Strike for Death

by John Creasey

  That must have cost him something to say.

  “Yes, sir,” Roger said. He had to be patient, remember to subordinate himself to these people, even appear humble. And he had to watch every step he made and weigh every word that these men said.

  They all lit cigarettes from Amory’s lighter.

  “My son will soon resent being watched at home and followed wherever he goes,” Sir Ian declared. “He will see it as an insult to his courage and ability to take care of himself. While there remains the slightest danger, I hope you will continue to take the precautions that you’re taking now.”

  “Be sure of it,” Roger promised.

  “Thank you.”

  “Apart from what happened yesterday, do you know of any reason why he should be in danger?” Roger asked.

  “Do I?” Sir Ian looked at Amory. No one else was in earshot, and the sun was warm upon them. “Well, Bob, do I?”

  “I don’t think we’ll gain anything by withholding facts from the police,” Amory said, sounding more at ease, as if he felt that a crisis was past.

  “No, we won’t. Chief Inspector,” Sir Ian went on portentously, “our chief test driver has become somewhat erratic and unreliable of late. We have reason to believe that it is because he considers that my son has stolen his young woman. My son and Torrance were once close friends. I’m not saying I think that Torrance knows anything about these attacks, but he has both shown and expressed enmity towards my son. That is what Mr Amory thought you should be told.”

  It would be easy to say: ‘Yes, I know all about that,’ but it wouldn’t do any good. Sir Ian had obviously made a great effort to unbend so far; and this was probably why Amory had wanted to talk, why Amory, the reasonable man, the mediator, the peacemaker, was so much more at ease.

  “I take it that you know of no other possible reason?” Roger asked.

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Thank you again, sir,” Roger said, and expected the others to go, but Sir Ian spoke again, abruptly.

  “I don’t know what Grannett was saying to you, Mr West. I know he’s a smooth-tongued scoundrel, and can talk himself out of any trouble. He fools a lot of people, but he doesn’t fool me, and I hope you won’t let him fool you. I know this factory in every aspect, Mr West. I know every job, in every department. I helped to build Munro Motors with my own hands. In the early days – within twenty yards of the spot where we are standing now, where that little summer-house is, I helped to make the first prototype of the old Munro Marvel. I have followed every development since, driven the prototype of every model – even Mark 9. Until automation came there was not a job in this whole plant that I could not do if the need arose. I knew everything. Mr Amory here is our automation specialist, but I’m sufficiently familiar with what goes on to know that we have more mechanical trouble with Grannett’s department than anywhere else, and I don’t believe that is just coincidence.”

  “While I’m here,” Roger said, not asserting himself at all, “I may be able to find out.”

  “I hope you will,” Sir Ian said gruffly, and then Amory spoke; Roger realised that the managing director hadn’t yet explained the reason for his request for ‘half an hour’. His gaze was very straight, and it was easy to believe that he would be as blunt as Sir Ian.

  “May I ask exactly what you’re looking for now, Mr West? Surely you have made all the inquiries you need to make about the accident.” When Roger didn’t answer, Amory went on: “Is it true that you believe that young Grannett was in fact murdered?”

  So the truth had leaked out, and there would be little point in denying it There might be some in trying to make sure that it wasn’t spread any farther. Roger felt the anxious gaze of both men on him, as well as the warmth of the sun, as he said: “There are reasons for wondering whether we yet know the real cause of death, gentlemen, and until we can be positive, I want to stay here. Ostensibly I’m still trying to find out who attacked your son and exactly what happened yesterday lunchtime. I hope I can rely on you not to spread any different rumours.”

  “Last thing we’d want to do,” said Sir Ian.

  “You’ll probably wonder what prompted my question,” said Amory. “It’s very simply this: the Sister reported a surprising deterioration in the youth’s condition between the time he was received at the factory hospital and the time he left. She couldn’t account for it, and told me so. And I understand that the police have been inquiring closely into the movements of everyone who went to the hospital. Is that right? “

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know that I was there?”

  “You, Mr Malcolm, Mr Torrance, Michael Grannett, Colonel Harrison, Sister Marsh of course, and possibly several others,” Roger answered. “I think I can assure you that we won’t leave anything undone.”

  “I’m quite sure you won’t,” Amory said grimly. “I want to say again that anything and everything we can do to help clear up the mystery is at your service.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And I know you realise that if it can be cleared up quickly it might make all the difference at the factory,” Amory went on. “The difference between a strike and no strike. The difference between plenty for all the workers and their dependants for years and a very hard time. At the moment the workers are in an extremely stubborn mood.”

  Sir Ian nearly exploded. “Stubborn? They’re mulish! Rather than put their rate up, I’d let them stay on strike for the rest of the year. And if they won’t accept our terms, I’d make it a lockout into the bargain.”

  Amory became sharp. “I hope you won’t repeat what you’ve just heard, Mr West.”

  “I won’t,” Roger promised, and watched Sir Ian striding off and Amory hurrying to catch him up.

  He wondered where they’d heard the talk of murder, and whether Malcolm had heard it yet.

