“I’ll sleep in the spare room,” Larry said, getting up. At the door he looked at her and smiled. “Are you sure you want to take on another police officer? If I was in your shoes I’d think twice.”
He went out, closing the door softly. Susan stared at herself in the mirror. She took a deep, shaking breath.
Her face slowly crumpled as she began to sob, soaking a
tissue, using another to muffle the sound.
f
In his suite at Green Lawns, Von Joel, barefoot and wearing a dressing gown, was pacing the carpet. He had a portable telephone pressed to his ear. On the table by the sofa were several broad rolled bandages and a makeup box. On the sofa Lola was rolling more bandages. A bag packed with bundled bank notes was open on the floor beside her.
“From Jersey?” Von Joel said into the telephone. “Three hundred and eight miles, check—thirteen hours, yes? Saint Nazaire three hundred miles, that’s ten hours, yeah? Saint Nazaire to Corunna, four hundred miles … What? Fourteen hours. Check. Now, on to Lisbon, that’s another three-fifty miles, which is twelve hours.” He listened intently for a minute, nodding. “Lisbon-Casablanca, yeah? Three hundred miles. So what’s that in all? Sixty hours, right? Will she make it? Is she capable of that cruising speed? We’ll have to go over four hundred miles between fuel stops… .”
There was the sound of a helicopter approaching. Von Joel went to the window and stared out into the night.
“We’re on our way,” he said, and switched off the phone.
He went to the sofa, circling around Lola, trying to make her look at him. She went on rolling bandages, looking moody. He sat down and put his arm around her.
“What’s the matter, my baby?”
“What’ll happen to him?” She looked up. “To Lawrence?” “Ah …” Von Joel smiled broadly. “You care? My, my, my—you do, don’t you?” He laughed, hugging her. “Maybe there’s more to him than I thought.”
25
At first light on Thursday morning, two days after the bank robbery, Von Joel’s powerful sea yacht edged through the dispersing mist in Jersey harbor and bumped gently against the moorings. Minutes later a taxi drew up alongside. A stooped, elderly-looking man got out of the rear seat. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and cowboy-style boots, and he moved slowly with a stiff, ungainly walk. Lola, wearing a blond wig, got out of the other side of the cab. Charlotte had come up on deck. “This is what I call perfect timing!” she shouted. Lola ran to the boat and Charlotte came to meet her. They collided and hugged by the rail outside the saloon. The old man watched them for a moment and then, astonishingly, he began to sing and do a stiff-legged dance. “Bless your beautiful hide …” The voice was unmistakably Von Joel’s. The girls ran to him. He waddled forward and put his arms around them both as they kissed and hugged him.
Up close, even though the makeup and the false moustache were effective, it was possible to see that this was not an old man. They went back to the boat together, hugging and laughing, Von Joel still walking stiffly and with obvious difficulty.
As soon as they were in the saloon the girls began stripping off his clothes. When his shirt was opened dozens of stacks of bank notes showered out on the floor. Bandages on his arms and legs were unwound and more bundles of money fell out.
“Did you have any trouble with customs?” Charlotte said, pulling away the final bandage.
“Did I have any trouble with customs?” Von Joel whipped off the false moustache and started to laugh, shaking loose a final torrent of money. He turned to Lola. “Baby, did we have any trouble with customs?”
The roar of engine throttles drowned their laughter. The boat rocked, shuddered, and began easing out of the harbor. When it was twenty yards from the moorings there was a bang like a pistol shot, then Von Joel appeared on deck carrying a frothing botde of champagne. Standing in the stern, watching Jersey recede in their wake, he raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply, letting the champagne overflow his mouth and trickle freely down his chin.
f
Larry was called before Commander Havergill at noon on Thursday. He sat stiffly in a chair opposite the Commander’s desk while his immediate professional future was explained to him.
