by John Creasey
‘I don’t need a recap,’ Coppell interrupted. ‘You think this may be a deliberate frame to make this bandit look like you, and you think we should give priority to finding out why?’
‘Precisely, sir.’
‘I’ll discuss it with the Commissioner in the morning,’ Coppell said. ‘He is keeping a personal eye on this case.’ He rang off, without a ‘goodbye’ and without a word of explanation, obviously having held the last announcement in reserve so that he could have the last word.
Slowly, Roger replaced the receiver.
‘If Jacob Trevillion’s got a hand in this, he’s worried,’ he said aloud. And after a pause, he went on: ‘Well it won’t do him any harm to be worried for a while.’ He leaned back in the chair, head resting comfortably and back well-supported. He could sleep here almost as well as he could in bed. He allowed his thoughts to drift for a few more minutes and then stood up, yawned hugely, closed the confidential telephone book and put it away, then went into the hall. He could hear voices from upstairs, none from downstairs. He went to the kitchen, where a note was propped up against the coffee pot: I’ve gone up, darling. Don’t forget to put out the lights. Then, in blacker, underlined letters: Sorry, truly sorry. He put out the lights and went towards the sounds of voices only to stop abruptly; only Martin’s and the girl Anne’s sounded, Martin talking earnestly, the girl doing most of the listening.
‘Well, I suppose it’s an attitude of mind, really, it has nothing to do with where you are … I liked Australia although it’s a bit hot in the summer, but … well, I couldn’t see myself marrying an Australian girl. There’s a difference in attitudes and in thinking. I—oh, I don’t know. Talking a lot of jim-jam really, I suppose.’
‘Nonsense! It’s been fascinating,’ Anne Claire said.
‘You should hear my brother, he really is fascinating,’ said Martin. ‘Well, time to turn in, I suppose. I’m jolly glad you’re here, I must say!’
‘And I couldn’t be more glad that you are,’ Anne answered.
Roger slipped into the bedroom, moving so that Martin wouldn’t see him as he came out of the girl’s room. Next moment he nearly jumped out of his skin, for there was Janet surreptitiously moving away from the door. She gave him a welcoming smile, but there was something in the expression of her eyes which told him that her attention wasn’t wholly focused on him.
‘Did you hear them?’ she asked.
‘Who?’
‘Don’t be dense. Martin and Anne.’
‘They were saying goodnight—’
‘Saying goodnight! Is that all you see in it?’ exclaimed Janet. ‘I’ve never seen a clearer case of love at first sight on both sides. I know Martin’s impressionable, bless him, but Anne—’
‘You are an incurable romantic,’ Roger said firmly. ‘Get into bed, my love, this may be our last chance for a frolic for a long time, I have a big assignment coming my way.’
Janet said dreamily: ‘I liked her from the moment I first saw her. Wouldn’t it be wonderful …’
Chapter Eight
Evidence or Proof?
Roger woke soon after seven o’clock next morning with a heavy pressure at the back of his head. This was going to be a day with a dull headache, and he couldn’t think why; he and Janet had shared only one bottle of Niersteiner the previous night. Then he remembered: the shock of finding Martin home, the shock and tension of Janet’s attitude, the talk with Coppell. ‘Cold shower, quick,’ he told himself and got out of bed cautiously, for Janet was fast asleep, only the top of her dark head was showing. He went out onto the landing and heard the latch of the bathroom door go. Damn! That was Anne, who was an early riser. Or could it be Martin? Disgruntled on the one hand, elated because of Martin’s homecoming, worried by the peculiar job which was being thrust upon him, he went downstairs and made himself tea, keeping an ear cocked for sounds from the bathroom. He was halfway through his first cup when light footsteps moved across the landing and down the stairs.
Anne appeared at the kitchen door. She gave him a bright ‘Good morning!’ adding penitently: ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hog the bathroom.’
