Ring of Terror

by Michael Gilbert

  Luke said he had thought of this, but would the rules allow him to bring them to the magistrate’s attention?

  ‘There’s an answer to that,’ Wensley said. ‘Not, perhaps, strictly legal, but very effective. I take it you will be conducting your own defence? Good. You’ll do it much better than the sort of third-class barrister you could afford. Records of previous offences are on dark blue paper. I’ll assume you find one or more of them. You hold them in your hand in such a way that the prisoner can see them and you say to him, “You are aware, I take it, that lying on oath is a crime, for which you can be severely punished. So I want to ask you one question. You have based your defence on your good character, so I’m entitled to ask you whether you have ever been convicted of a criminal offence.” He’ll be a very bold man if he doesn’t say “yes”. Then you can rub it in. How many times and what for? I’m sure I can leave it to you.’

  His confidence was not misplaced. Taylor, real name Abrahams, was convicted of attempted theft and Luke received a commendation.

  Wensley, who was in court when this happy conclusion was reached, had taken him aside afterwards to congratulate him. What followed seemed predestined. As soon as he discovered that Luke was a fluent Russian speaker, he had applied his considerable weight to effect what Luke had been praying for, both for himself and Joe. A transfer to the Detective Branch and a transfer to ‘H’ Division. Superintendent Garforth had fought hard to retain Luke, but his opposition had been steam-rollered. Opposition to Joe’s departure had been a good deal less strenuous.

  This had all happened six months ago and Luke had had time to appreciate why, in the eyes of the Force, the ‘H’ in ‘H’ Division (which embraced Stepney, Whitechapel and Poplar) stood for Horror. Notwithstanding the dangers and difficulties he had enjoyed life enormously.

  Hold it. The door of the house he was watching was being opened, cautiously. Someone was going to come out. Was coming out. He craned forward, and the movement saved him. A blow, which would have fallen squarely on his head, fell instead on his left forearm. He whipped round, got his right arm round his attacker’s neck and pulled him down.

  Footsteps running up and a rain of blows from his new attacker. A lot of them fell on his opponent as they rolled together on the ground. Then a crack on the forehead which dazed him.

  When the mist had cleared a little he levered himself up on to his knees. He could hear two sets of footsteps running away round the corner and disappearing into the distance. He was in no shape to follow. His left arm felt as though it didn’t belong to him, his head was still spinning. He felt sick.

  He was sick.

  This restored him sufficiently for him to get to his feet and stagger towards the only destination that mattered – his bed. As he went, there were two thoughts in his mind. The first was that there was something wrong with his arm. Something very wrong. And it wasn’t only his arm, now. His legs were misbehaving. As they buckled under him and he went down face first into the gutter there was another quite independent thought in his mind. There had been something odd about the second set of footsteps. Something he ought to remember.

  3

  For some time there had been nothing firm, nothing to cling on to. Flashes of consciousness had been followed by intervals of darkness which were too disturbed to be called sleep.

  In these intervals he seemed to spend most of his time walking down the Ratcliffe Highway, a frontage of buildings with nasty, dark, dangerous little alleys between them. Every other building was a tavern. Between the taverns were shops that catered for sailors. Peering through the windows as he strolled past he could see sou’westers and pilot coats, thigh-length rubber boots, sextants and bosun’s pipes, knives and daggers. Why, you could fit out a whole ship from each shop, he said. Ship, shop. Ship, shop. Clip, clop. Hansom cab coming up behind him. Dodge before it runs you down. The effort he made to escape jerked him back to consciousness.

  A man with a beard, whom he had seen before, was smiling at him. He said, ‘That’s right. Cheated the parson this time. Lucky these youngsters have got such hard heads, isn’t it, Mrs Hutchins.’ There was a woman with him who reminded him of Mrs Parham. He remembered her as one of his regular visitors, who gave him hot sweet drinks which made him sick.

  On one occasion, most remarkably, it had been DDI Wensley who had stared down at him, looking like a mournful seal, and said something that sounded like ‘bloody young fool’. After that it was the motherly woman again. This time she had given him a cold and rather bitter drink which he had succeeded in keeping down.

