by John Creasey
“No,” he answered. “I’m restless, that’s all. I’m going downstairs for a few minutes.”
Her voice came again, a little contemptuously. “You’re a fool if you’re worrying about that Moreno girl and her baby. If you ask me, you had more than a soft spot for that patient.”
How the words, the implication, hurt.
How right and yet how dreadfully wrong she was!
Of course he had a soft spot for anyone who was weak and helpless from sickness. That was why he was a doctor. But Janice would never understand. He was sure of that now. Janice wanted the social prestige of being a doctor’s wife but no part in being his wife, in the sense of helpmate. He had been facing that truth for months now.
He said quietly: “You go to sleep, darling,” and went out, half afraid that she would pursue the subject; but obviously she was too tired, for when he came back she was fast asleep. He stood looking at her for a few moments, a pretty – no, damn it, a beautiful face which showed at its best in the light filtering through from the streets.
She looked—pure.
He thought: “If I’d dreamt you would be like this . . .” and then checked himself, and went back to bed.
Arthur Dalby, quite unaware that his co-escaper had been caught, slept in the car which he had stolen. It was parked in the garage of an empty house. Like Janice Kelworthy, his face and expression looked “pure”. Every now and again he smiled in his sleep.
Not far away from him, at a wholesale fruit and vegetable warehouse on the outskirts of Birmingham, four men unloaded a lorry load of oranges, grapefruit and lemons, all of which had come from South or West Africa. They did the work quickly, but without secrecy; night unloading was not uncommon here, for there was an open market nearby which had to be kept fully supplied, as well as the dozens of small shops in the south-east Birmingham area. When at last the truck was empty, money changed hands: two hundred and fifty pounds in small, used notes.
“Now all we’ve got to do is ditch the lorry,” said the driver to his companion. “Then we’ve got a hundred each and fifty in the savings account!”
For some reason, that made him roar with laughter.
5
POISONING
KATE was asleep when Gideon woke, and he did not disturb her, but made himself a pot of tea, then bathed and shaved in the bathroom along the landing, and, that finished, stood outside the bathroom door looking at a loft ladder which disappeared into a partly open ceiling hatch. This led to the soundproofed attic, where Penelope was to have practised. He remembered the extreme excitement when he had promised to have this done, because so many neighbours complained about her practising classical music at all hours of day and night. It had been an expensive job, but for one reason or another, mainly the fact that she had been away with the BBC Symphony Orchestra so much and partly because she and Alec Hobbs had needed some time together, the Bechstein Grand hoisted up before the attic had been refloored, had seldom been used.
A case of Gideon’s Folly, he thought wryly, then shaking off his nostalgic mood, strode purposefully downstairs. He could get breakfast at the Yard canteen and would be there in twenty minutes. He stepped out into a morning with a wraithlike mist covering grass and shrubs and trees, and obscuring the sky, but there was a promise of a warm day. The doctor’s car was not across the road, and all the blinds at Mrs. Jameson’s house were drawn; she was a great believer in savouring grief to the full. For once he had not underestimated the crush of traffic as he drove along the Embankment, and he was in Parliament Square in fifteen minutes; it took another six or seven to reach the Yard itself.
Men who saw him seemed to pay him more attention than usual; one actually saluted, and that puzzled him. Respect he was used to, but not deference. He went up two flights of stairs and into his own office, where several files had already been placed; Hobbs or no Hobbs, the system went on. A youngish Chief Inspector with the hard-to-believe name of Tiger was standing-in for Hobbs, and would come the moment he was summoned.
On the desk were four newspapers, folded so that only the front page headlines showed. He rounded the desk which was at one side of a medium-sized room with a big window overlooking the Embankment, desk, chairs and filing cabinets of rich-looking red mahogany, and snatched up the papers.
GIDEON CATHCHES BANDITS!
COMMANDER GIDEON IN CAR CRASH - THIEVES CAUGHT
YARD CHIEF IN LONDON CHASE
BRITAIN'S TOP DETECTIVE IN CHASE AFTER BANDITS
And on every front page his photograph stared up at him.
“The fat-headed idiots,” he growled, and then opened the papers full out. He was relieved to see photographs of the Flying Squad men on the inside pages, though exasperated that they were considerably smaller than those of himself. There was also one of the crashed car.
His internal office telephone rang and he picked it up and growled: “Gideon.”
“Good-morning, Commander.” There was no doubt who this was: Sir Reginald Scott-Marie, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, one of the few men who made Gideon leap, metaphorically, to his toes. Usually the “Commander” meant that there was someone in Scott-Marie’s office, to prevent him from the “George” which had become more customary, but something in Scott-Marie’s inflection told Gideon that this time it was out of good humour, rather than formality.
“Good-morning, sir.”
“So you’ve reduced yourself to the ranks,” Scott-Marie remarked.
“Next time I get a lift in a Squad car I’ll be more careful,” Gideon said.
“So that’s what it was.”
“As simple as that,” Gideon said.
