The Madeiran Double Cross

by Sally Spencer

  “We must ring the manager immediately,” he said, “and he will put the money back in the bank.”

  “So somebody else, armed with a tin opener, can walk in and take it out again?” Gower asked. “We’re not putting it back in the bank – because it’s bloody evidence.”

  Christ, this bloke was a plonker.

  He walked over to Silva’s desk and began to unfasten the buckles on the rucksack. They were tightly secured – whoever had fastened them in the first place had made a good job of it, especially considering he’d done it in the heat of the bank raid. Still, that was sensible – you didn’t want money blowing all over the mountainside.

  “You get four men in here,” he said. “Four men you can trust – or at least four who are less light-fingered than the rest. I want them to count the money, and make a note of serial numbers at the beginning and end of each package.”

  “That will take all night,” Silva said.

  “Yes, it will probably take all bloody night.”

  Jesus, Silva wanted it easy. The little tosser had got somebody else to catch his criminals for him, and even so, he was complaining about doing the routine paperwork himself.

  The buckles were all unfastened. Gower peeled back the flap of the rucksack – and froze. Oh, this would get Pedro talking all right! He would spill his guts when he saw this.

  “You really are a bastard, Frank Mason, aren’t you?” Gower said to the empty air.

  EIGHTEEN

  The first things that Pedro saw, staring accusingly at him from the centre of the interrogation-room table, were the kitbag and rucksack.

  They couldn’t be the ones! It was some trick of Gower’s! But it was no trick, they were the very same bags he had sweated and strained with along the mountain track.

  “They can’t prove anything without the money.”

  Well, they had the money now, and he knew it was all over. He knew, too, that despite the last two days, he was not a tough gangster – that he was nothing more than a village boy playing at being big.

  “I make a deal, Mr. Gower,” he said. “I tell you everything. I don’t want to go to prison for a long time.”

  He told of his recruitment by Arnie the Actor, and the meetings in the bed-sit. He described the robbery – how he had held the shotgun at the manager’s head, how Harry Smell had filled the rucksack, how Frankie had shot out the tires of the lorry, how Tony-Boy had driven the wrong way down a one-way street.

  “Who loaded the money into the boot of the getaway car?” Gower asked.

  “Harry Smell was given the job. Frankie and me, we do the important work, covering the street,” Pedro answered, with just a trace of his old arrogance.

  “And who took the money out again, and put it in the boot of the Fiesta?”

  “Frankie and Harry Smell. Tony-Boy is starting the Escort, I am getting out of my bank-robbings clothes.”

  Gower nodded as if satisfied.

  “And you’ve told me everything, Pedro?”

  “Everything, Mr. Gower. I swear on my grandmother’s grave.”

  Gower brought his fist down heavily on the table. The rucksack wobbled.

  “Your grandmother's grave! They don’t bury whores like your grandmother, they just chuck them out with the rest of the rubbish. Tell me about Mrs. Snell and that tart Susan, you little shit!”

  “Who? I don’t understand.”

  “So you don’t know about them. Of course not – you weren’t at the party.”

  “Party?”

  “In Jardim’s Restaurant, the night before the robbery. They were all there.”

  “Frankie never told me about no party. Frankie say we don’t meet. Frankie say if we bumps into each other, we looks the other way.”

  Gower scowled.

  “There seem to be a lot of bloody things Frankie never told you, don’t there?” He stood up and walked to the corner of the room. “Well, you’ve done it, Pedro. You’ve sold them all down the river – Frankie, Tony-Boy, the whole bleeding bunch of them.”

  “I don’t care,” Pedro moaned. “I don’t care.”

  “You bloody well shouldn’t care,” Gower said, “because they double-crossed you as well.”

  The Portuguese was not interested. What Mason had done, or had been going to do, wasn’t important now. It mattered only that he had been caught and, even with the confession in his favour, would be spending the next few years in prison.

  “Before you go back to your cell,” Gower continued, relentlessly, “wouldn’t you like to look at the money one last time?”

  Pedro’s face was a blank, all emotion washed away.

  “Go on, take a look,” Gower urged him. “After all, it’s the reason you got caught. And it must have been hard work carrying it along that mountain trail.”

  Pedro shook his head.

  “Go to the rucksack, you lump of dog shit,” Gower ordered, “and touch the money. Bring me some to have a look at, too.”

  Pedro was feeling too weak to fight. He walked to the table, as if in a daze, and lifted the flap, just as Gower had done earlier.

  Once he saw what was inside, everything changed. His collapsed facial muscles suddenly sprang to life, and the expression they formed was one of anger and amazement. He dug his hands deep into the rucksack, tunnelling, throwing its contents all over the floor. He up-ended it, shaking all the bundles out, then kicked them, as if they were a pile of dead autumn leaves. Finally, when he was convinced that there was nothing else hidden in the bags, he picked up one of the bundles and waved it at Gower.

  “What the bloodys hell is this?” he demanded.

  Gower took his impertinence with equanimity.

  “Inspector Silva tells me it’s the Jornal da Madeira – the local newspaper,” he said, “neatly cut up to the size of Portuguese bank notes. All that struggling, all that effort, was for bits of old newsprint. Nice sodding friends you’ve got, haven’t you?”

