by Roy Lewis
‘Everyone in the building down here, to the hall. Report to you. Account for them, if possible. And the students. Disperse them.’
Crow didn’t like Peters but he recognized the efficiency and lack of panic in the man. Whatever he was, Peters wasn’t tardy in his acceptance of orders and his summing up of a situation. Within thirty seconds, as Crow consulted the plan of the Administration block posted at the bottom of the stairs, he heard the booming, precise tones of the rector resounding through the hall and, presumably, repeating throughout the block.
‘This is Principal Peters. Every person in the Administration and Business teaching blocks will immediately report to the main hall. I repeat: will immediately report. This is an emergency!’
There was a short pause and then the voice boomed out again. Peters repeated the command three times, there was a click, and then silence. It was broken by whispers, worried noises from girls coming into the hall from the offices. Feet clattered noisily on the stairs, men hurrying down.
‘Get them out, outside the building!’ The registrar turned sad, hurt eyes in Crow’s direction; he didn’t like being bawled at, he was a professional man, but he did as he was told and ushered the girls out like an indignant hen, fluttering protective wings and casting reproachful glances backwards.
‘Four cars on the way, sir,’ Wilson was reporting. He’d recovered his breath and his eyes were alert again. Crow nodded.
‘Get that registrar to check off everyone who comes down into the hallway, two of his clerks can help him. Once they’re checked get them out of this building. I want just us and Sadruddin here!’
Heavy boots clumped in the hallway. Two uniformed policemen from the squad car. ‘Where the hell have you two been?’ shouted Crow. The first one bobbed his head.
‘The students, they bogged us down, sir. Couldn’t get through.’
‘And they’ll bog down the other cars too if they’re not dispersed. Get away, round the entrances. Check them, make sure they’re closed. Then report back.’
Peters’s voice was booming again, but this time its message was not so clear inside the hall. Crow realised it was an outside address system, demanding that the students disperse. It achieved a strange milling among the students, a circling motion like disturbed cattle in a herd. A few timid souls at the back drifted under the trees, to watch from a distance, and the steps themselves emptied of students but the car park and the greens themselves remained thronged, and overlaid with a buzzing excited sound. It grew louder as above it came the wail of distant sirens. Squad cars.
Peters came out of the office again, hastening towards Crow. His jaw was grim. ‘Doesn’t look as though they’ll move.’
‘More important things to do than move them. If they get hurt that’s their affair.’ He glanced around the hall. It was filling rapidly. ‘How many staff are likely to be in the block?’
‘Hard to say. Perhaps sixty, seventy.’
‘Get them shunted out as soon as they’re checked. Now then, you say the block is sealed?’
‘I didn’t want student trouble — I suspected they might try to take over the block when I saw them assembling. I’d warned the caretakers and ancillary staff to stand by: ten minutes ago, before Sadruddin entered, I had all entrances closed.’
‘So this will be the only way out?’
‘Unless he can fly.’
There was no humour in Peters’s eyes. Crow was beginning to think he’d underestimated the man in one sense at least. Unprincipled and intelligent, this he’d accepted; he’d guessed Peters might go far to achieve his own ends, also, but this cool decisiveness was something he hadn’t seen in the man. He could use it.
‘Right. Wilson, as soon as those cars arrive, disperse them around the block. And get those students as far away as possible. Bloody hosepipes is what we want! Peters, show me this plan. I want to see where Sadruddin might have run. Remember, he knows the block.’
Peters nodded and walked across to the plan mounted in a glass-fronted display case near the stairs.
‘He could have run a number of ways but in his position I’d have taken one of three directions. Each would lead to a possible escape route. First, the obvious one, straight down the corridor here and out through the exit at the far end.’
‘If he’d gone that way—’
‘He’d have had to double back almost at once, as soon as he realised the doors were closed to him. There’s no other egress so he’d come right back to our arms. Alternatively, he could try hiding in one of these lecture rooms here.’
