Tiger at Bay

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Not a damned word did they believe, the thick-headed morons!’ he snarled with muted passion.

  Dilys Thomas sat alongside the bed, patting her elaborate hairdo and trying unsuccessfully to look sympathetic.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t come before, but after you didn’t turn up, I happened to meet a boyfriend. We went to the pictures.’

  Iago smiled thinly. ‘Only time you ever agreed to come out with me, and someone tries to murder me!’

  Her usually impassive face wrinkled impatiently. ‘Come off it, Iago! You’re no big wheel in this city! Who would want to rub you out?’

  Her diet of films and television had warped her local accent into a weird dialect. Iago’s face darkened again.

  ‘Even you call me a liar! I tell you, this car came right at us, up on the pavement. I was lucky, being on the outside, as I could jump clear. But poor old Summers got bounced against the wall. They don’t know if he’ll live.’ He nodded his turbaned head in the direction of the main ward, where a nurse sat beside a deeply unconscious Summers.

  Dilys shifted on her stool and demurely pulled her miniskirt straight, though as an aid to modesty, it was no more use than a wide belt.

  ‘What did the police say, then?’ she asked, just to humour him.

  Iago sneered, until he found it hurt his bruised chin. ‘Say? They just sat and looked sympathetic and didn’t believe a damn word.’ His pale eyes looked watery, and for a moment the girl thought he was going to cry.

  ‘Did you tell them all about Summers?’ she asked.

  ‘I had to, didn’t I? Dropped him in the mire, I suppose, but this has gone a bit further than blackmail now.’

  Dilys shifted restlessly. The boyfriend was waiting outside, itching to get down to the serious part of the evening.

  ‘Are they going to do anything about it?’ she made herself ask.

  Iago tried to snarl this time. ‘Said they’d look into it – like hell they will. If Summers was able to talk to them, they’d listen. He’s a respectable bank official, but me – I’m just a pain in their collective neck,’ he muttered bitterly. ‘I’ll bet they went outside, put their little pencils back in their notebooks and said “he’s just a nutcase” or “suffering from shock, poor chap”.’

  ‘He didn’t seem to be a nutter, sir – and the doctor said he was hardly shocked at all by the time I saw him. They’re letting him go home this morning.’

  Bob Ellis stood in front of Meredith’s desk, with his notebook open and at the ready.

  Old Nick looked up from his chair and rubbed his blue-black chin ruminatively. With his colouring, he could never get a decent shave, he always had a ‘five o’clock shadow’ by ten in the morning.

  ‘Do you think he’s talking sense?’

  The detective inspector nodded. ‘I think he thinks he’s telling the truth. Whether he’s having delusions after the bump on the head is another matter. The quacks said they’d no reason to think so.’

  Meredith brooded again for a moment. ‘He gave you this yarn about Summers being blackmailed and going to him for help,’ he recapitulated. ‘Then Summers came to meet him at the Glendower Arms. What time did they leave, did he say?’

  ‘About a quarter to seven. Price was going to walk with Summers to his car, then go back to the pub.’

  ‘Where had Summers left his car?’

  ‘On a demolished site – that part of the town has more car parks than buildings now. This particular one was further down the side street where Price has his office. He said they were just getting to the gap in the fence where you drive in, when a pair of headlights rushed straight at them, right up on the pavement.’

  Old Nick was building his own mental picture of the scene, trying to find faults. It was a technique that often paid off.

  ‘If he says that Summers was badly hurt because he was thrown against the wall, where was the wall?’

  Ellis looked in his notebook. ‘The Panda patrol said that Summers was crushed against one of the concrete pillars holding up the chain link fencing.’

  The chief superintendent nodded his long chin. ‘Why is Price so convinced this was deliberate and not just an accidental running-down?’

  ‘They were well onto the pavement – there were no cars or other obstructions in the road to cause this vehicle to swerve. He says it accelerated and came up over the kerb at them.’

  ‘Could have been a drunk,’ objected Meredith.

  Ellis shrugged. ‘Could be, I suppose. A bit early, before seven o’clock.’

