“He didn’t say anything about a message. I wouldn’t have known about it, anyway. I was out at work all day.”
Outram said, “Yes, of course.”
There was nothing much more she could tell them. A quarter of an hour later the two men drove off. As their car turned down the hill they passed Mr. Behrens, who was walking up from Lamperdown. Mr. Behrens waved to the superintendent.
“Looks a genial old cove,” said Sergeant Fallows.
“That’s what he looks like,” agreed Outram.
When Mr. Behrens reached the cottage he found Mr. Calder and Sheilagh making coffee in the kitchen. They added a third cup to the tray and carried it back to the sitting room where Rasselas was apparently asleep. By contrast with what had gone before it was a relaxed and peaceful scene.
Mr. Calder tried the coffee, found it still too hot, put the cup carefully back on its saucer, and said, “Why were you holding out on the superintendent?”
“How did you know I was holding out?”
“Rasselas and I both knew it.”
Hearing his name the great dog opened one brown eye, as though to confirm what Mr. Calder had said, and then shut it again.
“If I tell you about it,” said Sheilagh, “you’ll understand why I was holding out.”
“Then tell us at once,” said Mr. Behrens.
“Of course I knew something was in the wind. I didn’t know exactly what Michael was up to. He was careful not to tell me any details. But whatever it was he was doing, I realised it was coming to a head. That was why he sent me away. He said it shouldn’t be more than two or three days. He’d get word to me as soon as he could. That was on the Friday. I had a miserable weekend, you can imagine. Monday came, and Tuesday, and still no word. By Wednesday I couldn’t take it any longer. What I did was wrong, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“You went back,” said Mr. Calder. He said it sympathetically.
“That’s just what I did. I planned it carefully. I wasn’t going to barge in and upset all Michael’s plans. I just wanted to see he was all right and go away again. He’d given me a key of that room in Mrs. Lovelock’s house. I got there after dark. There’s a clear view from the window straight into our kitchen. The light was on and the curtains weren’t drawn.”
As she talked she was living the scene. Mr. Behrens pictured her, crouched in the dark, like an eager theatre-goer in the gallery staring down onto the lighted stage.
She said, “I could see Michael. He was boiling a kettle on the stove and moving about, setting out cups and plates. There were two other people in the room. I could see the legs of a man who was sitting at the kitchen table. Once, when he leant forward, I got a glimpse of him. All I could tell you was that he was young and had black hair. The other was a girl. I saw her quite plainly. She was dark, too. Medium height and rather thin. The sort of girl who could dress as a man and get away with it. I got the impression, somehow, that they’d just arrived, and Michael was bustling about making them at home. The girl still had her outdoor coat on. Maybe that’s what gave me the idea. Just then I saw another man coming. He was walking along the road which runs behind our kitchen garden, and when he stopped, he was right under the window where I was sitting. When he opened the gate I could see that he was taking a lot of trouble not to make any noise.
“He shut the gate very gently, and stood there for a moment, looking at the lighted kitchen window. Then he tip-toed up the garden path and stood, to one side of the kitchen window, looking in. That’s when I saw his face clearly for the first time.”
Sheilagh was speaking more slowly now. Mr. Calder was leaning forward with his hands on his knees. Rasselas was no longer pretending to be asleep. Mr. Behrens could feel the tension without understanding it.
“Then he seemed to make up his mind. He went across to the kitchen door, opened it, without knocking, and went in quickly, as though he was planning to surprise the people inside. Next moment, someone had dragged the curtains across. From the moment I first saw that man I knew that he meant harm to Michael. But once the curtains were shut I couldn’t see what was happening.”
“You couldn’t see,” said Mr. Calder. “But could you hear?”