“No criminal charges will be brought against you, Sergeant Jackson,” the Commander said. “You will remain on full pay and suspended from duty until you have been before the disciplinary board. If you wish to be represented, that is your prerogative. You will be informed of the date of the hearing in due course. That’s all. You may go-”
Four days later he was told the date of the hearing; it was to be in two weeks’ time, and he was advised that he should prepare an adequate defense, with the assistance of a lawyer if necessary, since the case against him, if it went unopposed, could be severely damaging to his career. Larry’s response was to go out and buy clothes, and have himself measured for more.
At eight o’clock on the morning of the hearing he stood before the mirror in the bedroom, immaculate in a gray checked wool suit and a white batiste shirt. The square edge of a white lawn handkerchief protruded an inch above the outer breast pocket of his jacket. Lying behind him, on the bed, were several other suits and a number of shirts. As he studied the line of his jacket Susan stood by the door watching, her arms folded.
“I don’t know if you were aware of it,” Larry said, “but Fred the Stitch makes clothes for the Royals too.” He flexed his shoulders. “Great fit. I’m just not sure about this tie.”
“I think you’re crazy,” Susan told him. “You know what they’ll all be saying.”
“They can say what they like.” He centered the knot of the tie, making a face as he tried to decide. “I never instigated that robbery. If they want to treat me like a leper it’s fine by me.” He glanced momentarily at Susan. “Frisby been feeding you all the info, has he?”
She didn’t respond to that. Since their domestic estrangement—no more intimacies, not even the superficial kind, and Larry sleeping every night in the spare room— she had avoided confrontations involving Frisby, or her infidelity in general. Larry believed she was hoping that matters between them would heal, if only the wounds were left alone for long enough.
“Why go in front of them like a tailor’s dummy?” she said, looking genuinely concerned. “If you didn’t get paid off, why look as if you did?”
“Looking is not the same as doing.” He took a step back from the mirror and appraised the total effect. “Maybe not this tie, huh?”
He turned. Susan had gone. For a single unguarded moment, his nervousness was visible.
The disciplinary board, made up principally of senior officers from St. John’s Row and Scotland Yard, convened in the conference room at St. John’s Row station. They sat around the large conference table, Commander Havergill occupying the senior position at one end. In neat piles along the table were thick files relating to the Myers case and associated matters. DCI McKinnes sat at one side of the table. He listened impassively as DI Shrapnel delivered his testimony about what happened at the moment the police car with Von Joel in the back was rammed by the Transit van. A dummy was handcuffed to Shrapnel and seated in the adjacent chair for purposes of demonstration.
“I saw Edward Myers try to get out. He went for the door, but it was over in a second. The truck came from this direction”—he pointed to the right—“straight at the car. Jackson put up his hands to protect himself, and Myers was drawn across his body. Like this.” Shrapnel demonstrated, drawing the dummy across him as he raised his arm. “That’s how he saved Jackson and nearly got himself killed.”
Commander Havergill looked at McKinnes. “Would you say that Sergeant Jackson felt in any way indebted to Myers?”
“I think he felt he saved his life,” McKinnes said. “Unintentionally, of course, he did. “The matter of Larry’s indebtedness to Myers seemed to figure importantly with the members of the board. They made notes and conferred among themselves in barely audible murmurs. The Commander waited until th
e discussion petered out before he carried the investigation forward. It was important to be fair, he had said at the outset, and he did not care how long it might take to get at the essential truth of the business.
Larry was not called to testify until half past three. By that time the conference room was crammed with officers —those on the board, and those already questioned and therefore permitted to remain. Among the faces watching him as he stood at the end of the table was Colin Frisby’s. Larry threw him a look that said complex things, none of them clear—or comforting—to Frisby.
The Commander conducted a line of questioning that took Larry right from the time he saw Von Joel in the speedboat in Marbella, up to the time of the robbery at the Millways Merchant Bank. The questions became sticky as Larry tried to explain his motives and movements prior to the robbery taking place.
“Sir, at every possible opportunity I tried in some way to leave clues for DCI McKinnes.”
