Betrayed by Death Page 8

  He picked up the receiver and dialled D division, and when the connexion was made he asked to speak to Detective Inspector Cowan.

  “Bob, here. How’s life with you?”

  “Not over-generous. Why the concern?” came the dry question.

  “I want to ask a favour.”

  “I’d never have guessed. All right, let’s hear what it is. And the answer’s probably no.”

  “The loan of a D.C., preferably one who’s recently been transferred from another force — if that’s at all possible.”

  “You know damn well we’ve just taken in a bloke from the West Midlands.”

  Fusil did not deny that.

  “What d’you want him for?”

  “I need someone who can’t possibly be known to a local villain.”

  “That’s not answering the question.”

  “Just a small, one-off job.”

  “Damn it, Bob, either you give it to me straight or you can forget the idea.”

  “All he has to do is take a piece of silver along and offer it to a man who’s probably a fence.”

  “If he’s only probably a fence, you’re trying to make certain by checking if he’ll buy something which is obviously stolen. Don’t you know the meaning of common sense? No way.”

  “It’s very important.”

  “So’s my job. And even if you’re fool enough to risk yours, I’m not fool enough to risk mine. Can’t you imagine the propaganda any bleeding heart liberal would make of the story the moment he got hold of it? The police deliberately trying to entrap an innocent man.”

  “It’s the murder case.”

  “D’you mean the nine boys?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a short silence. “How can the identity of a receiver come into it?”

  “It’s a complicated story and it’s a long shot. But you’ve my word that there’s probably a connexion.”

  Another silence.

  “I’ll accept full responsibility, in writing.”

  “All right,” said Cowan reluctantly.

  *

  Fusil went down to the front room and spoke to the duty sergeant. “Who has the keys of Property?”

  “P.C. Warren is in charge of ’em, sir.”

  “Tell him I want the place opened up immediately.”

  Fusil left the front room and walked along narrow, dark corridors — Divisional H.Q. had originally consisted of one building which had subsequently been virtually engulfed by the addition of a whole host of extra rooms — until he came to a door marked ‘Property’ in time-faded lettering. He waited with scant patience, and when a uniform P.C. came along he said abruptly: “It’s taken you long enough to get here.”

  “It was my break, sir,” replied the P.C.

  Fusil was uninterested in such details. “Open up, then.”

  “Is there something in particular you want, sir?” the P.C. asked, as he inserted a key in the lock.

  Fusil ignored the question. As soon as the door was opened, he stepped inside and switched on the two overhead lights, watched by the P.C. whose manner had, perhaps with justification, become resentful.

  The room had deep wooden shelves, strongly braced, at three levels along the walls. Stolen property which had been recovered was kept here until its future was decided. Most items were stored on the shelves, but very large or heavy ones were kept on the floor. Sometimes the room looked like a rag and bone man’s store, at others it resembled Aladdin’s cave.

  On the far top shelf, immediately beneath a barred window, were several pieces of silver. Fusil picked up a very elaborate, yet elegant, tea-pot. Holding down the lid, he turned it over to examine the marks on the base. “Looks like Georgian to me,” he said, with satisfaction. “It’ll do. I’ll take this with me.”

  “Right, sir, I’ll just get the book.”

  “There’s no need for that. You’ll get this back soon enough.”

  “Everything which goes out of here has to be entered in the book, sir,” said the P.C. stubbornly.

  “When it goes for good. This is only for temporary.” Fusil brought an end to the conversation by walking past the P.C. and leaving.

  The P.C. switched off the lights, locked the door, and then stood in the corridor, thinking, before he walked along to the front room. He waited whilst the duty sergeant spoke to a woman who had come in to report strange noises in her bedroom — she was a regular visitor: she was invariably treated with grave courtesy — then spoke in a low voice. “Sarge, the D.I.’s just taken a piece of silver out of Property and refused to sign the book.”

  “Refused?” The sergeant looked disbelievingly at him.

  “Said it was only going out temporarily and I’d get the tea-pot back soon enough.”

  The sergeant frowned. He said portentously: “If I was you, son, I’d make a note in writing. That way, whatever happens I’d of made certain I was in the clear. The D.I.’s too bloody sharp for his own or anyone else’s good.”

  *

  At the beginning of his career, D.C. Queen had possessed considerable ambition. But then experience had proved that promotion did not come easily and, little by little, without his really being aware of it, that ambition had slipped away and now he was quite content to remain a D.C. to the day he retired.

  He stood in front of Fusil’s desk. “Mr Cowan said to report to you because you’d a job for me, sir,” he said stolidly, apparently uncurious.

  “I needed someone who can’t possibly be known to a bloke called Jones, who runs a jewellers. See that tea-pot there?” He indicated the top of the large glass-fronted cupboard. “It’s Georgian and I reckon is worth around four hundred quid. I want you to-night to take it to Jones and offer it to him for a couple of hundred. He’ll try to beat you down, of course. Fight, but let him get it in the end for whatever figure he names.”

  Queen might now be unambitious, but he was not stupid. He asked: “Do I actually hand it over?”

  “You can do that. We’ll be waiting outside, so he won’t have very long to enjoy his bargain.”