“Nothing. On account of Mrs. Lovelock’s television set in the room just above me. She’s deaf and keeps it on full strength. All I could do was sit and wait. It must have been nearly an hour later when I saw the back door open. All the lights in the house had been turned out and it was difficult to see but Michael was between the two men. They seemed to be supporting him. The girl was walking behind. They came out and turned up the road. Then I noticed there was a car parked about twenty yards further up. They all got into it. And I went on sitting there. I couldn’t think what to do.”
There was a moment of silence. Neither of the men wanted to break it. Sheilagh said, “I do realise now that I should have done something. I should have run down, screamed, made a fuss. Anything to stop them taking Michael away like that. But I didn’t know what was happening. Going with them might all have been part of his plan.”
“It was an impossible situation,” said Mr. Calder.
“When you thought about it afterwards,” said Mr. Behrens, “am I right about this? You got the impression that things had been going smoothly until that other man arrived, and that he was the one who upset things.”
“He was the one who gave Michael away,” said Sheilagh. “I’m sure of it.” There was a different note in her voice now. Something hard and very cold.
“I agree with Calder,” said Mr. Behrens. “You couldn’t have done anything else at the time. But as soon as you knew that things had gone wrong for Michael why didn’t you tell the police everything that you’ve just told us. Time was vital. You could give a good description of two of the people involved. Surely there wasn’t a moment to lose.”
Sheilagh said, “I didn’t go to the police because I recognised the man, the one who arrived on foot. I’d seen his photograph. Michael had pointed it out to me in the paper. I only saw him clearly as he stood outside the lighted window, but I was fairly certain I was right.” She paused, then added, “Now I’m quite certain.”
Both men looked at her.
She said, “It was Sergeant Fallows.”
The silence that followed was broken unexpectedly. Rasselas gave a growl at the back of his throat, got up, stalked to the door, pushed it open with his nose, and went out. They heard him settling down again outside.
“That’s where he goes when he’s on guard,” said Mr. Calder.
There was another silence.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Sheilagh. “You both think I’m crazy, but I’m not. It was Fallows.”
“Not an easy face to forget,” agreed Mr. Calder, “and it would explain something that had been puzzling me. We’d taken such tight precautions over Michael that I didn’t see how they could suddenly have known that he was a plant. He might eventually have done something, or said something, which gave him away. They might have got suspicious. But not certain. Not straight away. It could only have happened like that if he was betrayed, and the only person who could have betrayed him was someone working in the Squad.”
Mr. Behrens’ mind had been moving on a different line. He said, “When they got into the car, and turned the lights on, you’d have been able to see the number plate at the back, I take it.”
“That’s right. I saw it, and wrote it down. I’ve put it here. LKK 910P.”
“Good girl. Now think back. When you were talking about the last man to arrive you called him ‘the one who came on foot’. What made you say that?”
Sheilagh said, “I’m not sure. I suppose because he came from the opposite direction to where the car was parked. So I assumed—”
“I’m not disputing it. In fact, I’m sure you were right. Fallows wouldn’t have driven up in a police car. He wouldn’t even have risked taking his own car. He’d have gone by bus or train to the nearest point and walked the rest of the
way.”
Mr. Calder said, “Then the car belonged to the Irish couple. Of course, they might have stolen it, like the one they left on the Heath.”
“They might. But why risk it? It would only draw attention to them, which was the last thing they wanted. My guess is that they hired it. Just for the time they were planning to be here.”
“If you’re right,” said Mr. Calder, “there’s a lot to do and not much time to do it. You’d better trace that car. And remember, we’ve been officially warned off, so you can’t use the police computer.”
“LKK’s a Kent number. I’ve got a friend in County Hall who’ll help.”
“I’ll look into the Fallows end of it. It’ll mean leaving you alone here for a bit, Sheilagh, but if anyone should turn up and cause trouble Rasselas will attend to him.”
“In case there might be two of them,” said Mr. Behrens, “you’d better take this. It’s loaded. That’s the safety-catch. You push it down when you want to fire.”
The girl examined the gun with interest. She said, “I’ve never used one, but I suppose, if I got quite close to the man, pointed it at his stomach, and pulled the trigger—”
“The results should be decisive,” said Mr. Behrens.
