ said the hunchback, in a croaky voice. ‘Lookin’ for someone?’

  Kerr was repelled by the man in a unique manner. It was as if he were faced by a piece of human slime that could contaminate any who came too close.

  ‘One of Mr. Fusil’s bright young hopes, eh, Joe?’ The hunchback cackled.

  Kerr flushed. His feet weren’t that big! ‘Is Freddie Ross around?’

  ‘He’s around, man. Interested in him?’

  ‘Just a chat.’

  ‘Help yourself, man. How’s about the five bob entrance?’

  ‘Stuff it.’ Kerr’s angry retort was uncharacteristic, but the hunchback unnerved him.

  The other chuckled.

  Kerr went in. Two tables out of five were in use and when he asked a man at the first one for Ross he was passed on to the second table. Ross was tall and thin, with a face that was a dirty white, as if he had been living underground for years.

  Ross potted black, which brought the game of snooker to an end. His opponent, cursing, paid him a pound and then, after a quick look at Kerr, shambled off.

  Ross rolled himself a cigarette, almost needle thin. When he lit it, a third of the length disappeared in a quick burst of flame. ‘You ain’t doin’ me no favour, comin’ round in daylight.’

  ‘D’you call this daylight?’

  They walked to the far end of the hall and sat down. With no lights on over the last three tables, they were in a gloom, but there was no possibility of their being overheard.

  ‘Where’s Mr. Charrington?’ asked Ross.

  ‘Transferred.’

  ‘’E’s a nice bloke.’

  ‘Never met him.’

  Ross drew on the cigarette and then, having already almost reached the end, put it out by crushing between forefinger and thumb. He put the stub in his right-hand pocket. ‘Used to see me right, did Mr. Charrington.’

  Kerr took a pound note from his pocket and passed it across. It was plucked out of his hand. ‘What’s the news on gold?’

  ‘Nothing special.’

  ‘There must be some sort of news.’

  ‘Not where I’ve been, mister, even if the papers says you’ve lost some.’

  ‘Have another think.’

  ‘Won’t make no difference.’

  ‘Then when you start hearing something, give me a ring. If you can remember the number,’ Kerr added sarcastically. He stood up and left.

  When he came level with the hunchback at the desk, the latter croaked: ‘Learn anything interesting, Joe?’

  ‘A book full.’

  The hunchback cackled with laughter, as if Kerr’s reply had been a humorous one.

  Kerr walked on and down the stairs. Even with his carefree attitude towards life, he paused to wonder how men could reach the point where they spent hour after hour in such places — but there was in his mind no hint of ‘But for the grace of God’… He was quite certain where he was going in life.

  He drove across the centre of Fortrow to the old town, strangely undamaged during the blitz, where the streets were narrow, many of the houses were half-timbered, and there was a concentration of antique and curio shops. This area came within Western Division’s boundaries, but provided his enquiries were of a formal nature there was no need to let anyone in that division know he was around. He spoke to a man in a builders’ merchants, who suggested he went on to a brick factory at Leigton.

  The drive to Leigton was through an attractive countryside, with gently rolling hills, many of which had on their crowns circles of oaks popularly supposed to have been planted to commemorate Trafalgar. The scattered farmhouses had the appearance of having been built centuries ago. It was the kind of peaceful, timeless countryside Helen liked, he suddenly thought. She loved to see the continuity of the ages.

  The brick factory was half a mile from the now disused railway station. Kerr spoke to the manager, explained the reason for his visit, and handed over a brick.

  The manager examined the brick. ‘It came from us, O.K. That’s our trade mark, there, and
this doppling colouring, which is what we call it, isn’t done by anyone else. Makes a nice sight, but it’s expensive.’

  ‘Have you any other brickworks anywhere?’

  ‘The company’s got two, near Southampton. But if you’re wondering if they could’ve turned out this brick, they couldn’t. See that small mark? That shows the brick was made here.’

  ‘That’s fine. Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Big case?’

  ‘Biggish,’ replied Kerr.

  *

  In one of the Metropolitan police laboratories, tests on the brown paper, used to wedge the bricks, were carried out. A piece of the paper was boiled in a solution of sodium hydroxide, then washed, put on a slide, and checked microscopically by reagents to give the types of fibres used. Further laborious tests decided the proportion of mineral matter, sizing, and gelatine, and the process of manufacture. The scientists listed the results of the chemical tests and then added the more obvious details such as colour, surface appearance, the lack of any watermark, weight, thickness, and inclusions.

  The information was tabulated and fed into the newly installed Midas 2 computer, which compared the details with the recorded details of thousands of other samples of brown paper from manufacturers all over the country.

  One set of control figures agreed in every respect with that of the paper under test. A firm whose factory was only ten miles from Fortrow.

  *

  Leery returned home at 6.17. He left his car outside the garage, nodded at the retired bank manager who was weeding a small herbaceous border, and opened the front door of the house.

  ‘Is that you, George?’ Gladys called out.

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  She came hobbling into the hall, leaning heavily on her stick. ‘How are you?’ he asked, as he kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t been too well. It’s probably the heat.’

  Try as he did to prevent it, his sense of resentment returned. Why couldn’t she be like other wives, fit and healthy? What kind of life did it leave him? And why couldn’t he find more sympathy and understanding?

  She linked her arm with his and they walked slowly into the sitting-room. She sat down and he poured out two drinks.

  ‘You did say you wouldn’t be in to dinner, didn’t you, George?’