  Then he really had slept.

  When he opened his eyes he saw Joe, perched on a chair beside his bed, reading a magazine. All he could see of it was the picture of a girl with beautiful legs which, very reasonably, she was making no effort to keep hidden. Wanting to see more, he hoisted himself up on to his elbows

  “Ullo ‘ullo,’ said Joe. ‘The sleeping beauty has awucken. And you’re not supposed to sit up.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’ said Luke, sitting up.

  ‘Bin at death’s door, haven’t you?’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Luke. ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘Whole thing was a fiddle, if you ask me. Three days in the infirmary and Mother Hutchins clucking over you, like as if you was her long-lost son.’

  ‘Have I really been here for three days?’

  ‘Best part of. Every precaution known to science has been took.’ He was examining a chart which hung at the foot of the bed. ‘This one shows your temperacheer. And here’s a list of ticks and crosses. Nothing to say what that is. Might be the number of times you wet your bed.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Luke. ‘Tell me. Did old Wensley come and have a look at me? It seemed like him and I thought I heard him say “bloody young fool”.’

  ‘Taken by and large,’ said Joe, ‘that seems to sum up the general verdick. Letting yourself be knocked on the napper by a couple of cheap Ruskies. Mind you, I’m beginning to wonder if we was quite as smart as we thought we was, getting ourselves transferred to this division. Talk about the bloody Tower of Babel. Squareheads, Polacks, Guineas, Johnnies and hundreds of thousands of Shonks. Fourteen to a room and one bed. Either they take it in turns, or some of them sleep on the floor.’

  ‘Uncomfortable either way,’ said Luke. ‘That’s a lovely black eye you’ve got. Been fighting someone?’

  ‘In this part of the world, life’s one long fight. How’d I get this shiner? I got it yesterday. Rescuing a sailor from a fate worse’n death. From death too, like as not.’

  ‘Tell,’ said Luke, settling himself comfortably.

  ‘Well, I was proceeding along Cable Street, getting dark, and mist coming up from the river, and I was thinking as how nice it would be if I was back home with my slippers on and a glass of something in my hand when I saw these three men coming along, arm in arm. Friendly types, was my first thought. When they got up to me, I saw the two on the outside was nasty-looking hunkies.’ Joe demonstrated what he meant by frowning ferociously and sticking his jaw out. This made Luke laugh.

  ‘Laugh away,’ said Joe. ‘It weren’t funny. Not really. The one in the middle was a sailor – not much more’n a boy – and as anyone could see, he was drunk as parson’s cat. Couldn’t hardly stand up. I said, “You leave that boy alone.”

  ‘”We leave him, he falls down,” said the tough character on the right. “We take him home.”

  ‘”I know just where you’re taking him,” I said. “Somewhere you can finish emptying his pockets. And then empty him into the river. Not tonight, though. This ain’t your lucky night.”

  ‘He didn’t seem anxious to let go of the boy, which handicapped him somewhat, so I hit him.’ Joe smiled at the thought. ‘A four o’clock one. Right on his snozzle. He let go the boy then and come for me. So I kicks him in the goolies.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a bit rough?’

  ‘I had to protect myself, didn’t I? Then I got me old whistle out a
nd blew it. Always creates a good effect. The other man took one look at his friend lying on the ground trying to be sick and cut off smartish down one of the side streets. The only one who didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts was the boy. He said, “You’ve hurt my friend. Only friend I’ve got,” and blow me down if he didn’t square up and belt me in the eye. It was what you might call a parting effort, because as he did it his knees gave way and if I hadn’t grabbed him he’d have finished flat on his face. I got him up over my shoulder and left the field of battle as the crowd started to gather. One of the men knew me and gave me a hand with our gallant tar and we got him into the church refuge just round the corner. When we got him there he fell flat once more and this time, just to show how comfortable he was, he started to snore. It didn’t seem to worry the refugers.’

  ‘I expect they’re used to that sort of thing. What did they do with him?’

