The Murder Line (C.I.D. Room Book 8)

by Roderic Jeffries

  “We can easily prove they all came from your earnings.” He no longer was bitter when he spoke of her modelling, even though all his troubles stemmed from her work.

  “Then they won’t find anything that matters?”

  “Not immediately. But Fusil’s too smart to leave it there. If they don’t find money, they’ll reckon it was something else and they’ll start looking elsewhere. They’ll get hold of Raymond and chat him. How long could he hold them off?” He stared questioningly at her.

  She wanted to lie, but couldn’t. Raymond would deny them only until they put real pressure on to him and then he would crumple.

  He nodded, as if she’d answered him in words. “They’re going to smell out the truth.”

  “But… When they know you were being blackmailed, they’ll realise you couldn’t help doing what you did?”

  “I told you, that won’t be any defence in this case.”

  “But it’s got to be,” she said wildly.

  He got up from his chair, went over to the settee, sat down, and held her close to himself.

  “Perhaps it’ll take them too long,” she said. “Perhaps they’ll never find sufficient proof, even if they know exactly what happened. You’ve told me that can happen.”

  “Yes, it does, quite often.”

  Her voice quickened. “Then maybe we’ll be lucky. We’re due for some good luck, God knows!”

  He spoke very quietly, hating to destroy her hope yet knowing it was the kinder thing to do. “We haven’t any spare time, Heather. The mob ordered me to find out the name of the squealer. If I don’t tell them, they’re going to shop me.”

  Her mouth trembled because she suddenly acknowledged that there could be no real hope.

  He stared at the fireplace, in which was a pyramid of painted fir cones, and dully wondered what he’d get. Five years? The judge might let him get off that lightly because he’d been blackmailed. Or maybe the mob, when finally they fixed him, would set out to prove the motive was money because that way there’d be no mercy shown and a real long stretch would give them even more pleasure.

  She said, her voice thick: “Whatever happens, Fred, I know the truth and that you did it for me and Tracy. And that’s why I’ll always love you. Remember that if… if things get tough.”

  “I’ll remember,” he promised. He wondered if she’d the slightest idea of just how tough things would become for him?. The three most hated men in any nick were the grasser, the sex pervert who’d harmed children, and the bent copper.

  *

  He’d no idea what the time was as he lay on his back in bed and stared up at the ceiling and he didn’t bother to bring out his left arm to look at the luminous hands of his watch. A car went by, growling a little because it was in an intermediate gear after having just turned the corner: but that was really no guide to time as cars used the road throughout the night.

  He wondered if in the past criminals had been mesmerised by him as he had been mesmerised by Fusil into believing that it was all over and done with bar the shouting and arrest was just around the corner? Why in the hell had it taken him until now to think in terms of fighting, of not meekly surrendering? Fusil could have all the suspicions in the world, but it was going to take time to turn these into proof. The mob wouldn’t shop him too soon, because he was potentially far too useful to them and to begin with they’d merely increase the violence of the threats to try to force him to trace out the name of the grasser. So he’d time and therefore a chance of fighting his way out of an impossible position — impossible only while he remained passive, merely struggling to keep disaster at arm’s length, and didn’t realise the truth that he could save himself by finding and destroying the photographs and the parcel of foundation garments. He’d been thinking like a policeman when he should have been thinking like a thief.

  But was it so simple? The police had been trying to identify the men at the top of the mob for a long time and had failed, the whole trained team of them. And even if he identified someone near the top, then what? Hours of questioning, at the hands of really sharp detectives, seldom broke down a sharp villain who enjoyed the backing of a mob. The mob employed top lawyers to twist the law, money to bribe, heavy men to intimidate. So the sharp villain could keep silent, confident it would pay off…

  But he was thinking like a policeman again. Beyond the rules, there were always ways and means. And when a man was in danger of losing his family, rules became meaningless.

  The thought of being able to fight back filled him with such hope that all things suddenly became possible.