The Commander nodded, folding his hands. “But you changed clothes,” he said, his voice level and reasonable. “You ate breakfast, you were with Myers for more than two hours. Are you telling me there was not one single opportunity to—”
“Sir, there wasn’t. I had to stay with him. In some ways I had to prove to Mac—to Detective Chief Inspector McKinnes—that I could handle the situation. I’d already tried to get released.”
“Wait a minute …” The Commander conferred in whispers with another senior officer; they both looked at McKinnes.
“We did have an off-the-record chat, sir,” McKinnes said.
The Commander thought about that remark. He sat back from the table.
“I think we should have a short break now. Please remember you are under oath. Thank you, gentlemen.”
A few minutes later, in the Superintendent’s office, McKinnes was blustering angrily.
“It was a chat over a pint,” he told the Superintendent, delivering flurries of smoke with his words. “It was after Myers had been taken to hospital.”
“Just cool off, Mac. You know they’ll ask you.”
“What’s with all this asking me? I’m not the one before the disciplinary board. All I wanted was Myers. I had him, and that kid let the bastard loose.”
There was a soft tap on the door. A WPC entered and passed a note to the Superintendent. As she left she said, “They’re waiting in the conference room for Chief Inspector McKinnes.”
The Superintendent read the note.
“They think Von Joel might have been at a health farm, not far from East Grinstead,” he told McKinnes. “A man fitting his description booked in for liposuction.”
“For what?”
“I’ll check it out,” the Superintendent said. “You’ve got to go back in.”
After the break the Commander continued to press Larry for convincing testimony that he had tried, in any way, to thwart or obstruct the robbery at Millways Bank. The presence of a gun in the picture was a complicating issue; the interrogation surrounding it finally had Larry thumping the table.
“I did take it off him!” he told the Commander, practically shouting. “I have admitted I had the gun—at the bank, and in the street.”
“Then why, Sergeant Jackson,” the Commander asked calmly, “if by then you knew all the officers were in the wrong location, did you assist Myers in the robbery? He had the money, why at this stage did you not arrest him?”
“I was scared I’d lose him, because as you just said, I knew everyone was at the wrong location.” He turned, pointing to the wall map with one hand, loosening his tie with the other. “I followed Myers out here. He was already across the street, about to get into the car.”
“And you still had the gun?”
“Yes. I ran toward him. In fact I shouted.”
The Commander read from a document in a folder open in front of him. ” ‘Eddie! Wait! Wait!’ No warning that you would, as a police officer, use the gun. No warning, either, to passersby. Is that correct?”
Larry nodded, swallowing hard.
“So now, explain how you came to drive the vehicle with the gun held at your throat by Myers, if, as you have told us, you were in possession of the gun.”
“I shouted that I wanted to drive,” Larry said, his voice dry and hoarse. “He refused, then he moved across from the driving seat.”
“But you’ve still got the gun, Sergeant.”
“Yes …”
In his anxiety to delivery the exact literal truth of the situation, it appeared that Larry’s memory had locked up on him. He sweated, looked around the table anxiously.
“You see,” he improvised, “I thought that if I drove, I could … I could control the situation.”
The Commander sighed. He began flicking through the statements. The other members of the board started doing the same. The Superintendent came into the room and tiptoed along the table to where McKinnes was sitting. He delivered a whispered update on the health farm story. Von Joel, if indeed it had been him, had left the place in a helicopter.
“The pilot used a chopper from a hire company in the West End. We can’t trace him yet, they’re checking the prints. He used a qualified pilot’s license that the guy says was nicked a few years back.”
McKinnes nodded, taking it in, then he leaned close to the Superintendent. “What the hell is liposuction?”
The Commander had resumed his questioning of Larry.
“The getaway vehicle was driven at a speed of between seventy and one hundred miles per hour. You were the driver?”
