by John Creasey
“Can I quote you?” the hard-faced man asked.
“There’s nothing to quote,” Gideon said. “No appointment’s been made. You can quote me as saying that we’d be glad to hear from anyone who knows about the trouble here last night - if any man or woman was seen, on foot or in a car, if anything was heard - the usual things. That way, you’ll be helping us.” He moved toward the lane, and Lemaitre followed. A policeman moved aside, nodding, inarticulate. Two or three big pieces of marble stood outside the South Door, another policeman by them. “Lem,” Gideon said, “it looks as if there’s something very ugly brewing, and this may be part of it. It was on my agenda for this morning.”
“I know,” Lemaitre said, grinning broadly. “You’d made a note and clipped it to the envelope the Dean left. I took it home to read, because you’d put ‘Lem to read’ on it.” He was very pleased with himself, with reason, and Gideon repressed an obvious query: why had he put on an act with Hobbs?
“Then you know more about the trouble than I do,” Gideon said. “We won’t talk about it here, but does this crime fit the pattern?”
“Haven’t seen any pattern yet.”
“It’s what we’re looking for.” Gideon stepped inside the church, the door of which was blocked open.
The first glimpse was enough to appal both Yard men. In the daylight that filtered through one stained glass and four plain glass windows, the damage was shown up vividly. Pieces of marble had been violently hurled about, cracking pews, seriously damaging some beautifully painted heraldry on the choir stalls. The lectern, with its magnificent brass eagle, had been smashed, a dozen oil paintings had been ruined, the old medieval font had a big piece out of it. The aisles were littered with debris. At the wall near the altar were the charred remains of the standards, and the blackened end of the big tapestry showed how nearly that, too, had been destroyed. Of the altar itself only a few broken pieces remained in position.
On his knees a Fire Service officer, whom Gideon knew slightly as an expert in arson, was minutely examining the heart of the explosion. Police photographers from the Division, as well as detectives from Fingerprints, were going about their jobs with a disciplined application that Gideon liked to see.
Watching them all was the Reverend Miles Chaplin.
He was a man whom Gideon had met when taking part in the British Legion March Past at the Cenotaph, and on other occasions when the Church and the Army shared some ceremonial or memorial service. Almost completely bald, he was a remarkable man to look at.
His cheeks were lean, his nose finely curved, while his hooded eyes, deeply sunken beneath a wide forehead, held the sharp alertness of a predatory bird. He stood in his black cassock, arms folded across his chest; it was impossible even to guess what he was thinking.
Gideon went up to him. “I couldn’t be more sorry, Vicar.”
Chaplin glanced at him without recognition, and replied in a clipped, high-pitched voice, “Nor could I.”
“I am Commander Gideon of Scotland Yard,” Gideon said, and received a brief glance of interest. “This is Chief Superintendent Lemaitre.”
“Lemaitre!” Chaplin said sharply, his interest now fully aroused. He stared into Lemaitre’s equally bony but far less arresting face.
“Morning, padre,” Lemaitre said, in the tone of an old familiar, if not a friend.
10: OLD FRIENDS
Gideon saw the real pleasure in the Vicar’s eyes, matching the glow in Lemaitre’s. The two men gripped hands for what seemed a long time, as if this were a true reunion. No one else seemed to notice. Their hands dropped as Lemaitre said, “Bloody bad business this - Sorry, padre! I forgot where I was. Any idea who did it?”
“I most certainly have not.”
“We’ve got to find the basket,” Lemaitre said. “Any hate campaign, threats or that kind of thing?”
“None whatsoever,” said Chaplin. “Except of course, that this is a declaration of hate in itself. It is a very terrible thing, a shocking thing.” The eyes were very bright beneath those heavy lids. “Do you believe in evil, Commander?”
Gideon answered, “In a way.”
“Don’t you think this is an evil act?”
“Yes.”
“Carried out by an evil man?”
“Or a sick one,” Gideon said.