‘Come and have a cup of tea,’ Roger suggested, ‘five minutes won’t make much difference.’ He poured out, remembering that she liked a little milk but no sugar. She took the cup from him, then drank with slow enjoyment. ‘Ah, the first cup. Nothing like it.’ She had washed off her night creams or whatever she used but put on no make-up. Her hair was looser, fluffier than usual, softening her features. She wore a strawberry pink dressing-gown of some velvety material which made her look more feminine than usual.
‘Penny for them,’ she said.
‘I was wondering what you think of Martin,’ he countered.
‘The right thing would be to pretend I believe you, but I don’t really think I do.’ Mischief glowed in her eyes.
Roger’s expression was as amused as her own. ‘Then what do you think I was thinking about?’ he asked.
‘Me,’ she answered promptly, and when he neither agreed nor denied it, she went on coaxingly: ‘Come on, own up. Martin has told me how honest you are, he spent at least half-an-hour last night telling me! You can’t be honest with him and dishonest with me, now can you?’
‘No,’ Roger said, ‘that’s true enough. And I can’t get to the office by nine o’clock if I don’t shower and shave and have my breakfast.’ He downed the last of the tea, then jumped to his feet. He had almost reached the door when he paused, and looked back. ‘The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is asking rather a lot of any man, but I’ll have a shot at it. I was thinking that you are a very nice young woman, and I like you a lot. I was thinking that if ever I have a daughter-in-law I hope she’ll be like you – unless you’re very different from the person you’ve been showing me these last few weeks. Can you cook bacon and eggs?’
‘You know very well that I can!’
‘Half-an-hour?’ suggested Roger. ‘That would be just right.’ He gave her a broad grin and then hurried upstairs.
Half-an-hour later almost to the minute he went back into the kitchen, to find her in a flowered smock, bending solicitously over the toaster. Over breakfast they talked of trivialities, lightly and inconsequently. Nothing deeper was mentioned, but Roger decided that he had meant what he said in their earlier conversation.
Janet was still asleep; Martin still locked in his room. Anne, who worked in a picture-framing and bric-a-brac shop in Chelsea, would have to leave soon after he did.
‘Sure I can’t give you a lift?’ he asked.
She shook her head, her good-humoured camaraderie suddenly leaving her, anxiety taking its place.
‘I haven’t offended you, have I?’
He looked at her very steadily, and said: ‘You’re one of the brightest things in my life. You belong somehow – as much as Martin, as much as Richard.’
‘Oh, bless you!’ she exclaimed. ‘Bless you!’
He thought there were tears in her eyes when he left the house, and went to the garage. He was at the kerb, restarting the engine, when Janet appeared at an upstairs window, waving. He blew her a kiss as he drove off; he wasn’t really thinking about her but of what he had just said to Anne Claire. The question of importance was: had he meant it?
Aloud, he said: ‘I meant it all right.’ Then he turned into King’s Road and began to concentrate on his driving.
There were the two worlds.
There was the world at home, usually relaxed, sometimes emotionally explosive, familiar, as full of the past as of the present – perhaps more full of the past. And there was the world of the police, utterly different if just as familiar; a frightening world if one thought or worried about it too much; and in his way, he was a worrier. He did not like the new building with its main entrance in Broadway and a side entrance in Queen Victoria Street, which the C.I.D. men usually preferred. He took the main entrance where there would be many more people and he would soon know if there were any rumours on
the wing about him. One developed a kind of sixth sense about such things.
This morning there was none: only the usual good-mornings. ‘Hi, Handsome!’ ‘Sleep late, Handsome?’ ‘Good morning, good morning, good morning.’ He went up in the lift to the fourth floor, the main floor for C.I.D. men. His own office was along on the right, large, square, with contemporary furniture; cold-looking. Leading off this was a smaller room where his regular aide, Detective Sergeant Hadley worked: or more correctly both slaved and unequivocally admired. It was an admiration that could be irritating, for it embraced both the good and the not-so-good equally.
Roger poked his head round the communicating door – and looked into an empty office. He let the door close and turned to his desk finding some piles of paper and a note: Been sent out on a special job, sir – be back by eleven a.m.