  *

  Gower looked on silently while Silva charged Mason, Horton and Snell with bank robbery and Mrs. Snell, Susan and Linda with complicity. They all repeated their requests to see a lawyer.

  “Not until they tell us where the money is,” Gower said to Silva, when they were alone.

  “I have charged them, they must have an advocate,” Silva replied, picking up the phone. “I will call Senhor de Sousa. His English is excellent.”

  “But is he a good lawyer?” Gower asked.

  “He has high standing on the island.”

  “Then get somebody else,” Gower suggested. “A beginner or a dead-beat shyster – preferably somebody whose English will make even Pedro wince.”

  “Senhor de Sousa,” Silva said – firmly for him – and dialed the number.

  *

  Senhor de Sousa was a tiny middle-aged man who was perpetually brushing imaginary specks off his immaculate jacket. He looked at the two policemen with sharp, suspicious eyes.

  ‘A liberal,’ was Gower’s instant classification, and the lawyer was slotted neatly into his personal hierarchy of dirt-bags somewhere between pimps and drug pushers.

  De Sousa went to see Susan first, but was gone less than two minutes.

  “Before she talks to me herself, my client wishes me to see Mrs. Monk,” he said.

  “She’s done nothing but whine about a lawyer for the last twenty-four … twenty minutes,” Gower said, hastily amending his statement midway, “and now she’s got one, she wants him to see Linda instead. What’s she bloody playing at?”

  “It is not for you or I to question my client’s instructions,” de Sousa said coldly. “Will you please have me escorted to where you are holding Mrs. Monk?”

  He spent twenty minutes with Linda, and then requested a meeting with Silva and Gower.

  “My client …” he began.

  “Which client?” Gower demanded.

  “My client, Mrs. Monk, is prepared to make a statement,” he said, “but only under certain conditions. She has been incarcerated in this
police station for over a day and has not been permitted to consult a lawyer …”

  “She never bleeding asked for one.”

  De Sousa shot Gower a look of contempt and disbelief.

  “… and has not been permitted to consult a lawyer,’ he repeated. “Before she makes a statement, she feels the need for a little fresh air. She would like to walk around the town for an hour or so. She is quite willing to be accompanied by a policeman.”

  “No!” Gower said. “I’ve never heard anything so bloody ridiculous in my life.”

  de Sousa ignored him and addressed his next remark exclusively to Silva.

  “I have certain information that you do not,” he said in measured tones. “In the interest of both your own reputation and the reputation of the police force, Inspector, I would strongly advise you to agree to her request before this regrettable matter goes any further.”

  “Yes, yes,” Silva said, scared shitless by de Sousa’s attitude. “Yes, she can go for a walk – as long as she promises to talk when she gets back.”

  Gower snorted with disgust. You just didn't treat criminals like that. When you had them down, you put the boot in.

  And then it occurred to him that there might be another reason behind Linda's request.

  “All right,” he said, “it’s a good idea.”

  de Sousa looked at him with suspicion.

  “A walk might clear her head, and make it easier for her to give her statement,” Gower explained.

  When de Sousa left to tell his client that her request had been granted, Gower grabbed Silva by the arm.

  “I want two policemen with her,” he said, “the sharpest, most alert bastards you’ve got. And I want them to watch her every action. What she does and where she looks.”

  “But why?”

  “For Christ’s sake, man – it’s bloody obvious,” Gower exploded. “There can only be one reason for her wanting to go out now. She wants to make sure the money is still where they put it!”

  *

  Linda walked along the Avenida do Infante, and through the park. She seemed quite relaxed, her guards reported later. She was just taking the air; not looking at anything in particular, not peering into any nooks or crannies or glancing behind any bushes, not feeling loose bricks in the wall or anxiously examining the flower beds for signs of fresh digging.

  When she had exhausted the possibilities of the park, she strolled along the sea front. She stopped at a bar and ordered drinks for herself and the two policemen. She drank her coffee and then informed her guards that she was ready to go back and make a statement.

  *

  Gower spent the time that Linda was out and about racking his brains to discover a loophole which Mason and his gang might slip through – and could find none. In the jargon that had been current when he joined the Force, he had the robbers “bang to rights”.

  And yet Linda seemed perfectly calm when she returned. She sat on a straight-backed chair in Silva’s office, her beautiful slim legs crossed, her skirt riding high. Gower noticed the police stenographer’s eyes were almost popping out of his head, and was sure that Linda was putting on the show deliberately.

  “Right, Linda,” he said. “Do you want to tell us all about it?”

  She smiled – a sexy, promising, open-lipped smile that had no effect on him.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “We can start by telling us what you were doing at the time of the robbery.”

  “When exactly was that?”

  “You know when it bleeding well was!”

  “Excuse me, but I really must protest at such language being directed at my client,” the lawyer said.

  “It’s all right, Mr. de Sousa,” Linda said reassuringly – and with a smile that was far from wasted this time. “I’m not offended by anything Mr. Gower says, because I know he can’t help it. He’s not a gentleman, you see, and no one’s ever taught him how to behave.”

