Petrella at 'Q'

by Michael Gilbert

  “I might fetch them,” she said, “if you’d tell me what you want with them.”

  “I’ll tell you when they get here,” said Petrella.

  Mrs. Sullivan looked at him once again. Then she picked up a shawl and started to wrap it round her head.

  “Quickly, please,” said Petrella.

  Mrs. Sullivan went out, closing the door behind her. Petrella sat quietly staring into the red heart of the fire.

  Michael and Liam Sullivan were big men, though not as tall or as broad by a few inches as their brother Patrick. They drifted into the room, treading softly, and stood looking down at Petrella.

  Petrella said, in the same flat voice, “Three weeks ago your brother Patrick was charged with theft. The charge arose from the discovery of stolen articles concealed, very cleverly, under the floor of the coal-shed behind this house. We should never have found them, in fact we’d never have suspected they were here, if we hadn’t had a direct tip-off.”

  Michael Sullivan said, “Ah”, and sat down on the edge of the kitchen table which creaked under his weight.

  Petrella said, “I am assuming that you have no idea who gave us this information.”

  Mrs. Sullivan said, sharply, “Careful what you say, now.” She could feel the tension that was building up.

  Petrella ignored her. He said, “I’m prepared to sell you that information.”

  There was a long silence. Then Liam said, “It’s not normal, if I understand correctly, for members of the police force to say where their information comes to them from.”

  “This is not a normal occasion.”

  “You mentioned selling. What price exactly had you in mind?”

  “In return I want what your brother Patrick once offered me. I want to know where I can find Augie Volk.”

  “Augie the Pole is it? You want enough to put him away?”

  “No. I want to know where to find him tonight.”

  The two big Irishmen looked at each other. Finally Michael nodded and Liam said, “He has a place he and his boys use. It’s not in his name. It’s an old meat packing station. It lies behind the Foundry, in Lower Dock. He should be there tonight.”

  Petrella said, “Thank you,” and got up. Michael said, “You were going to tell us—”

  “I’ve already told you,” said Petrella.

  By eight o’clock he was back at his desk writing a note. It covered two pages in his neat handwriting and was addressed to Superintendent Watterson. He was finishing it when he heard footsteps in the passage. He looked up as Sergeant Roughead came in, followed by Sergeant Blencowe and Detective Lampier.

  Petrella said, “What on earth are you doing here? You’re all meant to be off duty.”

  Milo said, “It did just occur to us that you might be needing some help.”

  “What put that idea into your head?”

  “Something Father Amberline said to me.”

  “I see.”

  “Then we heard from Sergeant Cove that you’d drawn a gun from the Armoury. So we put two and two together and came along.”

  Petrella put the two sheets of paper into an envelope and sealed it. He said, “I don’t know what answer you got when you put two and two together. But whatever it was, it was wrong. I’m going out tonight to do a job. If I’d needed any help, be sure I’d have asked for it.”

  He put the envelope on the mantelpiece, walked to the door and held it open. The three men trooped out ahead of him.

  Downstairs they found Station Sergeant Cove looking unusually wide awake. Petrella said, “Let me have the keys of the smaller car, Harry. I’ll be back in about an hour. Thanks.”

  He went out, leaving the four men staring after him.

  The night was clear, but the moon was not yet up. Petrella drove carefully, using the smaller roads, keeping north of the Causeway and heading down towards the river. The light reflected up from the dashboard showed his face composed and passive. When his instinct told him that he had gone far enough he stopped, backed the car into a gateway, switched off the engine and lights and got out. He could hear cars passing along the main road but everything round him was silent. He locked the car and started to walk, padding along quietly over pavements damp with the mist which came up from the river every evening.

  When he turned the corner and found that he was in Lampe Lane, he had his bearings. Lampe Lane led to Stable Dock, so called because it had once been used to land pit ponies brought down from Yorkshire for the Kent mines. Both the dock and the light railway which served it were now unused, but they formed a back-stop which would prevent him from overrunning his objective.