Well, that was that. Roger looked out onto an array of houses and side streets and wished they were the Thames and the Embankment. Well, they weren’t. He took out some notes he had made last night and the first was: Call Appleby. Dan Appleby was the best-known and in his, Roger’s, opinion the best pathologist at the Home Office. He worked almost exclusively for the Yard, and a number of unusual cases on which they had worked together had made them good friends. He put in a call, knowing that if Appleby was actually performing an operation he would not come to the telephone. But soon he was on the line, speaking with his rather high-pitched voice and his stammer, which falsely suggested he was diffident or nervous.
‘D-D-D-Dan Appleby h-h-here.’
‘Dan,’ Roger said. ‘This is—’
‘I thought I’d s-s-soon be hearing from y-y-you,’ Appleby stated, ‘and the b-b-best thing is for me to c-c-come and see you or y-y-you to come and see m-m-me. We might even have lun-lun-lunch together!’ he exclaimed, as if taken by sudden inspiration.
‘I wish I could,’ Roger said, ‘but I doubt if I’ll have time to snatch more than a sandwich. And I need some information from you quickly. Five minutes on the telephone—’
‘T-t-tell you what,’ interrupted Appleby. ‘We’ll have coffee. You can’t pretend you haven’t t-t-time for that. The R.A.C. at eleven o’clock. S-s-splendid, old chap!’ And he rang off.
Appleby was not only the best Home Office pathologist in the business, he was one of the shrewdest men of Roger’s acquaintance. He wanted to talk where they couldn’t be observed, and if that was what he wanted then it was necessary. Roger put the receiver down and pushed the telephone aside. Coppell might send for him at any time, and if the Commissioner were involved it might be impossible to leave the office in time to reach the Royal Automobile Club. There was one way to find out, and he dialled Coppell on the interphone.
‘Oh, I wondered when I would be hearing from you,’ Coppell said, with a note of complaint in his voice. ‘Have you got that other photograph with you?’
‘One is on the way from the Graphic,’ Roger answered; and marvelled that he could have forgotten so obvious a thing as that.
‘Well, have some copies made – say eight. We’ll match up eight of those and eight of yours – I mean the one that looks like you. Take ’em along to Trannion, and he’ll check them out. All clear?’
Roger’s heart was beating fast.
‘Tried and found guilty, is that it?’
‘Don’t be a bloody fool. And don’t be so jumpy, either, or I’ll recommend you for a good long rest. Can’t have you working on this case until we know it wasn’t you lying on that bed, and you know it.’ He paused long enough for that to sink in, and then added gruffly: ‘And be ready for an interview with the Commissioner and a few others at two o’clock. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ Roger said mechanically, and thought: trial.
He was being over-sensitive, of course, and Coppell was unarguably right. Yet the way this was being handled rankled, and might continue to do so for some time. That was bad, because if his mind was preoccupied with emotions he couldn’t use it effectively. He pulled a file towards him – and the internal telephone bell rang.
He took off the receiver. ‘West.’
‘Tidy up every job you’re handling, if you’re wanted on this one, you won’t have time for others until it’s over. Oh, and another thing: I had to use your man Hadley for some back work on the bullion job, he’s up in Staffordshire now, won’t be back for a couple of days.’
Coppell rang off.
It was as well he did; Roger was already forming an angry: ‘So as to make sure I’m absolutely on my own.’ He sat, fuming; no telephone bell interrupted and no one came in. He needed Hadley. There wasn’t a better young officer at the Yard and for the last few years Roger and he had built up a rapport rare between senior and junior officers. He not only anticipated what Roger would need next, but often made suggestions in an apologetic, even a diffident way as to the best thing to try. It had developed from a relationship in which Roger had doubted if he could ever work with the youth to one in which he often wondered how he would get on without him.
Well, he was going to find out.
