by John Creasey
“Sylvia,” her mother had said, quietly, “we think—your father and I think that you are old enough to set your own standards of moral and sexual behaviour. Do you think so?”
Taken aback, she had said: “I—I think so, yes. Yes, I’m sure.” Her father had said drily: “But are you sure we’ll agree?”
“I don’t know,” Sylvia had said, and then caught her breath as she asked: “Must you? Should you? Haven’t you always taught me that each of us is a separate individual with our own rights, our own responsibilities, our—our own independence?” She could remember how she blurted the questions out, and how her cheeks had flushed in a kind of defiance she had never felt towards them before.
“That’s what we’ve tried to teach you,” her mother had said. “Have you learned it, Sylvia?”
“I—I think so. But why ask me now. Why now?”
“Because in a few days’ time you’ll be eighteen,” her father had said, “and because soon afterwards I want to take your mother away from London, out of England.” After a pause, he had added: “To Australia, in fact.”
“You—” She held her breath until when she spoke the words were gasps, forced from her. “You mean you’re going to emigrate? Leave England? For good.”
“We think for good,” her father said, “but we can’t be sure. Do you feel that you can really fend for yourself in England, or would you rather come with us?”
Leave England? London? Friends, the art school, life as she knew it, life as she loved it? No, no, no, no! And what had passed through her mind must have shown on her face, for they both burst out laughing. Soon afterwards they began to talk and plan and she found herself sharing in their excitement and understanding that they wanted new lives for themselves, that they had made sure she did not feel under any compulsion to go with them. They had put aside a little money for her, she had a job and her skills. So she had gone into the future, by herself, with the same breathless enthusiasm they were showing.
And she had loved every minute of it, and in loving, and in living, the advice and teaching of her parents over the years often became as vivid as when it had first been uttered.
“You don’t have to be conventional, but you still live in a conventional world.”
“You don’t have to conform but unless you do in a lot of ways life will be very uncomfortable.”
“Better to know a dozen men and reject them later than to marry the first and regret that later.”
“Make your own rules of behaviour but don’t try to force them on others.”
“If you have serious doubts about anything, cut it out.”
All these, and so many others.
And every moment of living and loving and taking and giving had been joyous, for joy was part of her. Yet she had not known true ecstasy, of the body or of the heart or the mind, until she had met Bobbie. She had felt as if a knife thrust had cut into her when she had first seen him, with his curly hair and deep brown eyes, and the way his lips curved at the corners. From that moment on there had been no man for her but Bobbie, and no woman for Bobbie but her. It had been like living in another person; sharing absolutely.
And then the decision to have a baby.
At first, an abounding excitement, followed by the inevitable discomforts, which did not matter, and the limitation of freedom, which did. Can’t eat this, can’t drink that, can’t go there, can’t be every moment with Bobbie, can’t swim, bathe, play tennis, run, dance.
Would it be worth it?
Yes, she told herself fiercely, as she had time and time again.
But there remained a nagging doubt.
No one whom she knew was able to reassure her absolutely. Some doted on their children, some accepted them dutifully, some—well, to some they were almost a burden. She did not understand the reasons and could not be sure how she would feel; that in itself was disturbing.
For the first time since they had left her, she wanted her mother and her father; Bobbie, dear, darling, rather scared Bobbie, wasn’t enough support by himself. Was that why she had doubts? Did she fear that the baby, stirring now, would bring about a change in their relationship? Were there already signs that his eye roved, causes for jealousy?
There was never cause for jealousy.
At the shops, she hesitated. A new Quickturn store had opened recently but in spite of its name the “turn round” at the cash desks could be terribly slow, and she didn’t feel like standing.
On the other hand, even on a pound’s worth of goods she would save a few pence, and saving was saving. The stirring within her seemed a gesture of agreement.
She turned beneath the huge banner with its:
THE BEST BUY IN LONDON
fluttering in the wind. She bought milk, eggs, cream and butter, biscuits and other groceries which would not weigh too heavily, and started back from the shops. It was not a long walk to the house, but her back ached already. She was not halfway home before the bag seemed to weigh a ton, and she knew she had been foolish to get so much. That was the trouble, she was held back from doing so many of the normal things.
At last, she reached the house.
There was still the walk between the wall and the car park, but that was not so bad. There was a coping on which she could sit for a few minutes, and rest. Her legs began to cramp and the child inside her kicked as if in some kind of protest, but that only made her smile.
Then she became aware of men in the car park; not one or two but several men, including policemen. She wondered what they were doing, and twisted round on the coping to watch. There were six or seven in all, and more were coming from the road at the other side of the car park. Goodness! They were surrounding the red sports car which she had noticed before, where a man had been standing. Shifting her position a few feet, she could see one man open the driving door; she thought he had a handkerchief in his hand. Another, smaller man slid into the car. In the rush of excitement she forgot her aching back, and it was a very much livelier kick than usual which reminded her that she should go home and rest: excitement, the doctors and nurses at the clinic said, was not good for her.