  Tessa watched as Malcolm walked from the Rolls-Bentley to the office building, head high, face set, looking as if he knew that everyone was watching him, and that he didn’t care a damn. She now knew that he cared a great deal. It was odd that with so many worries and such fear for him, her heart could be light as she watched him, and she could feel a kind of happiness. He glanced up at her, and she expected his sternness to fade, a swift flash of a smile to replace it.

  He looked straight at her; but didn’t smile.

  She felt suddenly helplessly unhappy.

  “You’re just a sentimental fool,” she told herself savagely, and tears stung her eyes. “It was bound to happen.”

  She felt so sure what had caused his aloofness.

  Robert Amory had heard her “Malcolm, darling!” and Sir Ian had seen them together. She wasn’t in their class. Sir Ian would be very conscious of it, would bring great pressure to bear to make Malcolm see the folly of it.

  She banged at her typewriter, but kept pausing, to listen for him. He would go into his office by the passage door, of course, not this one.

  Her door opened, and he came in. For a moment, she sat with fingers poised over the keys, not turning her head. It had hurt so much; even a hint of a smile, a nod, a wave would have helped.

  He said stonily: “So you’ve heard, too.”

  “Heard?” That made her look round. The plaster, the bruises, and the scratches made him look almost comical, but his eyes made him look frightening. “Heard what?”

  “For God’s sake, must we fence?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You just preferred looking at the typewriter when I came in, is that it? A bandaged beauty doesn’t appeal to you.”

  “Malcolm, please!” This was absurd; he was bitter for no reason at all. “If you—”

  She broke off, as he drew nearer.

  “If I what?”

  “If you’d—oh, it seems so ridiculous.” And it did. “If you’d smiled at me as you passed outside, instead of looking as if I didn’t exist, I’d be less interested in the typewriter.”

  His expression cha
nged a little, and he drew nearer still.

  “Just now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “But you looked!”

  “The sun was reflected on the window. I couldn’t see in.”

  She said helplessly: “Oh, what a fool. I thought you didn’t want—”

  “If you thought I’d ever pass you without a nod or a wink you certainly were a fool.” His hands were firm on her shoulders, and she felt his tension, sensed his desire. But he did not kiss her. “Tessa, I love you. I measure everything else against that.” He pressed more heavily on her shoulders. “Understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, darling. And I—” She felt so weak, so humble.

  “Don’t say you love me,” Malcolm interrupted. “Not until after you’ve heard the latest news, anyhow. Roy Grannett was murdered.”

  She heard, but it didn’t really sink in.

  “Murdered, get it?” he repeated. “And I am the obvious number one suspect. Roy Grannett was cold-bloodedly murdered, and I face an enemy on each side. The police, with a nice murder charge up their sleeve, and the factory.”

  “Darling, don’t joke about it! The police couldn’t possibly suspect you.”

  “Don’t be fooled by West’s nice manner and sweet smile,” Malcolm warned. “That man is the most efficient policeman in the country. Look.” He moved his hands, and went to the window, and Tessa stood up to see what he was pointing at, “That big chap is my shadow. Wherever I go I’m watched.”

  “But that’s to protect you,” she asserted.

  “To protect me from the others who seem to want me dead,” Malcolm said, and then suddenly he turned and looked at her, and took her cool hands. There was a fierce yet helpless look in his eyes. “That business outside last night and the near shave this morning really shook me, Tess. I’m scared.”

  “You needn’t be.” She tried to reassure him. “There’s no need at all, you needn’t be.”

  But she knew that she would be, also, until they had learned the truth.

  Later, when she was alone, she wondered almost guiltily:

  ‘Do the police suspect him?’

  Angrily, she said no.

  But if they did, why should they?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Death By Remote Control

  Roger walked briskly away from the old summer-house, which was so obviously kept there for sentimental reasons, and approached the Assembly Shop. He felt that he was making as much progress with the management as he could expect; possibly more. Even Sir Ian would consider anything he suggested, it wasn’t just talk that he would be given every facility.

  He went back to his office in the Assembly Shop, to be greeted by Popham with the news that Torrance had a fractured femur, and was badly bruised everywhere, but was not on the danger list. He would be off duty for months.

  Knightley had telephoned from the Yard, to say that the pathologist’s report was fully accepted; there was no lingering doubt that Roy Grannett had been murdered.

  Then the dossiers arrived. Most were disappointing, serving only to confirm everything that the police already knew, but one startled him.

  Colonel Harrison had a nervous breakdown in 1950, and spent three years in a private asylum.

  ‘Did he, then,’ Roger reflected, and the Colonel’s face, so white and with an expression almost of vacancy, seemed to appear in his mind’s eye. The military type, the man who seemed to act by reflexes. This was a thing to remember.

  No new names were added to the list of those known to have been in the factory hospital the previous afternoon. The vital factor was the timing, and that wasn’t easy to establish with absolute accuracy. No formal record was kept, and the factory hospital doors were open to all and sundry. There was nothing like the formality of an ordinary hospital. Once he began to inquire too closely the truth about the murder would spread.

  He checked the timing as far as he could.

