Darkness and Confusion

by John Creasey

  “Anything more from Lemaitre since Jensen senior was injured?”

  “No. The driver, Biddle, hasn’t admitted anything yet. Neither has Kano turned up. According to the manager of the betting shop, Kano simply had an office there.”

  “Could it be true?”

  “It isn’t likely. Lemaitre is checking.”

  “How’s the old chap?”

  “Hanging on,” said Hobbs.

  “Anything we can do for the wife?” asked Gideon.

  “She’s at the bedside, and we’ve a man there, too.”

  Gideon nodded.

  “Epping?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Piluski?”

  “Wants to see you about six o’clock.”

  “You stay too, will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now,” said Gideon, with the air of a man who had cleared away all the obstacles to a real fight. “The power cuts. Did you study Piluski’s report on our visit to the New Bridge Power Station?”

  “Yes. It’s a first-class report.”

  “How does the man Boyd show up in it?”

  “Almost a dangerous fanatic – I would say extreme right wing, politically, from his general comments.”

  “Yes,” agreed Gideon. “Yes. That’s how he came through to me.”

  “Aren’t you convinced?”

  “Something worries me,” said Gideon. “I don’t know what it is. The penny will drop, eventually. Now! If it is sabotage with a view to causing damage to industry, or on political grounds, we can’t do much more. All the security men are doing what they’re told—”

  Hobbs interrupted.

  “I forgot a note from Piluski.”

  “What is it?”

  “Every power station in the Greater London area now has special guards, and we’ve a man in each station for every shift. There is also a direct line from every station to our nearest Divisional office. He had no trouble, simply followed your instructions.”

  “Good,” said Gideon, obviously thinking about what he was going to say next. “But what if it isn’t sabotage for the sake of it? What if it’s much simpler – a plot to cause chaos at some key period so that a major series of robberies can be staged.”

  “You favour that theory, don’t you?” said Hobbs.

  “I suppose I really want it to be that, it’s a kind of wishful thinking,” said Gideon. “I’ve made some notes of possibilities.” He pushed them across. “It seems to me that banks, post offices and jewellers’ shops would be the obvious targets – not necessarily all three. If I were planning such a coup, I would want at least four things. The men to make the raids. Transport to get the stuff away. A distribution centre or centres, from which to send the booty out. And a final destination, where the stolen goods would be bought or cached.”

  Hobbs said: “You make out a pretty sound hypothetical case.”

  “Missed something, I expect,” Gideon said. “But we can fill in the gaps. Now – jewellery. Small stuff, easy to take and fairly easy to hide, but loses its value whenever it’s sold. Customs are very hot these days, the first thing we would do obviously is to alert them, so the stolen goods would have to be stored in England for some time unless a charter plane was standing ready. So – see my note – we need a comprehensive nationwide check on all charter and privately owned planes.”

  Hobbs nodded.

  “Not easy, but it can be done, and we might catch other fish in the net,” said Gideon. “If it’s to be raids on Post Offices or banks – then the loot will probably be in banknotes.”

  Again Hobbs nodded.

  “Not much of a market overseas, certainly not in big quantities,” said Gideon. “We know that a lot of the Great Train Robbery currency notes are still stacked away somewhere – they haven’t turned up at any bank or clearing house. So if banknotes, they would probably be released in this country. That’s where I would spend mine if I had the choice.”

  “Yes,” agreed Hobbs.

  “Now, no one is going to arrange a blackout to cover a whole area or district to rob one bank or post office. We can take it for granted that it would be on a big scale. How would you do it?”

  “Cover as wide an area as possible as quickly as possible,” Hobbs answered.

  “I’m not sure that I would do it that way,” mused Gideon. “I think I would stagger the breakdowns. Think of the size of London. Forty-eight major centres, at least ten banks – probably more – in each. Nearly five hundred banks. Three men for each bank and you would need fifteen hundred men and four hundred cars. Could you select fifteen hundred men you could rely on to raid a bank or post office, do the job, escape, and then get the money to an agreed collecting centre?”

