Split Infinity

by Tony Rattigan

  Anyway, he didn’t pace himself properly eating his meal today and got through his coffee and biscuits while they were still on their deserts. So to waste a bit of time he ordered another brandy and asked for the bill. Then he wandered off to the Gents. He glanced in their direction as he went. By the Gods, despite the age difference they certainly made a fine looking couple. Both of them with their dark eyes and dark, wavy hair. If they procreated they would produce fantastic looking kids.

  Cobb stood in the Gents … er … looking out of the frosted glass window … when it hit him out of the blue, like a thunderbolt. No. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? That’s not possible, surely. He needed a closer look.

  When he’d finished and washed his hands, he headed through the door of the restaurant. Fortunately, the entrance faced their table and they were sitting on the right hand side of the table, as he looked at it, and he could see them both in profile. There were brochures for various Londum attractions in the entrance, and he picked one up and pretended to read it while studying them closely over the top of it.

  The similarity between them was quite remarkable once you knew what to look for. He waited there quietly for a moment and then his patience was rewarded. Laura Wilkes was closest to him and then Simon Ellis leaned forward and took a mouthful of food, so they were both visible in profile. They were a perfect match. Oh Gods, thought Cobb, it’s quite obvious when you think about it really, isn’t it?

  He went back to his table and drank his brandy, smiling to himself at his cleverness. He paid the bill and then went outside to wait for them, hoping that they stuck to the same routine, she taking a cab and he walking back to his hotel.

  This proved to be the case as some quarter of an hour later they both came out and once more Laura Wilkes hugged and kissed him and then took a cab, home presumably. The young Mr. Ellis went his own way but Cobb didn’t bother to follow him this time, he figured he knew enough about Ellis. Besides, with this new insight Cobb had fresh avenues to investigate.

  He hailed a cab and took it to the British Museum where he made his way to the Reading Room. Supposedly, this held a copy of every book and newspaper that had ever been printed in Albion, up to that date. Cobb was about to find out if this was true.

  What was it that Mr. Wilkes had told him? ‘Laura had lost a fiancé in the Sepoy Mutiny in Bharat when she was younger.’

  (Sepoy was the term in the British East Bharat Company to denote a local employed, native, infantry soldier. Twenty or so years ago the Sepoys had risen up and attempted to overthrow their British masters and drive them out of Bharat. This mutiny raged for a year and cost thousands of lives on both sides, before being put down by the British Bharat Army with the help of loyal Bharat princes.

  See, read these books and you get history lessons as well.)

  Cobb walked up to the desk and asked the librarian, ‘Do you have the total casualty list for the Sepoy Mutiny? I don’t know what year or what regiment I’m looking for, so I need it in alphabetical order.’

  The librarian looked up from where he was sorting the cards in a Rolodex. ‘Sepoy Mutiny casualty list, you say? I think we can provide that. Please take a seat at one of the tables and I’ll bring it over to you.’

  Cobb was relieved, he thought he might have to trawl through the Army Gazette’s monthly editions for each year to find all the casualties but it appeared that the Army had consolidated the names into one book.

  It took some time but in due course, the librarian brought the book he had requested and Cobb flicked eagerly through the pages to see if he could prove his theory was correct. Ah yes, there it was, that was the name he was looking for. He checked the date, yes the timing was about right too. He wrote down all the details and then slipped his notebook back into his pocket. Returning the reference book back to the desk, he wished the librarian a good day and left the Reading Room.

  If he hadn’t been in a library he’d have whistled, he was quite cheerful. He loved it when he cracked a case. That moment when you stare at all the pieces of the jigsaw spread across the table and in one blinding spark of insight you can see the whole picture come together before your eyes. It was that excitement when all the pieces fell into place that had made him want to be a detective in the first place. That sudden grasp of understanding of the meaning behind the mystery. That had happened to him today and he always got a kick out of that. The next thing to do, he reckoned, was to confront Laura Wilkes but it was too late today, that pleasure would have to wait.