  ‘No witnesses at all?’

  ‘Not one. It’s a free car park, no attendant at night. We’ll put out a call on radio and telly, but it’s a faint hope. Everyone seems to get instant blindness at times like this.’

  Meredith grunted. ‘Is this bank chap in real danger – medically, I mean?’

  ‘Pretty bad. The doctors were thinking of operating this morning, but the indications aren’t right. They don’t know what might happen to him – he might suddenly wake up or die – or just stay flat out indefinitely.’

  Meredith chewed at the loose skin around his fingernails. It was the only sign he ever gave of the pressures bottled up inside him.

  ‘So until he comes round we’ve only got Price’s word for all this yarn?’

  ‘That’s about it, sir.’

  Old Nick had another meal off his index finger.

  ‘Think it’s worth following up? You’re the one that saw Price.’

  Bob Ellis was cautious. ‘I feel we’ll have to ask around a bit, even if only to satisfy ourselves that it’s all a lot of nonsense.’

  ‘This chap Price. What do we know about him?’

  Ellis shrugged. ‘No reason to think he’s a villain or a crackpot. He’s the only son of a well-to-do businessman, retired now. The son was a bit of a disappointment to the old man. The father is a real go-getter shipping tycoon, but Iago has been a wash-out. Not in a bad way, just one of nature’s failures.’

  Meredith seemed interested. A go-getter in his own grim way, perhaps deadbeats were a novelty to him, thought Ellis. Aloud, he said, ‘Iago has been in about a dozen jobs so far. He was chucked out of the university for failing his exams – then he started in his father’s business and got the push from there.’

  ‘His dad threw him out?’ asked Old Nick.

  ‘Well, more or less. He set him up in a little bookseller’s business, but that fell flat in about three months. I hear the old man just about washed his hands of the son then. He went selling cars, touting for advertisement space and finally to flogging cheap furniture.’

  ‘Where did this detective business come in then?’

  ‘About a year ago – he started from scratch with the usual divorce and status enquiry stuff. He seems to be existing, if nothing else. Apart from an office girl, his overheads are about nil. His office is over a condemned shop!’

  Meredith looked hard at Ellis. ‘You seem to know a hell of a lot about him.’

  ‘My brother works in the dad’s shipping office. And since Price has started on this private detective lark, I made it my business to know more about him. I keep tabs on all the enquiry agents, though the rest are in a far bigger way of business than Iago. They think he’s a big joke.’

  Meredith studied Ellis from under his overhanging eyebrows. ‘So you don’t think he’s bent?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t got the brains. He’s an inoffensive sort of chap, never grown up, really. Everyone feels sorry for him, that’s how he gets by, I reckon. Hardly ever goes near the old man, though I expect that his mum slips him the odd cheque now and then. They can afford it, God knows.’

  Meredith suddenly seemed to decide that he had spent enough time on Iago Price.

  ‘Well, do what you think necessary. Let me know if anything comes of it.’

  He picked up some papers and a pen. Ellis took the hint and went back into the main CID room.

  The same detective constable was still laboriously pecking away at his typewriter, though p
resumably he had been home to sleep.

  ‘Give that a bloody rest, Williams, your tongue is getting frostbite,’ ordered Ellis. ‘I want you to come down to the Docks with me. You’ve never been stationed at Bute Street, have you?’

  The gangling young detective constable, with a deceptively vacant manner, was thankful for an excuse to leave his typewriter.

  ‘Docks, sir? No, spent my time at Ely and Roath.’

  Ellis nodded in satisfaction. ‘Good, I want a strange face. You might even get a cup of coffee at the police force’s expense if you play your cards right!’

  The mystified Williams followed him out to the car park.

  Chapter Four

  ‘You’re the biggest damned menace I’ve ever had working with me!’

  Tiger Ismail paced the carpet of his upstairs room, looking more than ever like his animal namesake. He padded from wall to wall in suppressed rage, hands gripped behind him so tightly that the knuckles showed white. His smooth, tan face was hard with temper and his eyes had a glitter that made Nikos Kalvos very uneasy.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tiger,’ he mumbled for the fourth time, ‘I’d had a couple too many. How the hell was I to know that Archie would want me all of a sudden?’