  “Fifteen hundred” Hobbs echoed.

  “See what I mean? Now if there were ten different centres, each blacked out, you could move from centre to centre with three hundred men, and seventy or eighty cars. That would be manageable, but still too big. You could select one bank at each centre with the smaller number of men and cars but you would have long distances to travel, and to cope with all kinds of obstacles which could get in the way. It would be too massive, too widespread. I see the most likely plan as a concentrated effort with the smallest possible margin of error.”

  Gideon paused, but Hobbs did not speak. Gideon stood up and began to pace the office.

  “Follow me carefully, Alec. We’ve had these warning blackouts from various parts of London. Obviously there was always a danger that we would realise they were deliberate. So – why rehearse and warn us? It wouldn’t be difficult at any time to get a man or two into power stations or at lines carrying electricity to the consumers. Why warn us – or warn the authorities?”

  Hobbs admitted: “I had wondered.”

  “I wonder a lot. There seem two possibilities, and neither fits into the theories I’ve been advancing. One is that the blackouts do some positive damage each time, or else serve a purpose which the perpetrator wants to achieve. Or else again, it’s a kind of blackmail – a ‘look what we could do if we tried’ kind of thing. That could have either political or commercial motives. We ought to find out just who has suffered from the blackouts – whether any particular firm has branches in all the affected areas. See to it tomorrow, will you?”

  “Yes,” Hobbs answered, simply.

  “Whatever the real rod they’ve got in pickle for us, one thing is a certainty: that they’re trying to get us looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing. If we’re stretched to our limit, and the blow falls where we don’t expect it—” Gideon broke off again, and stood looking out of the window. “Someone has been trying to make us look in the wrong direction for a long time,” he went on. “See what I’m driving at?”

  “In a way,” answered Hobbs. “But what could be big enough to be worth it?”

  “Don’t know yet,” admitted Gideon. “There are dozens more possibilities than I’ve covered, of course. But there’s one angle we might try fairly soon. Have you got that report on John Boyd yet?”

  “No. Is tomorrow morning soon enough?”

  “Have to be, I suppose,” Gideon said.

  “Boyd,” echoed Hobbs, reflectively.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s gone all out to make us believe it’s sabotage for political reasons.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think he could be just leading us up the garden?” Hobbs looked as if he were just beginning to realise the significance of what Gideon had been saying.

  “Obviously he could be.”

  “But why?”

  “He wouldn’t be the first extreme right-winger to try to blame left-wingers for something he’s done himself. The more I think of Boyd the more I think he’s a fanatic. Now if he set out to get a security officer job s
o as to learn the weaknesses of power stations and the vulnerability of London to sabotage, he would be perfectly placed. He knows London power inside out. He could do terrific harm.” Gideon began to pace up and down again. “Especially if sabotage was done in spite of security at all the power stations being pushed to its maximum. He would then be able to say ‘I told. you so’ and would have established himself as a man of great discernment. The more so,” continued Gideon with usual vehemence, “if his particular power station was the only one which escaped.”

  He broke off, staring – almost glaring – at Hobbs, then barked: “Well?”

  Hobbs said: “I’ll find out whether the report on him is ready.”

  “Do that,” said Gideon. “You made sure that Piluski didn’t know I was checking on Boyd, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Hobbs hesitated. “Do you suspect Piluski?”

  “Not for a moment. I’m just being very careful.” Gideon picked up a telephone. “Tell the Secretarial Pool to send in Miss Sale,” he ordered, and put the receiver down.

  Hobbs, obviously much more troubled than when he had come in, nodded, and went out.

  Two minutes later, Sabrina Sale arrived, looking at her rather spinsterish best. She had on a beautifully cut white silk blouse, buttoned high at the neck, her long, nicely-shaped legs shod in not-so-very-sensible hand-made shoes more than capable of catching Gideon’s attention.

  After a pleasant word or two, he dictated a dozen letters, and passed her the pencilled notes for typing. As she went out, the operator called him. “Mr. Moore of Richmond would like to speak to you, sir.”

