by John Creasey
“If I do it, it really could be a boomerang,” he said,” and it might not come to a question of resigning from Commander’s rank. I might be demoted.”
“What do you want to do?” asked Kate.
“If everything else was equal, I’d talk to the Press.” When she didn’t comment, Gideon went on: “But it’s not so simple, Kate. We’re really beginning to see daylight, financially, and—”
He was surprised to see her break into a smile.
“We have to live with ourselves, too. I don’t see that you can do anything else but talk to this reporter, George.”
“Sure it won’t make too much difference to you if things should go wrong?”
“We managed on Chief Superintendent’s pay for years, and they won’t demote you lower than that,” Kate said, still calm and practical. “But I’ve a feeling that it will work out all right.” She half-persuaded him that she meant that. “What about the evidence that man-shortage is dangerous, dear? I suppose Taylor’s death is all that’s needed?”
“To make first impact, anyhow,” Gideon agreed.
He remembered, then, that for a few unreal moments on the previous day, he had almost hoped that Taylor would die so as to ram home the truth of what he had said at the conference. He shook the self-reproach off, but it kept coming back. He felt it keenly next morning, a little after eleven o’clock, when Popple brought in a surprisingly youthful-looking man with the manner and fuzzy hair of a cartoon fanatic, who asked only three questions which mattered:
How long had Gideon felt like this? The answer was several years.
Did Gideon think that the murder of Detective Sergeant Taylor was a direct consequence of the shortage of men? Yes.
Did others in the CID share Gideon’s anxiety?
“Don’t bring any of the others into this,” objected Gideon. “But if you want to get an idea of how many feel like it, ask a dozen senior officers who’ve retired in the last year or so.”
“Good idea,” the Fleet Street man said, and smiled as if he really thought it was. “Now, what about some personal details about your wife and family, and especially about this son of yours who wants to join the Force. Would you encourage him?”
Gideon wondered how a journalist had got that item of news. Via Popple?
“Not unless there’s a reasonable chance that if he joins, the Force will have enough staff to cope.”
“And how do you see the future of crime, Commander? Will it increase or decrease?”
“It will increase enormously if we aren’t able to clamp down on it, good and hard.”
“And can I quote you as saying that?”
“Yes,” answered Gideon, heavily.
Just before twelve o’clock, when the Fleet Street man and Popple had left, and he was in the office with Riddell, clearing up for the weekend, an urgent request came in from an east coast town for help in an investigation into a murder of a seven-year-old child. It was one of the nasty cases, although probably quite straightforward once the police had interviewed enough people, but the Bournsea killer was still at large. Almost certainly this story would be used by the Sunday newspapers as the current sensation to support what Gideon had said. There was nothing he could do about that, but it wasn’t the real proof. They could have double the present CID strength but could not stop the occasional ‘amateur’ murder, the outbreaks of viciousness, the sex crime or the hate crime. These were not truly part of the war, but they would appear to be.
Gideon called in the Superintendent who had been to Bournsea, and told the telephone operator not to put calls through to him. He went into a small room, leaving Riddell to look after routine matters. Saturday midday was usually slack.
The Superintendent, a big, flat-footed man named Hill and nicknamed Hippo, was older than Gideon, a sound man of little imagination. He had a remarkable memory, and what was more rare, knew how to use it. His thick, straight hair was usually untidy, and today was no exception.
“What we have to find out is whether this could be tied up with the Bournsea job,” Gideon said. “I know it’s three hundred miles away, but there are a lot of similarities. Care to go up and have a look yourself, or rather send one of the chaps who worked with you?”
“Funny thing,” Hill said, in a plummy voice, “the wife wanted a weekend by the seaside. I’m going to take her to Bournsea. Thought I might have a word with the coppers down there, as I happened to be on the spot. Pity to disappoint the wife, wouldn’t it be?”
“We can’t do that,” said Gideon, already in a better humour. “Like to send Evans to the east coast by himself, or take young Peto with him?”
“Send ‘em both,” advised Hill, promptly. “Bit of experience and ozone won’t do either of them any harm. They won’t need long, should be able to tell whether there’s anything for us to work on in forty-eight hours. I can go up Monday if there’s any need.”
“Let’s do it that way,” agreed Gideon. “The Chief Constable’s not one of the high-horse type, he won’t mind being fobbed off with a DI.”
“Can always tell him the CIs and the Superintendents on the cab rank are up to their eyes,” said Hill. “And that’s not far wrong, either. I don’t like complaining, George, but do you know how much holiday I’ve got due to me, last year and this?”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Six weeks.”
“So you haven’t really had a whole week off in eighteen months,” said Gideon, heavily.
“That’s right, and you ought to hear what the wife says about it. There are times when your name’s mud. I told her that when you took on the job things would be better, see.” He gave a grin, and his great jaws opened. “Nothing like a little joke, is there? Having any luck with the campaign, or is the Old Man regarding you as a bolshie? “
“Don’t know yet,” said Gideon.
‘But I’ll know after tomorrow morning’s papers,’ he thought, and made a pencilled note to check how many other men at the Yard and at the Divisions were going without holidays. Tired men couldn’t do their best: that was another angle. Pity he hadn’t thought about it while with the man from Fleet Street.