For the first time she felt a wave of happiness, of positiveness that she would love the child. She was absolutely sure that everything would be all right, that the child would be the making, not the breaking, of her marriage. She picked up the shopping bag, and found it surprisingly light: as light as her heart! The old gaiety flooded over her, wonderful, ecstatic, delirious! as she opened the side door with her key.
Or at least, she put the key into the lock. There was something the matter, for it did not turn, but under slight pressure the door moved an inch or two, so the lock trouble couldn’t be serious. She pushed the door wider open. The bag was heavier now and heavier still as she walked up the stairs, such easy stairs when they had come here to live, so steep and difficult now. But it was only a few steps to a landing and a doorway leading to her own apartment.
She reached the landing, and then heard a sound which made her jump and started her heart beating fast in alarm.
“Who’s that?” she called in a shrill voice.
There was no answer, but she looked at another door on the landing, a cupboard where she kept brooms and mops, her ironing board and other things for which there was no room in the flat itself.
Was the door moving?
She took out her keys again and thrust the front door key into the lock; this went smoothly. She turned and pushed the door, picked up the shopping bag, and rushed forward. She hadn’t seen anybody, there couldn’t be any danger, and yet she felt terribly afraid. She slammed the door behind her, let the bag slip and stumbled against a table. She was leaning heavily across it, her heart hammering, when she made a fearful discovery; the door had not closed.
She had slammed it hard but it had not closed.
Very slo
wly she straightened up, as slowly and in great fear she turned her head: and she saw the man in the doorway.
She recognised him at once; he was the man from the red car.
She did not know anything about him for she had heard nothing of the death of Dr. Kelworthy or of this man’s tragedy, but she felt dreadfully afraid.
He stood, perfectly still, in the doorway. His face was swarthy, she noted, and his eyes were over-bright. He held the door with one hand, and had the other hidden inside his coat. Her breathing came in short, sharp gasps, but she did not cry out. She hardly knew how she managed to ask: “Who are you?”
He gave no answer but stepped further into the room, and pushed the door to behind him. It did not latch and he did not seem to worry. He was small and dark and as utterly alien to her as a wild beast. She made herself say once again, through chattering teeth: “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Her mouth was so dry that she could hardly get the words out.
He said tonelessly: “My wife is dead.”
“Wh-what?”
“My wife is dead. My child also.”
The words went round and round inside her head like some hideous jingle.
“My wife is dead. My child also. My wife is dead my child also.”
“I—I’m terribly sorry, but—”
“You are alive, with your child,” he stated.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes. My husband will be home at any minute now, I—I have to get his meal, I—”
As if she had never spoken he drew his hand from beneath his jacket. He moved it out slowly as if to leave her in no doubt that he was holding a knife with a thin, steel blade.
She screamed, and as she did so, he leapt forward.
A little earlier, when the first police car had reached the car park, the two youths, who had passed Sylvia Russell without taking any notice of her, sauntered up to it. No one took any notice of them. When a second car arrived and disgorged plainclothes men, the taller of the two youths with beautiful pale brown hair brushed sleekly to his shoulders, called out: “What’s going on, mate?”
One of the uniformed policemen eyed him with disfavour.
“Nothing you have to worry about,” he said curtly. “We’re looking for a man.”
The insult, so obviously intended, appeared to pass over the youth’s head, certainly it was ignored as he said: “I’d still like to know what’s going on.”
“Well, I’d like you to get a move on,” the constable retorted sharply. “We’re busy and there’s a crowd gathering already. I’ve got too much to do to stop and talk to you.”
He moved towards half-a-dozen people who were approaching from the High Street; women with children and an old man. Several more were coming from the other direction, still more were turning into the street from either end; the miracle of the quick spreading of news and the assembling of crowds was being repeated.
The youth rejoined his companion, then, dodging the police cars, they slouched towards the scarlet MG. One of the men in plainclothes glanced round and spoke to a younger man, who approached the youths.
“Can we help you?” he asked.
The youth shrugged. “Maybe we can help you. You looking for the driver of that car?”
“We are,” the young plainclothes officer answered sharply.
“We know where he is,” said the youth, and on the instant the young officer called out: “Sir!” The bigger plainclothes man came over, not hurrying, not dawdling.
“They say they know where the driver is, sir.”
“Where?” The senior officer’s voice came sharp as a pistol shot.
“Over there,” the youth said, nodding towards the house on the other side of the car park. “He was just standing here, and then the birdie in the family way came along and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. When she’d gone he went—”
The senior man took his arm. “Tell me as we go,” he urged, and in an undertone added to the young officer. “Get that house surrounded, Jones, and try not to make it too obvious.” He moved with the youths, both eager now, as they threaded their way among the cars. “What was he like?”