“Please, please,” protested Chaplin in a sharp voice. “I hardly expect a senior officer of Scotland Yard to pay even lip service to this modern psychiatric jargon. Evil is evil, sin is sin, a man possessed of the devil is not sick. It may be possible - it is possible, to my certain knowledge - to cast the devil out, but it is not sickness.”
“I know exactly how you feel, sir,” Gideon said. “You must forgive me if I see this simply as a crime committed - it is no part of my job to say why it was done, only who did it. Is this the first act of vandalism carried out here?”
“Vandalism? Sacrilege, you mean.”
“Is it the first crime?” demanded Gideon. He was troubled by the old man’s manner and disappointed, because his reputation was that of a tolerant and broad-minded cleric. Had he changed? Or had the attack so angered him that it had temporarily blocked a cooler judgment?
“No,” said Chaplin. “It is not the first crime in this house of God. There have been others. Three times in the past few weeks the offertory boxes have been broken open and the contents stolen. Hymn books and books of Common Prayer are often despoiled by tearing, or by offensive words scribbled across the pages. It is an outrage I find it hard, even impossible, to forgive.”
“Have you reported this to the police?”
“The thefts, yes. It seems quite beyond your capacity to prevent such crimes, which are now commonplace throughout London. There was a day when an offertory box was considered sacred, when a church was truly a sanctuary. The attitude in this so-called civilized age is quite different. There is no respect for the law, none for the church.”
At these impassioned words everyone looked at the old man, whose voice was rising steadily to a crescendo of denunciation. Anger flashed from his eyes as if he were preaching a sermon which would soon lead to a general threat of hell-fire and damnation.
Abruptly, he stopped.
A girl of about eighteen had entered. She looked young and fresh and quite purposeful in this scene of destruction and defeat as she came forward. Every eye turned toward her. Chaplin seemed to draw within himself as if, the words now said, he was prepared to don again a mask of humility and forgiveness.
“I’ve just heard what a beastly thing has happened,” she murmured, going up to him. “I am sorry. Mummy would have come herself, but she was not feeling up to it. Are you all right, Grandfather? It must have been a dreadful shock.”
She spoke as if she were humouring a child.
“I’m perfectly all right, Elspeth,” Chaplin said testily. “Why shouldn’t I be?” He drew a deep breath, and went on. “But I am a little tired. If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I will go along to the Vicarage. You will find me there if you need any more information.” Head high, he led the way, with the girl a step behind him.
Gideon entered his office just before eleven o’clock that morning, two hours later than usual. A detective inspector was stand-in for Lemaitre, and it was immediately evident that Lemaitre had been away: the reports were in the wrong order, explanatory notes were much more prolix, Gideon had a feeling that things could misfire. Instead, it was he who was wrong. The internal telephone rang five minutes after he arrived; it was Hobbs.
“How did things go?”
“There won’t be anything to worry about with Lem,” Gideon answered. “Humour him a bit, that’s all.”
“I’ll try,” Hobbs said quietly. “Was there much damage?”
“Far too much,” said Gideon. “I want to settle down for an hour with the Dean’s papers as soon as I can. Have you seen anyone?”
“Yes. Rollo, with nothing to report. Golightly says he hasn’t had any response at all to his photograph inquiry.
We’ve turned the St. Ludd’s burglar over to the City Police, he’s up for a hearing any time now. Simmons wants another week before he can brief us thoroughly on that Hobjoy fraud case, and won’t commit himself beyond that. There’s nothing much in this morning - the usual crop from burglary to breaking and entering, shoplifting to bag-snatching. Two men raided a post office out at Eltham but were scared off by a dog who tore a patch out of a pair of trousers. Seventeen cars were stolen in the Metropolitan area last night. West Central raided a strip club which provided cubicles for the members to have private shows. The manager and two of the strippers will be up this morning for running a disorderly house—”
“Are they known?” Gideon interrupted.
“Guy Mason’s the manager.”
