Ransom Town

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘No, sir, not at all,’ replied Fusil. Kerr could not remember ever before hearing Fusil call any man ‘sir’ who was not his superior in the force.

  ‘But if I can’t help her physical self I can try to help her mental self by protecting her from other people’s tragedies, especially her own family’s. . . . She loves her daughter, Betty. I want to make that absolutely clear because if you’ve met Betty, you might wonder. And as Angela’s illness has become worse, so her love for Betty has become more intense – I think that instead of resenting so much health and beauty, which she might have come to do because her own has gone, she gains strength from knowing that she’ll leave behind what she once had. Perhaps you don’t understand what I’m trying to say?’

  ‘We understand perfectly,’ said Fusil quietly.

  Coutts went over to the chair to the right-hand side of the inglenook fireplace. ‘Betty’s happiness is Angela’s happiness, Betty’s unhappiness is her hell. So when Betty came here one day and told me . . .’ He looked at Fusil. ‘You must have guessed what happened, or you wouldn’t have come here again?’

  ‘I think so. Morgan gave you three thousand pounds to pay into your account so that you could then pay it to him. That meant there was a cheque, a credit entry in his account, and a debit entry in yours, to prove that you really had given him the money.’

  ‘That’s right. It was obviously something pretty shady so I told Betty I wouldn’t do it. She immediately burst into tears and said Brian would be ruined, probably sent to jail, and what would all that do to her mother . . . I’ve often wondered how someone like Angela could have been so very unlucky. She’s totally warm-hearted, totally honest, yet Betty is the most selfish person I’ve ever met. Betty knew exactly how to play the scene. If I wouldn’t promise to help Brian, she couldn’t control herself any longer and she’d have to pour out all her terrible troubles to her mother and that would upset her so terribly. . . .’ Coutts’s voice broke. He was silent for a while, then he continued in a firmer voice: ‘I had to agree. Then when I learned what Brian must have done . . . I nearly told the truth. But the consequences of that were the same as before and in the end I didn’t have the courage.’

  ‘I think a very great many of us would have done exactly as you did, Mr Coutts.’

  Coutts studied Fusil’s face. ‘You understand, don’t you? A family can be hell because children can be so utterly ruthless. . . . What will happen now?’

  ‘We’ll return to Fortrow to question Brian Morgan.’

  ‘I suppose everything that’s happened will have to come out?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘So I merely succeeded in prolonging the agony.’ He looked up briefly at the ceiling. ‘Unless that other agony comes to an end very soon.’

  Fusil and Kerr said very brief good-byes and they had driven over a mile before Fusil spoke and then it was on a matter unconnected with what had just taken place.

  They reached Morgan’s house at eight-fifteen. Fusil said: ‘Didn’t you once describe the wife as looking like Helen of Troy and Cleopatra rolled into one?’

  ‘Something along those lines,’ replied Kerr.

  ‘How would you go about describing the husband?’

  ‘Ordinary and pretty weak natured – only I can’t quote any particular reason other than general impressions for saying that.’

  ‘It figures. Let’s go and find out how weak.’

  Betty Morgan opened the front door. She was dressed in tight-fitting sweater and slacks which made it unnecessary to wonder if she had all the right curves.

  In answer to Fusil’s query, she said: ‘But Brian’s about to go off to work. Can’t you come back some other time?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  She looked at him with a little girl/big girl expression on her face. ‘Are you just going to ask him all the old questions?’

  ‘Not this time. We’ve some new ones for him.’

  ‘Oh!’ she hesitated. ‘I suppose you’d better come along into the sitting-room, then, and I’ll call him.’ She left, body swaying provocatively.

  Brian Morgan entered in less than a minute. He was wearing a dark, pin-striped suit, well worn yet still reasonably smart. ‘Betty said you wanted a word. Anything I can do, I’ll be only too glad to help.’ His manner was earnest. ‘By the by, I’m sure you’d like the heater on – it gets a bit parky these mornings, doesn’t it?’

