by John Creasey
“No one seems to have a better idea.”
“Obviously not,” agreed Scott-Marie.
“There’s one thing, sir,” put in Hobbs.
“Yes?”
“The suggested explanation would cover London and possibly the Home Counties, but would it help the provincial forces?”
Everyone, including Hobbs, looked expectantly at Gideon, who pursed his lips and then began to smile.
“Didn’t Kruschev skip around the country quite a bit?”
“After all, it could be Nixon—” a man began, but stopped abruptly.
“I think the best thing is for all of you to pretend ignorance but to say that the instruction has come from me and presumably through the Home Office,” Scott-Marie decided. “You should state that you don’t know what’s behind it, but that a State Visit is an obvious possibility. What other possibilities are there?” He looked about him, and his gaze came to rest on Gideon, who kept silent.
“It could be another revolution scare,” suggested Uniform. “I know the one in November was a damp squib, but there could be another. There’s been a suspicious lull in demonstrations, lately.”
No one else spoke.
“Then take your choice, gentlemen,” said Scott-Marie. “The one guess you don’t make, obviously, is that a General Election is pending. I imagine that no one would believe that, even if anyone were to suggest it.” He was in a very much better mood when he pushed back his chair. “Thank you, gentlemen. I should add that no one but ourselves knows of this. I was told personally: not even my staff have been informed. If you discuss it at all, please be sure you do so only with someone who attended this meeting.”
As Gideon and Hobbs walked back to the Criminal Investigation Department, a number of things were happening in London, and sooner or later each was going to involve the Department.
The first draw was made at Wimbledon; games were due to begin soon on the sixteen grass courts. One of the first would be between the unseeded Barnaby Rudge and an unseeded British entrant who was not likely to extend the American too much . . .
Detective Constable Juanita Conception, wearing light-brown jeans and a tight, lighter brown sweater and sandals, was sitting in a coffee bar with some members of the Action Committee. Among them, Kenneth Noble and Roy Roche. Roche was saying: “No one has to know what’s being planned – understand? No one!”
Juanita felt faintly disturbed, as his gaze seemed to rest on her much longer than on any of the others . . .
Chipper Lee was found at his home, asleep in bed – an indication at least that he hadn’t had much sleep overnight. Both he and his wife protested that he had been home since the previous evening but the Divisional Detective Inspector who charged him thought that Chipper seemed very uneasy . . .
The assistant chemist who had stolen the heroin from Beckett’s shop was parcelling the drug up into tiny quantities. He was using a cellar in a house owned by a friend, and felt quite safe . . .
The Spratt brothers were putting the final touches to their Derby plot, and at the same time collecting information from all over the world in the best-known and most efficient results service anywhere and assessing the odds they could safely give . . .
Chief Inspector William Bligh was waiting outside Gideon’s office, feeling much more on top of himself and the situation than he had felt for a very long time . . .
And Kate Gideon, at home alone, felt a stab of pain in her chest which made her gasp, stagger, and collapse into a chair. She was breathing heavily, had suddenly lost all her colour – and felt very, very frightened.
“Do you see what we want, Bligh?” Gideon demanded.
“I do indeed, sir.”
“You realise the urgency – we’ve left it too late already.”
“I see the urgency, sir.”
“How long will you need, to work out a plan of campaign?” Gideon asked.
Caution came to Bligh’s rescue, actually taking a word off the tip of his tongue.
“I’d like to try out one or two things this afternoon, sir. Will it be possible for me to have an office and some staff?”
“Yes. We’ll second you what staff you need, and give you all the communications facilities necessary. The possibility of trouble at Lord’s on Thursday is already being covered by Mr. Henry at the AB Division. We are working closely with him, you understand that?”
“I do, sir.”
“Very well.”
Gideon glanced at Hobbs, who immediately said: “Rooms seven and eight on the third floor have been put aside for this, Commander.”
Gideon nodded.
“Right, Bligh. Take which one you prefer for your own use, and get someone else in the second room quickly.” Gideon studied the other’s face; a very intelligent, alert face, in which the blue eyes gave an indication of suppressed excitement. “This is an innovation, of course, but it could well become permanent. We need co-ordination of crowd control, larceny prevention, demonstrations handling, and the like. They’re usually regarded as separable, but we may find it will pay to regard each game and each playing-field or arena as part of an entity.”
Bligh was so eager to go that his hand was at the door.
“I do understand, Commander!” he assented. And as Gideon nodded, he strode out.
This was one of the moments when Gideon most liked Hobbs; found him much warmer, and more human than he often allowed himself to appear. They both watched Bligh disappear, both smiled, both chuckled. They were very close.
Then, in a strange, baffling way, Gideon seemed to find the other man drawing away from him; as if a kind of barrier were being deliberately erected between them. Hobbs’ face took on a woodenness which half-suggested that he regretted showing his feelings; that he was aware of a great gulf between himself and Gideon.
And suddenly, almost stiffly, he asked: “Can you spare ten minutes for a—personal matter, George?”