  *

  The jewellery shop, triangular in shape, stood on the ground floor of a corner site where two roads met at an angle of sixty degrees. The display windows and entrance door were in Canton Street, the major of the two roads. On Wardour Road, there was first a blank brick wall and then, when there was sufficient depth of space, there was a small courtyard which extended out from the building. Both the service door to the shop and the wooden steps to the living accommodation on the two floors above were reached through this courtyard. It was the kind of jewellery shop which stocked down-market engagement and wedding rings, bracelet charms, silver christening mugs, canteens of E.P.N.S. cutlery, digital watches, and one rolled gold Omega in the centre of a display.

  It was an easy site to cover, yet Fusil took great care in staking it out. Parked in Canton Street and manned by two P.C.s was a dog handler’s van, borrowed for the night, with the legend ‘Stevens & Co. Ltd. We’ll remove everything you own.’ on its sides in plastic lettering. Further along from the van, in Laurie’s own car, he and a W.P.C. played the part of a courting couple: Laurie’s enthusiasm for the rôle being noticeably greater than the W.P.C.’s. In Wardour Road, Fusil and Kerr kept watch from the cover of the recessed doorway of an estate agent. One road back, acting as the communications centre as well as reserve forces, Smith and a P.C. were in the C.I.D. Escort.

  Queen walked from Canton Street into Wardour Road and then along the short distance to the small courtyard, the outer door of which was open. He wore creased trousers, a roll-neck sweater, brown suede shoes, and an anorak, and he had not shaved since the morning so that, a man who normally had to shave twice a day, his chin was well stubbled. In his right hand he carried a battered canvas grip.

  Fusil watched him turn into the courtyard and momentarily go out of sight. He was good, Fusil thought. That slouching walk, with shoulders slightly hunched in what was either a defensive or an offensive manner, that watchf
ul gaze noting everything and everybody around him, marked him out to the knowledgeable as the kind of man he was portraying. “Yellow,” he said.

  Kerr, who held a transceiver in his right hand, depressed the transmit lever: “Yellow. Three Two. I say again. Yellow. Three Two.”

  Queen came back into sight as he climbed the wooden stairs. He reached the landing outside the front door, one floor up, pressed the bell, and waited. An overhead light was switched on, and then after a short while the door was opened. Queen spoke, indicated the canvas grip, stepped inside. The overhead light went out.

  Fusil, despite his years of experience, suffered tension. He tried to release it by mentally plotting the next few minutes. Soon, Queen would come out with the grip in his left hand to show that the deal had gone through without trouble. The order to go in would be given. If Jones protested hard, they had a search warrant that had been sworn out earlier on evidence which had been slightly on the optimistic side. Caught in the possession of stolen property — Fusil was backing heavily on the probability that there would be more somewhere inside — Jones wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. In these circumstances he’d almost certainly be ready to admit receiving that silver plaque because it could help him a great deal if the police were prepared to say in court that he’d given them full assistance.

  The door opened and light spilled out across the landing and door into the courtyard. Queen stepped out on to the wooden landing, and the door was shut behind him, leaving him in the very much dimmer street light. While the inside light had been directly on him, Fusil had seen that the grip had been in his right hand. He swore.

  “Do we go in just the same?” asked Kerr.

  Fusil watched Queen descend the stairs, to go out of view behind the wall. Queen had been inside for so short a time that it seemed probable Jones had refused to touch the deal at all. Perhaps, despite the rumours, he was straight. In this case, there was nothing to be gained and everything to be lost if they executed the search warrant. “Abort,” he said bitterly.

  Kerr transmitted the message, switched off the transceiver and pressed down the extending aerial. Fusil left the cover of the doorway and led the way along the pavement to his car, parked a couple of hundred yards down the road.

  *

  Queen put the grip on Fusil’s desk: he lifted out the silver tea-pot.

  “What happened?” demanded Fusil.

  “I told him I’d something good and wanted a couple of centuries for it.”

  “And?”

  “I showed it to him.”

  “Of course you bloody well showed it to him. What did he say?”

  Queen’s voice expressed resentment. It wasn’t his fault that things had gone wrong. “He put a jeweller’s glass in his eye and examined the marks on the bottom and the lid, weighed it on a pair of scales, and then said it was worth at least a thousand because it was made by some well-known bloke and I ought to tell my detective inspector to make sure of his values.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “You know,” said Josephine from the bed, “a grizzly bear would be better company.”

  Fusil, still dressed, stopped pacing the floor. “What’s that?”

  “For God’s sake, Bob! You return home five hours late, curse me because supper’s dried up through being kept warm in the oven for so long, don’t say a word during the meal, come up to go to bed and then spend the next fifteen minutes wearing out the carpet.”

  He saw the look of worry on her face. “Sorry, love.” He crossed and kissed her.

  “Can you tell me what’s happened?”

  “I built a house of cards, a suspect puffed, and it all fell down.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and told her what had happened. She laughed. “There’s sweet Fanny Adams to laugh about —” he began.

  “Where’s your sense of humour got to?”

  “Out of the bloody window.”

