Fear to Tread

by Michael Gilbert

  Mr. Wetherall gave it up.

  “Behave yourself,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to London. I’ve got a job to do.”

  He did quite a lot of thinking in the slow train which took him back.

  There was a chemical simplicity about the way things were falling out. He was the catalyst. He provoked reactions in others.

  Luigi, Sergeant Donovan, Mr. Crowdy and Peter; even Mr. Pride and Mr. Bertram the lawyer. All had spun for him their single strands. All had their parts preordained in the matter. All had played them for his benefit. Now he could see the pattern. Not all of it, but enough to see that it was a pattern; enough to be certain that something ought to be done about it; enough to realise that it was too big for him alone.

  He needed professional help, and he thought he knew where he could look for it.

  As the train crawled towards London, he outlined his plans to himself. Soon the heaviness of the afternoon and the movement of the train subdued him. He fell asleep, and into the grip of such a sharp and hideous nightmare that he woke with a scream, to find an elderly lady, who must have got into the carriage at Basingstoke, regarding him anxiously.

  “Such a horrid look on your face,” she said. “I nearly pulled the cord.”

  “Indigestion,” said Mr. Wetherall hastily.

  “Those train meals,” she agreed sympathetically.

  It was not until after tea that he could get away from the school. He reached the Kite office at about half-past five, when the great machine was beginning to hum into first gear. Once there, it took him another half-hour to get as far as Todd.

  “I’m sorry,” said Todd, “but I’ve been dealing with a lunatic. You get lots of lunatics in newspaper offices. When this particular one gets past the desk-sergeant I have to deal with him. Now, what’s on your mind?”

  Mr. Wetherall explained. It took time, as always in that office, but Todd was soon interested enough to disconnect the telephone and lock the door.

  “I see,” he said at the end. “That’s quite a comprehensive picture, isn’t it? There’s not a great deal of what you might call concrete proof, but add it to what I’ve got, and it sounds like sense. The thing is, what are we going to do about it?”

  “I thought I might have a word with that editor of yours,” he said, “and see if he’d get the paper on to it.”

  “You thought what?” said Todd faintly.

  “I thought—”

  “Yes. I heard. And how did you imagine, just as a matter of interest, that you are going to set about it. If a cabinet minister wants to see him, he gives him a week’s notice and hopes for the best.”

  “You must be able to see him.”

  “If he wants to see me – and if I can persuade him that I have got anything to say worth his listening to – and if I’m prepared to risk getting the sack if I was wrong about it.”

  “Go along,” said Mr. Wetherall. “It can’t be as difficult as all that.”

  “I can see you’ve never worked in a newspaper office,” said Todd, giving him a dirty look. “All right. I’ll do it. If you hear a dull crash it’ll be me bouncing.”

  He went reluctantly out, and Mr. Wetherall was left to his own thoughts.

  About half an hour later the house-telephone rang. Mr. Wetherall removed the receiver, gingerly.

  “You still there?” said Todd’s voice. “Well, hold on a bit longer. I’m not there yet, but I’m advancing.”

  Half an hour later the telephone rang again.

  “Go and get yourself something to eat,” said Todd. “You remember that cafe I took you to. Go there. It’ll be a bit more crowded at this time of night, but if they try to give you the ‘House Full’ ask Joe for the Kite table. There’s always room for one more.”

  Mr. Wetherall had been sitting at the Kite table for nearly two hours before Todd turned up. He had had some sort of meal and had then started ordering and drinking cups of coffee. This had caused no comment. The table was full of a succession of customers, some of whom came to eat, some to drink coffee, and some just to talk. Nobody took any notice of anybody else. Even men who were being talked to usually went on reading their late editions of the evening paper.

  When Todd arrived, the rush had slackened so they had a corner more or less to themselves.

  “He won’t do it,” said Todd.

  “No help at all?” Mr. Wetherall fought down a sinking feeling.