What the devil’s this? wondered Gideon, and said promptly: “Of course!”
He was acutely aware that Hobbs’ personal life had been savagely disrupted when his deeply-loved wife had died; and although that had been two years ago, it still seemed to explain the reserve, almost the aloofness of this man. “Like to sit down?”
“No, thanks,” said Hobbs. But he waited for Gideon to sit, and seemed to draw a deep breath. “George – you will probably say this is nothing to do with me. Please believe it is said with the best possible—ah—intentions.” He paused, bewildering Gideon still more, then almost blurted out. “Kate isn’t well – I’m worried about her. Penelope is very worried indeed. We both feel that you should know.”
CHAPTER TEN
Shock
For a long moment, Gideon simply sat there, Buddha-like in his huge chair, staring up at Hobbs. And – almost warily, hardly perceptibly – Hobbs moved until he was directly opposite him, so that they were like antagonists in confrontation.
Gideon was first aware of the shock – savage, painful, frightening. But his was a trained mind, and the shock did not make him miss the other significant thing Hobbs had said: “Penelope is very worried indeed. We both feel that you should know.”
Slowly he picked up a telephone and as an operator came on the line, said in a clipped voice: “Get my wife!” Then he put the receiver down, over-carefully. He had to be extremely careful and slow-moving, the last thing he must do was to act impulsively. In a very calm voice, through lips which hardly moved, he asked: “And how long have you known about this?”
“That Kate wasn’t too well? Two months, I suppose.”
“Two months!” Gideon breathed.
“She promised—” Hobbs broke off, gulped, then went on: “She promised to see a doctor, and to tell you as soon as she knew what the trouble was. She didn’t – doesn’t – think it is serious.”
“Kate?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no answer from Mrs. Gideon.”
“Oh.” Gideon’s mouth was suddenly dry: he had to force himself to speak naturally. “Keep the call in – every ten minutes, without fail, until she answers.”
“Very good, sir.”
Gideon put the receiver down in the same, careful way as before. But now, for the first time, he eased his position a little and putting his left hand to his pocket, drew out a pipe with a very big, very shiny bowl. He seldom smoked it; but he always kept it in that pocket and in moments of stress, would rub it between thumb and forefinger or simply nurse it in his palm. He did that now, hand on the desk. Not once did he look away from Hobbs.
“So you’ve known for two months?” he said, flatly.
“Yes, George. I—”
“I’d like to find out what’s going on in my own way,” Gideon interrupted, less tensely but very gruffly. “How did you come to know?”
“Penny—told me. In the beginning.”
“So, Penny confided in you?” A streak of near-physical pain stabbed through Gideon. Confided in Alec, he thought, not in me.
“Yes.”
“In what circumstances?”
“George,” Alec Hobbs said, quietly. “You’re making very heavy weather of this.”
Gideon paused, considering that; gripping the pipe until it strained his sinews and his knuckles, hurtfully. He was silent for a long time.
“Yes,” he conceded at last. “I think perhaps I am. But I’ll do it my way, all the same. What were the circumstances in which Penny confided in you about Kate’s health?”
“We—Penny and I have seen quite a lot of each other, lately.”
“I see,” said Gideon. “You and Penny, close friends.”
Hobbs drew in his breath. He looked a little baffled, and on the defensive: his expression was very set, his eyes wide open, rounded, intent.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Quite—quite a while.”
“I see.” Gideon pushed back his chair and thrust his way towards the window, staring out over the summery brightness, the colour, the bridge with its ceaseless flow of traffic, the masses of people. His beloved London. He had stood at this window and concentrated on some of the major problems of his professional life, but never before had he stood there thinking with such fierce intensity of personal, emotional family matters.
Slowly, a subconscious voice began to whisper: “Don’t let this get out of perspective, George. Take it calmly, take it calmly. You’ve had a shock remember!” And then his consciousness took over. My God – he’s forty-odd! Penny’s not much more than half his age . . . And behind my back . . . My God – Alec Hobbs!”
He did not look round.
“How long, Alec?” Thank heavens that came out quite naturally.
“It really began at the River Pageant last year,” said Hobbs, flatly. “I was with Penny, remember.”
“I remember.”
“I asked you if you would mind if I took her out to dinner.”
“I remember that, too.” Gideon could see Penny’s eager eyes, her obvious delight in the thought of going to a West End restaurant with such an escort. It had been, for her and for Kate, a golden, glorious evening. But he had never dreamed ...
“We drifted into the habit,” Hobbs said now, and when Gideon made no comment, went on: “Especially after late rehearsals, or a late performance. I would meet her and we would go to a place in Fulham or Chelsea, or—to my flat.”
“Ah!” Gideon turned round sharply.
They stared at each other very tensely.
Again Gideon’s warning inner voice sounded: “This is today. We’re not living in yesterday – and she isn’t twenty-one: she’s twenty-five. She’s a young woman.” Then his conscious self reasserted itself: Hobbs and Penny! But she had a young man – she was always having different young men: there was only one with whom she had been serious. Had she told him nothing?