  Chapter 14

  The chief constable brushed each end of his moustache with right forefinger. He spoke uncertainly. “Are you sure?”

  Fusil looked quickly across at Kywood on the other side of the round table in the conference room. Kywood nodded. “Sure that Rowan is the traitor?” said Fusil slowly. “Only as sure as I can be at this stage from basically weak evidence and from the impression gained through questioning him. Sure that we must ask for an official investigation? Yes, sir.”

  The chief constable fidgeted with his nose.

  “Who do we go to, sir?” asked Kywood. “County or London?” A man who usually pushed unpalatable facts as far out of sight as possible, he was now facing them fairly and squarely.

  “Not London,” said the chief constable. “They seldom have much sympathy for a small borough force.”

  This case was going to stink, but sympathetic handling, using a great deal of discretion whilst not whitewashing anything, could make that stink a lot less offensive in the noses of the public. Yet, each of them thought, might not county deliberately show lack of sympathy because the worse light in which the borough force was shown, the more clearly obvious it would be to some that here was a small force that had become rotten and needed taking over by county as soon as this was possible…

  The chief constable spoke curtly. “Very well, gentlemen. I’ll get on to the county chief constable and ask for his help in this matter.” He tapped on the table. “In the meantime, what about Detective Constable Rowan?”

  “I recommend his suspension on full pay, pending an investigation,” said Kywood.

  Fusil nodded.

  *

  Murphy brushed his toothbrush moustache upwards at each end, a mannerism that in execution was unknowingly similar to that of the chief constable. “D’you say, no one’s any idea who grassed?”

  “Nobody, Ed. I’ve contacts out all over town and they’ve come up with nothing.” Pete Faraday had an idea who might have talked, but he was keeping that idea strictly to himself: he’d no intention of bringing to light the beating-up of Steve Allen, for which he’d been drunkenly responsible.

  Murphy fiddled with the knot of his tie. “We’re not safe until we know.”

  “Aren’t we?” said Faraday, in his breezy, know-all manner. “Nothing else’s been blown, so the grasser didn’t know much.”

  This point worried Murphy. Why had only the news of the one consignment been leaked to the splits? A man in whom boldness of design was always conditioned by carefulness of execution, he mistrusted situations he couldn’t understand. “Isn’t there any result from the split yet?”

  “Nope. He said he’s been trying all he can, but so far there’s not even a whisper around.”

  “Lean on him.”

  “He’s being leaned on, Ed.”

  There was a knock on the door and one of the Pakistanis came in. “Ten o’clock, Mr. Murphy,” he said. No traditional English butler could have managed it better.

  “All right. I’m off into town, Pete. See to that last item.”

  “Sure.”

  “And send someone up for tonight.”

  “I’ll lay it on.”

  Murphy left. Faraday stood in the centre of the room and watched through one of the windows. Murphy walked across to the Rover and the other Pakistani — contemptuously, Faraday never tried to separate and identify them — opened the rear door for
him and he climbed in. The Pakistani sat behind the wheel and drove off. He was like some bloody high executive from the City, thought Faraday. Then he realised that Murphy was the high executive of a vast business organisation, if one measured the size of the business by its net profit. Now the line was working smoothly, the Toms were quiet, and any surplus of heroin was being sold in other towns where there was no proper organisation, the profits were becoming breath-taking. Faraday didn’t know precisely how high they’d flown, Murphy was the only man who did that, but he could make an educated guess. And already some of the money was being siphoned off into legitimate businesses. Give them five years, perhaps only three, and they’d be running the place. Then, nothing could touch them. He corrected his thoughts again. Nothing could touch them now. They’d become too strong and too rich for the police, who had to play everything by the rules.

  The door opened and a Pakistani entered. “You are leaving, sir?”

  Was it a question or an order? One of these days, Faraday thought, he’d teach both the black bastards some genuine manners. He walked across to the door and deliberately bumped the Pakistani, who was thrown back against the wall.

