by John Creasey
Gideon walked down the long flight of stone steps. The time was coming and was not far ahead, when he would be in the new building, urgently needed for years but, as an immediate prospect, not at all enticing. There was a warm familiarity about the Yard, even about this overcrowded courtyard itself, where cars were constantly coming and going, two traffic men were needed to keep it reasonably clear, and pedestrians bad to be as alert as anywhere in London.
Tonight, there was a slight, not unpleasant drizzle.
He passed the entrance to Cannon Row Police Station, part of the buildings of the Yard but quite separate from it, and walked along Cannon Row to the pub which had stood there for over a century. He went into the saloon, where three senior and one junior detective were standing at the bar. Over in a corner, by herself, Sabrina Sale sat bent over an evening paper, her eyes hidden behind her big plain-rimmed spectacles. Gideon ordered a whisky and soda, and went straight across to her.
“May I join you?”
She looked up, startled.
“I—of course, Commander.”
He saw that her glass was nearly empty.
“Can I get you another?”
She hesitated. “No, No, I don’t think so, one is all I allow myself.” She smiled, “Really, I mean it”
Gideon sat down, and lifted his glass.
“Cheers.”
“To a quiet evening,” she said, and sipped her drink. “You don’t often come in here, do you?”
“Not these days, no. Do you?”
“Most evenings during the week, just for half an hour.” She had a quiet pleasant voice; and there was something about her which intrigued Gideon. Efficiency without fuss always attracted him. “I get tired by six o’clock, and can do with a slight boost.”
“One does as one gets older,” he said feelingly.
She gave a little amused smile. “Yes indeed!”
“How long have you been in the secretarial pool?” asked Gideon.
“Nearly a year,” she answered. “I was with Traffic for years, and always hankered after your department, Commander.”
“Think it would be more exciting?”
“More interesting,” she corrected.
“Find it so?”
“Very much.”
“Social conscience, or just a need for vicarious excitement?” Gideon asked.
“I don’t think it’s really either,” answered Sabrina Sale, thoughtfully. “I think I feel more part of Scotland Yard with the C.I.D., more part of a big machine. Am I being romantic?”
“There’s nothing romantic about Scotland Yard!”
“What an absurd assertion,” said Sabrina Sale, crisply. “It’s the most romantic place in the world.”
He stared at her in amazement, saw that she was wholly serious, and did not know quite how to respond. He had a feeling that in some spheres he would soon be out of his depth with this woman, and began to wonder what impulse had made him join her. It was never wise to be over sociable with a member of the staff; too many, these days, took advantage of friendliness.
He said drily: “One day when there’s time, you’ll have to explain that – so that I can tell my wife. I think she will be surprised!”
Sabrina didn’t comment, but after a pause she asked: “Are you going back to the office?”
“Yes.”
“You often work very late, don’t you?”
“Inevitably.”
“Now I think I understand,” she remarked.
“Understand what?” asked Gideon.
“Why your wife mightn’t feel that Scotland Yard is romantic!” On the instant, her face was wreathed in smiles and she leaned forward and touched his arm. “Don’t take any notice of me, I’m only teasing. I suppose I mustn’t ask why you’re going back?”
“I’ve a memorandum to draft – you’ll have it to type in the morning,” answered Gideon. “I—”
The barman called out, in a penetrating , voice: “Commander Gideon. Is Commander Gideon here, please? … Wanted on the telephone!”
Gideon was already on his feet. He nodded to Sabrina Sale, whose gaze followed him for a moment, before she picked up her paper again. He forgot her. There would be no call for him here at this hour unless it was really urgent. The telephone was in a small alcove, on the other side of the bar. Several officers made a point of making way for him.
The barman, obviously new, said: “Round there, sir.” Gideon picked up the receiver which was lying on its side.
“Gideon,” he said.
“There’s an urgent call for you from Richmond, sir,” the operator said. “I’m holding them on the line.”
“I’ll nip across into Cannon Row,” Gideon decided. “Put it through there.” He hurried out, and stepped into the road – and a car horn blared. He drew back hastily, mouthed ‘sorry’ to an indignant middle-aged driver, crossed more carefully and reached the Cannon Row police station. There was a telephone in the hall, and he picked it up.
“Commander.” It was Joe Moore. “We’ve had—” He broke off, but already he made Gideon understand that he was off-balance and badly shaken, which was rare with a senior officer. Was it simply that the child’s body had been found? Even an experienced man might feel shattered by such an experience, though it was unlikely he would show it. “I’ve slipped up very badly,” Moore went on, and Gideon thought, he’s let the killer escape. “We caught the man,” went on Moore, in the same rather emotional way, “but I didn’t think to have Morrison – the father – searched. I suppose I should have. Anyway, he shot him.”
Gideon echoed, not fully comprehending: “He shot him. You mean—” He broke off as understanding flooded into his mind, a spear of horror accompanying it.
“The father shot the killer of his child,” declared Moore with great deliberation. “In front of my eyes – with a hundred people looking on. I’ve had to charge him, Commander. Oh, why the hell did I let it happen?”
