by John Creasey
‘She doesn’t know what it is,’ said Marino, ‘but she knows only the big time would have kept him in Europe when she wanted him home.’
The telephone bell rang, and Marino picked up the receiver. ‘Yes, Herb? … Put him through.’ He held the receiver out to Roger. ‘Mr Hardy, for you.’
Roger took the telephone; suddenly realising that it was the Assistant Commissioner, and that it was in his power to move him from this job, which might be handled better by a MI5 agent, or a Special Branch man. He had not until now, known how important it was to him that he should see this job through.
Marino and Lissa were watching him intently.
‘Hallo, Handsome.’ Hardy was in an affable mood. ‘You are assigned to the American Embassy for the time being to do whatever they ask. If you come up against anything you think you shouldn’t do, get through to me, but don’t lose any time about it’
‘Not a moment, sir!’
‘If you need help, use Sloan.’
‘I will,’ said Roger.
‘Any hope of an early result?’ Hardy asked. ‘It’s not just important, it’s vital. Work day and night, but get results.’
‘There’s a half-chance,’ Roger said. ‘Thanks, Mr Hardy.’
‘And listen,’ said Hardy. ‘Don’t tell Janet or anyone where you’re working, keep it under your hat and keep your hat on all the time.’
‘Right.’
‘Luck,’ said Hardy, laconically.
Roger put down the receiver, pursed his lips, and then looked into Marino’s eyes. He was acutely aware of the way Lissa looked at him.
He said: ‘I’m under your orders.’
‘You aren’t under anyone’s orders,’ Marino retorted at once. ‘Where it’s a case of getting Ricky back, or finding out where he is, we’ll take yours. But you can’t work if you’re hungry. Lissa, why don’t you go and get Roger some lunch?’
Sitting opposite Lissa Meredith, eating a huge T-bone steak, the urgency of the Shawn kidnapping seemed to fade. It wasn’t anything she said or did; it wasn’t even the radiance in her face, a glow from some inner fire which certainly hadn’t been lighted by him. It was simply that, being with Lissa Meredith, there wasn’t room for anything else; not unless she wanted it. It was like being cut off from the world. Roger knew that it wouldn’t last, wasn’t sure that he wanted it to. He wasn’t sure of anything, except that it was as much for her as for any official reason that he wanted to break this case open; to find a child who was with a man known as McMahon somewhere in Canada or the United States.
It didn’t even occur to him that there wasn’t a chance.
A waiter was pouring out coffee, when another waiter came up with a telephone, which he plugged into the wall
‘For Superintendent West’
‘Thanks,’ said Roger.
‘Roger,’ said Bill Sloan, a moment later. He wasn’t breathless, but a note of urgency was in his voice; the world came back, the problem appeared in sharp outline again. ‘I think we’re on to something.’
‘The car?’ asked Roger sharply.
‘It might be. Peel got on to it at a garage near Hammersmith Broadway – just off the Fulham Palace Road. An Austin A70, and an American took it in a week ago, with big-end trouble. The same man collected it.’ He paused. ‘Peel found out that the car came from the Barnes direction and went back the same way. Two or three garages on the Barnes Road have supplied petrol to an A70 with an American driver. Is it all right to ask the Barnes police to see what they can do?’
‘Yes, and don’t lose any time. Send Peel to Barnes.’
‘He’s there already.’
‘Fine. Then meet me at Hammersmith Underground, by the main bookstall, in half an hour,’ Roger said.
‘This time I’m glad to let you go,’ Lissa told him.
Sloan, looking even bigger than usual in a brown suit that was a shade too small, stood by the magazines and books displayed on the stall at the Underground station. He didn’t look round until Roger was within a yard of him. They moved off together, mixing with the crowd which had come off a train, turned left at the side entrance to the station, walking quickly, but without seeming to hurry, to Roger’s parked car.
‘Follow me at a good distance,’ Roger said. ‘Not towards the garage, we can tackle that afterwards. Come on to the Divisional HQ and I’ll meet you there.’
Sloan said: ‘What’s on?’