  “Put him through,” Gideon said, and on the instant his thoughts shifted from the throbbing roar of a power station to the green pleasance of Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park.

  A woman who lived two doors away from the Morrisons, sat with some sewing in her hands, but could not settle. She kept seeing Lillian Morrison’s face at the window, so pale and set. She had not expected Lillian to be at home by herself, the whole neighbourhood believed she had gone to stay with her mother. She may have left by now, of course.

  The neighbour got up and went into the garden. She could see the back of the Morrison’s house, with its wide windows and its well-tended garden, and she stood watching: there was something different about it. Puzzled, she tried to think what it was – something quite ordinary, which seemed to give the house a shut-in look.

  Ah! The kitchen window was closed and the curtains drawn. Well, if Mrs. Morrison had decided to go and stay with her mother, she would be likely to draw the blinds, the sun soon took colour out of furniture.

  But the upstairs curtains weren’t drawn.

  “I don’t like it,” she said aloud. “I don’t like poking my nose into other people’s affairs either, but I don’t like this a bit.”

  She went into the street and along to the Morrisons’s house. There was no car outside, no doors or windows were open, and no curtains drawn. She walked along the crazy paving path, and pushed the door, then rang the bell. There was no answer.

  “Is everything all right?” a woman asked.

  “Oh!” The worried neighbour spun round and saw the neighbour from the other side, a dark-haired, Italian-looking woman. “I don’t know, I’m a bit worried. She was standing at the window just now, looking so strange – and the kitchen curtains are drawn.”

  They hurried round to the back, tried the door and banged on the window. Other neighbours began to show an interest but there was no response from the house.

  “I think we ought to break the door down,” the Italian-looking woman said.

  “Do less damage breaking the window,” said a man who had been attracted by the scene. He bent down, picked up a big stone, poised it and warned: “Mind the glass, it might fly,” and cracked the stone on the window. It did not break or crack. He banged again; it splintered and a single piece fell out. Gingerly he pulled at the curtain, and immediately gasped: “Whewh! Gas! Send for the police, someone!” He used the curtain to handle the broken glass, then forced the catch, and, holding his breath, climbed in.

  “Mrs. Morrison has been taken to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning,” Moore told Gideon. “She put her head in the gas oven. It’s touch and go, the hospital authorities tell me. “What’s the best thing to do about the husband?”

  “I’ll ask Brixton to let him go out with a warder to see her,” Gideon said promptly. “If you don’t hear from me, he’ll be over soon. Which hospital?”

  “Richmond Cottage.”

  “Right,” said Gideon. Suddenly, however, he felt depressed. There was this woman, at death’s door. There was crime and violence everywhere in London, the consequences of crime and the shadow of crime.

  All he could do was fight back.

  A sharp tap came at his door, and Hobbs came in, very briskly.

  “I’ve got part of that report on Boyd’s record,” he said.

  “He’s been keeping very quiet but there isn’t much doubt that he’s very right-wing, politically – has been most of his life.”

  “I’ll have a look,” said Gideon, holding out one hand to Hobbs and lifting the telephone with the other.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Decision

  At ten minutes to ten that evening, Raymond Wilcox alias Rupert Kano opened the door of his flat in the Adelphi to both Boyd and Craven. If he saw any significance in the fact that they had come together, he made no comment. It was an overcast evening, and the lights went on, the window overlooking the river was not curtained, but the other windows were. Cigars, brandy and liqueurs, balloon glasses and liqueur glasses, were on a low table, and after he had poured brandy for them both, Wilcox went into the kitchen and took a coffee percolator off the stove, set it on a tray with sugar and cream, and carried it in.

  Boyd was smoking a cigar; Craven a pipe.

  Boyd looked massive and healthy, a little too large for his dinner jacket. Craven, in a lounge suit, was immaculate.

  “And what have you two decided?” Wilcox asked, without any change of tone.

  “That you’re right,” declared Boyd, bluffly.

  Wilcox’s expression changed enough to show both surprise and pleasure.

