Murder Among Thieves (C.I.D Room Book 3) Read online

  There must have been weeks, even months, of reconnaissance and active planning. This must mean that either the villains were local or it was an outside mob who must have been in the area for some time. In either case, it should be possible to get a useful lead from one or more informers. He’d put a request, through Kywood, to the chief constable for permission to offer as high as two hundred pounds for information. It was a toss-up whether he’d get permission: the money would have to come out of the general fund and that was always stretched so tight it was in peril of snapping. Still, the insurance company would almost certainly offer ten per cent for information leading to the recovery of the money and there wasn’t a villain born who wouldn’t shop his mother, sister, and daughter, for close on twelve thousand quid.

  *

  The mortuary in the thriving industrial town of Cressfield had been built three years before and the post-mortem room closely resembled an operating theatre in its standards of cleanliness and equipment. The pathologist was a middle-aged man, rather dumpy, and possessed of a sense of humour that profoundly irritated everyone who knew him.

  “That’s that, then,” he said, as he washed in the small room to the right of the P.M. room. “Your client was as pickled as an onion in a bottle.”

  “Completely drunk, sir?” asked Detective Sergeant Ambleside, a man whose manner had the belligerence of someone determined to go right to the top in a hurry.

  “As drunk as the proverbial lord in the days when a three claret man was a mere strippling.” The pathologist dried his hands. “The blood alcohol level is point four per cent and that indicates eighteen fluid ounces of whisky, or the equivalent. The urine/blood ratio suggests the alcohol was all swallowed within one hour of death.”

  One more blind fool, thought Ambleside, who’d refused to learn that drinking and driving didn’t mix. Mercifully, no one else had been killed or injured — although the driver of the Mini wasn’t going to get over the shock for a time. The case would have been wrapped right up if only the body could have been easily identified, but the man had had on him no wallet or papers of any sort and there was nothing of any help in the car. There would have to be further enquiries and Ambleside resented wasting his time on account of a drunken driver. The number of the car had been sent to the licensing authorities, but they didn’t work over the weekend except in priority cases.

  “Is there anything more you want, Sergeant?” asked the pathologist.

  “I’d better take his fingerprints, sir, since we haven’t yet identified him.”

  “Help yourself. He won’t mind.”

  The sergeant opened his suitcase that he had left next to where the dead man’s clothes now lay, waiting to be put into plastic bags. The suit was obviously an expensive one — strangely, it bore no tailor’s tab — and had been quite badly singed by one shoulder. If the man could afford to spend that sort of money on his clothes, the singeing could only recently have happened or he would surely have done something about it?

  Chapter 7

  When Fusil entered the station, the duty sergeant told him that the D.C.I. was waiting upstairs. Fusil looked at his watch and realised he was half an hour late. He went along the corridor and up the stairs to his room.

  Kywood, well built, and with the sleek, round face of a man well content with himself, made a point of looking at his watch.

  “Sorry I’m late, sir,” said Fusil, as he went round his desk to the chair. “The P.M. took a lot longer than expected.”

  Kywood decided he couldn’t challenge the other’s excuse. “Can you say now which man was which?”

  “Almost certainly, sir.” Fusil pulled a notebook from his pocket and sat down. “One of the dead men was about five foot nine tall, the other was over six feet. According to the records of the security company, Blether was five nine and a half and Locksley was six one.

  The taller of the two dead men had at some fairly recent time suffered an injury to his right femoral shaft and the branch manager told us that Locksley broke his right leg in a fall shortly after joining the company. The smaller of the dead men had false teeth and the two plates survived the fire sufficiently for an identification to be made. We’re now trying to trace Blether’s dentist.”

  Kywood took a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and lit one. He tapped the newspaper on his lap. “Have you seen the news coverage?”

  “Some of it. I’ve also had the press badgering me for more. I’ve called a press conference for mid-day because that’s the only way to keep reporters off my back. Would you like to take it?”

  “I’m sure you can cope very well,” said Kywood.

  Fusil sarcastically thought that Kywood would never willingly do anything that left him in a position where he might put a foot wrong and be seen to do so.

  Kywood lit his cigarette. “Have you checked the guards out yet?”

  “I’ve begun on their bank and savings accounts.”

  “The villains must have had inside information.”

  “It’s quite possible.”

  “It’s more than possible. They knew every defence in the armoured truck, exactly how to counter them, which route the truck was going to take.”

  “Their route was really the only feasible one between the bank and the factory. They could have learned all about the truck’s defences through the firm which does the conversion work on the original chassis for the Moxon Security Company.”

  “Then how did they know that so much more money than usual would be drawn yesterday?”

  “It’s very common knowledge that the factory closes right down for a fortnight and the workers get two weeks’ holiday money.”

  Kywood spoke belligerently. “I’m telling you, Bob, the information came from inside.”

  “I’ve agreed it’s possible. All I’m saying is that there are other possibilities.” Fusil tried to light his pipe. It refused to draw properly and he unscrewed the stem and blew it clear.

  “What about the two guards in hospital?” said Kywood. “Have they come up with anything useful?”