‘It looks as if we’re being watched by a man behind the taxi outside the station.’ Neither of the policemen looked round. ‘He’s been watching me, I think.’
Sloan grinned, as if at some joke.
‘Be seeing you!’ He went towards his own car.
Roger took a newspaper from the seat of his, then slammed the door and walked in the other direction. He passed the man near the taxi without glancing at him, waited at a pedestrian crossing until the lights changed, then walked briskly to the other side of the road. He nearly blundered into a man coming towards him, apologised, side-stepped, and faced the opposite pavement for the second he needed. The man was showing obvious interest. Roger hurried, turned into Glenthorne Road and glanced round.
The man stepped on to a pedestrian crossing, tall, thin, wearing a raincoat; and it was much too hot for any kind of coat. He hurried. Roger slowed down, giving the other man plenty of time to catch up with him. The man walked by without a glance, then went into a shop doorway.
He came out when Roger had passed it.
Chapter Seven
Dead Man
Roger turned into the entrance of the Hammersmith police station, was recognised, nodded and hurried to the Superintendent’s office. Wirral, in command at Hammersmith, was a lanky, melancholy Yorkshireman, slow of movement and speech but quick enough on the uptake.
‘I’m really in a hurry,’ Roger said. ‘There’s a man outside.’ He described the man in the raincoat. ‘Have him tailed, will you?’
Wirral said: ‘Right away,’ lifted a telephone and gave instructions to someone named ‘George’. Then he said: ‘What?’ and listened, grunted and rang off.
‘The man has been hanging about for an hour or more, the sergeant downstairs noticed him. Seemed interested in this station and the Underground. What’s it all about, Handsome?’
Roger grinned. ‘Secret list, this time. Had anything on the go around here? Big enough to bring Bill Sloan and me to have a look round, and the raincoat to want to find out if there’s a big show on?’
We’ve got a body,’ Wirral said, looking more melancholy than ever; but his eyes held a smile. ‘Is that big enough? Cut throat.’
‘Suicide?’
‘Four inch gash, carotid severed, much more and it would have been decapitation. He was taken out of the river a couple of hours ago. When I saw your pretty face I thought you’d come about it.’
‘Where’s the body?’
‘It ought to be in the morgue by now.’ Wirral used the telephone again and spoke to an echo that came from the receiver. ‘Where’s the stiff we took out of the Thames? … It is, good man.’ He rang off. ‘Just arrived at the morgue. Like to have a look?’
‘Yes, thanks. Get someone to talk about a body in the river – in the hearing of my man in the raincoat, will you?’
Wirral eyed him thoughtfully; warily.
‘You look as if you want to cut someone’s throat yourself.’ The telephone bell rang. ‘Superintendent Wirral … It’s Sloan,’ he said to Roger. ‘Downstairs.’
‘Ask him to wait.’
‘He’s probably a better tailer than the man I’ve put on to your raincoat’
‘But he’s known to the raincoat’
Wirral shrugged. ‘We’ll be down, Bill,’ he said into the mouthpiece, and rang off.
On the way to the front hall he asked about Janet and the boys; the West family were known to most London police. Roger answered mechanically, letting his thoughts run now that he had digested the facts. He had not been followed to Hammersmith; the man in the raincoa
t had been here, and knew him. Wirral’s George had better be good. If the man in the raincoat discovered that he was being followed, he would slip his man, and he would also know that he was suspect.
‘How good is George?’ Roger asked.
‘As good as I’ve got’
‘I hope you train ’em well.’
Drawing up with Sloan, Roger told him what had happened, and where they were going, and they walked together to the morgue, all big, tall men, all talking earnestly. The man in the raincoat was on the other side of the road, at a bus-stop; he had an evening newspaper folded in front of him, and seemed to be reading it. Two men walked from the police station to the bus-stop, and stood waiting and talking; laughing. One of them pointed to Roger.
‘He’s letting the raincoat hear that we asked for you,’ Wirral said.
‘Thanks,’ said Roger briefly. ‘Sorry I’m making so much mystery. Is there a back way out of the morgue?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s for us,’ Roger said to Sloan. ‘I’ll go first, and—no I won’t. Wirral, call me anything you like, but do something else for me, will you? Have one of your boys go to—what’s the name of the garage, Bill?’