  “What decided the issue?” he asked.

  “My interview with the great Gee-Gee Gideon,” answered Boyd. “That man is all man and all detective. I’ve never met anyone who seemed as likely to be able to read my thoughts.”

  “I hope he didn’t.”

  “I think we should act at once in case he did.” Boyd made no fuss at all about admitting the danger. “He’s certainly made sure he doesn’t take any risks either with me or anyone else. I’ve never seen the industry’s security boys so worked up! We had an afternoon conference, announcing all the plans. Gideon’s man Piluski was present and they’ve sewn it up tight. If we want to cut power in any other London station we’ll have to use bombs.”

  Wilcox had remained standing during all this. Now he sat down slowly, and poured out the coffee.

  “Then that’s what we’ll have to do,” he said. “Are you all ready?” He looked at Craven, who was leaning back with his legs stretched out in front of him, casual and elegant and apparently completely at ease.

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  “And you can buy all the Electronics New Age shares which come on the market?”

  “Electronics New Age, and the rest,” Craven answered calmly. “I estimate twenty millions, and I’ve the resources to buy and facilities to conceal how many I’m buying.”

  “Where do you expect prices to fall to?”

  “By about twenty-five per cent.”

  “And the profit?”

  “Over a two or three year period, at least a hundred and fifty per cent, based largely on the E.N.A. patents.”

  “Immediate
profit on the general buying?” asked Wilcox.

  “Within forty-eight hours, say – two or three millions, possibly more.”

  Wilcox nodded – and Boyd clapped his hands together with explosive resonance.

  “Then when?” he demanded.

  “Tomorrow,” said Wilcox, looking at Craven.

  ‘Yes – tomorrow,” Craven agreed.

  Wilcox moved from his chair and picked up the brandy decanter, poured a little into his glass and raised it.

  “To the new owners of Electronics New Age,” he said.

  They sipped, each without showing much expression, although Boyd was obviously at great pains not to reveal his delight. He stood up, awkward and ungainly in the dinner jacket that was too small for him, and began to pace the room.

  “Now for the details,” he said. “The timing, especially. When it’s known that E.NA. will have to cease producing again for at least a week, their shares will go down like rocks in a river, but when will they reach their lowest?”

  “It should be established at about two o’clock,” answered Craven. “That will give us sufficient time before the Stock Market closes, and yet not enough for any recovery. The fall will be quick and heavy, as you say, Wilcox – and we can buy throughout the afternoon and first thing in the morning. By the time it’s over we will have full control of E.N.A. and substantial interest in other electronic companies.” He shifted in his chair. “Are you quite sure you can do all that is necessary, Boyd?”

  “Don’t you worry, I can fix it,” Boyd assured him, and at last he exploded into a bellow of a laugh, gave another tremendous clap of his hands, and roared: “I always wanted to be a millionaire!”

  That was the time when P.C. Race, who had been on duty for twelve hours, went to bed. He was very tired, bruised and sore where he had grazed himself, but he was asleep almost as soon as he touched the pillow. It was as if his attempt to save George Jensen, the father, had, in expiation, placated the conscience which had been taunting him since he had left old Garratt to be devoured by the flames. And it was the time when Gerald Stratton telephoned the girl Loretta, feeling on top of the world. He was being bought out, he would have a small fortune, and money made the Lorettas of this world get ready for bed. It would be many years before he worked for his living again. It was the time, also, when Hannah Davis finally screwed up her nerve to go and speak to the Entwhistles about Carol. She was overjoyed to hear that Carol appeared to be coming out of her traumatic condition, and that the Reverend Josiah Wilkinson had taken up her father’s case. On the other side of London, old Jensen had died. His widow, so suddenly bereaved, was now filled with alarm for her missing son, and spent a sleepless night And – not far away from her, the driver who had killed Jensen, sat alone in his bed-sitting room, drinking himself into a stupor. He feared that the police would arrest him at any minute; they hadn’t yet, and at heart he knew that this was because they wanted to watch him. But the only contact he had was Kano, who had disappeared.