Darkness and Confusion

by John Creasey

  1. TV and radio co-operation – Epping. Photos. Special messages to parents.

  2. Vigilantes – so called.

  3. Earlier notification to police by parents.

  4. General matters, power failures/ sabotage.

  5. Arson.

  That was about the lot.

  His inside telephone rang, and he expected it to be Scott-Marie, was about to speak with that little extra precision which Scott-Marie somehow contrived to demand: instead it was an excited Lemaitre.

  “George! I think we’ve got him.”

  Gideon bit on a sarcastic: “Am I supposed to know who you’ve got?” and asked mildly: “Who?”

  “The fire-raiser last night!”

  “Have you, then,” said Gideon, suddenly excited. “You mean you’ve charged him?”

  “No, but I’m having him watched,” answered Lemaitre. “He’s an apprentice named Jensen, George Jensen, in the cabinet makers shop at the factory – what was the factory – and he was out about the time the fire was started last night. He turned up very late, saying he’d heard about the fire. His hair and eyebrows are singed.”

  “Why haven’t you picked him up?” asked Gideon.

  “I thought we might wait and find out if anyone gets in touch with him,” Lemaitre answered. “One of our chaps knows the family and I’ve got a pretty good dossier on him. Can’t find any reason, why he should start the fire. No grievance, no history of fire-raising – an eighteen year old kid with decent habits, comes from a good family, has pretty normal types as friends. Can’t see a kid of his kind doing this of his own accord, someone almost certainly put him up to it.”

  Gideon said: “Give him the rest of the day, but no more.”

  “But, dammit—”

  “Lem, I’ve a big load on my plate,” Gideon said. “Talk to him tonight. We can’t play games when it’s a question of murder.”

  After a pause, Lemaitre said with an explosive sigh: “I suppose you’re right. There’s one other thing, though. The old boy who runs the firm keeps talking about no one’s going to put him out of business.”

  “Do you know what he means?” asked Gideon.

  “Not yet but I’ll find out,” Lemaitre said. “See you.” He rang off abruptly, probably put out, and Gideon replaced his receiver, quite sure that he was right in wanting to bring George Jensen in for questioning, yet understanding how Lemaitre felt and what he wanted to do.

  There was a lull of perhaps a minute before his telephone rang again. This time it was Scott-Marie, who said in his most formal voice: “Yes Commander. I will see you in my office, at four o’clock.”

  At half-past three, Sheila Morrison came out of the gates of the school near Richmond Green, and looked among the crowd of parents for her mother, but her mother wasn’t there. She waited in the playground for ten minutes, at first impatient then was beguiled into a game of hop-scotch with several other girls. The waiting parents collected their charges, and went off. No one noticed that Sheila was the only really young child who was still there. The other, older children were distracted by some boys on the further side of the playground, and left her on her own.

  Several people were in the street and several cars passed.

  Sheila looked about her, uncertainly, at first but an Airedale dog, loping towards her, attracted her attention. It was almost as tall as she, and she stood still and waited for it, hands outstretched; she loved dogs and knew no fear of them. This one, beautifully marked from rich brown to near-black, glanced at her, and let her fingers run along its coat, then went on its way. Sheila, happy, slapped towards the corner.

  As she did so, a man got out of a small car.

  “Hallo Sheila!” he exclaimed, beaming. “I’ve come instead of Mummy today.” When she looked startled, he went on, “I’m your Uncle Dick – don’t you remember?”

  Sheila let him take her hands.

  “I think I remember,” she said.

  He put his hands to her waist and lifted her high, as her father often did to her delight; she loved the swish of air about her face and the way her hair went upwards, as if carried on wings, when she stopped moving. He lowered her and held her tightly – just like Daddy.

  “In you get,” he said, and stood by the open door.

  Five people noticed them. Five.

  Lillian Morrison studied herself in the mirror, tipped the tiny flowered hat to one side, considered the effect again, then shifted the position an inch or two. No one was watching her. This was a new serve yourself milliners, with the hats on stands on every inch of floor and wall space, hats of all colours, mostly gay, many flimsy. On one wall were cloth and felt and more conventional hats for the coming winter, but it was such a beautiful day, and Lillian was thrilled and sorely tempted.

  She put this hat down and picked up another, but didn’t like it so much. She placed the favourite one on her head again and stood back. Two older women came in, hot and tired, and one said: “There isn’t a chair anywhere.”

  “We’ve no time to sit down, anyhow,” said the other.

  “Time,” breathed Lillian. My goodness, she’d forgotten the time! She glanced at the gold watch on her wrist – it was twenty-past three, she would be late for Sheila. She thrust the hat back on a stand and rushed out; the girl at the cash desk looking at her indifferently as she said: “I’ve got to collect my little girl from school!” Outside, the pavement was crowded, and there was no bus in sight. The school was only a short distance away, and she began to walk purposefully. Everybody got in her way. Old people strolling at random, a fluttering group of Pakistani women, a big dog straining at a leash – everything and everybody. She kept glancing over her shoulder towards the bus that never came. She thought exasperatedly that bus services were getting worse and worse, if she could have caught a bus she would have been at the school by now.