‘No. He’s no fool.’
‘I agree. The second route is down through the lab section and out towards this exit here. The disadvantage of this is that he’d have had to pass an open entry leading into the labs and would probably have been seen by Stewart.’
‘Stewart?’
‘Chief technician. He’s got an office just here.’ Peters stabbed his finger on the glass. It left a warm cloud, staining the cool transparency. ‘In Sadruddin’s shoes I’d have taken the third route.’
‘Where?’
‘The Business block.’
‘Why?’
‘Two sets of lifts, students and staff; four lecture theatres and three demonstration rooms; a large number of classrooms on four floors and three exits.’
‘But all closed?’
‘All closed. He wouldn’t have known that.’
‘He knows it now.’ Crow turned quickly to glance across the hall. ‘Wilson! They all down yet?’
The sergeant consulted the clerks and the registrar for a few moments and then called across the hallway in reply.
‘Just two people from the Business block.’
‘Who are they?’ Peters’s question was directed to the registrar. The little man turned to his sheet, hastily compiled from the emerging numbers, but before he could reply someone walked across to Crow and Peters.
‘I think it would be Mrs Lambert and the technician, Mr Sanders. They were setting up some tapes in the soundproof room. I sent a man to them — they wouldn’t have heard your call. They were preparing some lectures for her,’ he added almost apologetically. ‘What’s all this about, anyway?’
Crow stared into the sad, defeated eyes of Vernon West and saw the flicker of anxiety that lurked in their depths. Before he could speak, Peters said, ‘It’s Sadruddin. The police want him for Rosemary’s murder.’
‘Sadruddin!’
‘He’s in the Business block. We think.’
It was not West’s concern. Crow opened his mouth to order him away and out of the hall but the man’s head turned and he was looking towards the stairs leading to the Business block.
‘If he’s up there . . . ah, there she is!’
Crow caught the relief in his voice and followed his glance. A man and woman were hurrying down the stairs. The woman was Joan Lambert. West was moving quickly towards her, one hand outstretched. Crow heard her call out.
‘What’s the matter? What’s happening?’
‘The police,’ West was replying in a voice edged with a curiously mingled tension and relief. ‘They want to question Sadruddin.’
‘Sadruddin? What for? I . . . I saw him, just a few minutes ago.’
Crow was shambling quickly across to the stairs.
‘Saw him? Where?’
The girl stared at him, wide-eyed, her blonde hair glinting in the sunlight that lanced through the tall windows above the stairs. ‘He was on the third floor. Hurrying. I called to him, but he couldn’t have heard me.’
Crow whirled around to face the hallway and its group of people.
‘All right,’ he yelled in a voice that was harshened by stress and excitement. ‘All of you, get out of here. Now!’ He turned to Peters. ‘And that means you too.’
‘You sure I can be of no further assistance?’ Peters asked drily.
‘No.’ After a moment, grudgingly, Crow added, ‘Thanks.’ Peters smiled thinly and walked out of the hallway behind the staff. Just in
front of him West was talking quickly to Joan Lambert. Wilson closed the doors behind them and the noise was suddenly shut off. The hall was cool and silent and still; the murmur outside the great glass doors was the warm murmur of a summer day, the kind of day that Crow remembered from childhood and had never experienced in his adult life. Maturity had no time for the summer days of childhood. He turned to face the quiet stairs.
‘Wilson!’
‘Sir?’
Their voices echoed in the empty hall, danced and swung on the stairs, climbed up into the roof and plummeted down again. ‘What do you think?’
‘The cars are just arriving, Sir. A minute only. He won’t get far in that time.’
A time to sweat fear from every pore, Crow thought grimly. He plodded slowly up the stairs, his eyes on the corridor above. At the top he paused. There was a view here across the campus. He could see the dark figures of the students on the grass, a stain swirling and spreading, forming and reforming in excited, questioning groups. White faces staring upwards. He could see the church spire of Sedleigh too, and the far Downs. Crow’s lips tightened. In the block above him Sadruddin hid. He wanted Sadruddin.