It was half past one before he had finished, but Saturday lunch was a movable feast. He stopped at the newspaper shop which still had the Bournsea crime poster on show, and ordered each Sunday newspaper to be delivered next day.
He wanted to be sure exactly what coverage he was given.
There was a match at the Oval he would have liked to see for the afternoon, but he owed the afternoon to Kate, and did not really regret missing his cricket. The whole family was home, all very bright, cheerful and noisy. Matthew rubbed salt in the minor wound by saying that he was going to scorch off to the Oval as soon as he could, the match he was to have played in this afternoon had been scratched. The girls had tennis on their minds, the youngest boys swimming. It was a medley of voices, laughs, retorts; as cheerful as a family could be, with Kate ruling it very quietly – and Kate with something on her mind.
When he had reached home, she had said: “Did you talk to that newspaper man?” and he’d answered: “Yes, given him the lot,” and after that had realised that she hadn’t asked for the sake of it. She went to do the washing-up, with the girls, and Gideon went upstairs to change into a pair of old flannels and a jacket; he planned to go round all the windows this afternoon, putting in new sash-cords and checking the blinds. He heard Kate coming up as he sat on the edge of their big double bed, lacing up a pair of paint-spotted old shoes which hadn’t been cleaned for years.
“My turn for mind reading,” he said, looking round and catching sight of three Kates: the real one and two reflections in the winged dressing-table mirror. “What’s worrying you, dear?”
“I think you’re going to hate it,” Kate said.
“Oh, lor’.” He hadn’t the slightest idea what this presaged, unless it meant that Prudence wanted to advance the time of her marriage; she was planning to marry next Easter, but he had seen signs that her
young man was not too happy about waiting so long.
“I tried to get you on the telephone, but they wouldn’t put me through,” Kate said. “It would have been difficult to talk about, anyhow.” She was not often exasperating, like this. “It would probably have been too late, too – what time did you talk to the newspaper man?”
“Eleven.” Then this was nothing remotely to do with Prudence. Gideon sat looking hard at Kate.
“I didn’t get the invitation until a quarter to twelve,” she said.
Gideon got up. “What invitation? What difference—”
“The Commissioner’s wife rang up and asked if we would like to go and have lunch with her and the Commissioner tomorrow,” Kate told him. “I didn’t see how I could say no, because obviously he wants to talk to you away from the office. If I could have got you in time I’d have stopped you from talking to the Press, but you can’t very well withdraw now, can you?”
“No I can’t,” said Gideon, heavily. “God, what a blurry mess that makes.” He caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, and he had never looked so lugubrious; it almost made him grin. “Well, can’t be helped, blast it. What did she say? “
“Not very much, really. She couldn’t have been nicer, and I’m quite sure she wouldn’t have invited us if the Commissioner really felt strongly against you.”
“No,” agreed Gideon. “Probably not.”
Neither of them added the superfluous comment, that whatever was in the Commissioner’s mind might be altered by tomorrow’s headlines.
Gideon finished tying up his laces.
“Well, it’ll be a damned good lunch, anyhow,” he said. “Never got farther than a drink before, but I’m told the Old Man’s a gourmet.” Quite suddenly, he grinned: “Decided what you’re going to wear?”
“I’ve decided that I was a fool not to have bought that hat last week,” Kate said, “but I’m not going to go and rush out and get something that I’ll probably hate in a week’s time, so you’ll have to take me in the best I’ve got. You ought to have had your blue suit pressed – I’ll do that.” She came and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I think perhaps she’s much more human than you’ve ever realised, George.”
“Might be,” Gideon said. “All the same, I wish to heaven I’d kept my big mouth shut.”
“Do you?” asked Kate, very quietly.
He looked at her steadily, and began to smile again.
“You’ll sing a different song when we’re back on the breadline,” he said, and with a swift and quite irresistible movement he drew her down so that she was sitting beside him. “How about forgetting window-cords and ironing for the afternoon, and having a tumble—”
“I’ve got too much to do,” Kate said firmly, but she didn’t get up, and held his hand tight against her. “Anything else in, George?”
He didn’t tell her about the east coast child murder; she hated crimes of that kind, and there was time enough to tell her tomorrow morning; then his own headlines would be enough for her to worry about.
He wondered what kind of a weekend it would be for crime; in general that ‘war’ of his. He found himself thinking that by calling it a war he had dramatised the whole issue, and others who were not so close to it as he might find it melodramatic. Then he shrugged gloom off, and wondered whether the two detectives now on their way to the east coast would find any connexion between that crime and the one at Bournsea.
Bournsea, like all seaside resorts, had a weekly exodus as well as a weekly influx of visitors. Saturday was the least-crowded day on the beach for the casual visitor, but they seldom realised it. The people who had been here for the week were on their way home, and new holidaymakers were still settling in at their hotels. Very few people who had seen the party of five children, the man and his dog during the week, were still there.