  ‘They said they’d put him to bed. He’d be all right in the morning. I wasn’t too sure about that, so I went round next morning and had a word with the boy. He was called Bill Trotter and he was off the brig Alice. The usual story. Came on shore with a friend from another ship. Both of them with their pay in their pockets. Friend went off with a girl, leaving young Bill on his tod. Easy meat for the squareheads. Seeing he was still a bit shaky I went back with him to his ship.’

  ‘The Alice you said.’

  ‘Right. One of the “A” line – Alice, Annabel, Audrey and Amelie. They call them brigs, but really they’re brig-rigged schooners. They do most of the east coast work, up to Scotland. The “B” line – Betsy, Belinda, Beatrice, that lot – they’re more enterprising. Sometimes compete with the “A”s, but mostly they push out across the sea, heading for Copenhagen and Gothenburg. Now—’ Joe wagged a schoolmasterly finger at the invalid, ‘I’m not telling you all this just to give you a lesson in geography. I had an idea when I was talking to young Trotter and his mates and sampling some of the Highland dew they’d brought back from one of their trips to Edinburgh. Lovely stuff. I’d’ve brought some round for you, only I remembered what you’d said about alcohol being bad for concussion.’ Observing the look in Luke’s eye he hurried on. ‘My idea was that these boats wasn’t only cargo boats. They’ve got accommodation – limited but comfortable was how they described it – for one or two passengers. Businessmen who like to take things easy, people like that. So what about you asking for a couple of weeks’ convalescent leave and getting a bit of sea air into your lungs?’

  ‘Attractive,’ agreed Luke. ‘How long should I have to be away?’

  ‘That’s what I asked Bill. The Amelie’s due to leave for Newcastle on Saturday. How long the trip takes depends on the weather – sometimes they have to beat about for days – and how long they’re held up at the other end, that depends on the cargo. They’ll be carrying cement in bags and timber. Clean stuff and easy to unload. Coming back it’ll likely be iron-ore for smelting. They could be tied up at the other end for a week or more. Shouldn’t be more than ten days, though. If it was going to be more’n that, they’d come back empty. Can’t hang around. That’s losing money.’

  As Joe had been speaking the idea had been growing in attraction. Fishing trips out of the Orwell or the Stour, with a night at sea and return on the morning tide, had been almost his only relaxation during the years of his Russian study and the North Sea no longer had the power to upset him. Calculating dates and times he said, ‘It looks as though I’d have to put in for fifteen days. Saturday to Monday fortnight.’

  ‘The skipper wouldn’t say no to that. You’re his white-headed boy. When he heard you’d been hurt, the tears were streaming down his face.’

  Having nothing handy to throw at Joe, Luke said, ‘Then you think he’d agree?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be his say-so. Not entirely. He’d have to fix it up with Josh.’

  This reference to Superintendent Joscelyne, the head of ‘H’ Division, gave both of them pause. Although the Superintendent did not control the day-by day working of the plain-clothes branch, all administrative decisions stemmed from him. He was not positively unfriendly, as Garforth had been, but had maintained, so far, a massive neutrality in his dealings with those two young hopefuls, Detective Pagan and Detective Narrabone. So far as he was concerned, they were on probation.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ said Joe. ‘It mightn’t be a good moment to bother the skipper. He’s got a lot on his plate. I’ve noticed, if there’s any sort of nonsense anywhere and a Russian or a Yid’s involved – which there usually is – then it doesn’t matter which division it happens in, it’s “Send for Wensley”.’

  ‘That must be good for him, career-wise. Surely he’s heading for the top.’

  ‘He may be heading for it, but it won’t do him much good if he dies of overwork before he gets there. Last time I saw him he was looking like death warmed up.’

  ‘Surely not as bad as that,’ said Wensley.

  He was noted for walking softly. When on the beat, he was reputed to have tacked strips of bicycle tyre to the soles of his regulation boots.

  Joe, unperturbed, said, ‘I don’t know how much of that you heard, sir. But I was proposing a sea voyage for this young tearaway’s health.’

  ‘Yes. I heard that bit. Not a bad idea. But I’ve had a better one. We’ll sell it to the Superintendent as one week’s convalescence and one week’s work. If you feel you’re up to it.’

  ‘I’m all right now, sir, really,’ said Luke. ‘Two or three days at sea and I’ll be on the top line.’