He wanted him.
Boots echoed in the hallway. Crow turned and looked down. Four policemen, another group just entering.
‘All right, Wilson; station one on the main doors, one at the foot of the stairs, one here at the top. The rest, bring them up. We’ve got to search the block. You’ve got the squad cars at the exits?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Wilson, puffing his cheeks out as he came up the stairs. ‘All covered.’
‘Let’s go,’ Crow said dourly.
Their boots echoed down the corridor. Wilson had brought with him a map given to him by the registrar. Their work wasn’t going to be particularly difficult in organization. A man on each lift. Two groups moving up the stairs floor by floor with intermediate searches of the individual floors. They’d get him. And if he broke through, they’d get him below.
Unless, as Peters had said, he could fly. They followed the plan. When they reached the Business block Crow ordered the split and stationed the men on the lifts. As they reached the first floor and began the search of the rooms Crow prowled the corridor, his head lowered, staring at the map in an attempt to fix his mind as Peters’, attempt to decide what Sadruddin would have done, which way he’d have gone.
‘Paternosters!’
‘What’s that, sir?’ Wilson had materialized at his elbow.
‘Paternosters,’ repeated Crow, pointing them out on the map. ‘Peters didn’t mention them. Look, here they are, linking the third and fourth floors with the labs below.’ He caught Wilson’s grimace of incomprehension and added, ‘They’re sort of continuous lifts without doors — if you don’t jump at the right time they can castrate you.’
‘It would give him an escape route from the Business block back down into the Administration block, through the labs.’
‘It would. But there’s a man at the stairs below. He’d see him. Send someone back to warn him.’
Wilson dispatched a man downstairs. Crow frowned. So much for Peters’s efficiency. He was just as human as the rest, under stress. He forgot things. Paternosters!
They reached the second floor. They searched it with an equal lack of success. The third floor took longer since it involved two lecture theatres and a large demonstration room equipped for film projection. When it was done Crow headed for the stairs. Only the fourth and fifth floors remained. He was half way up the stairs when he heard the whining sound.
He broke into a lurching, struggling run up the stairs but even as he did so he knew it was stupid. He stopped, turned, and came charging back down again.
‘Two of you!’ He roared at the startled constables. ‘Get up there, check quickly. Those bloody paternosters!’ He yelled at Wilson. ‘Get the groups upstairs while I go down. I’ll organize them below. My guess is he’s headed for the labs!’
As he rushed down the stairs he was imbued with a violent exhilaration. It was compounded of two emotions: one was the sheer excitement of the chase, the manhunt, and it was an emotion almost atavistic in its quality. The second emotion was equally basic to his existence — he wanted Sadruddin because the man had used violence to police officers, because he had flouted law and authority, because he had shown contempt for all that Crow stood for.
And he might have killed Rosemary Harland.
Crow was already shouting to the men below as he came pounding along the corridor and the bridge from the Business block to the Administration building. The man at the top of the stairs showed a face slack with incomprehension and then the message got across and he disappeared. When Crow got to the top of the stairs he saw a huddle of people at the doors below, arguing, and two policemen already setting off down the corridor towards the laboratories.
Crow ran down the steps, breathing hard. ‘What’s going on?’ he shouted but waited for no answer from the arguing group at the doors. He was already turning into the corridor and making his shambling way down after the two constables. They stopped at the far doors, hesitating. When he caught up with them they turned to face him.
‘He could dodge us in the labs, if he’s come down, sir.’
‘He’s come down all right, in a paternoster, I’ll bank on it! But you’re right . . . you, get back and pull in a couple more men from the stairs. We’ll take him then, between us.’
It could be faulty reasoning, of course; it would strengthen this group but weaken the checks on the first floor. He couldn’t help that. He turned and marched back behind the hurrying constable and heard some more shouting, from the hallway. They were still arguing there, just inside the doorway. Two policemen, and a woman. Joan Lambert.