  They didn’t answer and Morgan began to talk too quickly about the poor weather. He carried a fan heater over from the far side of the room and plugged this in and switched it on. ‘Would you care for coffee? Betty can easily make some.’

  ‘There’s no need to bother,’ said Fusil quietly. ‘D’you mind if I smoke a pipe?’ He packed his pipe with some tobacco he’d borrowed from a sergeant. ‘Have you got your notebook ready?’ he asked Kerr. He struck a match and lit the pipe. Then he looked up and spoke to Morgan. ‘Why not sit down? We’re liable to be here quite a time.’

  ‘But I can’t hang on here. . . .’ Faced by their bland indifference to what he said, he became silent. Slowly, irresolutely, he went over to the settee and sat. He fiddled with a strand of hair which hung down over his forehead.

  Fusil said: ‘We know you accepted a bribe of three thousand for passing on the details of the alarm system at the bank. What we want to hear now is who paid you and who you gave the details to.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything of the sort,’ he blustered. ‘I told him . . .’ He pointed at Kerr. ‘I wouldn’t ever do anything like that. . . .’

  ‘You tried to get Mr Coutts to help you voluntarily and when he refused you forced him into doing it. He’s told us how you viciously blackmailed him,’ added Fusil contemptuously. ‘You gave him the three thousand so that he could then pay you the money and the records would appear to show that everything was above board.’

  Morgan’s face twisted with fear.

  ‘Who gave you the three thousand?’

  ‘No . . . no one.’

  ‘Can’t you understand you’re at the end of the road? There are no desperately ill women or their frantic husbands left for you to blackmail emotionally to help get you out of trouble.’

  The carriage clock on the mantelpiece struck the half hour. Morgan said shrilly: ‘I’ve got to go to work. I can’t stop any longer. You’ll have to come back some other time. . . .’

  Fusil just shook his head.

  ‘Oh God!’ whispered Morgan.

  Kerr spoke in friendly tones. ‘Tell us what happened and get it over and done with. There’s no point in going on and on denying everything when we know what happened. Right now, the more you lie, the worse you make things for yourself.’

  Morgan looked entreatingly at Kerr, as if he thought that perhaps the detective would absolve him from everything.

  ‘It was your wife who persuaded you, wasn’t it?’

  Morgan shook his head, but his mouth was working. Then he suddenly spoke wildly. ‘Betty wanted things: things I couldn’t afford. She wouldn’t stop telling me that all our friends kept having new clothes, cars, furniture, but that I wouldn’t buy her anything. . . . At night, she wouldn’t . . . She’d smile and say she’d a headache, but she knew I knew she was lying. And she went out of her way to make things more difficult for me. You can’t imagine what it was like. She used to walk around with nothing on and say . . . And say how much she wanted me. But then when I . . . She’d start on again about all the things we needed and if I wouldn’t buy them for her, why should she do anything nice for me . . . I was going crazy.’

  ‘When was the first approach made to you to pass on the details of the bank alarms?’ asked Fusil.

  ‘There was a phone call.’ Morgan stared miserably into space. ‘Three thousand for the information and no one would ever know a thing. I told the man to go to hell. But Betty wanted to know what it was all about. And d’you know what?’ He sounded pitifully surprised. ‘She couldn’t understand why I’d refused. She said that with three
thousand she could have some of the things she needed and go to some of the places she wanted to go to.

  ‘I tried to tell her, I was in a position of trust. She didn’t seem to be able to understand. She just sneered at me for being soft and when we went to bed that night . . . She swore she wouldn’t know me that way again because I wouldn’t do anything for her. I tried not to want her so much, I swear I did, but it was hopeless.

  ‘I knew there might be a police investigation, so I thought up the idea of paying the money into Henry’s account. Of course, at first he wouldn’t hear of the idea. He’s always been so completely . . . honest. Then Betty managed to persuade him to agree.’

  ‘Who gave you the three thousand? To whom did you give the plans?’

  Morgan shook his head.