‘Stebber’s.’
‘I know Stebber’s,’ Wirral said. ‘And what?’
‘Find out if anyone has been watching the garage today.’
They had reached the doorway of the morgue.
‘I’ll go and lay things on,’ said Wirral. ‘Hang on until I get there, and I’ll give you the latest on the raincoat.’
He doubled back, and Roger and Sloan went into the small outer room at the morgue, then into the chill, bleak room itself. The stone slabs were empty, except for one in a corner on which lay a body partly covered by a sheet. Three men were working close by. One of the men, a police photographer, was taking his last picture before packing up his equipment. The second man was going through the dead man’s pockets, handing everything he found to the third, who made a pencilled note of it before laying it down. The searcher had a sodden wallet in his hand.
‘One billfold,’ he said. Looking up, he recognised Roger, and at once stopped being casual and looking careless. ‘Afternoon, sir!’
Roger smiled. ‘Hallo. Why billfold?’
‘It’s American.’ The man handed the wallet over. ‘Some dollars in it, too.’ He watched Roger take it, pull some wet dollar bills out and look at the corners.
‘Twenties,’ Roger said, and counted. ‘Seven twenties, 52 two or three tens – count it all, will you?’
Nothing in his voice reflected the surge of excitement he felt, and Sloan schooled himself to show no unusual interest. Roger went to the slab which was being used as a table and looked through the oddments already on it. A sodden handkerchief, keys and a small knife on a chain, a small reel of Scotch tape, three credit cards, common in the United States, little known in England. They showed the name of Ed Scammel.
He took them to the searcher.
‘Where did you find these?’
‘Funny thing,’ the man said. ‘You’d expect them to be in his wallet, wouldn’t you? They weren’t, though. The lining of his pocket was torn, these were inside the lining. I was just checking the unlikely places first.’
‘Good,’ said Roger. ‘Sergeant—what’s your name?’
‘Day, sir.’
‘Day, don’t tell anyone this man was probably an American. Don’t tell the others in the office, just have it on record he’s not identified yet but there’s nothing unusual about him. Clear?’
There was a chorus of ‘yes, sirs’.
‘Thanks.’ Roger examined everything taken from the dead man’s pockets, but nothing seemed to offer help.
The door opened, and Wirral came in, lowering his head to miss the lintel. Roger and Sloan went across to him. For a few moments they stayed near the door, while the others continued to work, shooting curious glances towards them.
‘Raincoat took a taxi, George got another,’ he said. ‘You satisfied him, I should think. I’ll have word from Stebber’s Garage in ten minutes or so.’
‘Fine,’ said Roger, and smiled, trying to relax; but he couldn’t.
He had, in fact, been unable to relax since the moment he had heard that the child had been kidnapped. The kidnapping had tied a knot in his vitals, and everything else had drawn the knot tighter; even Lissa Meredith. Now, he wanted evidence of an association between the American found in the Thames with his throat slashed, the missing child, the Austin A70 with the American driver, and the Buick which had been seen at London Airport. Kidnapping was always vicious, standing out wickedly among crimes, the work of criminals without feeling, ruthless, deadly. Like the murder of the man whose credit cards named him as Ed Scammel, of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Behind all that was the atmosphere Marino and Lissa had created. From being relaxed to a point of boredom on his way to the Yard that morning, he had become as taut as a wire rope: a thin wire rope.
‘Fine,’ he repeated. ‘Wirral, I’ve asked these chaps not to mention that the dead man is American. That really matters, for an hour or so. Fix it, will you?’ He hardly gave Wirral time to nod. ‘Will you have everything found in his pockets packed up and taken to the Yard right away? Marked for me, to go into Hardy’s office.’ That was the one way he could make sure that no one blundered.
‘Yes,’ said Wirral. ‘What else?’
Roger grinned.
‘How soon can I have a picture of the chap?’
‘I’ll have one rushed through,’ Wirral promised.
‘Get plenty done, we might need ’em soon,’ Roger said.