Fallows was whistling softly to himself as he walked along the carpeted corridor to the door of his fiat. It was on the top floor of a new block on the Regent’s Park side of Albany Street and seemed an expensive pad for a detective sergeant. He opened the door, walked down the short hall into the living room, switched on the light and stopped.
A middle-aged man, with greying hair and steel-rimmed glasses was standing by the fireplace regarding him benevolently. Fallows recognised him, but had no time to be surprised. As he stepped forward something soft but heavy hit him on the back of the neck.
When he came round, about five minutes later, he was seated in a heavy chair. His arms had been attached to the arms of the chair and his legs to its legs by yards of elastic bandage, wound round and round. Mr. Behrens was examining the contents of an attaché case which he had brought with him. Mr. Calder was watching him. Both men were in their shirt-sleeves and were wearing surgical gloves.
“I think our patient is coming round,” said Mr. Calder.
“What the bloody hell are you playing at?” said Fallows.
Mr. Behrens said, “First, I’m going to give you these pills. They’re ordinary sleeping pills. I think four should be sufficient. We don’t want him actually to go to sleep. Just to feel drowsy.”
“Bloody hell you will.”
“If you want me to wedge your mouth open, hold your nose and hit you on the throat each time until you swallow, I’m quite prepared to do it, but it’d be undignified and rather painful.”
Fallow glared at him, but there was an implacable look behind the steel spectacles which silenced him. He swallowed the pills.
Mr. Behrens looked at his watch, and said, “We’ll give them five minutes to start working. What we’re trying”— he turned courteously back to Fallows —“is an experiment which has often been suggested but never, I think, actually performed. We’re going to give you successive doses of scopalamine dextrin to inhale, whilst we ask you some questions. In the ordinary way I have no doubt you would be strong enough to resist the scopalamine until you became unconscious. There are men who have sufficient resources of will power to do that. That’s why we first weaken your resistance with a strong sedative. Provided we strike exactly the right balance, the results should be satisfactory. About ready now, I think.”
He took a capsule from a box on the table and broke it under Fallows’ nose.
“The snag about this method,” he continued, in the same level tones of a professor addressing a class of students, “is that the interreaction of the sedative and the stimulant would be so sharp that it might, if persisted with, affect the subject’s heart. You’ll appreciate therefore – head up, Sergeant – that by prolonging our dialogue you may be risking your own life. Now then. Let’s start with your visit to Banstead—”
This produced a single, sharp obscenity.
Fifty minutes later, Mr. Behrens switched off his tape recorder. He said, “I think he’s gone. I did warn him that it might happen if he fought too hard.”
“And my God, did he fight,” said Mr. Calder. He was sweating. “We’d better set the scene. I think he’d look more convincing if we put him on his bed.”
He was unwinding the elastic bandages and was glad to see that, in spite of Fallows’ struggles, they had left no mark. The nearly empty bottle of sleeping pills, a half empty bottle of whiskey and a tumbler were arranged on the bedside table. Mr. Behrens closed Fallows’ flaccid hand round the tumbler, and then knocked it onto the floor.
“Leave the bedside light on,” said Mr. Calder. “No-one commits suicide in the dark.”
“I’ve done a transcript of the tape for you,” said Sheilagh. “I’ve cut out some of the swearing, but otherwise it’s all there. There’s no doubt, now, that he betrayed Michael, is there?”
“None at all,” said Mr. Behrens. “That was something he seemed almost proud of. The trouble was that when we edged up to one of the things we really wanted to know, an automatic defence mechanism seemed to take over and when we fed him a little more scopalamine to break through it, he started to ramble.”
“All the same,” said Mr. Calder, “we know a good deal. We know what they’re planning to do, and roughly when. But not how.”