  ‘Don’t be bloody silly.’

  ‘I can’t. I won’t.’

  ‘The men who used you are mixed up in the ransom and arson that’s going on now, here in Fortrow. They’ve murdered twice already. They’re threatening to murder God knows how many more people.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you anything more.’

  Fusil put down his pipe and spoke to Kerr. ‘Forget the notebook.’ He watched Kerr shut his notebook. He spoke quite slowly. ‘I saw the kid who was burned to death in Hatton Close when they pulled his body out of the house and I talked to his parents. Ever seen a human body that’s been burned? Ever spoken to parents mad with grief? If I don’t get the names there could be dozens more bodies and dozens and dozens more husbands and wives, parents, or children, all mad with grief.

  ‘Forget your own miserable little self for once. Try to make up for a fraction of the harm you’ve done. Who gave you the money? Who did you give the plan to?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  Fusil stood up. ‘I don’t like violence. I spend my life fighting it. But just once in a while there’s a time when it’s necessary because nothing else will work. You’re either going to give names or I’m going to smash them out of you.’

  ‘No!’

  Fusil stepped forward, knowing that he was throwing away his career, but certain that this coward could be forced to talk.

  Kerr said: ‘Just a moment, sir.’

  ‘Keep out of this,’ Fusil retorted fiercely.

  ‘No, sir.’ Kerr spoke to Morgan. ‘When I visited Mr Coutts’s house I saw a photo in the sitting-room. It was probably taken just after the marriage between him and Mrs Coutts when your wife was still a girl.’

  Morgan was trembling.

  ‘With her was a boy, a little bit older. He must have been her brother. What’s happened to him? Why doesn’t anyone ever mention him? Why was Mr Coutts even more bitter over his wife’s family than the apparent circumstances seemed to warrant. Why is Mrs Coutts so desperate to believe in your wife’s happiness that you and your wife could blackmail Mr Coutts into helping you over a crime? Is it because her son had turned rotten a long time ago and now she’s only her daughter left to believe in and so to be forced to learn her daughter was as rotten as her son would leave her to die in total despair?’

  Morgan shut his eyes.

  ‘It was her brother who bribed you?’ said Fusil, making it as much a statement of fact as a question.

  Morgan nodded.

  ‘What name’s he using?’

  ‘Joe Allsopp,’ mumbled Morgan.

  ‘Where’s he living?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Goddamn it . . .’

  ‘I swear I don’t know: no one in the family does. Every time he just suddenly turns up or telephones.’

  Fusil was certain he was telling the truth. He put his pipe in his pocket, jerked his head at Kerr, and walked over to the door.

  They were crossing the hall when Betty came out of the kitchen. ‘I do hope everything’s all right now? Won’t you stay and have some coffee or tea?’ she asked. Fusil stared at her with such contempt that she drew in her breath and stepped back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fusil said over the telephone: ‘Joe Allsopp. I want every single known detail about him with particular reference to all recorded contacts and addresses. Maximum priority.’ He replaced the receiver, leaned back in the chair, and stared at Kerr, who was perched on the edge of the desk. ‘You saved me from doing something drastic back in Morgan’s house. Thanks a lot.’

  They waited. Miss Wagner came into the room and began to tell Fusil that he had forgotten to do something important, but he stopped her so brusquely that for once she did not press the point but left, very straight-backed.

  The phone rang. Fusil crossed to the desk and answered it. He listened, then said he wanted the file right away. He spoke to Kerr after ringing off. ‘Nothing until he was nineteen but since then he’s made up for lost time. Last known job was a big payroll snatch. He uses violence and is considered a very smart operator to work for.’

  ‘What’s his last known address?’

  ‘In south Clapham.’

  ‘Why hasn’t he been questioned as a potential suspect?’

  ‘For all we know at this moment he has been, but there can’t have been any hint that he was tied up with the ransom. If, in fact, he is.’

  ‘D’you think, then, that despite everything maybe he isn’t?’