  The first turning off Lampe Lane was Colinbrook Street which ran along the frontage of the foundry. The next must be Palance Street. The meat packing station would be the last of the three gaunt buildings on the river side of the street. He remembered that a passage had been marked on the map running down west of the packing station and leading to the wharfside.

  He approached with caution. The first two buildings were derelict. The third was occupied. There was a glimmer of light filtering out through the clouded glass and grime of one of the ground-floor windows. Something else, too. The sound of men’s voices from the lit room.

  On one side of the main door a notice, barely decipherable, said Henders Bros. Canning and Packing. Deliveries at Rear.

  Petrella thought about it. The rear would be deserted. It was a lot to hope that it would offer any point of entry. But it was the best chance. He slipped and skidded down the passage, which was an inch deep in filth, and came out into the open space behind.

  The main part of the packing station was joined at one end to an extension, which was one storey higher and carried two chimneys. Outlined against the night sky, paling with the coming of the moon, it looked like the hulk of a ship, its bridge and funnels cocked up at one end; a ship run ashore and left to rot.

  The ground-floor windows and the windows of the first floor were heavily barred. The double doors, presumably designed for deliveries, looked as though they had not been used for years.

  It was whilst he was studying them that Petrella heard footsteps coming down the passage. More than one person. There was no easy way out. On one side a spike-topped wall marked the edge of the old wharf and to the right an equally high wall blanked off the railway line. He squeezed himself back into the doorway, cursing as he did so. If he had to use his gun all surprise would be lost. What had started as difficult would become starkly impossible.

  There were three men. It was not until they were quite close to him that Petrella recognised them.

  “We thought we’d find you round here somewhere,” said Sergeant Roughead.

  Petrella said, in a voice to which relief had added almost as much venom as the fright which had preceded it, “I told you not to come.”

  “That’s right,” said Milo cheerfully. “You told us not to come, but we decided to come anyway. In the army it’s called mutiny.”

  Petrella struggled to find something to say. Before he could start Sergeant Blencowe said, moderating his normal bellow to a hoarse whisper, “We brought Len along. If anyone can get into this place he can.”

  Milo said, “Do you think you can do it, Len?”

  Detective Lampier examined the back of the building, which was becoming clearer each minute as the moon edged up.

  “Piece of cake,” he said.

  He tested the drainpipe which ran up the far corner of the building. Then he started to climb. He might have been going up a staircase. When he got level with the first of the unbarred windows at second-storey level he held the pipe in one hand and swung himself across to the sill. There was a soft tinkle of broken glass, a moment’s pause and Detective Lampier’s slender body disappeared through the window.

  “Lovely,” said Milo. “He picked up the knack from his old man, did you know? He was the finest cat burglar in London, Len said. Didn’t give it up until he was over sixty.”

  “I’m not sure—” sa
id Petrella.

  “We’re not going in that way,” said Milo. “He’ll get that door open somehow. It’s only bolted or barred.”

  It took ten minutes to do it, but finally, reluctantly and with assistance from both sides, one of the double doors was forced open enough for them to slip through.

  “We’ll leave it like that,” said Petrella. “We may have to duck out quick.” He was using his torch as he spoke.

  “Back stairs over here,” said Lampier. “Lead all the way up.”

  “What’s at the top?”

  “Sort of storeroom. Raw hides I guess, by the smell. There must be another staircase at the other end.”

  “We’ll go up to the top, across and down the second staircase. That should bring us out in the front hall. Before we go, I’ve got something to say. One piece of insubordination you can get away with, but not two. From now on, if I tell you to do something – whatever it is – you do it and you do it without arguing. Is that understood?”

  “Quite understood, Skipper,” said Milo, who seemed to have appointed himself as spokesman for the three. “You say jump, and we jump.”

  Lampier led the way. They climbed the back stairs, crossed a long attic room between mounds of strong-smelling skins, and went through an unlocked door onto a landing. Then they went down. They took their time and made very little noise.