  Ismail stopped and wheeled around. For a second, the Greek thought he was going to strike him.

  ‘Nikos, when I send to tell you to duff up a couple of guys, I mean with your bloody fists – not the front end of a Morris Oxford!’

  Archie Vaughan sat in a corner, trying to look inconspicuous, but Tiger swung around on him next.

  ‘You did tell Nikos to collect Joe Davies and give them a hammering, didn’t you?’ he snapped accusingly.

  Archie nodded rapidly.

  ‘Just like you said, Tiger. As soon as I saw Summers and that private dick in the pub, I ran out and phoned you. You said ring ’em, so I got Nikos on the blower in the Dollies Club and tells him ’zactly what you said.’

  The pock-faced Greek writhed his shoulders at this and turned up his palms in supplication.

  ‘I couldn‘t find Joe, honest! You said it was a rush job, so I picked up a barrow and thought that a little push with the front fender would do the trick just as well.’

  ‘And what if you’d killed them!’ snarled Tiger. His voice stayed low, but lost none of its menace. ‘You may still have croaked Summers, according to what I hear. If he dies, Nikos, you’re on your own, I don’t want to know. Get that, Archie, that goes for you too!’

  Nikos and Archie nodded hastily, each offering up a quick prayer that the bank man would stay in the land of the living.

  Tiger threw himself angrily into a chair. Even in such a careless movement, he seemed to flow naturally into a supple position, like a practised ballet dancer.

  ‘If Joe had been there, it wouldn’t have been cocked up like this. I wanted those two duffed up in some alleyway. And from behind, so they wouldn’t recognize anyone. A few black eyes and a belt over the head wouldn’t have taken half a minute. Then Joe could have gone today with a nice message to Summers to say he’d had his last chance, and that drip of a private eye would have had the frighteners put on him so that he’d stay clear and keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘Well, they’re frightened all right now!’ said Kalvos with a touch of bravado.

  ‘You damn fool!’ said Tiger. ‘The coppers will be crawling all over them. How do you know one of them didn’t get a description of the car?’

  ‘It was nicked!’ objected Nikos in an injured voice.

  ‘So what? In a case like this, the bobbies will pull out all the stops, especially if Summers snuffs it. They‘ll find the car, maybe get prints from it. Then you’re right up the creek.’

  The Greek strong-arm man muttered something about gloves, but Tiger wasn’t listening. He uncoiled from the chair and glided over to the bar, where he poured a stiff brandy for himself. He offered nothing to the other two, who were in disgrace.

  Heavy feet sounded on the stairs outside and Joe Davies came in. As Tiger’s first lieutenant, he was much less cowed by him than the other two. He grinned at their obvious discomfiture and helped himself to a drink. He was no genius, but he knew just how far he could go with Tiger.

  Ismail glowered at him. ‘What’s the whisper from up town?’

  The long-haired newcomer shrugged. ‘All quiet on the bleedin’ Western Front. They let that skinny bloke outta’ the Infirmary this morning. Summers is still flaked, so one of the porters told me.’

  ‘Any sign of the coppers taking an interest?’

  ‘They called last night to see this chap Price. Can’t see much activity today, though.’

  Even Tiger’s efficient organization had no means of knowing that Detective Constable Williams was at that very moment sitting downstairs, drinking tea and chomping a thick ham roll amongst the midday workmen that provided most of the custom for the Cairo Restaurant.

  There was silence in the lounge as Tiger brought his considerable IQ to bear on the situation.

  Perhaps he had been wrong to bring his operations into the city, he thought. It was fouling one’s nest to break the previous rules of only playing away from home.

  For the past few years, they had been working steady rackets well away from Cardiff, taking care never to leave a trail back to Bute Street, even if it meant abandoning a job. Tiger had never heard the aphorism ‘better to run and fight another day’ but he carried out its sentiments to the letter.