  “He’s sympathetic. In fact, he was very nice about it. But there was no shifting him. You can’t argue with the old man any more than you can argue with Table Mountain. It’s a question of watching his moods and getting under cover when it rains. What he said was, he isn’t going to start a crusade. It isn’t his line of country. It’s pure crime – better dealt with by the police. If there’s some point the police can’t get at, for legal or social or some other phoney reason, then a newspaper can sometimes go for it and clear it up. He says, as far as he can see, there’s nothing here the police can’t deal with.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Wetherall.

  “Cheer up,” said Todd. “We’re still with you. Something may happen yet, you never know. If you get knocked off you’ll get a wonderful obituary. I’ll have sausages, Joe, sausages and bacon. Two rashers. Don’t talk to me about rationing. We all know where your stuff comes from.”

  Joe grinned and withdrew. Mr. Wetherall finished his fourth cup of coffee thoughtfully.

  13

  WHITEHALL. A LECTURE BY CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT HAZLERIGG

  The fine autumn weather had broken and Mr. Wetherall approached Scotland Yard from the river entrance in a downpour of rain. Apart from the three impassive policemen at the gate, the rain cascading sleekly off their black capes, there was nothing to distinguish the building on the embankment from any other office block.

  Mr. Wetherall wiped his feet on the mat, furled his umbrella, and handed himself over to a hall porter.

  “You have an appointment?”

  Yes. Yes. He had an appointment with Chief Superintendent Hazlerigg.

  “Fill in the book please.”

  Mr. Wetherall wrote down the date, getting it wrong first time, and having to do it again, and then his full name. Under the column headed “Object of Visit” he put “Interview.” He wondered (as he had wondered before on such occasions) exactly what purpose was being served. Supposing his name had been Popski and he had come with a bomb in his brief-case to blow up the building, he could scarcely have been expected to have entered these particulars in the book.

  “This way, please.”

  He followed a young policeman. They walked along three or four miles of corridor, up some steps, over a sort of enclosed bridge and down some steps and stopped at a dark brown door with a number on it.

  The room was no different from any other government office except that it was neater than most; almost severe in its rectitude.

  The man who got up from behind the desk was unmistakably a policeman, although he could also have been a farmer. He was thick set and had a red-brown face and grizzled hair. He had the tolerant look of one who has spent a lifetime coping with the unpredictable climate of England. Perhaps the only remarkable thing about him was his eyes. They were that shallow grey which, like the grey of the North Sea, can change without warning from friendliness to bleak wrath.

  At the moment they looked friendly.

  “Sit down Mr. Wetherall.” He indicated the easy chair opposite the desk. “I’m so glad you’ve come. I heard about you from Huth and I hoped I should be seeing you sooner or later. He tells me you’re the head of South Borough Secondary School. And you were at Battersea? I expect you remember Cusins.”

  “Franky Cusins, or his brother Lefty? I remember both. The finest boxers we ever had. Franky had a foot shot off in Sicily. Were you—?”

  “No, no,” said the inspector. “All the schooling I had I picked up at a little village school at Sendelsham – that’s in Norfolk. Closed down now, I hear. Most of the old village schools are
going. More’s the pity. Still, I suppose you don’t agree with that. You’re probably in favour of big schools. You’ve got one of the biggest in London.”

  “In reason.”

  “Centralisation. That’s the cry nowadays. Centralise everything.”

  “Even crime,” suggested Mr. Wetherall, just to see what would happen.

  “Even crime,” agreed Hazlerigg impassively. “You know that’s one of my jobs. Organised crime.”

  “Superintendent Huth said something about it.”

  “It’s not a non-stop job, you understand. I get an outing from time to time. But by and large you can take it I hold a watching brief on the black market. A lot of these offences aren’t really police matters at all, Mr. Wetherall. They’re jobs for the Food Ministry and their men look after them. ‘Snoopers’ the papers like to call them, but you don’t want to pay much attention to that. They’re good men, most of them, doing a long day’s work and collecting quite a few hard knocks into the bargain. But very often it comes to crime.” Hazlerigg tilted his chair confidentially forward. “You know, there’s something about black market that always brings crime in sooner or later. Maybe it’s a couple of smart barrow boys – one thinks the other is trespassing on his pitch and blood gets spilt. Nothing much in that. Or else it’s something worse, like blackmail.”