“Well, you obviously hit the headlines,” declared Scott-Marie genially, “a welcome boost to police morale.” He paused, and when he spoke again there was a subtle change in the Commissioner’s tone, a seriousness. “George, what made you start the food poisoning enquiry last night?”
“I was dining at Boulanger’s,” answered Gideon, astonished that Scott-Marie should know of it.
“One Cabinet Minister was dining at Les Gourmets in Chelsea,” said Scott-Marie. “He had those River Oise eels, and he’s a very sick man. Not fatally ill but ill enough. I had one of his colleagues on to me as soon as I got in this morning.”
“The Home Secretary, I suppose,” Gideon said.
“Yes. He had been told by one of the divisional superintendents that there was a general enquiry, emanating from you.” Gideon grunted. “It looks as if that particular consignment of eels should be traced, doesn’t it?”
Scott-Marie did not often make positive proposals unless he was consulted, and Gideon read into this one the probability that the Home Secretary, who was Minister in charge of Home Affairs and therefore of the police, was exerting some pressure.
“I’ll check,” Gideon said. “If it’s widespread—the food poisoning, I mean—then it should have been.”
“Let me know one way or the other,” said Scott-Marie, and then changed the subject completely. “How are you managing without Hobbs?”
“Managing,” Gideon replied, drily.
“I had a letter from a colleague in Sydney this morning,” said Scott-Marie. “He was very impressed”—Gideon expected him to say “by Hobbs” and not surprised but a little puzzled as to why Scott-Marie should choose this way of saying so—”by your daughter’s playing,” Scott-Marie finished.
“Good lord!” exclaimed Gideon.
“Apparently the leading New South Wales police turned up in force to hear her play,” explained Scott-Marie, “and they gave a reception after the performance to the orchestra, Penelope being the star turn. She is a remarkable young woman, George.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Gideon replied.
When Scott-Marie rang off he, Gideon, replaced the receiver very slowly, and stared out of the window, fille
d with thoughts both happy and sad of a daughter twelve thousand miles away. Then he gave himself a little shake and turned briskly to the newspapers. Folding them neatly, he put them aside; he could read the articles later. Now he looked for the first time at the files. Big Ben began to strike. Ten o’clock already? He raised his head and counted . . . seven, eight, nine. Nine. He was in much earlier than he had expected, and Scott-Marie must have been at his office much earlier, too.
There were four folders, and the top one was very thin. He opened it, and saw a pencilled message heading several other messages, some of them teletyped. This message said:
Mrs. Moreno died at seven-twenty this morning, August 26th, at St. Stephen’s Hospital.
At that moment Paul Moreno was standing by the empty bed in his wife’s room. His dark eyes were ablaze, with anguish, with grief, and with hatred.
He said as if it were part of a refrain: “I shall kill that doctor. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.”
“Jonathan, you are worrying yourself unnecessarily,” Dr. Sylvester said to Dr. Kelworthy. Sylvester was an alert-looking man in his early fifties. He wore grey tweeds, and looked as hard and fit as a man could be. “There is no way in which we can guarantee a live birth. I’ve seen the child, of course, and I will do the autopsy on the mother, but I am sure you will find that there were some special circumstances and that you are in no way to blame.”
Jonathan Kelworthy ran his fingers through curly, nut-brown hair, then drew those same long, strong fingers over his lean, attractive face.
“I hope to God you’re right,” he said. Then after a pause he went on: “I ought to go and see the husband. He needs sedation badly, and—oh, hell! I’ve got to go and see him, anyway! “
He turned and left the great man’s office.
Gideon put in a call to Kate as soon as he had read the report, and then opened the next one. For some reason Hobbs’ stand-in was not putting a description or name or title of the case on the outside of the folder, to Gideon an odd omission. He saw that this was the report on the food poisoning, and read almost unbelievingly:
Twenty-seven cases of food poisoning, at least eleven of them acute, have so far been reported in the Metropolitan area and its immediate environs. Two of the victims have died. Officers from the Yard as well as all divisions affected have been instructed to warn all restaurants not to use this particular eel. A list of wholesalers and shops and restaurants which deal in it is being compiled. There appears some possibility that the poison becomes more virulent when the eel has been eaten at the same meal as pork.
“Two dead!” exclaimed Gideon, and stretched out for the internal office telephone, but before he touched it, the bell of the Yard’s exchange rang. Who—of course, Kate. He picked up this receiver, and the operator said: “Mrs. Gideon, sir.”
“Kate,” Gideon began, “I felt that I ought to tell you—”
“She’s dead,” Kate interrupted, in a very still voice. “I heard half-an-hour ago, George.” Both were silent for a few moments before Gideon said: “There’s so little to say.”
“There’s nothing, really,” Kate said, “but I’m glad you called. Thank you, George.” She sounded formal but no formality was intended, just a measure of her understanding of his concern for her. He wondered if he should tell her about the food poisoning and decided that it would only depress her more, and was actually about to ring off when he remembered what Scott-Marie had told him about Penelope. “Kate!” he cried, “don’t ring off. I must tell you! Scott-Marie had a letter about Penny . . .”
