Betrayed by Death

by Roderic Jeffries

  Campson put the Telex message down on the desk and then handed over two foolscap sheets of paper, joined with a paper-clip. “The up-dated report on the Barclay’s snatch, sir.”

  “Anything in from Forensic yet?”

  “Not a whisper.”

  “They keep trade union hours.”

  What made them so lucky? wondered Campson.

  Fusil put that report down, picked up the previous night’s crime report. “See this lot’s dealt with. You’ll have to concentrate on the house in Evedale as far as you can — the owner’s put a provisional figure of a hundred thousand quid on the stuff nicked, says it could end up still more. Check up on the wounding at the disco. I’ve nothing definite to go on, but I’ve a feeling it was more than just another brawl: maybe drugs. Forget the cars. We haven’t the time or the blokes to cope.”

  They discussed routine matters for a while, then Campson left. Fusil drew on the pipe, found it had gone out, and relit it. He picked up the report Campson had just left and read through it. The job had been a quick, slick one — the three men who’d pulled it, plus the one in the car, had clearly been experts. Probably a team, formed for this one job — that was happening more and more frequently. The two security guards had suspected nothing until too late. They’d left the armoured van, walked into the Wallace Street branch of Barclays Bank, and handed over the requisition note and two strengthened suitcases. When the suitcases had been passed back they’d contained a hundred and thirteen thousand pounds in notes and silver. As one guard had been about to attach the suitcase to the chains secured to his waist, three men — who until then had appeared to be ordinary customers — had pulled guns from under their coats. One had fired up at the ceiling. The ear-shocking explosion had cut short any thoughts of resistance. They’d grabbed the suitcases, run out of the bank, climbed into a Rover, and driven off with squealing tyres. The first police car had arrived three minutes later, just ahead of the first foot patrol P.C.

  The white Rover had been found abandoned in Stevens Crescent, about a mile from the bank. It had been stolen in South Wimbledon the previous night. Vehicle Testing reported no dabs anywhere, a sawn-off shotgun under the front passenger seat, presumably kicked there in the scramble of the get-away and forgotten, and five small pellets of dried mud under the accelerator, almost certainly from the soles of the shoes of someone who had recently driven the car.

  There had been fifteen persons in the bank who’d seen the snatch: nine staff and six customers. They’d been questioned and they’d provided fifteen different descriptions of each man. Eight persons outside the bank had seen the get-away. Eight more, different, descriptions of each man.

  A list had been drawn up of villains with a record of armed robbery, and each of them was being questioned. An insurance company was offering a ten per cent reward on the usual terms. Many informers had already been told that there was over eleven thousand pounds on offer.

  Fusil began to tap on the desk with his long, thin fingers. The slickness of the operation suggested that either the job had been planned by a local villain or else by an outsider who’d carried out a long and careful survey. In either case, there was a good chance that an informer would have noticed or heard something. Eleven thousand pounds would make most informers forget the perils of informing.

  *

  In the sitting-room of his house, Thompson picked up a porcelain figure group depicting a man with a woman in a crinoline. He ran his fingers over the woman. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Ma?”

  His mother looked over the top of her reading spectacles. She tried to sound far more enthusiastic than she was. “It is pretty.” Her voice was very carefully modulated and accented: it was evocative of dried lavender sachets.

  “It’s from the Meissen factory — that was in Saxony. Like as not this was made in the middle of the eighteenth century. Worth a bomb. I wish we could keep it.”

  She managed to smile.

  “And then there’s this.” He showed her a two-handled silver bowl. “It’s a porringer: English. There’s something about its lines which I think are so bluntly lovely.” He stared at it.

  She nodded as she continued to crochet, her fingers moving with practised speed.

  “There’s some beautiful things in the world, Ma. Makes a bloke feel kind of humble.”

  She didn’t like it when he talked like that: she couldn’t understand what he meant. But then it was true to say — though she seldom allowed herself to say it — that she had never really understood him. All her sister’s children had grown up into ordinary people with ordinary jobs and ordinary families, but Miles had grown up into a — She carefully cut short her thoughts.

  There was a scratching on the door, and he put down the porringer and went over to open the door. Mitzy, beautifully groomed, a new and brightly coloured collar around her neck, came in. She danced at his feet, asking to be picked up: he picked her up and fondled her right ear.

  As her fingers plied the crochet needle, building up a flower pattern, she thought how he’d always loved dogs, right from the time he’d been small. Looking back on it, she supposed that they’d given him the sense of companionship he’d never been able to gain from other boys: and seemingly still failed to gain from other people.

  “Like to watch the telly, Ma? There’s some horse racing on.”

  She said she would. He carefully put Mitzy down on the floor, then crossed to the large colour set with remote control which he’d bought her a few months ago. (He never used the remote control if Mitzy was around. He’d read it might distress her.) A woman announcer said that they were about to go over to Sandown Park. The announcer reminded her, in a general way, of Fiona who’d lived in the next road. She’d hoped Miles would become fond of Fiona, but somehow it hadn’t happened and Fiona had married a man from Birmingham. She wondered if Miles ever would get married. He’d known several nice girls over the past years, but had never become really friendly with any of them. When she’d told him one day that he ought to be thinking of getting married, he’d just laughed and said that there was no point in it since he’d already got the most wonderful woman in the world looking after him. For once, she’d become really angry with him. But that hadn’t altered anything.