  Wensley examined the temperature chart, stroked his splendid moustache and said, ‘All right. Here’s how it goes. I’ve got friends in most of the east coast ports, up as far as Edinburgh. They keep an eye on arrivals, and if they think they are going to interest me, they telephone me, or drop me a line. That way I’ve had some very useful tip-offs. My contact in Newcastle is a man called Farnsworth. Carter Farnsworth. He’s well placed, you see, because he’s head of the Water Guard and combines that with being deputy head of Customs. Any suspicious characters who arrive, the docks police send them along to him. Well, about a week ago this Russian turned up on a boat from Libau, which was interesting, because anyone who wants to slip out of Russia is liable to make first for Poland, which isn’t a difficult border crossing. Then they try Danzig for a ship and if they can’t find one next choice is Libau or Riga. When the police wheeled him in, Farnsworth had him stripped naked and searched. A proceeding which he resented, violently. First thing they found was that he’d got two passports. One which he produced, in the name of Ivan Morrowitz. The other, tucked away in a very secret pocket, in the name of Janis Silistreau. That one had his picture on it, so it may have been his real name.’

  ‘Do they all have two names?’ said Luke.

  ‘Two’s a poor score. One man I’ve been dealing with recently used six. And none of them turned out to be his real name. Anyway, as well as a second passport, Farnsworth found a number of papers in Russian handwriting. This didn’t mean a lot to him, as neither he nor anyone in his office could deal with Russian current script. He wasn’t very happy about putting them in the post to me, but if you found them interesting I’m sure he’d lend them to you and you could bring them back with you for our Home Office friends to look at. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Luke, delighted that at last some practical use was to be made of his knowledge of Russian.

  ‘Next point, if this Morrowitz-Silistreau character is heading for London, as I’ve no doubt he is, it’ll be useful to know what train he’s on, so that we can have him followed when he arrives. And last, and most important, don’t overstay your leave. If the Amelie is really hung up waiting for a return cargo, you’ll have to miss your return sea trip and come back by train. We’re not overstaffed and things are beginning to heat up down here. Normally, I wouldn’t be sorry about that, because’—Wensley’s fingers opened and shut—’when things heat up is when we get results. But just at this moment, everything’s
moving a bit fast, in different directions, so don’t hang about too long admiring the Northumbrian scenery.’

  ‘Or the Northumbrian lasses,’ said Joe.

  Luke promised to bear these instructions in mind. He, too, liked it when things started moving.

  On the Friday morning Joe walked down with him to the docks. The quayside was crowded. There were three ships anchored in tandem alongside and two more in midstream awaiting attention.

  Ship-building might have gone north to the Clyde and the Mersey, but ship-handling was still the prerogative of the London docks.

  The Amelie sailed at dusk. With the wind behind them, they were soon out into the mouth of the river. Luke, on deck and inhaling the cold air in grateful gulps, felt health and strength building up fast. Which was as well, since before long the wind had swung from the south-west to the south-east and had freshened. By Sunday evening it was coming straight out of Russia and the sea had got so ugly that they pulled into the Wash and spent the night in the lee of Boston Stump. Luke began to fear that they might lie there for days, but they ventured out, on Monday morning, into a sea that was moderating as the sun rose.

  ‘I’ve often noticed it,’ said the skipper, an Ulsterman, who was inclined to be friendly to Luke on the grounds that a normal passenger would have been incapacitated by that time. ‘The sun kills the wind.’

  Good progress from there on saw them safely round South Shields Point and by four o’clock on the Tuesday, they were gliding sedately up the Tyne with the tide behind them. When they reached the main disembarkation point on the famous mile-long quay, Carter Farnsworth, a short red Northumbrian, was there to meet Luke as he stepped ashore.

  After a friendly greeting, coupled with enquiries about his old friend the Weasel, he led Luke into his office and got down to business.

  ‘That’s the man who calls himself Ivan Morrowitz,’ he said, pushing three photographs across. ‘That was the name in the passport he produced. The photograph in the passport was so messy that it was useless. So I had these new ones done. A remarkable face, don’t you think?’