“I drove toward the tunnel. The Blackwall Tunnel.” Larry looked exhausted. He rubbed his head. “He said it was a fake, the gun, so I let it go. He got it, released the safety catch, pressed it to my neck.” Larry pointed at the spot. “He said, ‘I lied about the gun, Larry.’ He forced me to drive fast. If I slowed, he said he’d kill me. I just kept hoping, praying, we’d be picked up.” “You were, Sergeant,” the Commander said coldly.
f
At five-thirty a WPC told everyone in the waiting room that they were free to leave. “Everyone is cleared to go except Sergeant Jackson.”
For a further half hour Larry waited alone, feeling like a pariah, while the board deliberated. When he was finally called in to face them, he did so with the slightly vacant look of a man worn expressionless with strain.
“I have taken everything into consideration, Sergeant,” the Commander said. “I find you guilty of foolhardiness, perhaps more than gross error of judgement. You acted, I believe, without criminal intent, as has already been determined, but your behavior must be reprimanded.”
“Yes, sir,” Larry murmured.
“You will be fined three thousand pounds. You will lose your rank, and will return to uniform for two years. After two years you can apply to be considered for reappraisal.” Larry nodded once, accepting the board’s decision.
f
Later that evening, in a local pub used regularly by St. John’s Row personnel, the Superintendent joined DCI McKinnes and DI Shrapnel in a booth with a number of other officers. There was an atmosphere of overdone jollity. DC Summers was announcing, loudly, that Von Joel had nowhere to run.
“I mean, where could he go to? If he tries to get to France we’ve got him, he can’t go back to Spain or they’ll have him. Anywhere he goes in Europe, Interpol’s going to jump on him. I’d take bets we get him back in days…
Colin Frisby was singing and trying to encourage the others to join in. Shrapnel looked glazed. So did McKinnes, but the Superintendent believed that was partly self-defense. He leaned close to McKinnes and passed him the news he was waiting for.
“Demoted, fined three grand, he’s back in uniform.”
McKinnes nodded solemnly. “All I ask,” he said, raising his glass, “is, live long enough for me to get you, Eddie, because I will, I’ll keep on looking until they ram the last nail in my coffin!” He swallowed all the whisky in the glass and turned to the Superintendent. “What about me? What did I get?”
> “It’s as you expected, Jimmy.”
A rapid blink was the only sign that he had been affected. “So I’m out, huh? I suppose they’ll let me get the trial over, and then …” He blew a raspberry. “Ah, well …” He shrugged. “You got Minton, Bingham, and a few other heavies. No news on Myers?”
The Superintendent shook his head.
“Well,” McKinnes said, looking past the Superintendent. “I’ll say this for him, he’s got some guts.”
The table grew quiet as Larry approached and stood in front of the booth. Everyone stared at him.
“It’s all right,” Larry said, “I don’t want to have a drink with you, I just wanted to give you this, Guv.” He put his warrant card on the table in front of McKinnes. “I’ve left a formal letter of resignation on your desk. I’ll clear out my locker tonight.”
McKinnes glared at him. “Sit down, you flashy bugger.” He started waving his arms at the others. “Come on, come on, make room, you lot, he’s not contagious. Oy! Push up.”
Larry stepped back, shaking his head. The jukebox was playing the Kinks—“Dedicated Follower of Fashion.”
“They’re playing your tune, Sergeant,” DI Falcon shouted from the bar. The others roared with laughter. Larry leaned down to McKinnes.
“Thanks all the same. But—sorry. I’m really sorry, Mac.”
There was no drama in his departure. Falcon pushed past him with a flowing drinks tray. The hubbub swelled. People shouted at each other and several of the lads began to sing along with the jukebox. Larry walked out.
McKinnes had the chasers lined up, and the lads kept them coming as they sang at the top of their voices, until it was obvious to all there was nothing to sing about.
The cold night air hit McKinnes like a slap in the face. He refused all the lads’ offers to drive him home, saying he’d prefer to walk. When he was halfway down the street, Shrapnel drew up alongside him.
“Eh, Mac, you sure you don’t want a lift? You got quite a skin full.”
“Piss off!”
Shrapnel looked up at McKinnes, his face flushed red, the ever present butt stuck out of his mouth.
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