  “How about putting something on the grey, Ma? It’s moving like it’ll really go.”

  His words brought her back to the present. On the screen, the horses were parading around the ring and the camera had zoomed in on a well-boned grey. “Perhaps a cople of shillings,” she said doubtfully. She’d never come to terms with decimal currency, nor had she ever overcome the feeling that gambling on horses was only suitable for the lower classes or the aristocracy.

  He laughed, and his round, pudgy face broadened with humour. “Don’t get too wild and risk all the family fortune!” He walked over to the door and went out into the hall: Mitzy followed him.

  She heard him speak over the phone, and to her consternation he bet ten pounds on number seven. Of course, the value of money had changed in the past few years and he was ‘earning’ quite a lot now, but nevertheless ten pounds was far, far too much.

  He returned and sat down in the second armchair. Mitzy worried him until he picked her up on to his lap. “We got five to one, Ma. Fifty quid riding on number seven.”

  The grey fell at the second fence.

  “Oh, dear!” she said, very disturbed.

  “The only reasonable thing to do with that nag is turn it into dog meat.” The failure hadn’t soured him: he spoke with undiminished cheerfulness. “Come on, we’ve got to pick out the winner for the second race and recoup our losses.”

  “D’you think you really ought to bet any more. Miles? I mean, you’ve just lost ten pounds.”

  “Now, Ma, we’re not short of the odd tenner or two these days, so don’t you forget that.”

  It was very difficult to become accustomed to the fact that they were now quite well off. For years after her husband had departed with the brassy blonde, she had
had to make every pound do the work of two in order to keep Miles and herself. She could still remember as if it had happened yesterday how Miles had come back from school in tears because some of the boys had jeered at him for wearing patched clothes. She stopped crocheting for a moment as she looked around the room. New curtains and carpet, a really luxurious television set, the beautiful display cabinet for the little knick-knacks she’d collected over the years — of no intrinsic value, but of immense sentimental value — a nest of tables which was exactly like the ones she’d loved so much in her mother’s home. Those boys who’d jeered at Miles all those years ago ought to be made to see how successful he’d become. Through some legerdemain of thought, she did not once consider that his success had been attained in the art of thieving. She resumed crocheting.

  Chapter Three

  Kerr finished typing. “Right, that’s me for the off. There’s a steak and kidney pudding waiting at home, and my stomach’s cramping from thinking about it.”

  “D’you ever think of anything but food?” asked Yarrow sourly.

  “Not allowed to think of women, now I’m married.”

  “And I believe in fairies.”

  Kerr grinned. Night duty always made Yarrow bad tempered. Kerr stood, pushed back his chair, and stepped away from the table that had to do duty as his desk.

  The phone on Smith’s desk rang.

  “Answer it,” said Yarrow. “I’ve got to finish this work for the D.I. as soon as possible.”

  “I’m on my way home, chum, so the call’s for you.” He walked round the table, skirted a pile of books badly stacked on the floor, and continued past Smith’s desk and the ringing phone.

  “You’re a great guy for giving a hand,” Yarrow called out.

  “I never have been able to control my good nature.” He left. If it had been anyone but Yarrow, he would have answered the call, risking the possibility that he could then have become involved in extra work. But Yarrow never hesitated to ask for help while always having half a dozen reasons for being unable to offer any.

  Kerr went down the back stairs, along a corridor, and out to the courtyard. His car, a red Mini, was parked at the far end, near the vehicle-testing bay. He climbed into it, started the engine, backed and turned. He was just about to drive through the gateway on to the road when a P.C. waved him to stop. He lowered the window. “What’s up? Is that flaming sidelight on the blink again?”

  “Wouldn’t be surprising if it was, would it, not with a mobile wreck like this.”

  “I keep the Rolls at home.”

  “Very wise. Too many light-fingered blokes around here. You’re wanted on the phone.”

  “Tell whoever it is I’ve gone. I’m two hours overdue for grub already and my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”

  The P.C. grinned. “You’ll have me crying soon. The sarge said to take the call in the front room.”

  Kerr swore, parked the car to the right of the gateway, and then went through the station to the front room.

  The duty sergeant, standing behind the counter, said with overdone consideration: “Hope we’ve not keeping you from anything?”

  “Only my grub.”

  “Sorry about that. I don’t like troubling you blokes in C.I.D.”

  The P.C., who’d followed Kerr, chuckled. There was, thought Kerr, a sadistic streak in every man. “Let’s have the phone, then.” He took the receiver from the sergeant. “Kerr speaking.”

  “Bert ’ere, mister. Is that right there’s eleven grand on offer for the bank job?”

  “Correct.” He visualized the speaker, a small runt of a man with a face pockmarked from acne.

