Gideon's Fire

by John Creasey

  ‘Yes.’

  I want a print as soon as I can get it,’ said Gideon. ‘Keep in touch.’ He rang off, and called across to Bell in the same breath: ‘Call all Central Divisions to report the movements of Mrs. Lenny - Beatrice Eliza - Clapper. You’ve got her age and description. Make it urgent. She’s had her throat cut.’

  ‘Gawd!’

  Ask Brixton to bring Clapper over here. If they prefer it, we’ll send a couple of men over to pick him up.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What’s holding you back?’ demanded Gideon. He pushed his hair off his forehead and Bell lifted the receiver, and for a moment he felt almost sick. She may have been brassy, bold and brazen, but she had been a handsome, vital woman, and had been standing in front of this desk only last evening. While he had been driving about London, she had been having her throat cut. One slash - and the vitality was gone for ever. That wasn’t really the worst - there were the indications that her murderer was the man who had killed the man at Bournemouth, six months ago. Cornish had been right to be edgy about him. But after this they shouldn’t be long finding out who it was. Should they?

  Clapper was a big, lean-hipped, over-dressed man, just about a match for his wife, good-looking in a bold way and with a flamboyant air, but less sure of himself than he looked. He stood in front of Gideon’s desk just twenty-three hours after his wife had, and he had no idea what had happened.

  ‘Now when are you going to tell us who worked with you on the bank tunnelling job?’ Gideon asked mildly.

  ‘Why don’t you stop wasting your time?’ sneered Clapper.

  ‘Frightened in case he gets you if you talk?’

  ‘No one scares me, Gee-Gee.’

  ‘Anyone scare your wife?’ inquired Gideon. He felt no compassion at all for this man, who must know just what kind of criminal he was protecting.

  ‘You keep my wife out of this, Gee-Gee,’ Clapper said sharply.

  ‘I would have,’ Gideon said. ‘We all would have. Your friend decided not to.’ He turned a photograph of Mrs. Clapper over so that Clapper, looking down, could see it; and it was not a pretty sight below the chin.

  Clapper stared at the photograph without a change of expression for at least half a minute. Gideon watched him closely. The colour drained from his face. His eyes, bright and impudent, gradually became shadowed. His lips parted, until he began to breathe through his mouth, and every breath seemed to become harsher.

  ‘Is that what you protected your friend for?’ demanded Gideon. ‘So that he could do that?’

  He wasn’t prepared for what followed. Clapper gave a rasping, choking breath, and collapsed. He struck his chin on the edge of Gideon’s desk as he fell, and was unconscious in front of the desk before Gideon or Bell could move.

  8 POLICE MESSAGE

  Joe Bell’s bald patch met Gideon as he rounded the desk; for an elderly man, Joe had moved fast. Now he was feeling Clapper’s pulse, while straightening out the big, handsome body. Clapper’s mouth was slack, his eyes were slightly open and had a glazed look, his whole body was slack.

  ‘Hell of a crack he caught himself, but he’s all right,’ Bell said. He took his hand away. ‘Want a nurse up?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gideon said. ‘He’s going to have a nasty bruise on that chin, and before we’re through he’ll be saying we hit him. Leave him as he is.’ Bell moved to his desk and telephone, and Gideon bent down and picked up the photograph of Clapper’s wife, which the man had knocked to the floor. He still felt no compassion, but was a little uneasy; he had probably done the wrong thing, and if he had, this could develop into one of the awkward cases. Clapper’s solicitor, who had already seen the accused twice, was a little-known man named Lewisham, and although Gideon hadn’t seen him, he had been told that he was very shrewd. A complaint to the Press that a man had been man-handled at the Yard was always liable to work up a newspaper wave of public ‘indignation’, and everyone who wanted to catch the Yard on the wrong foot would exert himself to feed the fire.

  ‘He’ll talk, after this,’ Bell said, and obviously he didn’t take the third degree possibility very seriously. He might be right not to. Gideon sat on the corner of his desk, while waiting, and ran through everything which had led up to this moment. A murdered night-watchman in Bournemouth; the bank job after a tunnelling; Clapper’s capture; Clapper’s silence; his wife’s insolence and confidence. They had both been so positive that the man or men they refused to name would look after them.