  She deserved a good hard slapping for that, Gower thought – and he’d have given her one if her lawyer hadn’t been in the room. But her lawyer was there – and was unlikely to see such an action as a necessary part of the interrogation.

  So, instead of doing what came naturally, Gower took a deep breath and said, “I’d like to know where you were at nine o’clock, Mrs. Monk.

  Linda pursed her brow prettily – which was no mean trick – and pretended to think.

  “Nine o’clock, nine o'clock … Let me see. I had a headache yesterday morning, but I went down for breakfast anyway. I was alone. Yes, that was at nine o’clock – I know that because I didn’t have my watch on, and I asked one of the waiters the time. He said it was exactly nine and pointed to the big clock on the wall. I think he’ll probably remember.”

  “I’m bloody certain he will,” Gower thought.

  Most men would remember Linda – especially when she wanted them to.

  Gower saw her game now. What Mason had been expecting her to do was stay in the room, so that he could claim later that they’d been together. Instead, she’d gone downstairs – effectively destroying his alibi at the same time as established one of her own.

  She was hoping to beat the conspiracy charge, and she probably could, Gower thought. She could see her standing in the dock, with tears forming in her beautiful big eyes as the prosecuting brief asked her why she hadn’t become suspicious when Frank Mason had questioned her about what the Chief Cashier had told her.

  “I thought that Frank, being a businessman himself, just wanted to know how they did business in Portugal.”

  “But Mason wasn’t a businessman, was he? He was a gangster.”

  “I know that now, sir, but I didn’t know it then.”

  And all the men on the jury – their reason clouded by lust – would believe every word she said.

  Even if she was convicted, she’d most likely get away with two or three years, while the rest of the gang were doing twenty stretches. And when she came out, she’d be in the clear – and all the money would be hers.

  She was nothing but a double-crossing bitch – but then Gower had learned long ago never to trust any woman!

  He tried to summon up a little of that anger which perpetually lay, like a sea of molten lava, in the pit of his stomach – and was surprised to find that he couldn’t.

  The truth was, he realized, that he didn’t care that Linda might get off scot-free. He didn’t care if the money was never recovered, either. All he really wanted was to see Mason banged up, and because this vicious slag was helping him achieve that aim, he felt towards her – for the moment – something that was almost akin to affection.

  “And while you were having breakfast, where was Frank?” he asked. “Was he out with Harry and Tony?”

  “Yes, that’s right. They all left together. I saw them go.”

  God, she was handing them to him on a plate.

  “And do you know where they were going?” Gower said, trying his best not to let the feeling of triumph – which was surging through his whole body – come to the surface.

  “They were …” Linda said. She paused. “Has anyone got a cigarette, please?”

  The police stenographer dropped his pad, and almost fell over himself to extract a cigarette and light it for her. Linda took a long reflective drag, re-crossed her legs, and looked Gower squarely in the face.

  “Do you know where they were going?” he repeated.

  He saw that she was smiling again. It was not one of her sexy lascivious smiles, but more of a wide, amused grin. She reminded him – for some reason – of a magician who is reaching the climax of his act and is about to pull off a trick which will leave his audience totally mystified.

  “I wasn’t exactly sure where they were going when they went out,” she said, “but from what I saw when they came back, I could make a pretty good guess at where they’d been.”

  NINETEEN

  As Gower walked down the corridor to Mason’s cell, he was thinking about his dream –


  — Mason in chains, walking up the steps to the scaffold

  — the hooded executioner, waiting to greet him with the noose

  — and then – just when the dance in the air had seemed inevitable – the escape.

  When he’d woken up, it had been the escape that had worried him, so he’d examined all the legal loopholes and decided the case was as tightly meshed as it could be.

  And that had been his mistake.

  He shouldn’t have been thinking about the escape – he should have concentrated on exactly who was wearing the hood!

  Don’t get angry, he told himself.

  He needed to be calm if he was to explain to Mason that he had worked it all out for himself, and – because letting Mason know that he had worked it out was all he had left with which to shore up his battered ego – he wanted to do it very much indeed.

  When the guard opened the door, Mason was sitting on his bunk, smoking a cigarette. He waved it at Gower.

  “I’d given up smoking,” he said, “but you get so bored in jail, don’t you?”

  “Mind if I take a seat, Frank?” Gower asked politely.

  Mason’s face registered surprise.

  “A seat, Mr. Gower?” he said. And then, was if he had worked out something himself, he added, “Why not?”

  Gower picked up the single institutional chair, and straddled it, arms resting on the back.

  “I’ve been running my arse off ever since this case began,” he said. “There’s never really been time to stop and ask myself why you made such a mess of planning this job, and why you …”

  “I didn’t plan any job, Mr. Gower.”

  “Look Frank, there are no microphones, no hidden cameras, no listeners,” Gower said. “I just want to talk the job through with you.”

  Mason said nothing.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Gower said, exasperatedly. “All right, then, have it your way – I never really had time to stop and ask myself why somebody made such a mess of the planning.”

  Mason was still silent.

  “For a start, why use Portuguese Pedro?” Gower plowed on. “I mean, he’s such a bleeding wally, isn’t he?”