“This is today, remember!”
“George,” Alec Hobbs said, in a very calm voice. “I am in love with Penny. Very deeply in love. But I have – you must know that I would behave as if she were my own daughter. I am not at all sure how she feels about me.”
Gideon was stung to retort: “As a father, no doubt!”
He glared. Hobbs glared. Then quite suddenly, Hobbs’ expression changed and a smile hovered. As the younger man relaxed, Gideon too saw the funny side of it, and realised how overwrought he could soon become. The very realisation made him relax and chuckle.
“Shall we settle for uncle?” Hobbs suggested.
“I don’t care what we settle for,” Gideon said. Hobbs wouldn’t lie to him, Hobbs hadn’t been sleeping with the child, Hobbs – whatever his feelings, his being in love – had controlled himself. He could exert his self-control much more firmly than any man Gideon knew.
Thank God he, Gideon, had pulled himself together! He moved back to his desk – and the telephone shrilled. He started, and this time, snatched it up.
“Yes?”
“There’s still no answer from Mrs. Gideon, s”Keep trying,” Gideon ordered, and put the receiver down. “It looks as if she’s out shopping,” he remarked to Hobbs. He wasn’t worried, yet. He wasn’t even aware that he had been so astonished – so shocked – by the revelation about Hobbs and Penelope, that he had not given Kate a thought in the past ten minutes. “How often do you see each other?” he asked, then added mildly: “I just want to get the picture clearly, Alec.”
“Of course.” Hobbs took out a flat, gold cigarette case. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No. I—but what we need is a drink!” Gideon put down his pipe, opened a cupboard and took out a bottle of Black and White whisky, two glasses, and a half-full syphon. Then poured the drinks, glad to have something to do, and pushed a glass over. “Cheers!”
“Cheers!” Hobbs sounded almost fervent.
They drank, Gideon the more deeply; and as they did so, the bell of Big Ben, so close to the window out of sight, chimed one o’clock.
“We see each other at least once a week,” Hobbs told him. “Even during her – I nearly said, her ‘affaires’.”
“I quite thought she was going to marry a young man named Peter,” Gideon confessed.
“Yes,” said Hobbs. “It looked that way, for a while. But she has had a succession of boyfriends for some time now, and often brings them round to see me.”
“Good God!”
Hobbs drank again and smiled wryly.
“You see – she does tend to see me as ‘Uncle Alec’.”
There was silence. During it, Gideon remembered one phrase he had let pass, and realised how true it must be: “I am in love with Penny. Very deeply in love.” And yet she fell in love or at least was attracted by young man after young man and paraded them before Alec, for approval or in happiness. How hurtful that must be! He imagined he could see the measure of the hurt in the other man’s eyes.
“I see.” Gideon shook his head. “Yes, I think I’m beginning to see a lot. Alec – why did you keep it from me?”
“There was nothing else to do.”
“But surely—” Gideon hesitated, and Hobbs’ wry smile came again.
“You know, George, you would have disapproved very much. You would have been very calm and understanding, had I come to tell you, but you would have taken it for granted that it was calf-love from Penelope – and for me, a delayed rebound after Helen’s death. And you would have taken every chance you could to separate us. Or at least, keep us apart. It would have become an issue between you and me, and might have in
terfered with our work here, and—” Hobbs broke off as if not certain whether to go on. Then he finished very simply: “With our friendship, George.”
After a pause, Gideon asked: “And it won’t, now?”
“I hope not,” Hobbs told him. “I don’t think it either will or need. Had anything developed before, then you would have had to be told. But if, as was more likely, Penelope met a young man, really fell in love, and married, our association would have faded and you need never have known. I think I was right not to tell you.”
Gideon grunted, non-committally, finished his drink, and demanded: “Does Kate know? Is that how you’ve come to realise she isn’t well?”
“Yes.”
Gideon almost groaned: Kate had been in this conspiracy, too – Kate, letting it go on behind his back! He picked up the big pipe again and began to squeeze the bowl.
“But only recently,” Hobbs added, almost hastily.
“Oh. How recently?”
“Precisely three weeks. Penelope wasn’t happy about keeping it – us – from her. She didn’t like the secrecy, yet she felt sure it was the only thing to do. Three weeks ago, when you were in Paris for the Euro-Police Conference, remember? I spent Sunday at your home. We told Kate how often Penny and I were meeting, and asked her advice.”
“On whether to tell me?” Gideon growled.
“Yes.”
And Kate, his Kate, whom he knew with such intimacy – for whom he had such love – had advised: no! She had preferred to share their secret, alone, had thought it better kept from him. What had she expected? That he would go berserk? Rave? Act the outraged father? Kate! Inwardly, he groaned.
“She said she would like to talk to you about it,” Hobbs went on. “She was afraid it would upset you – not the friendship, but the fact that we’d kept it from you for so long.” Bless Kate! “She said she would think about it herself; she wasn’t really sure how she felt.” Hobbs sounded deliberately matter-of-fact, but Gideon thought most of his tension really had gone completely.