Gideon didn’t speak for a moment; he could not. Already the possible consequences of what he had been told were going through his mind and he was far from clear about the best thing to do – for Moore, for the police generally, for Morrison and his wife. The silence seemed to drag on for a long time, but suddenly he made up his mind.
“I’ll come over,” he said. “Where are you?”
“On the Common,” answered Moore.
“Honiwell there yet?”
“No, but he’s on his way.”
“I’ll join you in about half an hour.” Gideon put the receiver down quickly, then lifted it again with hardly a pause. The Cannon Row operator answered. “Have you a line to the Back Room?” be asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Put me through, please.”
The ‘Back Room’ was the office of the Chief Inspector who was in direct liaison with the newspapers on any such case as this – any case under investigation, in fact. A crowd of reporters would be on the Embankment near the office, alert for any news. Gideon was through almost at once.
“Yes, Commander?” A slight Welsh lilt in the voice of the man who answered, told Gideon he was speaking to Chief Inspector Huw Jones.
“Are they clamouring after you?” Gideon demanded.
“There must be at least twenty, sir! I’ve told them I’ll have something for them in half an hour, but I can stall if I have to.”
“Tell them I’ll come round,” said Gideon. “In five minutes, for five minutes. And tell Information I need a car for Wimbledon Common, at once.”
He rang off, watched openly by two uniformed men, covertly by several others as he strode out. There was a short cut across the courtyard to the Back Room, which opened on to the Embankment itself, and he walked rapidly across this to the ground floor entrance of the main building.
Everyone in the courtyard was aware of Gideon’s progress. As he disappeared, a youthful detective sergeant remarked: “He must be well over fifty, and he moves as if he’s jet- propelled.”
No one scoffed.
Chief Inspector Huw Jones was tall, dark, thin-faced, with rather heavy-lidded eyes unexpectedly bright. He was most astute in evading questions from the Press yet extremely popular with them. Whenever he could possibly let them have information quickly, he did. This evening he had called them from the Embankment into a small room which was so packed that Gideon had to squeeze through the door to get inside. “I’ve told ‘em they can take photographs,” he whispered in Gideon’s ear, and that seemed the signal for half a dozen flashlights to go off at once. Photographers were either at the front, too closely packed, or standing on chairs at the back.
There was almost complete silence, and a dozen men had pencils poised.
“I’ve got about three minutes left,” Gideon said briskly. “I’m going over to Richmond to find out exactly what’s happened. Meanwhile, you don’t need telling that Superintendent Moore has done a remarkable job in catching the man Oliver so quickly. It was one of the quickest and best organised manhunts we’ve ever staged, and I’m not exaggerating.”
He paused.
“But he let Morrison shoot—” a man began.
“He didn’t let anybody do anything,” interrupted Gideon. “The only way he could have stopped that shooting was by stopping the father from helping to look for his own child – no one then knew she was dead, remember – or by getting him to turn out his pockets, and he’d no reason or excuse to do that.”
From the back a man called out: “Are you white-washing him, Commander?”
“Use your own judgement,” Gideon retorted. “But use judgement not prejudice.” Several men laughed. “The most significant thing about the search is the speed with which it was organised. That wouldn’t have been possible if the mother hadn’t been very quick to report the child missing. The Division was ready and we had military help on the spot within the hour. If we’d lost any time, the man wouldn’t have been caught.”
Into a brief silence, a man spoke in a dry, sardonic voice: “And he would be alive, Commander.”
“If we’d known even sooner the girl might be alive, too,” said Gideon. “Now I must go.”
A dozen questions were flung at him as he turned and went out, and he heard Jones answering for him. The door closed, and he strode into the courtyard where a car was waiting with a driver at the wheel. Gideon got in behind the driver, and sat back. The car moved off with quiet speed, turned right on to the Embankment and right again at Big Ben. The evening rush hour was beginning to slacken off, but there was still plenty of traffic about. The drizzle had stopped, the sun was breaking through and it gilded the gates of the Houses of Parliament and the newly-cleaned stonework of the main buildings. The journey might take twenty minutes, but it was more likely to take half an hour.
It did not occur to Gideon to doubt that his approach to the Press had been right. There would be implications that the police should have stopped the shooting, and obviously there was basic truth in that, but he’d done what he could for Moore and had emphasised the value of quick reporting to the police. But for the shooting, this case would have been very much on the credit side. The problem, as in all offences of this kind, was for the Yard to be geared to the point of high efficiency necessary to combat a crime, rare in comparison with others, but, in view of its horrifying aspects, committed far too frequently for the public to take calmly.
Just over twenty-five minutes later, Gideon was stepping out of the car on to the grass of the Common. At least a thousand people were gathered about in little groups, as if it were a sporting event. Joe Moore and Honiwell were together by the side of an ambulance, and Gideon knew that the bodies had been held here until he arrived. More cameras clicked, two movie cameras whirred, doubtless for the television newsrooms.