  ***

  Cobb made his way casually down Marcham Street, trying not to draw attention to himself. Today was the day that Willy said the robbery at the jewellers was to take place and he thought he’d go along and watch the fun. He’d passed on Willy’s information to his contacts in Caledonia Yard and he knew the police would be laying in wait for the would be jewel thieves.

  As he walked, apparently browsing in shop windows, he studied the street carefully, looking for undercover policemen, or anyone else that might be watching Winklehoff’s the jewellers.

  By the time he had reached the end of the street, he had spotted a possible lookout for the gang and four undercover policemen. He had also picked out the most likely spot for an observation post to be situated. About fifty yards down the street from Winklehoff’s shop, there were some empty offices above the shops and these gave quite a good view of the shop and the rest of the street. That was where he would have set up if he were running the show.

  He made his way down a side street and into another street that ran parallel to the shopping parade in Marcham Street. This street was the rear side of the shops; they were four storey terraced buildings. The whole block was essentially one long building, sharing a roof, with just internal dividing walls separating one address from another.

  There were metal fire escapes, zigzagging their way up the flat side of the building, all the way to the top floor. For each separate building, this consisted of a platform, level with each floor, joined by metal staircases reaching down diagonally to the platform below, all the way down to the ground. The top platform was connected to the roof by a metal ladder running straight up.

  Cobb identified which building contained the empty offices and approached it from the rear. The ground floor obviously contained the shops so Cobb climbed the fire escape and quietly made his way up to the first floor, where the offices began.

  He opened the door quietly and stepped quickly inside. Sure enough, it contained uniformed policemen. He noticed they were all armed and one or two of them pulled their revolvers and pointed them in his direction. Albion’s police force usually went unarmed except for a truncheon but Willy had made it clear that the gang would be carrying guns and willing to use them, so the police were similarly armed.

  ‘Easy boys … easy, don’t you recognise Mr. Cobb?’ said a voice from the corner of the room. Sergeant George Benton of the Metropolitan Police stood up and approached him. Sgt. Benton had been one of Cobb’s sergeants when Cobb had been an inspector on the force. Cobb had led the squad, while Sgt. Benton, Sgt. Ffolkes and a number of constables had been under him. Benton and Cobb had got on famously whereas Cobb had never taken to Ffolkes. When Cobb had left the force the job of replacing him had gone to Ffolkes, which Cobb thought was a pity. He’d have much rather have seen Benton get the job.

  ‘Cobb, didn’t expect to see you here,’ said Benton, shaking Cobb’s hand. As Benton welcomed him, recognition sank in with the others who had served with him and they greeted him warmly.

  ‘Is Ffolkes running the show today?’ asked Cobb.

  ‘Inspector Ffolkes is in charge, yes,’ Benton replied diplomatically. ‘Oh yes, I remember, you don’t like him much do you?’ said Benton.

  ‘On the contrary George, we get on like a house on fire,’ replied Cobb. ‘Have you ever been trapped inside a burning house?’

  Benton chuckled.

  Cobb said, ‘George, there’s no danger of this being traced back to my informant is t
here? This could cause him a lot of trouble if it got out.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll tell them that one of the psychics on the force predicted it. They do occasionally get it right.’

  It was common practice for the police to use Magickal sources to obtain information. Diviners, clairvoyants, witches, there were even a few on the strength of the force. They rarely solved cases but they sometimes helped narrow down the initial enquiries allowing the police to concentrate on the serious leads.

  ‘So, why are you here?’ asked Benton. ‘You know things are just about to kick off?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’d like to know! Why are you here?’ cut in another voice, shrilly.

  Benton and Cobb looked towards the speaker who had just entered the room. ‘Ah, Inspector Ffolkes, good to see you,’ said Cobb. ‘I’m just a concerned citizen who wants to make sure his taxes are being put to good use. I came to see how the stakeout is going.’

  Inspector Nathaniel Ffolkes came up to them. Ffolkes had worked under Cobb for a couple of years. Cobb had never taken to him; he was too ambitious for Cobb’s liking. There was something too “needy” about him, he was obviously determined to advance his career and he didn’t care who he had to step on to do it. But Cobb was a fair man and had never marked Ffolkes down on his annual reports purely because of his personal dislike for him.