  His telephone bell rang, and he said: “West here,” as if he was at his own office, and was startled to hear Charley Coombs speak in a voice both agitated and excited.

  “Handsome, I’ve really got something for you this time. I’ve found a weapon.”

  “What kind of weapon?”

  “Come off it! Our old pal, the blunt instrument,” said Coombs, and there was no doubt about his excitement. “I’ve been talking to Sister Marsh, and she’s sure the kid wasn’t at death’s door when she first saw him. But if someone hit young Grannett when he was lying on the couch at the hospital, we’d be on the way.”

  “Any idea who did it?” Roger demanded.

  “Goddammit, not over the telephone,” Charley squealed. “Forgotten you’re not at the Yard, Handsome? Can you come and meet me right away?”

  “You bet I can. Where?”

  “Know the Chassis Shop?”

  “Not really well.”

  “Anyone will tell you,” said Coombs. “Buck up, Handsome! I don’t want to leave this spot, there might be something useful to pick up. Come out of the main entrance and turn right, then ask anyone. I’m at the finishing end of Conveyor 3.”

  “Right.” Roger felt the kind of excitement that he knew Coombs must feel. Coombs had been away from the Yard a long time, but obviously all the old familiar sensations were back in him; the thrill of the chase, the exhilaration of a discovery which might help to trap a killer, all the things which were the breath of life to Roger now, and had been to Coombs a few years ago. Roger hurried, still watched; here and there people waved to him. He wondered whether they had fooled him; how many of them knew the real manner of young Grannett’s death? That Sister might have talked freely too, so that the word ‘murder’ would soon be spread over the whole of the factory.

  A hooter was blowing as he left the main doors; the lunchtime signal for some of the shift. He asked a little wizened woman in a khaki overall where the Chassis Shop was, and she pointed, told him, and stood gaping after him. It was another huge shed like the Assembly Shop, and also painted dark-green. A stream of people were coming away, and several stood aside to let Roger pass; he had only been in here once before, but everyone recognised him. Then he heard the crash inside: a terrifying sound.

  Charley Coombs was thoroughly enjoying himself.

  He had been a good man at the Yard for thirty years, and had retired at sixty with a Chief Inspector’s pension, but had been too restless to settle down to home and garden. So he had found this job. It wasn’t exactly what he liked. He had a staff of a dozen men, all ex-policemen, whose chief job was to check all goods and prevent all kinds of pilfering and petty crimes. Thanks to Charley, there was comparatively little.

  To be back on a real investigation was like being home.

  Now, he had some evidence which would shake West.

  Charley chuckled to himself as he stood by the Number 3 conveyor, holding a hammer wrapped inside a newspaper underneath his coat and lodged at his waistband so that no one else could see it. The marks of blood, and the several red hairs sticking to the smooth head, were too much for coincidence, and he believed he knew who had put it where he had found it – under a pile of old metal scraps just outside the shop. Obviously it had been pushed underneath with a foot, and some of the scrap metal pulled over it. There might be a print on the hammer, even though it had been wiped, possibly this was enough to prove the theory that he was bursting to pass on to Handsome West.

  The factory hooter went.

  Charley Coombs had forgotten that he was hungry; now he remembered. It wouldn’t be the first time he had missed a meal in the cause of justice, and he actually chuckled at what he believed would be West’s astonishment when he told his tale.

  He glanced up.

  The Chassis Shop was a little different from the others, but a conveyor system was in operation here too. There were two operations: one, that of fitting on the wheels, which was done by men on a platform while a chassis was on the upper conveyor; two, putting in the engine, done when th
e cars were lowered and the belt stopped for just long enough for the job to be done. It took only minutes. Somewhere else in this huge ‘shop’ were other conveyors where men did various jobs. The chassis, looking like burnished skeletons, passed a foot or so above Charley’s head at this point. No men worked just here – it was the spot where repair and maintenance jobs were done, and where a faulty chassis could be lowered and taken off the conveyor.

  A chassis above him was rattling, but the noise was so familiar that he didn’t give it a second thought, except to glance up.

  In sudden, awful horror, he saw it falling. He did not have a chance to dodge. The chassis weighed over a ton, and a hub struck Charley squarely on the head. He did not hear the hideous crash.

  Roger stared grimly down at the ex-Yard man, who had been flung to one side and who lay so still. A lot was happening already.

  A crowd had gathered, and First Aid men were already on the way, but no one could glance at Charley and think there was a gleam of hope. The only good thing was that death had been quick.

  Good?

  In Roger’s hands was the newspaper containing the hammer. He had found this, and seen at a glance why Charley had been so excited. Once it was proved that those red hairs belonged to dead Roy Grannett, this could be identified as the murder weapon.

  Roger’s jaws were set tightly; painfully.

  He heard the words ‘awful accident’.

  It was no more an accident than young Grannett’s death, or the attacks on Malcolm Munro. Someone had made that chassis fall deliberately. He didn’t know how the operations worked, but was quite sure that there was a way of controlling the chassis from a control panel; a form of remote control, as in the Assembly Shop.

  It should be easy enough to find out who had had access to it five minutes ago.