  She reached cross-roads and traffic lights, and they turned red. She darted into the road and a lorry swung round the corner, making her stagger back. The stench of diesel fumes nearly made her sick.

  “Careful dear,” an old woman warned.

  Lillian fumed.

  But the road was clearer on the other side, and she could hurry. Soon she saw the school. Then she saw a little knot of mothers at a pedestrian crossing, with their children. Sheila would be waiting, she would be all right, the very last thing she, Lillian, had said to her was “Wait for me or go home with somebody you know.”

  The playgrounds were empty when Lillian arrived.

  There was not a child in sight

  Sheila was sitting back, happily, with Uncle Dick, sucking a lolly. She did not notice that they were going a different way home from usual.

  Lemaitre, a little disgruntled after the talk with Gideon, looked through the various reports – including a new and possibly significant one – that young George Jensen often went to the branch of a well-known Turf accountants – a betting shop – in Mill Lane. As far as the police knew, the betting shop was legally run, but they shouldn’t let minors bet. He was deliberating on whether to send a man to the shop when his telephone bell rang.

  “Sergeant Rumbold reporting, sir. You asked to be told when Mr. Mickle, senior, was home. He’s home now, with the junior partner, Gerald Stratton.”

  “Right,” said Lemaitre, and his decision was made for him. He wanted to talk to old Jeff Mickle quickly, everything else could wait. He sent for his car, and was at Mickle’s home in Bethnal Green within fifteen minutes. It was a square, red brick Victorian house, standing in a large, beautifully kept garden. The door was opened by an elderly woman whom Lemaitre knew, by sight, as Mrs. Mickle.

  “The police,” she breathed. “Does that mean you’ve got some news about the fire? You’d better come in.”

  “No news yet,” Lemaitre said, as he stepped inside.

  As the front d
oor closed, there was a roar from further along the passage in a voice he would never forget after that morning.

  “I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what you say, you young fool. I’m not selling. You can sell out to me – I’ll pay what Hibild offers. That’s all in the partnership agreement; just let me see you try to break it You’re out see. O-U-T spells out!”

  The little woman said cautiously: “You’d better come in here.” She opened a door on the right and Lemaitre stepped into a small room as another door opened. He caught a glimpse of young Stratton, pale-faced and angry. Stratton did not see him, but stormed out, shutting the front door with a fierce snap. There was a rumbling sound from further along the passage, then a bellow.

  “Martha! I want my tea!”

  “I’ll bring it at once, dear,” called the woman. “There’s a policeman waiting to see you.”

  “I don’t want to see any bloody coppers, they’re not worth the uniforms the ratepayers buy for ‘em!” Mickle appeared in the doorway as Lemaitre stepped into the passage. For a few moments they glared at each other, while Mrs. Mickle disappeared, presumably towards the kitchen.

  “Better come in,” Mickle conceded grudgingly. “And if you want to know what that was about; my flicking junior partner wants me to sell out to Hibild. There ought to be a way of stopping them, if the Monopolies Commission can’t do it, you coppers ought to find a way. Anyhow I’ve got him fixed. He’s got to offer to sell out to me first, Hibild can’t buy without my permission.”

  “Do you think Hibild knows anything about the fire?” asked Lemaitre, bluntly.

  The old man hitched himself into a white jacket which was too tight for him, and said gruffly: “Someone paid to have it done, if you ask me. Hibild’s been trying to buy me out for months, and when they can’t get all they want they find a way of getting it bit by bit. Don’t you coppers even know that?”

  “How much proof have you got?” demanded Lemaitre.

  “Proof? I don’t need proof, it sticks out like the nose on your face.”

  “Maybe it does,” Lemaitre said, “but we poor flicking coppers have got to have proof, see.”

  “I’m coming, dear,” Mrs. Mickle called out ‘I’m coming.”

  Chapter Seven

  Top Level

  “Sit down, George,” Sir Reginald Scott-Marie said, as he shook hands, and immediately Gideon knew that someone had been in his office when he had telephoned so formally. He was looking as fit as Gideon had ever seen him, very brown from two weeks on the Scottish moors, handsome in his austere way, grey hair cut short, eyes bright against the tan. “What is worrying you? These children?”

  “That’s one thing,” Gideon said. He sat in a wooden armchair in an office of medium size, rather sparsely furnished but with photographs and printed police data on the walls. One wall was lined with books, and Gideon knew that it held an extensive library on criminal investigation, forensic medicines, everything to do with police work. “They’ve found the Lyall child, at Epping Forest. Honiwell just telephoned me,” Gideon went on.

  Scott-Marie’s reaction was a tightening of his lips.

  “I suppose it was inevitable,” he said at last. When Gideon didn’t respond, he asked more challengingly in his crisp voice: “Don’t you think it is? There has always to be a proportion of this kind of accident. I don’t see how we can avoid it.”

  Clearly, Scott-Marie had been thinking a great deal about this.

  “I suppose there has,” Gideon conceded. “If you can call this an accident.”