“Oh, that mob,” Gideon said. “Close ‘em down in one place and they bob up in another. Yes?”
“A hit and run in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge,” Hobbs went on in his precise way. “A light-grey Jaguar was involved. Alleged rape on Wimbledon Common, a truckload of cigarettes stolen from the Goods Yard at Paddington. The Newcastle police are worried about the death of the man found sitting in his car, they think it was murder - can we send someone to check on some rather suspicious details? Brighton aren’t happy about that child’s body found in the sea and they’re asking for information from other seaside resorts. The lungs contained sea water all right, but also some particles of seaweed not commonly found in the Channel.”
“What did you do?” interrupted Gideon.
“I recommended getting a few specimens and the autopsy report and sending them round to other resorts,” Hobbs said.
“Do that, will you?”
“Yes. Apart from all this, nothing,” Hobbs added.
Gideon said “Good,” and rang off without considering the irony of Hobbs’s final words. Good. It was a catalogue of crimes of nearly every conceivable variety, and yet it posed no new major problems. The important ones remained the Entwhistle murder, the nude photographs case, and the church crimes. Although he still felt a sense of disquiet about the murdered girls and the missing photographer, he did not dwell on it but sat at his desk to study the report that Dean Howcroft had brought and which Lemaitre had read ahead of time. Hobbs’s recital, so lucid and comprehensive, left him with a feeling of satisfaction that the new Deputy Commander to be was the right man.
Soon he was absorbed in the Dean’s report, which covered incidents in the Southern and Home Counties.
He began to feel worried, for the second page showed that the total number of “offences” in the past twelve months was over a thousand, only a few of which had been reported to the police. The major items on the list were:
Damage to hymn and prayer books - 107 instances affecting 2,501 books
Damage to fonts - 18
Defilement of fonts - 18
Damage to altar and dossal cloths - 142
Slashing of vestments - 41
Damage to missals - 375
Forced and rifled alms boxes - 36
Damage to heat and light systems - 48
Damage to stained-glass windows - 40
Each one in itself was hardly a serious crime, and it was understandable that the church authorities, aware of the current attitude of almost morbid tolerance toward criminals, should be nervous of risking an indignant outcry at so-called unchristian behaviour if they appealed to the police; it wasn’t surprising that they had taken action so tardily.
A cautious note in the memorandum followed:
The nature of these instances gives some reason to suspect wilful and malicious damage by a church member or other person associated with the church, but the number and frequency of the offences now make it appear possible that the offences were caused by outside interference. As so many of the offences were similar it seems possible that the perpetrators were in collusion. No Baptist or Quaker premises have been affected, and very few Congregationalist or Methodist.
Gideon thought: Why oh why didn’t they come to us earlier?
Almost at that very moment, a young commercial photographer named Henry Rhodes was entering the cellar in which Sally Dalby had been photographed and was saying to himself, Why the hell didn’t I come here earlier? He was frightened because he knew that the police wanted to interview him and he was fairly certain that once they questioned him it would lead to his arrest. For one thing, he had sold a great number of those “artistic” photographs to customers at the shops; for another, he had employed a number of agents to sell them to workers in big stores, offices, and factories. There was little doubt that he would be charged and found guilty under one section or another of the Obscene Publications Act, resulting in a sentence of at least six months’ imprisonment. Since a friend at the chemist’s shop where he worked had tipped him off about a police inquiry, he had been in hiding with a girl friend who had been happy to share her bed and board without asking questions.
But he was nearly broke and needed money. This cellar in Tottenham was the obvious place to come, for Toni Bottelli worked here, and Toni was close to Mr. Big, if he wasn’t Mr. Big himself.