  Faraday went out to his car. He must remember to get Babs up here on time tonight, he thought.

  *

  Fusil, standing behind his desk with Detective Sergeant Braddon to his right, said: “You’re suspended on full pay, pending an investigation. In the interests of yourself and of this force, you’ll cooperate fully with whoever is placed in charge of the investigations.”

  “In other words,” said Rowan bitterly, “will I please stick my head in the noose to save you all the trouble of lifting it over my head?”

  Fusil looked more contemptuously angry than before. No one could reasonably have suggested that in the circumstances he was in any way responsible for what had happened, yet he felt responsible.

  Braddon, his clothes sitting on him more awkwardly than usual because he stood in a hunched attitude, was still perplexed. He’d been in the force for twenty-three years and in that time had inevitably seen a man or two go crook, but he couldn’t understand why Rowan had done so. Unlike Fusil, whose judgement had been clouded by anger and hate, he was almost certain the motive could not be money.

  “That’s all,” said Fusil.

  Rowan left and went along to the general room, determined to face the other three although he could easily have escaped any such meeting.

  Yarrow was openly curious, in the condescending manner of one who knew he was being very gracious. “Hullo, old man. How’s it going?”

  “As you’d expect,” replied Rowan. He walked over to his desk and pulled out the top right-hand drawer, ready to empty out a few personal belongings which included a small leather folder in which were photographs of Heather and Tracy. “I’ve been suspended, pending an investigation.”

  “By whom?” asked Yarrow.

  “County.”

  “Really! I wonder who’ll come down? It could easily be my uncle and…”

  “Why don’t you belt up?” interrupted Kerr.

  “What d’you mean?” blustered Yarrow.

  “If you don’t know that, you’re even stupider than you sound.”

  “You want to watch it, chum, or I’ll…” began Yarrow angrily.

  “You won’t do a bloody thing,” cut in Welland.

  A physical argument between Welland and Yarrow could have only one ending. Yarrow, trying to show an amused contempt for such rustic behaviour, shuffled through the papers on his desk.

  Welland, surprisingly finding exactly the right words for the occasion, said: “We’ll keep your desk warm for you, Fred.”

  “That’s dead right,” agreed Kerr.

  He thanked them, in a voice that showed a little of the warm emotion he felt. He knew he’d been a difficult bloke to get on with in the past, that they had reason to shrug their shoulders and watch him leave without any deep regret, yet they were going out of their way to show him sympathy and to express a belief in his innocence.

  He left, carrying the few articles he was taking with him in a brown paper bag. Because he’d come in by bus, he went down the front stairs and out past the front desk. The duty sergeant stared at him with a sharp dislike he made no effort to conceal.

  It was sunny once more and Rowan walked down the south side of Tideworth Road, the sun warming him. During the night, as he’d lain on his back beside Heather, he’d resolved to fight: to do something positive. But in the light of day, inevitably, nothing was that simple. Fight? How? Who? Where? How to begin to identify the men that mattered in the mob when the whole force had tried and failed?

  He turned right, and right again, and came to a small public garden. He went in, past the ornamental wrought iron gates, and sat down on one of the wooden benches. On the next bench, a woman watched her small child feeding bread to a flock of non-feral pigeons. A couple walked slowly by, an arm round each other’s waist, deep in silent conversation.

  The police had done all they could to get a line on the mob. They’d questioned men and women by the score, they’d offered heavy money for real information… and they’d come up with nothing. Those who knew were very scared and nothing the police could say or do would make them talk. The police had no way of exerting greater pressure than was already being exerted on them. Even the meanest punk knew that any action a policeman could take was restricted by rules and regulations that had been designed to protect the innocent but which were now used to protect the guilty. No one would talk unless real pressure, illegal pressure, was applied… Hadn’t he, he thought, told himself before that he must stop thinking like a policeman?