  “Come on. You’ve got to admit it’s amusing. All of you ready to go in like the S.A.S. and then this jeweller just turns round and sends a message not to be so stupid.”

  “You’ve a queer sense of humour when you remember I was hoping this would give us a lead on the murders.”

  She reached out and took hold of his hand. “Bob, of course I can’t laugh about that. But equally I can’t go through life vicariously suffering for other people, and neither can you if you’re not to end up in a mental home. You’ve got to learn to forget for a bit, to take the present without the future or the past. I’m laughing because I love you. Just think, if nothing ever went wrong for you you’d become impossibly pompous, just like your Uncle Hamish.”

  He had to smile.

  “That’s better. ‘Light shines through, splitting asunder the chains of ignorance.’”

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “It’s out of a ghastly tract of a book we had to study at school. I was caught reading a banned comic and had to write out a long passage twenty-five times. By the time I’d finished I’d have split asunder a few things besides the chains of ignorance if I’d had the chance.”

  “A born anarchist!”

  “It’s taken you a long time to find that out. Come into bed.”

  Later, after they’d read for a while and then switched off the bedside lights, he lay on his back and stared up into the darkness. She’d said something important: but she couldn’t begin to realize how important. Regain a sense of humour and relax. Then, relaxed, wonder how Jones had been able to identify Queen as a detective almost immediately? Queen swore they couldn’t have met before. Surely the only reasonable answer was that Jones had made the identification instinctively because he had had cause in the past to recognize that constant state of awareness which was the hallmark of both detective and villain?

  *

  As Fusil finished shaving and switched off the shaver, there was a call from downstairs to say that breakfast was ready. He filled the hand-basin with hot water, sluiced his face, dried it, finished dressing, and hurried downstairs. As he entered the kitchen he looked up at the electric clock on the wall.

  “It’s twenty past eight,” said Josephine, “but you’re going to sit down at the table and eat your breakfast in a slow and civilized manner.”

  “The boss has spoken,” said Timothy, “so it’s no good arguing.”

  Fusil obediently sat at the far end of the small table and reached for the cornflakes.

  “Dad, Joe’s asked me to his party on Saturday.”

  “That’ll be fun.”

  “The only thing is, he lives out at Awkstreet.”

  “Where’s the problem?”

  “D’you mind if I go by bus? There’s one straight through from Hipper Street.”

  “You’re not going by bus,” he replied immediately.

  Timothy’s expression became one of sharp disappointment.

  Josephine said, as she began to fry a slice of bread: “I told him that you’d want the car so we couldn’t run him there or fetch him.”

  “I don’t see why I can’t go by bus,” said Timothy rebelliously.

  Fusil stared at his son. Impossible for a boy of eleven really to understand: at eleven memory was so short that yesterday’s tragedy was to-day’s forgotten event. “I’ll leave the car at lunch-time and then your mother can drive you.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully, as she turned over the slice of bread in the frying-pan.

  “It’ll do me good to walk there for once, and if I need transport during the afternoon I’ll take the C.I.D. car. That’ll probably produce howls, but it won’t do the D.C.s any harm to have to make their own way around for a change.”

  *

  Campson entered Divisional H.Q. through the front room. “’Morning all,” he said in breezy fashion to the duty sergeant and duty P.C.

  “’Morning, Sid,” replied the sergeant. “Glad I’ve seen you. Wanted a quick word. You’ve got time for a
cuppa, haven’t you?”

  “It’d better wait until I’ve been up and reported to the old man.”

  “He’s not in yet.”

  “No? Is the earth still revolving? All right, let’s all go mad.” He walked along to the end of the counter, lifted the flap, and stepped inside.

  The sergeant turned to the P.C. “Three cups of coffee.”

  “From the canteen?”

  “For God’s sake, are you trying to poison us? Brew up in the office.” He watched the P.C. walk into the small glass-partitioned office at the back. There were no members of the public present — they usually didn’t start to arrive much before nine — yet he lowered his voice. “I suppose you know what’s happening in C.I.D.?”

  “Why d’you ask?” Campson took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it.

  “Better not,” said the sergeant. “We get the duty inspector through here and it’s Old Nutty this week. If he sees a cigarette he goes ravin’ mad.”

  Campson replaced the pack in his pocket.

  “I just wondered,” said the sergeant.

  “What are you on about?”

  “When I arrived for early turn there was a buzz that you’d laid on a raid on a suspect receiver which had to be aborted?”

  “Well?”

  “What was the bloke supposed to be receiving?”

  “I wouldn’t know. It was the old man’s picnic and he played everything very close to his chest.”

  “I wondered if maybe it was silver?”

  “And if it was?”

  The P.C. looked out of the small office. “Milk and sugar for all?”

  “Three spoonfuls and lots of milk,” said Campson.

  The P.C. returned inside.

  “Yesterday morning,” the sergeant continued, “the D.I. wanted Property opened. P.C. twenty-one’s in charge, so he went along. The D.I. picked up a silver tea-pot and refused to sign the book.”

  “Refused?”

  “That’s what I said. Called it just a quick loan. I warned twenty-one, tactful-like, to make a note so if there was any trouble he’d be in the clear.”