When she caught sight of him she called his name.
‘Inspector Crow — please, can I speak to you?’
He waved an angry arm.
‘Get her out of here! What is she—’
‘I can help you! I know it, I can help you!’ Crow frowned and moved towards her in his ungainly fashion.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Sadruddin. You want to get him out. Let me go to him, talk with him, I’m certain I can make him see reason.’ Her eyes were alive, pleading with him and he thought of her husband still at the station while she begged to be allowed to see Sadruddin. He began to turn away, a knot of disgust twisting in his chest, but she caught at his arm. ‘Please — if you go after him. . . I’ve seen him, he’ll get violent. He . . . he might get hurt . . . or one of your men let me talk to him, this whole thing is ridiculous and I’m sure he’ll have an answer, let me talk to him, he’ll trust me if I tell him—’
She was semi-hysterical now and a constable took her by the arm as Crow nodded to him. Her voice rose as Crow turned away. ‘Get her out of the building,’ he said quietly to the constable but then his attention was drawn by a shout and the sound of pounding feet in the corridor.
‘The labs! He came down the paternoster and we saw him, cornered him, but he’s gone up again and a constable’s gone chasing after him!’
The breathless policeman in the corridor was flushed in the face. Crow moved towards the stairs, exultingly. He was confident that within minutes they’d take Sadruddin.
* * *
When he reached the first floor he remembered that the guards there and on the stairs themselves had been brought down to search through the laboratories below. Crow looked back to the constable standing uncertainly at the foot of the stairs.
‘Make sure those paternosters are sealed off below there — we don’t want him making a dash out that way.’
He made his way up to the second floor and across the corridor to the third. A policeman stood on guard at the top of the stairs and as Crow reached him, breathing heavily now, he could hear voices from below, confused in the echoing ring of the stair well. The sounds suddenly swelled until they were no longer coming from the stairs but from the floor and the corridor above. A m
an, shouting.
‘Come on!’ Crow said quickly and hurried towards the next flight of stairs. The constable lumbered up behind him as he took the steps two at a time. Crow turned into the corridor on the next floor and it was empty but there was another shout from the far end of the corridor. The police inspector ran, his shoes skidding on the polished plastic tiling and as he turned the corner he saw them.
There was one shocked moment as they stared at each other.
Sadruddin stood there, his black, wild hair falling into his magnificently flaring eyes. He was standing with his legs braced and on the floor at his feet was a young, fresh-faced constable lying on his stomach, with one arm doubled up underneath him. He was groaning.
‘Sadruddin!’
Crow’s voice was cold and menacing. The police constable came to a stop behind him and the Arab moved swiftly. He dropped on one knee, swift as a cat, until his hand was wound into the prostrate policeman’s hair and his knee was place firmly on the back of the man’s neck.
‘Stop!’ he commanded, and his eyes were wild and staring, red-rimmed, his mouth slack with fear. But it was the fear that could turn into swift violence and Crow made no move.
‘Don’t be a fool, son,’ Crow said quietly. Dark fingers jerked at the policeman’s head.
‘Come a step nearer and I’ll break his neck like a twig!’
Crow and the policeman made no move. ‘Let him alone, now, and come downstairs quietly. You’ll only be making things worse for yourself by behaving in this fashion.’
‘Worse? When you’ve already got yourself convinced that I’m a murderer? You’ve already appointed yourself judge — and sat in judgment on me. If you think I’ll just cooperate, you’re nuts. I’m not standing in as any fall guy for you. I’m getting out of here, Crow, and if you try to stop me I’ll break this man’s neck.’
He meant it. He was past reasoning, he was committed. He could think of one thing only, escape from the college, and he would go to any lengths to do it. He knelt there with his long hair falling about his face, and his mouth twisted as with his knee he applied a cruel pressure to the neck of the helpless man on the floor.