  Clapper began to stir as the door opened to admit a male nurse, one of the two always on duty in the first aid room at the Yard. Expertly, he lifted Clapper to a chair, checked his pulse, raised his eyelids with a practised thumb, and said:

  ‘Nothing to worry about here, sir.’ He felt the jaw, already puffy and pink where it had struck the desk. ‘Nothing damaged.’ He glanced at Gideon’s right fist, and then asked: ‘How did it happen, sir?’

  ‘He banged his chin on the desk when I told him his wife had been murdered,’ Gideon answered, and held out his hands. ‘No damaged knuckles, Smith!’

  ‘Oh, that didn’t occur to me, sir.’

  ‘Didn’t it?’ asked Gideon dryly. ‘Well, what do you recommend?’

  ‘A nip wouldn’t do him any harm, and after that some hot sweet tea and coffee.’

  ‘I’ll fix the nip, you fix the hot drink,’ Gideon ordered, and the nurse gave the impression that he was glad to hurry out.

  Gideon saw Bell with a brandy flask in his hand, and nodded. Bell put the mouthpiece to Clapper’s lips, Clapper gulped, gasped, began to turn his head and to open his eyes. He looked straight at Gideon, who saw the momentary gleam of intelligence in those brown eyes, then saw them glaze over; that was enough to tell him that Clapper was going to play for time.

  ‘Come on, Clapper,’ Gideon said heavily. ‘You’re not fooling us. Who’s the man you’re sheltering?’

  Clapper’s eyes remained stubbornly closed.

  ‘Let’s have it,’ Gideon went on, and he felt his fists bunching, felt more like striking the man than he had before. It was impossible to say why, but this incident seemed to him to be really menacing; some kind of sixth sense of anxiety was building up in him. ‘He murdered your wife, Clapper. Who is he?’

  Clapper still pretended to be unconscious.

  Gideon turned round, picked up an ebony ruler from his desk, and brought it down sharply on the edge of the desk. It made a crack like a pistol shot, and Clapper started up, his eyes opening wide and scared. Gideon slid the ruler up his sleeve, Bell smothered a grin, and Gideon went on:

  ‘You might as well tell us. We’ll get him for the murder of the Bournemouth night-watchman, and of your wife. He hasn’t a chance. And you needn’t think you’ll be safe if you continue to cover him. That’s the mistake your wife made.’

  Clapper moistened his lips, but said nothing.

  ‘You won’t help yourself whatever you do,’ Gideon went on, and again he felt his anger rising. ‘You might be able to avenge your wife, though. Don’t you realise what happened? She went to see this precious pal of yours. She wouldn’t talk to us, she wouldn’t do anything to put him in trouble, but he cut her throat. Does that make him worth protecting?’

  Clapper muttered: ‘I want to see my lawyer. I’ve got a right, I want to see my lawyer.’ He put up his right hand to the left side of his jaw, touched the bruise gingerly, and winced. ‘I’m not saying anything, you might as well save your breath.’

  He was still silent when the nurse brought in hot tea. He was silent when Cornish arrived, and when they took him back to Brixton.

  ‘You know the truth about him, don’t you?’ Cornish said to Gideon and Bell. ‘He’s more scared than he ever was. He was frightened to talk before, and now he sees what’s happened to his wife, he feels as if his throat might be cut next.’

  Gideon didn’t speak.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Bell said.

  Gideon grunted. ‘Could be. Cornish, you’ve got a bigger job than
ever on your hands. This was in NE Division. Go over and see Hopkinson, and keep right on to this job. You can have any help you want, just ask me or Joe. All clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cornish. ‘Know what I think we ought to do, George?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Make a house-to-house visit around the spot where the body was found. There aren’t many men who’d fail to notice Bee Clapper. Then we ought to have a radio and TV appeal for anyone who saw her from the time she left Aldgate Station this morning. I know it isn’t easy to fix the television people, but . . .’

  ‘I’ll fix it,’ Gideon promised. ‘What we’ve got on this job is a man who’ll kill anybody to save himself. You get cracking.’