Mr. Behrens was studying the neatly typed paper. He said, “J.J. That’s clear enough. Jumping Judas. It’s their name for Mr. Justice Jellicoe. That’s their target all right. They’ve been gunning for him ever since he sent down the Manchester bombers. I’ve traced their car. It was hired in Dover last Friday, for ten days. The man they hired it from told them he had another customer who wanted it on the Monday afternoon. They said that suited them because they were planning to let him have it back by one o’clock that day. Which means that whatever they’re going to do is timed to be done sometime on Monday morning, and they aim to be boarding a cross-Channel ferry by the time it happens.”
“They might have been lying to the man,” said Sheilagh.
“Yes. They might have been. But bear in mind that if they brought the car back on Saturday afternoon or Sunday, the hire firm would be shut for the weekend and they’d have to leave the car standing about in the street, which would call attention to it. No. I think they’ve got a timetable, and they’re sticking to it.”
“Which gives us three days to find out what it is,” said Mr. Calder. “If the pay-off is on Monday there are two main possibilities. Jellicoe spends his weekends at his country house at Witham, in Essex. He’s pretty safe there. He’s got a permanent police guard and three boxer dogs who are devoted to him. He comes up to court on Monday by car, with a police driver. All right. That’s one chance. They could arrange some sort of ambush. Detonate one of their favourite long-distance mines. Not easy, though, because there are three different routes the car can take. This isn’t the Ulster border. They can’t go round laying minefields all over Essex.”
“The alternative,” said Mr. Behrens, “is to try something in or around the Law Courts. We’ll have to split this. You take the Witham end. Have a word with the bodyguard. They may not know that we’ve been warned off, so they’ll probably co-operate. I’ll tackle the London end.”
“Isn’t there something I could do?” said Sheilagh.
“Yes,” said Mr. Calder. “There is. Play that tape over again and again. Twenty times. Until you know it by heart. There was something, inside Fallows’ muddled brain, trying to get out. It may be a couple of words. Even a single word. If you can interpret it, it could be the key to the whole thing.”
So Friday was spent by Mr. Calder at Witham, making friends with a police sergeant and a police constable; by Sheilagh Finnegan listening to the drug-induced ramblings of the man who had been responsible for her husband’s death; and by Mr. Behrens investigating the possib
ility of blowing up a judge in court.
As a first step he introduced himself to Major Baines. The major, after service in the Royal Marines, had been given the job of looking after security at the Law Courts. He had known Michael Finnegan, and was more than willing to help.
He said, “It’s a rambling great building. I think the chap who designed it had a Ruritanian palace in mind. Narrow windows, heavy doors, battlements and turrets, and iron gratings. The judges have a private entrance, which is inside the car park. Everyone else, barristers, solicitors, visitors, all have to use the front door in the Strand, or the back door in Carey Street. They’re both guarded, of course. Teams of security officers, good men. Mostly ex-policemen.”
“I was watching them for a time, first thing this morning,” said Mr. Behrens. “Most people had to open their bags and cases, but there were people carrying sort of blue and red washing bags. They let them through uninspected.”
“They’d be barristers, or barristers’ clerks, and they’d let them through because they knew their faces. But I can assure you of one thing. When Mr. Justice Jellicoe is on the premises everyone opens everything.”
“Which court will he be using?”
Major Baines consulted the printed list. “On Monday he’s in Court Number Two. That’s one of the courts at the back. I’ll show you.”
He led the way down the vast entrance hall. Mr. Behrens saw what he meant when he described it as a palace. Marble columns, spiral staircases, interior balconies and an elaborately tessellated floor”Up these stairs,” said Baines. “That’s Number Two Court. And there’s the back door, straight ahead of you. It leads out into Carey Street.”
“So that anyone making for Court Number Two would be likely to come this way.”
“Not if they were coming from the Strand.”
“True,” said Mr. Behrens. “I think I’ll hang around for a bit and watch the form.”
He went back to the main hall and found himself a seat, which commanded the front entrance.
Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens Page 22