  “The doctors won’t let us question them yet. I’ve posted a P.C. in the hospital and he’ll let us know the moment someone can have a word with them.”

  Kywood flicked the ash off his cigarette. “What about the lab?”

  “No word from them yet,” replied Fusil, “but it’s early days.”

  “It certainly is not early days when we’re receiving the kind of publicity that’s going on right now,” snapped Kywood. Fusil struck a match and lit his pipe. “What about the informers?” said Kywood.

  “I’m doing all I can. Have you heard from the chief constable if he’s going to authorise up to a couple of hundred for worthwhile information?”

  “Not yet. It takes time, man.”

  “Obviously.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, sir,” said Fusil wearily.

  Kywood stood up. “You haven’t really given me anything concrete for the chief constable, you know.”

  “Why not just tell him that everything’s well in hand, sir?”

  “Just see it is, Bob.” He left.

  Fusil leaned back in his seat and rested his feet on the desk, determined to have a think before rushing off to the next job. Things weren’t moving. The villains had been real professionals and to date you could stuff all the clues they’d left behind them into a thimble and still have plenty of room. The two guards in the rear must have had time to observe the gang at work, so they’d been murdered in case what they saw might help the police: incriminating traces might have been left inside the armoured truck, so it had been fired with magnesium and petrol. Mission completed, the gang had driven off and disappeared.

  His pipe had gone out and he re-lit it. Because he was so keen on his job, because he had a hatred of all criminals and personally felt aggrieved if they weren’t punished, he always demanded quick results to any investigation and became unduly despondent if none was forthcoming. Yet few
cases yielded quick results. Criminal investigation was a long drawn-out affair, often necessitating hundreds of different enquiries which must turn out to be abortive. He suddenly suffered a slight flush of optimism. This mob were certainly professionally competent, but might not that very professionalism be their undoing? There were few villains in Fortrow capable of this slick a job and they could easily be investigated: if outsiders had done the job, they must have been around beforehand and therefore their presence would have been noted. He would, decided Fusil, spread the word that there was two hundred quid for a right grass. If the chief constable finally made up his mind to authorise that sum all would be well, if not, the grasser — after giving his news — would have to be told that it wasn’t his lucky day after all.

  *

  It was a quarter to one and as Kerr walked along the pavement he wondered what there would be for lunch. Saturday and Sunday were bad days to eat in the station canteen. The civilian staff did not believe in working weekends and only the offer of double time had persuaded them to lay on a skeleton staff on Saturdays after mid-day and on Sundays. Food was either out of tins or the deep freeze and if it tasted of anything much this was a happy accident.

  Braddon was seated at his usual table, close by the telephone. As Kerr reached the bottom of the stairs, he called out that Fusil wanted to see him, ‘P.D.Q’. Swearing, Kerr made his way up to the D.I.’s room.

  “Where have you been?” snapped Fusil.

  “Out to Groombridge’s, sir, on the breaking and entering.”

  “I’ve been waiting for your report on the car you brought in.”

  “I told Sergeant Braddon, sir, that Miss Railton…”

  “I’m well aware of what you told him, but every report must be made direct to me as soon as that’s possible.”

  “You weren’t in the station, sir.”

  “Goddamn it, I know where I wasn’t.” There was a silence. Kerr felt much of his good humour retreat and he reflected on the accuracy of his previous forecast that with a big case in hand life would sour. Fusil, sharp even at his mellowest, was now in razor-like condition.

  “Well?” snapped Fusil.

  Kerr jerked his mind back to the immediate present and he reported on his interview with Miss Railton. He added that he’d driven the Austin back to the station for examination.

  Fusil rubbed his chin. “What kind of car was this other one?”

  “She couldn’t describe it, sir, other than to say it was large and red.”

  “Good grief, she must have noticed something more about it?”

  “Apparently not, sir.”

  “Or did you louse up the questioning in your inimitable slap-happy way?”

  “If you think…” began Kerr, then stopped himself.

  “If I think what?” asked Fusil, in a dangerous voice.

  “If you think that, sir, wouldn’t it be a good idea if you went and saw her yourself?”

  Fusil showed his anger, but said nothing. The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver, listened, said someone would be along right away and broke the connection. “The hospital says it’s O.K. to question the guards. Cut on down there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, get moving. I want them questioned today, not tomorrow.”

  Kerr left and went down to the canteen where he chose fish fingers, green peas, and fries. He sat down at Braddon’s table and remarked that Fusil must be becoming more human since he’d actually suggested his D.C. should have a decent lunch before going out to the hospital. Braddon looked astonished, even suspicious, but made no comment.

  Fortrow General Hospital stood on one of the hills that undulated through north-eastern Fortrow. What was now the medical block had been built in the early part of the century, the surgical block in the middle fifties, the operating theatres and the intensive care units in the past four years, and the nurses’ quarters were converted private houses, so that the whole complex was untidy and, quite unjustly, suggested a clumsy approach to work.

  The duty porter said that Fish and Young were in Ward B, medical block. When Kerr reached that ward, a staff nurse, all starch and efficiency, directed him to the far end where a uniformed police constable was sitting by the first of the curtained-off beds.