  “I’ve ’eard Bill Moody could tell about it.”

  Kerr waited, but when nothing more was said, asked: “D’you know anything else?”

  “Nothing, mister. You won’t forget it was me what told you, will you?”

  “We’ll need a bit more news than that if you’re to be in the money.”

  The phone went dead, and Kerr replaced the receiver.

  *

  D.C. Welland was a happy man. Last night when they’d gone to bed he and Molly had had a row, perhaps all the more bitter because it had been over virtually nothing. But this morning when the alarm had woken them she had smiled and he had hugged her slight body to his and the world had suddenly become a happy place once more.

  He walked along the road, looking even broader about the shoulders because his mackintosh did not fit and it ballooned about him. He turned into the Admiral’s Cabin and entered the public bar. The woman was sitting at a table, a glass in front of her. He waved, went to the bar and ordered half a pint of bitter and a double gin and tonic. He chuckled to himself as he imagined what Molly would say when he returned home and confessed he was late because he’d been with a tart in a pub.

  The woman hadn’t yet developed the hardness she would in another two to three years, but no experienced policeman or social worker would ever mistake her profession. She no longer looked at a man without summing up his value, or estimating his danger, as a client. He passed her the gin and tonic, sat down opposite. “How are things, then?”

  “Not so bad.” She still had an attractive voice: if one heard her voice without seeing her face, one could visualize youth and innocence.

  “Have a fag?” He offered her a pack. When he had joined the police force he had been filled with a sense of naïve idealism: four years on the beat and more than one in C.I.D. still hadn’t totally extinguished that. Had she asked him to help her lift herself out of the life she was leading, he would have done all he could.

  She picked up the glass he had brought her. “Trade’s slack, though,” she said in weary tones. “There’s not the ships coming in there used to be: it’s the depression.”

  “Things’ll get better.”

  She looked at him with sudden, sharp envy. He really could believe that things would get better. She drew on the cigarette. “Thought you’d want to know. Bill Moody was knocking around town with a couple of strangers last Friday.”

  “Any idea who the two were?”

  “Never seen ’em before. They were heavies, though.”

  “How about describing them?”

  She tried: she was not very successful. It was difficult even for the most observant of persons accurately to give a word picture of someone else, and except where her interests were directly concerned she was not very observant.

  She finished her drink. “Feel like another?” he asked.

  “Throwing the money around, aren’t you?”

  He grinned. “It’s not me that pays: comes out of the fund.”

  “You’re all right.” She envied him his security and respectability sufficiently to hate him — but she would never forget that if he hadn’t come to her help seven months before she would have been very severely injured, perhaps killed.

  *

  Josephine Fusil, a handsome woman, had a natural air of authority — ironic, really, since there were often times when she was quite unsure of herself. She watched the T.V. commentator pause, to signify a change of topic, and then turned to face her husband. “Is there anything fresh on the boy?”

  “No, not really. Just a witness who says he saw a boy waiting at a bus-stop near the cinema at a quarter past ten.”

  “D’you think it was him?”

  “The time fits.”

  “Why does it keep happening when everyone’s been warned?”

  “Because there’s no way of always preventing mistakes and misunderstandings.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better fetch Tim. He said about half-past.”

  “I’ll go. You’ve been working all day.”

  He stood, bringing an end to that.

  She said sharply: “You have spoken to Tim about not going anywhere, anywhere at all, on his own, haven’t you, Bob?”

  He nodded. She knew that he had, several times, but like all other parents she was haunted by the fear of the tragedy which could happen.


  He drove the two miles to where Timothy had been spending the evening and picked up his son. On the return journey, Timothy described all they’d done: they’d set up a new track and he’d won five of the seven races with a Lotus, they’d watched the telly and the programme had turned out to be so soft it was only fit for girls, they’d had an enormous supper of sausages and mash — not the kind of sausages his mother was always giving him, but super ones which tasted so wonderful, and why couldn’t he ever have them at home . . .

  In Whetstone Cross, thought Fusil, there was a couple who’d give everything they possessed to hear their son chatting on endlessly. How in the hell could nine boys vanish one after another, all undoubtedly murdered by a sex pervert, without the police uncovering a single lead?

  Something nudged his brain, but the moment he tried to identify it, it escaped him.

  Timothy’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I said, what d’you think about it, Dad?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t you ever listen to what I’m saying?”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve had a thick day. Tell me again.”

  They turned into Cromwell Road and slowed as they approached number 16.

  “I asked if you thought there was any chance of me having a racing car set like George’s for my birthday?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Golly!” Expecting the usual kind of rejection that his ideas for future presents usually met, he was so astonished that for a while he was silent.

  They drove into the garage. There was no inside door, so after shutting up the garage Fusil followed Timothy into the house through the front door. He was in time to hear Timothy pleading that it was far too early to go to bed and Josephine agreeing that perhaps for once he could watch the television until the end of the programme. Bitterly, Fusil thought that Timothy would never realize to what he owed his unusual good fortune.