Ten minutes later, they were back at the police station. The message from Stebber’s Garage had arrived: no one had been seen hanging about the garage, it had been just another day, except for Peel’s inquiries about the Austin A70.
The wet print came up quicker than Roger had expected. He put it between a fold of blotting-paper before going out.
Stebber’s was just another garage, small, untidy, reeking of petrol and oil, with two youths and a mechanic in dirty overalls, one at a bench, two with their faces buried in the engine of a fifteen-year-old car. There was the usual hoist on its thick, greased pole; the steady beat of an engine charging accumulators and batteries made a monotonous song. Stebber was a little plump man in a stained grey suit, who came hurrying from a small office, glass walled on three sides. He had a pencil behind his right ear, grubby fat cheeks creased in a smile that was probably more anxious than it looked. He rubbed his hands together. ‘What can I do for you, gents?’
Roger showed his card. ‘About this American and the Austin A70 – did he give you an address?’
‘No, sir, he didn’t,’ said Stebber, and now the anxiety showed through. ‘Not that there was any need,’ he added defensively. ‘Just wanted the job done quick. There’s no law that says—’
‘Had you seen the man before?’
‘No, and I ain’t seen him since. I’ve answered all these questions once, and—’
‘I’m just checking up,’ Roger said.
‘Stolen, was it?’
‘We’d like to find it,’ Roger temporised. ‘Any special characteristics, did you notice?’
‘No, I didn’t, but Bert, that’s the mechanic who did the job, wasn’t in when the other cop—the other ‘tec come, he noticed something. Not certain, mind you, but the Austin A70 might have been fitted with false number plates, some time.’
‘Only might? Where’s that mechanic?’
‘Bert!’ bellowed Stebber.
Bert was in dingy white overalls and a new trilby hat with a few oily fingermarks on the brim. He had seen cars fitted to take two or three number plates – examined them for the police, he explained – and this Austin might have been fitted for that, but there had been only one number plate.
‘Did you give the other officer the number?’ asked Roger.
‘Certainly,’ Stebber said. ‘Help the police in every way I can, that’s my motto.’
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br /> ‘Keep to it. By the way,’ Roger said, taking the fold of blotting-paper from under his arm, and unfolding it, ‘have either of you ever seen this chap?’
They stared at the photograph.
‘Why, that’s the Yank!’ Stebber exclaimed. ‘That’s him! Ain’t it, Bert?’
‘You couldn’t mistake a face like that, could you?’ Bert asked.
Armed with a dozen prints of the American’s photograph, Roger drove to Barnes police station, where Peel was collecting more garage reports. They had the names of three garages where an American with an A70 had called for petrol.
The photograph was recognised at all of them.
‘So the car’s home is about here somewhere,’ Detective Inspector Peel said. He was another, younger Sloan; fresh complexion, blue eyes, short fair hair.
‘We want it, and we want it in a hurry,’ Roger said. ‘And we don’t want the owner to know we’ve traced it. I’m going to the Yard, to get everything laid on. You’ll be in charge down here.’
‘We’ll find it,’ Peel said.
Sloan was at the Yard, with fresh news; the registration number given by Stebber’s Garage for the A70 was a false one, there was no such number registered anywhere in England. He had sent six Yard men down to Barnes straight away, but they had found nothing. Even the man in the raincoat had shaken off Wirral’s George.
At half past ten the next morning, Roger finished a telephone talk with Marino, and Lissa. There was no news of importance about the Shawns; no real change in the condition of either.
At ten forty-five, Peel called through from Barnes.
‘I think we’ve got something, sir. Can you come down?’
‘As fast as I can get there,’ promised Roger. ‘Found either of the cars?’
‘I haven’t seen it, but the Austin is kept by a woman named Norwood – Mrs Clarice Norwood – in a house called ‘Rest’, on the riverside near Chiswick Steps. The dead American has been seen to drive it to her house. She left for Paris, forty-eight hours ago, and the place has been empty since, according to the tradespeople.’
‘Have it checked, fast, but leave the garage to me,’ said Roger. ‘Wait a minute! The Norwood woman – what can you tell me about her?’