“Dark haired chap, looked a bit foreign to me. Murder, is it?”
“Yes. Are you sure the woman from that house is pregnant?”
“Couldn’t be more sure.” The detective officer began to run towards the side door of Sylvia’s house.
11
CAPTURE
THE detective’s name was Shea – Detective Sergeant Daniel Shea, of the Metropolitan Force. He was a much better-than-average detective but the real breaks never came his way. He did not see this as a “break” but as an emergency, but as he ran into the road and across it he told himself that he might be making something out of nothing, that it might be the man they were after, but it may simply be an old friend, or a relative. These possibilities did not make him slacken his pace. Something in the teletype message received less than an hour before and signed by the great Gideon himself had put urgency into him. Gee-Gee would not stick his neck out like that unless he were scared. And every man on the Force who had read or been told of the message, had responded with a driving compulsion.
He reached the door, tried the handle, and pushed; it did not budge and he did not hesitate. He took a set of keys out of his pocket, one of them a skeleton key, and slipped it into the lock. It proved easy to open.
He glanced up and down the road.
Young Jones was quick, too; a police van was turning into the road and several plainclothes men from the division were walking towards him, keeping close to the brick wall of the house. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, and as he did so, without making a sound, he heard a man’s voice, hoarse and menacing.
The man was on a landing at the top of a flight of narrow stairs. The door leading from the landing was open and the man was halfway through the entrance.
Shea began to creep up the stairs, keeping close to the wall where there was less likelihood of the treads creaking. He hardly dared to breathe as he debated this dilemma with himself. If he shouted and distracted the man’s attention it might give the woman time to run into another room, might even give her a chance to push the man away and slam the door.
These things might happen.
But it might also be the one thing needed to make the man act, and act fatally.
If he could get close enough to grab the man—
He went faster; a stair creaked, but the man did not turn round. From the movement of his right arm, elbow bent, it looked as if he were taking something from his jacket. At that moment a shaft of light caught the steel of a blade and made it flash; and at that moment, the woman screamed.
Shea went up the stairs like a rocket, roaring: “Drop that knife!” A dozen thoughts flashed through his mind, one of them that this man was the killer of Dr. Kelworthy, who had died from a knife wound in the throat; that everything pointed to his being insane. That he held a knife and could plunge it into the woman but might swing round and use it against him, Danny Shea.
The man turned round, as if on wheels.
The knife glistened as he raised it.
Shea was two steps below the landing now, and the knife was on a level with his throat. He saw the other’s eyes glittering as brightly as the knife, and then he lowered his head and hurled himself forward. He felt the knife pass through his hair, and as he fell he saw the woman, face pale as mist, raise a shopping bag and bring it down with great force on the attacker’s head. Men called from below, and hearty footsteps thundered up the stairs.
And Daniel Shea knew that it was all right: he’d saved her.
He did not know what the shock might do to her, but he had saved her life from a murderer’s hand.
He looked at Moreno, who was on his back, and it was funny, damned funny, for it was egg
yolk that streamed down his forehead and over his face; not blood, but egg yolk!
Gideon sat back in the swivel chair with padded arms, and let all the details of the outstanding cases flow through his mind. He had told Tiger to keep all but the most urgent calls from him, without adding that he wanted time to think. Several things had happened during the afternoon, one of them irritating: Cockerill had been involved in an accident on the motorway and had been delayed. Other than cuts, and a certain amount of bruising, he had not been badly hurt; but he had been severely shaken. He was due, now, about half past six; and Gideon had wanted to be home soon after then.
He had called Scott-Marie, reported the fire at the old warehouse and his fears about its significance. The poisoned Cabinet Minister, while not yet recovered, was better than he had been, and Gideon had a feeling that so far as the Home Office was concerned, the pressure had eased. That annoyed him. The case was either important or it wasn’t. The fact that a Cabinet Minister was involved should not have affected it either way. His feeling had probably reflected itself in his voice, for Scott-Marie had said: “And now he’s on the road to recovery you will really get your teeth into it, won’t you?”
Gideon gave a grudging laugh.
“I suppose there’s something in that, sir. I won’t let up at all, anyhow.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Scott-Marie said drily, and he went on in a different tone: “I think I am only just beginning to comprehend what you told me. You think this murder by fire was to prevent the fish-seller from talking, and that so far we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.”
“Exactly, Gideon said. He paused, trying to get the half-formed fears and ideas in his mind into some kind of shape, then went on: “I’m waiting for Chief Inspector Cockerill, the chap I want to handle the enquiry in all its aspects. He’s been injured – slightly injured – in a road accident. And I’m wondering whether it was an accident.”