  Before Cornish was out of the office, Gideon was asking for the Assistant Commissioner, who would have to authorise the appeal to the British Broadcasting Corporation and the London Independent Television network.

  Among those who saw the newscasts which threw a picture of Beatrice Clapper on to the television screens of London and the Home Counties, was mild-mannered little Mr. ‘Brown’. He was not going to work tonight, he had told Mrs. Tennison, so he would see a little television, and then go upstairs to his room and read.

  John Stewart Briggs saw it, too.

  For the murderer of Ivy Manson, it was a very bad half hour. He was home a little after six o’clock, and his sister was sitting in front of the television screen, knitting in her hands, table laid for their supper. Briggs went into the scullery, to wash under the tap, and was drying his hands when he heard the announcer say:

  ‘. . . And now we have an urgent police message, about the murder of...’

  Briggs felt as if someone had stabbed him. He was in the doorway, towel still in his hands, and his sister was so startled that she gaped at him instead of the screen.

  ‘. . . and any persons who saw this woman in the vicinity of Aldgate Tube Station and Whitechapel between one o’clock and two thirty this afternoon is asked to communicate with the nearest police station, or with Scotland Yard, telephone number Whitehall 1212.’

  Briggs swung away.

  His sister said nothing, just stared at his back, then got up and went to the oven, where a fish pie was baking. She took it out with an oven cloth, muttering when a spot of the milk spilled on to her calloused thumb. She put the enamel dish on to the table, called: ‘Come and get it,’ and was about to serve the pie when there was a sharp rat-tat at the front door.

  ‘Oh, blast them,’ she muttered. ‘Go and see who the hell that is, Jack.’

  ‘Go yourself,’ Briggs retorted roughly.

  ‘Do you want your supper or . . .’

  ‘I’ll serve. You see who it is.’

  His sister stared at him, frowning, then turned slowly away. She had never known him in such a peculiar mood. She went to the front door, so broad and fat that her hips touched each side of the narrow passage, she was just a mass of flabby flesh. As she opened the door, she sensed that her brother was watching and listening.

  Two men stood outside, both big fellows, and she felt quite sure that these were detectives.

  ‘Is Mr. John Stewart Briggs at home, please?’ the larger of the two asked.

  ‘Who - who wants him?’

  ‘We are police officers,’ the man went on, and held out a card. ‘We are making inquiries into the murder of Ivy Manson, and we would like to talk to Mr. Briggs.’

  ‘He - he might be in,’ the sister said, uneasily. ‘I’ll go and see, he usually comes in the back way.’ She pushed the door to, but the man’s foot was against it, and it would not close. She turned round, and saw the kitchen door shut. She leaned against the wall, shocked and almost overcome, then heard footsteps behind her. A man tried to squeeze past, but her great bulk blocked the way, and her sixteen stones could not easily be moved. ‘Wh . . .what do you think you’re playing at?’ she managed to mutter. ‘Wha . . .’

  The man pushed past, reached the kitchen door, and tried to thrust it open; but it was locked. ‘Back way!’ he bellowed, and the other man swung round and raced towards a corner and an alley which led to the back of these houses. He put his shoulder against the kitchen door, and at the second onslaught it crashed in. The scullery door and the door leading to the tiny backyard were open, and the detective jumped forward, failed to see the chair upturned in the doorway, and crashed into it. He did not see or hear Briggs; nor did the other man. But within five minutes a radio message was flashed to the Yard, and the general call was out in the next few minutes.

  After Pamela Harrison had watched the police appeal and the picture of Beatrice Clapper, she picked up a fashion magazine and began to look at pictures of beautifully dressed and perfectly made-up women, thinking as she so often did that there must be a way to hold Tony...

  Her head ached, and she went to the bathroom to get some aspirin. Then she studied the magazine, wondering what would be the surest way. A new make-up, perhaps a new hair-style, certainly some new clothes. She could afford all this now that the children were away, and anything was worth trying.

  Her husband and Chloe Duval, however, did not see the newscast of the police message. They were on the bed in Chloe’s little flat, while the trailing policeman sat in a small private car, reading a newspaper. He was within sight of the house and of Harrison’s trade car, this time a Vauxhall, and his instructions were to do nothing except follow Harrison, unless the man took his girl friend to a secluded spot.