  “Blackmail?” said Mr. Wetherall sharply.

  “Why certainly. There’s a lot of scope for that. A restaurant proprietor, you see, gets short of a line and some smart Alec fixes it for him on the side. All right. Next time the restaurant owner is offered the same commodity and he doesn’t happen to want it. Perhaps there’s no demand for it – or he can get plenty of it honestly. Then the supplier says, “You buy it or else—”

  “Or else what?”

  “It depends if the buyer has got money or not. If he’s well off he’ll be forced to buy – at a bigger price this time. If he’s a little man, they just run him out of business, as an example to the others.”

  “They run him out of business all right,” agreed Mr. Wetherall. He was thinking back to that evening at Luigi’s when it had all started. Less than three weeks ago, actually. It seemed a good deal longer.

  “Violence, blackmail,” went on Hazlerigg. “But those are just side-crimes. The root crime is plain stealing. That’s what it always boils down to. An increase in all forms of stealing. It works both ways. First, a man finds a profitable line of scarce goods. I say ‘finds’. Maybe the first time he did get his hands on them more or less honestly. He sells them on the black market and makes a thundering profit. Naturally he wants to do it again. Only this time he just can’t get hold of the stuff. Sooner or later he’ll be buying in the stolen goods market. Stealing for himself, or buying off a receiver, it comes to the same thing in the end. Or just look at it from the other side. You’re not a trader at all. You’re a railwayman or a post office worker or a lorry driver. You’re not overpaid, and goods – valuable goods, some of them – pass through your hands every day. You could steal them – easily – just like that – if you wanted to. What stops you?”

  He seemed to be waiting for an answer, so Mr. Wetherall gave his mind to it.

  “Discounting,” he said, “the surprising decency and honesty of the ordinary man, I should think the chief preventive is the fear of being found out.”

  “All right. But say that you’re pretty certain you won’t be found out. Your experience has shown you that the ordinary checks aren’t going to catch you – or perhaps you know a way round them.”

  “Well—in that case I take it the next consideration is, what chance have I got of making a quick, safe profit.”

  “Right. That’s where the organisation comes in.”

  “And that, I take it,” said Mr. Wetherall slowly, “is where you come in.”

  “Yes,” said Hazlerigg. “That’s my job.”

  He got up, unlocked a filing cabinet, and took out a set of cardboard folders.

  “That’s where we come in,” repeated Hazlerigg. “We can’t control the main situation. We’re not a Ministry of Economics. As long as there are shortages there’s going to be a black market. All we can do is to see that the other end of it isn’t made too easy. If individuals cheat a little, and get a little on the side for themselves, we have to leave it to the food officials. But if they sell for profit, that brings it straight to us. And, above all, if they get organised at the selling end.”

  “And have they got organised?”

  Hazlerigg opened the first folder. “They’re organised all right,” he said. “In confidence, they’re a damned sight too well organised. I had three of the biggest caterers in the country in here yesterday. Bellengers, Hyams and the P.S.D. You’ve probably never heard of them. They’re wholesalers and they supply most of the restaurants in the Metropolitan area. They’re absolutely above-board themselves, of course. But they say they can’t compete. They’re losing customers every day. All right. They’re in it for money. We won’t waste any tears over them. But that’s only one end—”

  He opened a second folder. “It’s the other end that’s terrifying. First of all, if I told you how high the railway losses by theft had jumped last year – which I’m not allowed to – I doubt if you’d believe the figure. It’s astronomical. But that’s not the worst of it. I just want to show you a cutting. There’s nothing confidential about it. It appeared the other day in a well-known newspaper and I’ve no doubt it’s absolutely accurate.”