The first move in the game was obvious; they were going to indict him. As for the ‘few others’ with the Commissioner, who were they going to be? Trannion, the smug old hypocrite, or—
‘Now stop it!’ Roger said aloud. Trannion was certainly smug and seemed pious, but hypocrite – no. He turned up the number of the Graphic, whose news editor he knew reasonably well; and the man was in. He listened, and responded promptly: ‘I remember the picture. Our chap took it as you were looking upwards – about a week ago. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘I’ll send some prints over. If I haven’t enough I’ll make some.’ He rang off without another word, while Roger opened his briefcase and took out the photograph of the man who wasn’t him. He had no doubts at all, and so he had to ask the questions he had asked Coppell the previous night. Who would want to be taken for him, and why?
Of course he couldn’t be absolutely sure it wasn’t coincidence.
‘Coincidence my foot!’ he exclaimed, and began to turn over the other case files. None was of any importance, the work had been surprisingly light for some weeks, the lightest period he had known for years. He—
My God!
He pulled the inter-office telephone towards him, and dialled one of his oldest friends at the Yard, then Detective Sergeant now Chief Inspector Bill Sloan; Sloan answered on the instant, and Roger said: ‘Bill, how busy are you?’
‘Busy?’ groaned Sloan. ‘I never seem to stop.’
‘Then you’re not the man I’m looking for,’ Roger said. ‘Hope things ease up soon.’ He finished going through the files, and decided that any intelligent sergeant could handle them, while Hadley could finish the lot off in a couple of days. He had known that, after a particularly heavy period which even Coppell had realised could lead to a serious breach in his marriage, he needed a holiday. But he hadn’t realised how light the load was at the moment. He went down to Information. Ten o’clock in the morning was not the busiest time, but a dozen uniformed men were sitting in front of teletype machines at the great conveyor which took all the calls from outside along to a sorting desk for appropriate action. Marriott, a youthful Chief Inspector, was in charge; a man only just tall enough to squeeze into the regulation five foot eight, slightly built and rather delicate looking, yet he could fling a six feet, twenty stone man over his shoulder.
‘Good morning, sir!’
‘Good morning,’ Roger returned. ‘Business not too brisk?’
‘Welcome change,’ said Marriott. ‘Sometimes I think this is the nearest thing to hell in London.’
‘Like that, is it?’ Roger’s heart contracted. ‘Need more men, as usual?’
‘They built this place eight years ago and now it’s about big enough for two thirds of our needs. Trouble is—’ Mariott stopped, as if suddenly realising that he was talking to a superior and presumably what he was saying was none of his business.
‘Go on,’ Roger said.<
br />
Well, none of my business I suppose, sir,’ said Marriott, ‘but the trouble isn’t that we’re too small and that the whole Force is under strength. The trouble is that there’s a damn sight too much crime. It’s been increasing slowly for years. One accepts it without much thought, although I’ll admit it’s worried me sometimes. But now – care to see my chart, sir? I keep one in case there’s a call for it. Can’t say there often is.’
‘Yours not to reason why, yours to make the information fly,’ misquoted Roger, and actually caused Marriott to laugh.
‘That’s about the size of it, sir,’ he said, taking a large folder out of his desk. He opened it, displaying a simple graph, with a rising line in red. He traced it along with one finger. Even before he spoke Roger saw that this line represented the crime rate per thousand head of population in the Metropolitan Police area – and the rise in the past six months had been phenomenal. In some weeks the line of the progress indicator went almost straight up; every week, it climbed steeply.
Marriott pulled this sheet aside and showed another which at first sight was like the chart of falling meteorites; streaks of different-coloured lights, all but two going upwards.
‘Here I’ve coloured a chart for types of crime,’ Marriott went on. ‘The red line is crimes of violence for gain, the red one with white dashes, violence for no known motive, blue for hold-ups, green for day-time break-ins, black for night—’ He broke off and gave a quick, almost sheepish smile. ‘The Map Room is much more comprehensive, of course, these just give the picture at a glance, so to speak.’
‘They certainly do that,’ Roger said thoughtfully. ‘What’s the one still in the drawer?’
‘Oh—er—those.’ Marriott actually coloured. ‘Well I don’t know whether they’re relevant, sir, but they show the same as the coloured chart, only division by division. I—er—it worries me a bit, makes me wonder—’