  It wasn’t until the orgasm was over, and the mood changed, that Harrison began to think of that ‘suicide’ again. Pam was always taking aspirin for her headaches, and she also had some sleeping pills. There must be a way to give her an overdose, without anyone dreaming she hadn’t taken it herself.

  The Jarvis family saw the appeal, too - Neil, while playing with a clockwork motor car which a neighbour had given him, the younger girl while looking through a new comic book, also a gift, Hester as she laid the table for supper, her mother casually while she cut bread-and-butter. Jarvis had never liked ready-cut bread, he had always said that it lacked real body.

  Charles and Joan Ericson and Jimmy Roscoe saw the programme at the house in Esher, during a curious kind of impasse in their discussions. Jimmy had come back from his hiding place in Kent, and as far as he knew, the police had not yet seen him. He was a short, plump man with curly fair hair and a ready smile; until this time of crisis, Joan Ericson had never known him anything but bright and breezy, a little superficial in his amiability, much more popular with Michael and Joanna when they had been younger, for instance, than he was now; the children seemed to have seen through the falseness of much of his gaiety to his rather shallow personality.

  He was opposed to making any statement to the police, and in favour of trying to get out of the country. The struggle was going to be between him and Joan, Ericson knew; at last he began to realise that his wife was his strength.

  Among the millions of others who saw Beatrice Clapper’s photograph on the television screen was a man who knew her and Lenny Clapper well. His name was Scarfe - Alan Paul Scarfe, known to his friends and intimates as Scar, partly because of the coincidence of the ugly scar at the back of his left hand. Those who had known him for a long time knew that he had saved his life with that scar; he had been set upon, fifteen years ago, by two men whom he had cheated out of card winnings, and they would have sliced him up. He had flung his left hand up in front of his face, to take the worst of the slash, and before anything worse had happened, friends had come to his rescue. But he had not wanted to go to the nearest doctor, who might have let something out to the police. Alan Paul Scarfe had trusted nobody but himself even in those days. So he had been patched up by a drunken ex-doctor who had been struck off the Medical Register for illegal abortions. The stitches had been badly placed, and the wounded hand never healed smoothly; a kind of ridge, like a piece of knotted string, ran from the middle of his hand near the knuckle right up to the wrist and out of sight beneath the shirt cuff.

&n
bsp; So Scarfe wore gloves whenever he could.

  He had always been a fancy dresser, and these days he went to one of the best as well as one of the most expensive tailors in the East End. His shirt cuffs always showed up spotlessly, just half an inch beneath the sleeves. His tie, breast pocket handkerchief and socks always matched. He wore good quality cuff-links and a gold tie-pin with just a little pattern of diamond in it. Almost the only thing which did not carry his monogram was his flick-knife, with its razor sharp blade. He had sterilised that blade after returning from the meeting with Bee Clapper, and now there was not the slightest risk of her blood being found on it.

  He had two other identities.

  As Alan Peter Spender he had a small apartment in a Mayfair street leading to Berkeley Square. In Brighton, he had a flat under the name of Simpson. He was known in the Mayfair neighbourhood as a man who kept himself very much to himself, but was generous with tradespeople and courteous whenever he met neighbours. They had no reason even to dream that whenever it suited him he could put on an old suit, a cloth cap and a choker, change his voice, and become a ‘typical’ Cockney.

  He had been the brains behind the old Bournemouth robbery, and had killed the night watchman. His methods had been so different every time he did a job that the police had not ‘typed’ him. It had never occurred to him that the small darn in the right thumb of his glove might one day be used in evidence against him. Those gloves fitted almost like a second skin, and were invaluable, enabling him to have complete freedom of finger movement, without leaving prints on a job.

  He had planned and carried out over a dozen robberies during the past seven years, and now had a fortune of over a hundred thousand pounds stored away in five different banks in London, one in Paris, one in Milan, and another in New York.

  Very few people knew him both as Scar - or Alan Paul Scarfe - and as Alan Peter Spender. No one knew him under all three names; the Clappers were among the four people who knew him as Scarfe and Spender.