Gideon shook hands, first with Moore and then with Honiwell. The cameras went into a frenzy.
“Just show me round so that they can take a few pictures,” Gideon said. “Everything’s under control, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” Honiwell said.
“Now it is,” Moore said, bitterly.
“Where’s the man Morrison?”
“I sent him to the Divisional station – he’s in the cells,” Moore answered.
“I’ll see him there,” decided Gideon, and they began to move about, still followed by the photographers and newspaper men. At least twenty police were forming a cordon to keep the rest of the crowd back. Gideon reached the ambulance and saw the two stretchers, their burdens covered with white sheets – the child who had been so cruelly murdered and the man who had been so mercifully shot
Mercifully?
Another thought struck Gideon. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Thousands, probably millions, of people would believe the father justified in what he had done. Before the trial was over the great controversy over hanging would be split wide open again, great bitterness as well as shrieking lust for vengeance would be aroused.
At last the ambulance had driven off, and the routine work was done. And at last Gideon could turn to Honiwell and ask: “Could this be your man, too?”
“I doubt it – I doubt it very much,” answered Honiwell gloomily. “I’m afraid my killer’s still on the loose.”
Gideon nodded.
As he was driven to the Richmond police station, where he would see Frank Morrison, he noticed a small transformer station standing well back from the road, the ‘danger’ notice, behind the strong wire fence, very clear. For the first time since he had been called from Cannon Row, his thoughts shifted off the murdered child to the cases of sabotage. He would see Piluski first thing in the morning; there was now no chance of seeing him tonight.
The street lights were on, as were those of the police station as he stepped inside. The Press were present in strength again, there was nearly as large a crowd as there had been on the Common. One of the reporters called out: “Can we have a statement, Commander?”
“We’ll see,” Gideon called back.
“Are you going to see Morrison?”
“Yes.”
“You ought to let him go!” cried a little man at the front of the crowd. “You ought to let him go, he’s a hero, he’s not a murderer.”
Someone else called out: “You shouldn’t have arrested him.”
“Let him go!”
“Bloody police – you can catch the easy ones!”
“A life for a life!” a woman screeched. “That’s the law of the Bible, that’s what it ought to be in Britain. Let him go!”
The cries faded as Gideon went further into the police station. He wasn’t surprised by the sentiment; he was surprised at how strongly and quickly it was being expressed. There was a smack of professionalism about it, of having been laid on. If that were the case, then the organisation of the ‘bring back the rope’ supporters was very good indeed.
They went into Moore’s big, tidy, brightly-lit office with a map of Richmond and an enlarged map of Richmond Park on the walls.
“I need a drink,” Moore said.
“I’ll see Morrison right away,” said Gideon. “Take me to him, Joe, will you?” He didn’t say so but he did not want Moore to have whisky on his breath when he talked to the Press, and he would soon have to. “Then we’ll see the Press, then—”
As he spoke, the lights went out.
Chapter Eleven
Piluski Reports
Gideon and the otters stood absolutely still for perhaps three seconds. Sharp exclamations sounded and then faded. A man some distance off called: “Candles, quick.” Outside, the street lamps and lights at windows had gone out, also. But the afterglow was strong, and gradua
lly it was possible to see first silhouettes and then faces in some detail.
“If we’re going to get this in September, what the hell’s winter going to be like?” asked Honiwell.
“Had any blackouts here lately, Joe?” Gideon asked.
“One about a week ago, only lasted five minutes. I hope this one doesn’t go on for long.” Moore gave a bark of a laugh. “Keep the crowd quiet for a bit anyhow. Commander, I can’t tell you how sorry I am or how grateful I am for what you’re doing.”
“Nothing to be grateful to me about,” Gideon said gruffly.
“I know better, sir. You’ve come to draw their fire.” After a pause, he went on: “I could find that whisky by sense of touch now.”
“Leave it,” Gideon said quietly. “Can you find your way down to the cells?”
Somewhere just outside the door a match scraped, there was a flare of light; which faded but did not go out altogether; a steadier one brightened slowly. Torch beams began to flash, and a man entered, carrying a candle.
“Will two of these be enough for now, sir?”
“Are the cells fit?” asked Moore, sharply.
“We’ve lamps down there, sir, remember.”
“I want to know if they’re alight”
“Sure to be now, sir.”
“Let’s go down and see,” said Gideon.
Moore took a flashlight from his desk and led the way past the stairs towards a flight of steps which Gideon remembered although he had not been here for years. The yellow rays of lamplight streamed out to meet them, so the sergeant was right. Three policemen were in the passage, opposite the cells. Gideon felt a glow of satisfaction, for the emergency arrangements had worked well and swiftly here; and the danger that Morrison might now attempt to kill himself had been anticipated.
Morrison was in the end one of the three cells.
He sat, outwardly relaxed, on the narrow bed, feet stretched out, a newspaper in his hand. He had pushed the one pillow behind him and his head rested against the wall. He took no notice of the three men, even when the man who had been watching took out keys and rattled them as he opened the door.