  “In its way, surely it is. Few parents are deliberately careless, but none can maintain their watchfulness every minute of every day.” Scott-Marie paused, and when Gideon didn’t respond at once he went on almost heartily: “Even our men slip up sometimes when keeping a suspect under surveillance.”

  “Yes,” agreed Gideon. “And yes, I agree that parents are bound to slip up. I wasn’t thinking of that angle so much as the time lag between the child disappearing and our being notified. It’s always several hours, I’ve known it to be twenty-four. People keep telling themselves that the child is bound to turn up. They inquire among the neighbours, even search themselves – they seem almost frightened to call us. If we could cut down that time gap, we might save some of the children. And if we caught one or two of the men before they did any harm, it might discourage others.”

  Scott-Marie listened attentively.

  “Honiwell wants us to get television and radio to put out special warnings,” Gideon went on. “If we showed a photograph, asked for the usual information, and added this request for immediate notification of any missing child, it might do a useful job.”

  “I should certainly do it,” Scott-Marie said.

  “Thank you sir.” Gideon was pleased not only because the agreement had come so promptly but because Scott- Marie must have been convinced the moment he heard the proposal. Now that he had thought of it, it seemed the obvious thing to do. Why was it that simple and obvious ideas were so often the last to come to mind?

  “What time do you need to speak to the television and radio people?” asked Scott-Marie.

  “Any time in the next hour, sir – the main news broadcasts don’t start until sixish. There’s one other thing about the Epping inquiry, and I can’t say I like it much.”

  Scott-Marie frowned, as if trying to guess what Gideon meant.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “The organised assistance from neighbours and local people is something new. We found that about twenty men and women had covered part of the forest before we got to it. There’s not only an obvious danger that an inexpert search might destroy valuable clues, but it’s a direct challenge to our authority, and I wouldn’t like it to grow. On the other hand, we don’t want to discourage the man in the street from helping us.”

  “No, we certainly don’t,” agreed Scott-Marie. “Is this urgent?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Let me think about it, and you think about it, too.” Scott-Marie actually laughed. Something had put him in a good mood today, Gideon could never remember him being so genial in his office. “As if you need telling to do that!”

  “I’ll see what Honiwell thinks of the situation, tonight,” Gideon said. “There are two other matters, sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “We appear to have a systematic campaign of arson on our hands,” Gideon told him, and went into some detail. “Now that a man’s been killed we’ve murder as well as the fire investigation on the go.” He was tempted to add that Lemaitre thought he knew who had caused last night’s fire, but something stopped him. “It could possibly be tied in with the power station sabotage.”

  Scott-Marie echoed sharply: “Sabotage?”

  “Didn’t you know, sir?”

  “No, I—” Scott-Marie broke off abruptly, and then added: “I haven’t caught up with all the reports since I came back from Scotland. I knew there had been two or three short power failures, but—are you sure it’s sabotage?”

  “Yes,” answered Gideon flatly, and told him why.

  When he had finished, Scott-Marie got up, opened a drawer in a metal filing cabinet, took out a folder and came back to the desk. There was a noticeable change in him; the good mood had gone, he was his normal cold, aloof self. He ran through some papers in the file, closed it and pushed it aside.

  “Do you have any ideas about this, Commander?”

  “I think it could become extremely serious, sir.”

  “In what way, precisely.”

  “So far the black-outs have mostly taken place during daylight hours,” Gideon said. “If we have a big one after dark it will give thieves a night out – especially if some of them have been alerted to expect an after dark black out. It’s already dark by eight o’clock, a lot of places would be easy to raid.” When Scott-Ma
rie didn’t reply, Gideon went on doggedly: “I don’t say it is being laid on by a gang but we’ve had at least four major crimes master-minded in the past eighteen months, and we’ve never caught up with the real leaders.” He gave Scott-Marie another chance to comment, then went on uneasily: “Each crime has been very carefully and cunningly planned. Since the great train robbery, we know we’re liable to run up against a very different type of criminal from those of the past. Some clever and educated men now think ahead and pay in advance for information and assistance. I’d rather be well-prepared for a major attempt than be caught napping.”

  He nearly added: “Again.”

  “No doubt you would,” Scott-Marie said drily. “What have you done and what do you want to do?”

  At least he didn’t suggest that Gideon was talking nonsense. Gideon told him what Piluski was doing and what he had instructed the divisions to do, and added formally: “I’d like your authority to approach the Minister of Power, sir, as well as the largest industrial users in the area, and also the Confederation of British Industry.”

  Scott-Marie stared.

  “It may be best for you to approach the Minister of Power through the Home Secretary, sir.” Gideon should have put it that way round first of course – Scott-Marie could also be very punctilious about the proper channels. What had affected him, and changed his manner so completely?

  “What makes you feel that these moves are advisable?” he asked.

  “It’s simply a question of not being caught napping, sir.”

  “You intend to put in a request for an all-out co-operation in identifying the saboteurs, is that it?”

  “More than that. If all power stations and sub-stations are given instructions from the top, they’ll be more likely to co-operate quickly. They all have their own security forces and are all inclined to think they are fully competent to handle their own affairs.”