  ‘Probably a wild goose chase,’ said Ffolkes, contemptuously. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t be here.’

  Sgt. Benton cleared his throat softly, ‘This is only taking place because of Mr. Cobb, sir. Without his information the robbery would have taken place anyway and they would more than likely have got away with it.’

  Ffolkes could see the men in the room watching him, he was aware that he was beginning to look petty and to Ffolkes image was everything, so he relented. ‘Very well then Sgt., Cobb can stay but make sure he doesn’t get in the way.’ He turned around and went back into the other room.

  ‘Very generous of you Inspector, I’ll just stand in the corner and try not to be frightened by the guns,’ Cobb called after him.

  Benton raised his eyebrows but was too professional to say anything bad about his superior in front of their subordinates. He nodded to Cobb to follow him into the other room, at the front of the building.

  Ffolkes was standing by the window, looking down the street towards the jewellers. Two constables flanked him. Cobb and Benton manoeuvred themselves into positions where they could also see the jewellers. Cobb took out his pocket watch and checked the time. It should be happening any time now according to Willy’s information.

  ‘Here we go, looks like we’re on,’ said one of the constables a moment later.

  Cobb could see three heavyset men crossing the street, towards the jewellers. ‘They look rough,’ said Cobb, ‘is the jeweller still in there?’

  ‘No, we’ve replaced him with one of our men,’ replied Benton.

  The three men entered Winklehoff’s and closed the door behind them. One of them pulled the blind down.

  Go! thought Cobb but nobody moved or spoke. Now was the time to move! If they waited until the alarm was raised they would never make it from their location to the shop in time to prevent the villains hurting anyone, the distance was too great. Cobb looked at Sgt. Benton and nodded towards Ffolkes.

  ‘Perhaps we should start moving in now, sir? Get a bit closer eh, so we’re ready to move?’ asked Benton.

  ‘Eh? Right, okay then but tell them to wait for the whistle before they move in.’

  Benton left the room followed by the two constables. Cobb heard him urgently issuing instructions and then they all moved out and down the stairs and across the road. Cobb and Ffolkes watched them move cautiously up the street, keeping close to the railings, along the same side of the street as the shop, to narrow the angle and lessen the chance of being seen from inside the shop.

  All of a sudden a police whistle sounded from inside the jewellers. This meant the thieves had produced their guns and were actually engaged in the robbery. Benton and his men pulled out their guns, rushed the shop and crashed through the door while the undercover policemen ran to the shop and waited outside as backup.

  ‘And who’s covering the lookout?’ asked Cobb.

  ‘Lookout? What lookout?’ said Ffolkes.

  ‘Him … disappearing down that side street!’ Cobb pointed out the lookout, who had seen which way the wind was blowing and was carefully sloping off down the side street that Cobb had used, attempting to not draw attention to himself.

  ‘I’ve got men stationed all around these streets. He won’t get away,’ retorted Ffolkes.

  ‘And how many have you got on the roof?’

  Ffolkes didn’t answer, just stared blankly at Cobb. Cobb wandered into the other room and opened the door onto the fire escape. He looked around the back street at the rear of the building but there was no sign of the man. He waited for a few minutes but he still didn’t show. Funny, he should have appeared by now, thought Cobb. He turned round so he was facing the building and looked up at the roof. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the flash of someone pulling back from where they had been looking over the edge.

  Cobb threw open the door but all the constables had gone down to the shop to help with the arrest, so he called urgently, ‘Ffolkes, he’s on the roof! Follow me!’ Then he ran back to the fire escape and headed up to the roof.

  He ran up the staircases and along the platforms until he reached the metal ladder, which he climbed up slowly, pausing below the top so he could peer carefully over the parapet. He didn’t want to come face to face with a gun. Once he could see he was alone, he quickly climbed the ladder onto the roof and crouched down behind the parapet.