He hoped that the good news would sustain her for the rest of the day.
What was he talking about? Sustain her for the rest of the day? Did he really think she was in such urgent need of support? Surely last night had been more of a passing mood than a constant or chronic one. He began to think about what they had said to each other, until suddenly he forced himself to dial Scott-Marie’s office. Scott-Marie himself answered at once: “This is the Commissioner.”
“That food poisoning looks very ugly,” Gideon said, and for the sake of clarity, read out the report. Scott-Marie did not comment at first and Gideon went on: “So you can be sure we’ll see that supplies are brought in. The divisions will work closely with the Health Departments concerned and I’ll have a word with someone at the Ministry of Health to make sure there’s not too much red tape.”
“If you have any trouble let me know,” said the Commissioner. He did not add, but obviously meant, that he would, if necessary, talk to the Home Office.
Gideon turned to the next file, his thoughts still on food poisoning. Why didn’t Tiger put the name of the case on the outside of the files? Gideon flipped the cover over: this was about the prison escape case, and the summary was as brisk and lucid as he could hope for. He pressed the bell-push at the side of his desk which rang a bell in Hobbs’ office: one ring meant come in, two meant, telephone me. Almost as soon as he had moved his finger from the bell-push the communicating door opened, and Chief Inspector Tiger came in. He was a big, muscular man with a benign expression. Anyone less tigerish it would be hard to imagine.
“Good-morning, sir.”
“Good-morning, Chief Inspector. Explain a little mystery for me, will you?”
“If I can, sir.”
“Why don’t you put a description of the case on the outside of the folder?” asked Gideon.
For a moment, Tiger looked nonplussed, and he actually echoed “folder” as if he had been repeating Gideon’s words to himself, one by one. Then the expression in his dark eyes changed to comprehension and he began: “Because I always”—but suddenly he stopped, obviously doubting the wisdom of what he was about to say, and added lamely: “I always thought you would like to name the case yourself, sir.”
“Oh,” said Gideon. “Did you?” What this man meant, of course, was that Hobbs liked to use his own phraseology; it was always Hobbs’ writing on the outside of the folder. “Well, pencil a description in, in future, and if I don’t like it I’ll change it.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Has anything else come in during the past half hour or so?” Gideon asked.
Tiger did not hesitate this time, and the answer came quickly.
“I think so, sir. It may be coincidence but I rather think we’re up against something new. A refrigerated meat container lorry was hijacked on the M1 this morning. That’s the third somewhere in the country inside a month. And the lorry taken from Covent Garden last night, full of oranges and grapefruit, was found empty in a disused quarry outside Coventry two hours ago. Some one must have had a ready market for that kind of fruit, sir—and some one must know where they can sell that meat in a hurry.”
6
MURDER ONE
GIDEON sat very still in his chair for what seemed a long time. Tiger stood in front of the desk, silent now, perhaps wondering whether he had said too much. If Gideon had a criticism of the man it was that he had obviously had this in his mind for some time, days at least, but had not uttered a word about it; probably he would have spoken to Hobbs.
At last, Gideon said: “Have you done anything about this?”
“I don’t understand you, sir.”
“Have you told anybody else what you suspect – the big market security police, for instance?”
“No, sir,” replied Tiger.
The obvious rejoinder was: “Why not?” but Gideon had a feeling that he must not let this man feel the sting of criticism too early. One worked with the men as much as was practicable, not above them. “I think we should,” said Gideon. “I think we need a breakdown on the thefts from the London markets, anyhow – Smithfield, Billingsgate and Covent Garden. It might be possible to tighten up security at some of them.” He saw eagerness in the other man’s eyes as he went on: “It looks as if the goods are taken out of London and sold in the
provinces. Thought anything about that?”
“I really only woke up to the full possibilities last night,” Tiger admitted, “but once I started to think things over, a lot of bells began to ring at once. As the goods are all perishable they’ll want to get rid of them quick. They might steal a refrigerated truck but I doubt if they’d be able to maintain temperature control for long. And they would expect the lorries to be missed pretty soon, so they’d want to be out of London in a hurry. I’d say probably the M1 up as far as Birmingham but no further north, sir. Of course they might have a lot of small vans waiting, so that they could spread the load, but if a refrigerated lorry or a special fruit-carrying one was seen in the same place, unloading into small vans, it would soon be noticed. There’d be a big risk, anyhow. So I’d say they have a big wholesaler ready to take the stuff at one go. The wholesaler could sell it in small lots without any trouble.”
Tiger said all this very quickly as if to make sure Gideon couldn’t interrupt. When he had finished he was breathing hard. Gideon nodded.
“That seems to add up. We need a man to get moving quickly, preferably one who’s had some dealings with the Federation and the County people—”
“May I make a suggestion, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Someone who knows the markets might be better in the long run. They can all get along with the provincial blokes if they obviously know their business.”