Rhodes, until two years ago an unworldly young man from a small provincial city in the Midlands, felt excitement stirring at the thought of “Mr. Big”. There was great drama in it for him, as there had been drama and excitement at being on the fringe of crime. He had drifted into it, selling a few nasty pictures for a joke among friends, and had been paid well for running off a few prints in the darkroom at the shop. Now, eighteen months afterward, he earned over £2000 a year from this “spare-time” occupation - and spent up to the hilt, on girls, on the dogs, and on casino gambling. He had always been fond of showing off and had always been a success with “the ladies”. He had a natural, easy manner, and he was a curiously forthright individual, who would tell a girl that he liked her legs, her face or her bosom without thinking there was anything overbold in it. That was the way they were made, wasn’t it? Consequently, he had fallen naturally into this job. Persuading girls to pose had seldom been difficult; nor had selling the pictures. He saw no harm in either, and would hold forth indignantly if challenged.
“All the great artists paint nudes, don’t they?”
“Take all the nudes off a museum wall and you wouldn’t have much left, would you?”
“And what about statues? Haven’t you ever heard of Michelangelo? Look at some of his, men and women. He didn’t hide much.”
“Lot of prudes, that’s what people are.”
This, then, was his honest conviction.
Now he went through the small tobacconist’s shop above the cellar where Toni Bottelli worked. An elderly woman in the shop, a madame to the girls who came here, knew him and allowed him through. The cellar was approached by a concealed door in the wall of a staircase, Bottelli knowing very well that a police raid could be very awkward.
Rhodes pressed a warning bell, slid the door open, and went downstairs. As he stepped into the cellar he heard a flurry of movement, saw Bottelli throw a towelling robe over a girl on the cushions on the dais.
“Okay, okay, I’m used to it,” Rhodes sang out.
Bottelli stood with his back to the girl, glaring. “What the hell do you want?”
“Just a little bit of lolly, Toni.”
“Who told you to come here?”
“I told myself,” said Rhodes, jauntily.
“Well, get to hell out of it and don’t come back unless I send for you!”
Rhodes caught his breath. “Now take it easy,” he protested. “That’s no way to talk.”
“It’s the way I’m talking to you! Get the hell out of it!”
Rhodes spoke more angrily. “Don’t you talk to me like that.”
“Get out, or I’ll throw you out!”
“Oh, will you,” Rhodes said. Inwardly he was feeling scared, but nothing in his voice or manner showed it. “I’d like to see you try.”
They stood facing each other, Rhodes appalled, Bottelli viciously angry. Graduall
y, Rhodes’s anger began to fade into anxiety. He needed help and needed somewhere to hide, and this man had introduced him to the business. There was no one else to go to.
“Get out,” Bottelli growled.
“Listen, Toni, you don’t understand—”
“I don’t have to understand. You have to.”
“Toni, I need some money! I’m on the run!”
The last words came out as Bottelli began to move forward, his hands outstretched, his eyes shimmering with anger. At first, the phrase “I’m on the run” had no effect, but suddenly he stopped short, caught his breath, and ejaculated, “You’re what?”
“I’m on the run. The cops are after me! You always said you’d see me right if I ran into trouble. How about proving it?”
As he spoke, Rhodes stared at the handsome man in front of him, wondering what lay behind the inscrutability of his eyes. Nothing in them gave Rhodes the slightest inkling of the truth.
“If the cops catch him,” Bottelli was thinking, “he’ll talk. And he’s not going to talk.” Without consciously putting it in so many words, his mind went smoothly on: “I wonder which way I’d better get rid of him.”
11: ONCE A KILLER
Henry Rhodes’s lips and mouth felt dry as he stared at Bottelli, who had hardly moved since hearing the other say, “I’m on the run.” The girl on the couch didn’t stir, but he was not concerned with her; had he given her a thought he would have assumed that she was lying doggo. Bottelli’s eyes began to narrow, and suddenly he smiled, showing his vivid white teeth.
Rhodes’s heart leapt with relief.
“So you’re on the run,” Bottelli said. “How come, Henry?”
“The cops got hold of some of the pictures, some blabbermouth at the Bowling Lanes told them where he’d got them from.”
“When did this happen?”
“Monday.”