  The room from which the light was coming faced the foot of the stairs. They stopped to listen. There were at least three men talking. Two normal male rumbles and one curiously high-pitched voice. Petrella knew that it was the first two seconds that were going to make the difference. He said, “Blencowe and I will go in as close together as we can. You two follow and fan out. Anyone makes a wrong move, hit him at once.”

  Then he started to turn the door handle, very slowly indeed.

  The voices went on talking.

  As soon as he felt the door give, he kicked it open and jumped through.

  There were three men in the room. It was furnished as an office, with a big safe in one corner, and a roll-top desk. One man, the oldest of the three, was sitting on a swivel chair behind the desk. The second, an enormously fat man, was balanced on a stool at a table covered with the remains of a meal. The third, and youngest, was squatting on the edge of the table.

  There was a moment of paralysis. Then the young man started to reach inside his coat. Before he could do any more, Blencowe had hit him. A swinging blow which knocked him off the table. As he went down he hit his head with a crack on the edge of the safe.

  The other two men had not moved. Either the surprise of the attack or the sight of the gun in Petrella’s hand kept them nailed to their chairs.

  The man behind the desk had a flat white face, two small black eyes like currants in a suet pudding and a stubble of grey hair, shaved closely over his skull in the German fashion. When he opened his mouth he showed a lot of gold. He said, “You had no right to do that, Inspector.”

  Petrella recognised the voice which had spoken to him on the telephone. He said to Blencowe, “We’ll have the handcuffs on both of these men. Hands behind their backs. Then search them. The one on the floor, too.”

  The search produced a gun from the shoulder holster of the man on the floor, which Blencowe took charge of, an eight-inch black handled skinning knife in a leather sheath from the fat man and nothing from the Pole.

  He said, “This is irregular; you have made no charge.”

  “There will be a number of charges,” said Petrella. “Owning a gun without a licence, for a start. And a general charge of extortion, conspiracy and kidnapping – against all of you.”

  “You have no proof of a kidnapping.”

  Petrella looked directly at the Pole for the first time since he had come into the room. He said, “That is the next thing I mean to attend to.”

  There was an unlit table lamp on the desk. Petrella pulled it out of its socket and jerked out the long flex. He said to Lampier, “Hobble his ankles, leave him enough slack to walk, but not to run.”

  He gave his own gun to Milo, and said, “The three of you can keep an eye on these two. That one may be shamming, I don’t know. If either of them makes a move you don’t like, shoot their feet off.” Then he got behind the Pole, jerked him on to his feet and said, “Walk”.

  “I refuse—” said the Pole and gave a sharp gasp. Petrella had driven the point of the knife into his back.

  “Word of advice, chum,” said Blencowe, “I should do what you’re told and do it quick.”

  The Pole shuffled to the door, and took a quick look back. The young man was still on the floor. They had rolled him over when searching him and the swollen bruise on his forehead was visible with blood oozing slowly out of it. The fat man was perched on his stool with his hands behind his back. The sweat was standing out on his forehead. The Pole shuffled out into the passage. Petrella followed and shut the door carefully.

  The fat man started muttering to himself.

  “Something bothering you?” said Blencowe.

  “What’s he going to do to him?” The piping voice made him sound like a frightened little girl.

  “I should think he’s planning to cut little bits off him with that knife,” said Blencowe. “What do you think, Milo?”

  “That’d be the main course,” said Milo. “He wouldn’t get round to it straight away. For starters, I guess he’ll pick off his fingernails.”

  “What he might do,” said Lampier, “I read about an Indian who did this, he might cut out his knee-caps.”

  The scream, when it came, was two rooms away, but it was so loud that it made the fat man jump. With his hands manacled behind his back he was unable to save himself and toppled off the stool. Blencowe and Lampier hoisted him carefully back again.