  Fusil shook his head. ‘When things start fitting at this stage of a case, they’re usually right.’ He telephoned London and asked for Allsopp’s last address to be visited and full enquiries to be made to try and trace his present whereabouts.

  *

  The chief constable sat behind his ornate desk and the assistant chief constable, shoulders hunched to make him look even more like a battered ex-pug, stood by the window.

  ‘Fusil’s calling for more time,’ said the chief constable. ‘Doesn’t the man realize the pressures we’re under?’

  ‘Probably not. That’s the advantage of being in the field.’ He turned. ‘On second thoughts, though, remembering the man, he probably doesn’t give a damn.’

  ‘How far has he got?’

  ‘They’re hoping to close in on Allsopp and through him identify the rest of the mob. But how long it’ll take to locate Allsopp . . .’ The assistant chief constable shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘With the record he’s got, Allsopp’s not going to start talking the moment they take him in, any more than any others in the mob will.’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘So if he keeps his mouth tight shut, will Fusil have enough on him to hold him?’

  ‘Not unless he finds some solid proof at the time of the pick-up.’

  ‘Then clearly he may have to let him go. Which means the mob will know how close we’ve got. In the same way, even if Fusil can hold him but doesn’t learn enough to make a clean sweep, his detention will tell the mob just as loudly and clearly. In either case they’ll know they’ve got to move and move very quickly, so the crisis will be precipitated which everyone now is working like hell to avoid. We’re on a hiding to nothing.’

  ‘So do we call Fusil off?’

  ‘We’d be bloody poor policemen if we did that. But we have to accept that when he goes in it will probably be the end for us.’

  *

  The detective sergeant with his pointed face and quick, sinuous movements, had something of the look of a ferret. He spoke over the phone to one of his informers. ‘I’m looking for Joe Allsopp. He’s supposed to live in your territory.’

  ‘Joe Allsopp?’ said the informer, as if the name were new to him. His voice was hoarse. He’d once had his throat cut, but the knife hadn’t gone quite deeply enough to complete the job.

  ‘It’ll pay heavy.’

  ‘I ain’t seen him around recent, mister.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve heard which way he travelled?’

  ‘Could’ve been south.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know and that’s straight. Joe don’t talk much.’

  ‘Who does he move around with when he’s in the Smoke?’

/>   ‘I’ve seen him with Angel, but no one else. Bit of a loner is Joe.’

  ‘Is that Angel Race?’

  ‘S’right, mister.’

  ‘Is he still around?’

  ‘I ain’t seen him for a bit, neither.’

  *

  It was nearly midday by the time photographs of Joe Allsopp and Angel Race had been copied and the copies had been distributed around the division. It was one-forty-five when P.C. Cleveland, along with a number of other P.C.s about to start late turn, entered the Parade Room at divisional H.Q.

  The duty sergeant called out: ‘All of you, take a butchers at the board.’ He pointed to one of the notice boards which had been cleared so that two photographs could be prominently displayed.

  The P.C.s studied the photos.

  ‘Have any of you clapped eyes on either of those beauties in the past few days or weeks?’

  ‘I reckon I have, Sarge,’ said P.C. Cleveland.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Angel Race.’

  ‘When and where?’

  The P.C. took his notebook from his coat pocket and methodically thumbed through it. He read an entry. ‘Five nights ago, Sarge. I got called to the Fox and Geese because a couple of tearaways had tanked up too much and were causing a disturbance. I sorted them out just in time for one of the cars to turn up to give a hand.’ There was some laughter. (Question: How d’you know if a bloke’s ever worked on the cars? Answer: He never arrives until all the trouble’s over.) ‘I asked two or three blokes for their names and addresses as witnesses and this bloke in the photo was one of ’em. As I remember it, he wasn’t over keen to speak up.’

  ‘What name did he give?’

  He read out three names: none of them was Race.

  *

  Every known criminal, informer, and prostitute, who lived within a mile of the Fox and Geese was questioned in one of the fastest operations the division had mounted for a long time.