  “Strike Threat” the cutting was headed. “Railmen at Bradstreet Goods Depot threatened to strike at midnight last night in protest against the employment of two men who, they say, gave information to the police and helped them to check pilfering. The strike threat was called off after a meeting lasting more than two hours pending a full station meeting of all the men this morning when further decisions might be reached. Bradstreet Depot is one of London’s chief points for distributing meat and fish.”

  “Do you like it?” said Hazlerigg. “Does it amuse you? Nearly a thousand men to go on strike because two of them were honest and had the guts to demonstrate it. That particular strike didn’t come off. As a nation I don’t think we’re quite corrupted yet. But give it a year or two and if this sort of thing goes on we might just as well put the boards up – Final Performance. The Old Firm Going into Liquidation.”

  He shut the folder, straightened up, and said with a smile that went straight to Mr. Wetherall’s heart, “That’s why we are not ashamed to ask for any help we can get.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mr. Wetherall simply.

  He had told the story so many times that he was becoming good at it. Having a sympathetic listener made a difference.

  Hazlerigg did not interrupt him at all, but when Sergeant Donovan’s name cropped up he got out an entirely new and rather bulky folder. He may also have pressed a buzzer, because as Mr. Wetherall finished speaking a sergeant put his head round the door and Hazlerigg said: “Would you get hold of Superintendent Huth please. He’s somewhere about.”

  The sergeant withdrew.

  “I can’t say how grateful I am,” he went on,” that you should have come forward to tell us this. What you say fills in some big gaps. That item about Crossways in particular. Now if you’ll bear with me for a couple of minutes, I propose to put you further into the picture. It’s not entirely unselfish. As I said I want your help, and if you’re going to help you’ll have to hear things which mustn’t go outside these walls. We’ll start at the bottom. There’s a lot of pilfering going on. It’s uncoordinated at that level. It always has been and, so far as I can see, it always will be. There’s no great master brain organising gangs of looters. It’s haphazard. People like Crowdy think of a bright idea about diverting railway goods. Things are stolen in transit from lorries. Smart types hang around American Air Force stations in Norfolk and get mess waiters to sell them duty-free canteen stock. Men go round the countryside in motor vans lifting chickens and turkeys and slaughtering cattle.
The other day they even lifted a dozen ducks from the pond in Hyde Park. There’s another crowd that specialises in forging used coupons, which go to dishonest retailers who sell them rationed food in bulk and use the false coupons to square their accounts with the food office. All well-known, well-tried methods, and if they receive no particular encouragement we can keep them in bounds. In fact, at the beginning of last year I almost thought we were in for a spell of peace and righteousness. The graphs were going down. Now they’re in reverse. And simply because someone has had the wit and the knowledge to organise the distribution end.”

  Mr. Wetherall thought about what Todd had told him. It looked as if the fancies of Fleet Street and the facts of Whitehall were marching in step for once.

  “That’s the outline,” said Hazlerigg. “They have established receiving centres in different places round London. There are two or three cafes with lorry parks of the ‘Jock’s Pull-In’ type. Those concentrate on food. You know how they work. Then there’s a certain wholesale wine and spirit store in North London that we’ve had our eye on recently. The principle seems to be the same. You go in with what looks like a lot of ‘returned empties,’ money passes across the counter, and you come out carrying two or three wrapped bottles. Nothing wrong with that? Except that the ‘empties’ were really full bottles of scotch or rye and the bottles you came out with were empties or dummies – and you received money instead of paying it. Damned difficult to spot. We only got wind of it when one of our men happened to get curious about the number of vans and cars with Norfolk registration plates that stopped near this particular shop. Then there are the stolen cigarettes.”

  “I suppose they run a cigarette shop for those.”

  “Too risky,” said Hazlerigg. “Think again. Too many people in and out of a tobacconist’s and no excuse for carrying parcels in and coming out without them. Any ideas? Well, the biggest receiver of stolen cigarettes that we know about is a dry-cleaning establishment in Clerkenwell. So much for the receiving end. Each of these receivers is cleared about once a week. The clearing is done by whichever gang happens to be currently in favour.”