  “The point is,” said Blencowe, “suppose he passes out before the Skipper can get the info he wants out of him, there’ll only be one thing for it. He’ll have to come back and start on our friend here.”

  The fat man said, “It’s no good doing anything to me. I don’t know where the boy is.”

  “And who said anything about a boy?” said Milo gently.

  The fat man looked at him. His lips were moving but he seemed unable to speak. Milo said, “Augie made a mistake there. The Skipper’s half Spanish. It’s the Spanish half that’s operating just now.”

  The second scream was muffled, as if it was made through folds of thick cloth.

  Petrella ran up to the landing on the first floor. The door at the top was locked, but he had a key. His hand was shaking so badly that it took him a minute to get it into the lock. Then he opened the door and switched on the light.

  In this room, dressed hides were stacked in bales which covered most of the floor space and were piled high against the walls, with a narrow passageway between them. Petrella went to the far end and started shifting the bales. Behind them was a low cupboard, bolted on the outside.

  Donald was curled up inside the cupboard. He was asleep. When Petrella picked him up he said something that sounded like “Mummy”. Petrella carried him back down the stairs and into the hall and said, “Sergeant Blencowe.”

  He had hardly raised his voice, but Blencowe came running. He grinned when he saw Donald. Petrella said, “Come and give me a hand.”

  Augie was lying on the floor of a small bare room. His ankles were shackled to the radiator.

  Petrella stooped over him, still holding Donald and jerked the flex free. Augie stared up at him. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and a trickle of saliva had run down from the corner of his mouth. His small black eyes were alive with hatred.

  “Take this thing back to the office,” said Petrella. “He can walk if he wants to. There’s a telephone on the desk. We’ll need another car.”

  Blencowe dragged the Pole to his feet and started frogmarching him down the passage. Donald had opened his eyes. His face puckered, for a moment, as if he was going to cry. Then he said, “Put me down. I want to walk.”

&n
bsp; “All right,” said Petrella. “Stand on your own feet. I’ve got a little tidying up to do here. Then we’ll all have a ride home in the car.” He found a piece of sacking and was rubbing it over a patch of something damp on the floor.

  Blencowe pushed the Pole into a chair beside the fat man and had his hand on the telephone when both windows splintered at the same moment, and the shotguns opened up.

  Two sawn-off shotguns, at close range, throw a lot of shot. Lampier had hurled himself flat on the floor under the window and was out of range. Blencowe was protected by the desk. Milo, who was opening the door to let Petrella in, collected half a dozen pellets in his right arm. Most of the rest of the contents of both barrels went into the Pole and the fat man and tore them into bloodstained pieces.

  Over the shocking roar of the explosions they heard a car starting up.

  “There’s not much doubt about it,” said Superintendent Watterson. “It was the Micks. They must have got wind of the fact that Augie shopped their brother and gone down there to even the score. I doubt if we shall be able to prove it. No one saw the car, and the guns will be in the river by now.”

  “Do we want to prove it?” said Commander Ratto. He had taken over at District from Baylis, who had departed, unregretted, a month before. Watterson was finding him a distinct improvement. “I take it we’re not shedding many tears over those two beauties. I’m sorry Sergeant Roughead picked up some of the strays. What were our men doing down there, by the way?”

  “Information received,” said Watterson cautiously. There had been elements in the story as reported to him which he had found puzzling. “They wanted to see what was in that safe. One of them went for a gun. Blencowe knocked him down and he hit his head a smack on the safe. Lucky not to fracture his skull. He was out cold during the whole episode. As soon as he’s out of hospital, we’ll be charging him with illegal possession of a firearm.”

  “Right,” said Ratto. “Put Blencowe in for a commendation and I’ll back it. What about the stuff you found in the safe?”

  “Some of it’s identifiable stolen property. The rest of it seems to be bits of jewellery and rings and watches. Mostly old and some of it foreign. I think we shall find it’s stuff that Volk extorted from his fellow countrymen. He wasn’t a very nice character.”