  Hijacking transported goods from heavy lorries had been their favourite pastime for two years. Nikos was the motorman of the team. With Archie, Joe or one of the other members of the gang, he would go to Newport, Bristol or Worcester, steal a van and make for a transport cafe where big trucks were parked. With or without the driver’s connivance, they would drive away a lorry-load of cigarettes or valuable mixed goods and transfer the best pickings to the van. After taking the loot to a pre-arranged hideout or a waiting receiver, they would dump the van and filter back to Cardiff by public transport.

  As time went on without a single scare from the police, Tiger became more ambitious, but none the less cautious. A few breaking-and-entering jobs were added to their repertoire, with Nikos again useful as a lock-picker and moderately efficient safe-breaker. More recently still, some smuggling was added to the list. Tiger never figured in any operation. He was the planning department and saw to it that no pattern of method ever developed. He had a healthy respect for the police, especially their Criminal Records Office, where details of the ‘modus operandi’ were meticulously kept. By widening their range of activities, he calculated that there would be less chance of some clever chair-bound policeman lighting on similarities in pattern.

  A few months before, by sheer chance, an event occurred which tempted Tiger to play at home in Cardiff. Joe caught his current girlfriend in a compromising position with a strange man. Though Joe was not particularly disturbed – a few black eyes would have squared the matter and ‘birds’ were two a penny to him – the man caught red-handed was so terrified that he babbled an offer to help them rob a large shop in Cardiff, where he was assistant manager. As a result, the gang cleaned up a satisfactory amount of cash and movable goods with no effort at all.

  This set Tiger thinking of a repeat performance.

  Perhaps too ambitiously for a first attempt, they set up the blackmail trap for Summers, using the same girl, Betty. Tiger now realized that they had set their sights too high, though it might have come off but for the moronic behaviour of the Greek. Now it was all off, with the added fear of a manslaughter charge waiting for somewhere to roost, if Summers died.

  He swilled his drink around in his glass and thought that there were plenty of other less tough nuts to crack. Better to spend a month working up another, than seven years ‘over the wall’.

  ‘So what we going to do now?’ asked Joe Davies, putting the boss’s thoughts into words.

  ‘This one is a write-off,’ murmured Tiger, his face expressionless as his temper subsided.
‘As long as Nikos doesn’t get nobbled for a killing, we’ll look around for something else.’

  ‘Goin’ to set Betty up for some other sucker?’ leered Archie. He was the only one not to have made the grade with the easy-going Betty. Even she couldn’t stomach the rat-like little man with the mouthful of rotten teeth. As a result, Archie had to make do with the vicarious thrills like the wardrobe episode.

  Tiger Ismail glared at him. ‘We’ve sucked that one dry for the time being. Perhaps we were out of our class there.’

  He was a realist, this Tiger. Too many criminals failed because of a built-in God complex, in his estimation. One piddling success and they become megalomaniacs, which made them careless. No, the blackmail angle was out, but there should still be something similar to that shop raid, which had been a profitable pushover.

  He threw down the last of his drink and stood up sinuously.

  ‘Joe, take Timmy and Les, as you’re the three glamour boys in this outfit. Start picking up some of the girls from the big stores up in town. Don’t do anything yet, just get to know them, then when you’re well in, pump them for anything useful about the shops, like cash movements, security, anything.’

  Timmy and Les were two of Tiger’s distant relatives, young and smooth. Though from his own family, they showed no obvious foreign blood, but had a great reputation for getting around women.

  Joseph Stalin Davies smiled happily.

  ‘A pleasure, Tiger – but are we reduced to knocking over shops now?’

  The leader frowned. ‘I’m not after boxes of nylons or fish forks, Joe. Some nights, especially now before Christmas, these shops carry as much cash as the banks. With the right bit of information, we could pull off a single job that would set us up. You just get talking to these dollies, especially any you can find from the accounts offices.’

  He turned back to look at Nikos Kalvos. ‘Meanwhile, we’ll go back to the lorries, if we can keep the Greek sober!’

  ‘A lot’s happened since you last sat there, Iago!’