  Where was the best lead in? Surely through Steve Allen, the ponce who’d been so brutally beaten up? It was odds on that it had been he who’d grassed on the consignment of heroin which had been coming into Fortrow on the Western Sand. Allen would have learned about that consignment from someone and because he’d been a pimp that someone was likely to be his Tom. No matter that she’d been questioned previously, without result.

  Her name was… He remembered. Margot. Then how to make her talk? As he’d just correctly assured himself, it would take real heavy pressure… He remembered that the Toms were now pushing heroin.

  He got up from the bench and left the park, to walk briskly up the road to a branch of his bank where, with the authority of a cheque card, he cashed a cheque for thirty pounds. Then he caught a single-decker bus down to the Old Docks. In a terraced back-to-back house, condemned years before, lived Compton. He’d once helped Compton and although the other was no grasser, he had a debt to repay.

  Compton was tall and thin and there was a gauntness about his face which suggested some basically serious medical condition. By contrast, his wife was really fat, an enormous jelly of a woman. In the neighbourhood, they were the butt of many cruel jokes.

  Compton opened two bottles of beer, letting the caps fall on to the floor, and passed one across the front room, over-filled with heavy furniture and smelling slightly of rot although scrupulously clean. His expression was wary. From the moment Rowan had walked into the house, he had sensed he was to be asked for something.

  “Cheers,” said Rowan, “the first today and all the better for it.”

  Compton nodded. He was a man of few words.

  At a sign from Compton, which Rowan missed, his enormous wife said she must do some cooking and left. Rowan took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it: Compton took one and struck a match for both of them.

  With a man of Compton’s character, it was much the best thing to come immediately to the point. “I need a bit of help,” Rowan said.

  Compton lifted his bottle and drank from it.

  “I want some H.”

  Compton was plainly shocked.

  “Most of the pushers know me and those who don’t won’t need time to guess who I am. I’ve as much chance of buying some as of floating an iceberg through hell. But you could buy me a few shots.”
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  Compton cleared his throat. “You ain’t on it, surely, mister?”

  Rowan shook his head.

  “Then what’s the score?”

  “As far as you’re concerned, there isn’t one. No one will ever have the slightest cause to trace the sale back through you.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Rowan spoke urgently. “I’m in trouble and it’s kicking me where it really hurts. I’ve one chance of getting out of trouble and that’s why I need the stuff.”

  “But H…” Compton drank and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “You ain’t thinking of using me, mister? Nicking the fixer because he sells to me?”

  “I’ve promised you no one will ever know you and me are tied up. I’ll stay here, with your wife. That way, I can’t ever know who you buy from.”

  Compton finished his beer. He rubbed his lined forehead, fidgeted with his high cheekbone, and finally nodded. Rowan gave him the thirty pounds. He counted them out and looked even more uneasy. “You’re wanting a fair bit?”

  “That’s right.”

  He held the money in his hand, as if weighing it, looked quickly at Rowan, then pocketed it. He hurried out of the room and Rowan heard him call to his wife.

  As Compton left the house, his wife came into the front room. Rowan had never said more than a few words to her before and he was now astonished to discover that she might look grotesque but she had a mind that was sharp and, although not formally educated, she had a natural appreciation of the more beautiful things in life. By the time Compton returned, Rowan was feeling almost piqued because they had discussed so many subjects about which he was woefully ignorant.

  Compton handed Rowan a medicine bottle in which were a number of medicinal capsules, yellow coloured, filled with powder. “It’s good,” he said, “not the Chinese muck. There’s two and an ’alf to return.” He passed over two one-pound notes and five ten pence pieces, carefully counting them out.

  Rowan left and walked the three-quarters of a mile to Flinders Lane. None of the houses here was good, but they were far better than those in Naples Road where he’d just come from: yet, ironically, most of the people who lived here were basically dishonest while those in Naples Road were honest.