  Kerr spoke to the P.C. in the low, hushed voice that was typical of hospital conversation. “Hi, Bert. How’s life?”

  “The sooner I get out of here the better I’ll feel, and that’s straight. Gives me the creeps. There’s a bloke over there croaking.”

  Kerr looked across to a bed which was also curtained off. “We’ve all got to go sometime,” he said, obviously not intending to go for a long, long time.

  “Maybe, but who wants to be reminded of that?”

  “Aren’t there any nice bits of crackling to cheer you up?”

  The P.C. looked even more despondent. “There’s a red head, but she says her husband doesn’t like her going out with strange men.”

  “Get to know her and then you won’t be strange.” Kerr jerked his head in the direction of the bed. “How are they?”

  “Coughing and spluttering fit to bust,” replied the other unsympathetically. “Well, I’m for home after reporting off duty.” He stood up, cracked a joke with the middle-aged occupant of the bed immediately to his right and then left.

  Kerr went inside the curtains. Fish was lying back, with eyes closed, his face an unhealthy slate grey. He was suddenly seized with a fit of deep, chesty coughing and he levered himself into an upright position to try to ease the pain.

  Kerr introduced himself. Fish went on coughing and his face whitened from the pain.

  The poor basket, thought Kerr. He knew a sudden, and rare, savage anger. The modern do-gooders said that kindness was the only way in which to deal with criminals: they should be made to visit the hospitals to see what the face of violence really looked like. He took his notebook from his pocket, turned to a fresh page, and entered the date and time. “Can you give me a run-down on all you remember?”

  Fish expectorated into a dish. A nurse looked in, smiled a brief, professional smile and left.

  Kerr tried to get Fish talking. “Did you ever suspect you were being tailed?”

  Fish shook his head. He had another bout of coughing which eased when he once more expectorated. “We didn’t suspect nothing.”

  He cursed the villains in a voice that was little more than a whisper. He hated them for the pain they had caused him, but even more because they had made him fail his trust and in all his years in the army and with the security company no one had ever before made him do that.

  “Can you tell me what you remember?”

  “We was driving along, nice and quiet, and came up to the breakdown truck.” Fish leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes. “It was going slowly, but I didn’t think… It stopped suddenly and I had to brake hard. A bloke jumps out, runs round, and sprays the gas into the air-conditioning. I tried to do something, but… Gawd, it was like dying!” He again had a fit of heavy coughing.

  “Could you see the man clearly?”

  “It all happened so quick.”

  “You didn’t catch a quick glimpse of his face?”

  “He was wearing a stocking over it.”

  “Was he a big man?”

  “He was all doubled up.”

  “But d’you think he was a big man?”

  Fish didn’t answer.

  “What was he wearing?”

  “His coat was… I can’t remember.” He broke off as he had yet another violent bout of coughing.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kerr. “We want to nab the blokes, though.”

  “No more than I wants you to. If I could lay me hands on the bastards… What about them other two? Just shot dead. Animals, that’s what them murderers are. Bloody animals.”

  Kerr asked a few more questions, then thanked Fish and left the other in peace. He went to the next bed and spoke to Young. Young, not so severely affected as Fish, was full
of bitter anger, but unable to add much to the very little that Fish had said. He’d been watching the breakdown truck, wondering why the driver thought he was the only bloke on the road, when he’d almost cracked his head on the windscreen because Reggie Fish braked so sharply. A little runt of a man hopped out of the truck and he, Young, had been about to get cracking when the gas had come pouring in and that had been that. If it hadn’t been for the gas, he’d have smashed them up so badly their own mothers would’ve thought they were half a pound of minced beef. Everything had happened so quickly he hadn’t been able to get any sort of a look at the driver of the breakdown truck. He thought the car behind had been a large Jaguar, but beyond that he knew nothing.

  Kerr left. There was a red-headed nurse by the door of the ward and she looked promising, but when he smiled at her, her expression suggested he must just have escaped from somewhere nasty.

  *

  The managers of the banks where two of the guards had accounts were very cooperative: they could afford to be, since they detailed their assistant managers to stay on after the normal closing hours to assist the police enquiries.

  Rowan, walking along the High Street, passed a jewellers, stopped, and then returned to stare at the jewellery in the window. None of the pieces on show was very good, but the small antique heart-shaped brooch was exactly what Heather would love. For a wild moment he wondered whether he had enough money to buy it, then angrily he dismissed the idea. You didn’t buy something like that under fifty quid and where did a D.C. pick up the odd fifty quid unless he was as bent as a fishing hook? When he thought of Heather, he suffered both bitter anger and a sense of heart-stopping loss. Was she unfaithful to him or did she act as she did just to infuriate him? She was very beautiful and would make any man’s passions rise. She made his passions seethe. After one of their rows, she’d told him that she would never let him mentally possess her as he was always trying, firstly because she wanted independence and secondly because if he once succeeded he would treat her with contempt.

  He walked on and came to the side door of the second bank. He rang the bell and after a short while a small grille was pushed back. He identified himself, the door was unlocked, and he went in. The assistant manager was all cheerful sleekness: he oozed self-confidence. Even his loss of a free Saturday afternoon didn’t seem to disturb him.