  The parapet was a wall about waist high and running alongside it was a flat piece of roof wide enough for a man to walk along, this ran right along the length of the building on both sides. Between the rear of the building and the front, rose a steepled roof covered in tiles that peaked in the middle and then led down to the walkway on the other side. This roof was broken up by gaps where the chimneys poked up from the houses and it was possible to pass between these spaces from the front of the building to the back without having to go over the roof.

  What worried Cobb was that these rooftops often connected from one building to another, there were certain places in Londum, particularly in the warehouse districts near the docks, where you could go considerable distances without ever having to come down to the ground. If the man he was looking for managed to get onto another rooftop, Cobb would never catch him.

  Cobb threw off his overcoat and began creeping along the walkway looking for the other man. He looked behind him, where the hell was Ffolkes? He was meant to be backing Cobb up. At the first gap he came to, he edged through to the front of the building so he could look down into the street. The police squad were marching the robbers out of the jewellers shop, in handcuffs. Cobb gave a short whistle and waved to get their attention. Sgt. Benton spotted him and Cobb pointed to the far end of the building. Benton, from years of working with Cobb, understood immediately what he meant and after telling a couple of constables to follow him ran for the far end of the building.

  Cobb who had given away his position, immediately moved to another spot. He paused and listened for a moment but there was too much noise coming from the street to allow him to catch any sounds here on the roof. He’d have to do it the hard way; he carried on edging his way along the walkway.

  This was getting ridiculous; he could walk into the man at any moment. He was hidden in one of the gaps and probably armed, whereas as Cobb was empty handed. Cobb edged carefully past a couple more gaps then decided to climb the sloping roof for a better look. He lay flat on the tiles and inched his way up slowly and quietly until he could grab the apex of the roof and pull himself up so he could take a peek over the other side.

  What he saw made his blood run cold. The gang’s lookout that he was chasing stepped out from the chimney gap just to Cobb’s righ
t and came forward on the walkway, lifting his arm and pointing his gun back along the roof. Cobb looked in the direction the man was aiming and saw Ffolkes standing there. Ffolkes spotted the armed man and went to pull his own revolver from his belt but it snagged and he couldn’t release it. He froze.

  Cobb was screaming at him mentally, ‘Jump in the gap! Dive for cover!’ but Ffolkes just stood there, like a dummy in a shop window. There was only one thing Cobb could do, he heaved his body over the point of the roof and threw himself down the slope, feet first. The lookout heard him sliding across the tiles and turned to face him. Cobb hit him squarely in the chest with both feet and the two of them flew towards the edge of the roof. Cobb managed to curl up so he hit the parapet but the other man went straight over the edge. Cobb leapt forward and grabbed his arm just before gravity took over.

  Cobb ended up with his bottom half braced again the parapet with his top half hanging over, dangling the man by one arm over the street below. Cobb looked down, straight into the gun barrel. He had grabbed the man by his gun arm and the pistol was pointing up into his face. ‘Drop it or I drop you,’ he grunted. The man thought about it for about 0.02 of a second and dropped the gun into the street, where it clattered on the cobbles below. ‘Grab my arm with your other hand,’ Cobb managed to gasp. The villain reached up slowly and grasped his sleeve. Cobb felt like his arm was coming out of his socket. He wanted to reach down with his other hand but he was bracing himself against the wall with that hand, if he let go then they would both go over the edge.

  Then the stitches on Cobb’s jacket sleeve started to rip at the shoulder. The dangling man saw this and screamed, ‘Don’t let me fall!’ but Cobb was powerless to do anything. The outer sleeve of Cobb’s jacket slowly came away until it was only the lining holding it together when four blue arms appeared from over Cobb’s head and grabbed the hanging man. The two constables attached to those four blue arms helped Cobb to drag the man back on to the roof.

  Cobb collapsed back against the sloping roof as the two constables handcuffed the man and led him away. He gave no resistance, far from it; he was sobbing his gratitude to them for saving his life. Cobb sat forward and massaged his aching shoulder. Benton was standing over him and further down the roof he could see Ffolkes sitting on the sloping roof, staring at his feet.