One or two Bournsea regulars noticed them; especially the man, the dog and the child who were strolling along the water’s edge, towards one of the black groynes. Beyond this was an even less-frequented stretch of the promenade, and beyond this in turn, some little stretches of woodlands, beloved at night by courting couples and the promiscuous alike, but used very little by day. It was here that the dog ran, pouncing, after a ball which the man had tossed for him. The man and the child, hand-in-hand, were now on the promenade itself, and the other children were still in the water.
“Shall we go and help him find it?” the man asked. “Whoever finds it first can have three toffees.”
“Oo yes, please,” the child said, and actually tugged at his hand.
Five minutes later, she could not understand why he was holding her so tightly.
She was not really frightened...
The dog was chewing the sticky mass; that would keep him quiet for a long time.
Gideon woke a little after seven o’clock on the Sunday morning, lay with Kate sleeping by his side for ten minutes or so, and by that time could not stay any longer without fidgeting. The bed spring creaked as he got up. He ran his fingers through his hair, to flatten it, and rasped his hand over his stubble. Kate didn’t look as if she would stir, so he went out. There was no sound from the children’s rooms on this floor or upstairs. He looked down at the front door knowing that he would be lucky if the Sunday newspapers arrived before eight o’clock. He shaved, took his time bathing, and finished by twenty to eight. By then voices were sounding in the big attic floor room which he had partitioned for the boys years ago. Prudence came out of her bedroom, tying a dressing-gown round her. If her Peter had ever seen her like this, it was easy to understand why he was in a hurry; she was stretching and yawning, and looked lovely with sleep; and seductive. His daughter. She was wearing one of Kate’s old nightdresses which had always been a size too small for Kate but was two sizes too large for Pru; and it gaped at the breast.
She was very, very lovely.
“’Morning, Dad,” she said, and suddenly became wide awake. She pulled up the neck of her dressing-gown hastily, and then went on: “Dad, can you spare me a minute?”
“Just going to make some tea,” he said. “Come down and help me.”
“I won’t be a jiff, must pop into the bathroom,” she answered.
It would be about advancing the date of the marriage, of course, and a wise parent ought to recognise the danger signals. Gideon had fought for a two years’ delay, had won a year already, and Kate agreed that this was the time to give in. Peter was a nice lad, too; almost certainly dependable.
But twenty-two seemed very young.
Was it?
Soon Pru came, so eager and so earnest, and full of logical argument. Peter wanted to take another job, he had to be married before he could get it, it meant two hundred pounds a year more; with a bit of luck they could even afford a small car, and Mum didn’t mind, not really.
Gideon felt a little choky when he’d given way, and Prudence flung her arms round him with a passion which told him how lucky Peter was.
Then he saw that the newspapers were in the letterbox.
“Take the tea up to your mother, tell her I’ll be up in a minute, and then go and get the others up,” he ordered, gruff so as to hide his feelings. He strode to the door and took out four newspapers, all folded; opened the door and found the others on the porch. He gulped as he picked them up, then spread out the Sunday Globe, with a five million circulation, which the Fleet Street man had said was ‘in the bag’.
Gideon almost winced.
CID CHIEF SAYS YARD LOSING BATTLE AGAINST CRIME
The Echo put it more simply:
CRIME ON THE UP AND UP
– Yard Chief.
Gideon took the newspapers upstairs slowly, tucking several of them under his arm and looking at others in his hand. His photograph appeared in every one, a picture taken some years ago on a case; he looked ten years younger than he did today.
LONDON UNDER THREAT OF CRIME WAVE
another headline read, and a fourth:
SCOTLAND YARD LOSING TO CRIME
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Prudence was coming out of the big bedroom, hurrying, but she stopped when she saw her father.
“You look as if you’ve lost a pound and found a penny,” she said. “Has something happened during the night?” She glanced at the newspapers, and her eyes widened. “Gracious! Well you must have expected something to get all those. May I see?” She took a newspaper, and delight sprang into her bright eyes when she saw her father’s picture. “My goodness they have done you proud! Mum,” she went on, hurrying back into the bedroom, “Dad’s hit the headlines at last. He looks like a cross between Jack Hawkins and Gregory Peck.”
She went off with one of the newspapers, to carry the news to the rest of the family. Gideon spread the other papers out on the bed in front of Kate, who was sitting up; the tea tray was on a bedside table.
“That one has a circulation of three million,” Gideon announced factually. “That one five, that one nearly two . . .” he estimated for each one, while Kate looked at him, not at the newspapers, and when he had finished, she said: “Seventeen million copies.”
“That what it adds up to?”
“Yes.”
“Wonder if the classy ones have anything about it,” Gideon asked aloud, and looked at the two smaller circulation newspapers, the kind which the Commissioner would be certain to read. “Here’s the end column on the front page, no photograph though.” He flipped over the pages of the other. “Middle page, and a profile,” he said, and sat down heavily on an easy chair. “They’ve certainly gone to town on it, it’ll take me all the morning to sort this lot out.” Kate was pouring tea.
Half an hour later, Gideon knew the gist of the different articles. In all but two, what he had said was connected with the murder of Syd Taylor; two mass-circulation newspapers had interviewed retired CID men, and in every case they were quoted as saying that the Yard had been seriously undermanned for at least twenty years.