Battle for Inspector West

by John Creasey

  He walked close to the hedge which bordered the road. At the first five-barred gate he climbed into the road. No one was in sight, and he began to hope that he had escaped from the police, so he had little to worry about now.

  After half an hour’s walking, he came within sight of the spot where he was to meet the man with the accent. He strained his eyes to try to catch sight of a car parked near the road, and although he could not see one, he was not greatly worried; it would be parked discreetly behind some bushes.

  He kept looking behind him, but did not think he was followed.

  He reached some cross-roads, and heard a car start up. So it was parked out of sight, and he had been seen; they were ready to take him to safety.

  Then a man appeared out of the shadows, right in front of him.

  ‘God!’ gasped Prendergast, and went icy cold.

  ‘You need to call upon God,’ the other man said, and his right hand moved. The knife was actually sliding into Prendergast’s flesh before he realised what caused the searing pain.

  He was dead as he fell.

  The killer turned and hurried towards the car, parked without lights, and was in it and away before two of Fratton’s men, trailing Prendergast, stumbled in the darkness over his body.

  ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him,’ Christine thought, and there was fear in her.

  Grant, sleeping on his back, was breathing evenly, all unconcerned.

  If only she knew more about this man Carosi and his hatred, it might help.

  Chapter Five

  West Of The Yard

  Chief Inspector Roger West of New Scotland Yard knew a great deal about the real reason for the hatred between Michael Grant and Carosi, and was pondering over this, and over the report from Fratton, of the Dorset CID. Sound chap, Fratton. Brilliant chap, Grant! His father was a millionaire, always in the news with spectacular trading deals, and making vast profits. Grant managed to hit the headlines with his own activities almost as often. Big Business didn’t always descend from father to son, but here it did. Young Grant’s money, looks and record for outstanding courage had made him London’s biggest matrimonial prize. He had been proof against all beauty, until he had met the girl whom he had married, after a characteristically whirlwind courtship.

  But West was thinking more about Carosi than Grant.

  Carosi had lived in London during most of the war. His reputation had never been good, he was known to be on the fringe of many sordid crimes, but for years he had not been suspected as a leader of a vice gang.

  It had fallen to West’s lot to prepare for the edification of the Home Office, to which Ministry Scotland Yard and all the British police were directly responsible, a comprehensive report on gangs which operated in or from London. He put them into three separate groups.

  The first was the race-gang which, despite popular belief to the contrary, did specialize exclusively in race-courses. But it was small-time crime.

  In the second group were the ‘posh’ gangs.

  There were fewer of these, all members of which were experts at their particular line of business. They comprised the cleverest cracksmen, con-men, forgers, fakers of Old Masters, jewellers and craftsmen, and ‘gang’ was perhaps the wrong word: there was a ring of them, who had virtually a monopoly of major crimes. There was also a common factor: they did not use violence.

  The third group included Carosi’s; indeed, it might almost, at one time, have been called Carosi’s own.

  This was more general than the others, with member-criminals who might easily serve with gangs in either of the other groups, but who were held together by an uneasy allegiance to this particular group. They were almost exclusively led by aliens or by men who had somehow contrived to acquire British nationality, and if they had a speciality, that speciality was vice. All kinds of vice, which riddled London’s West End and made it a show place for street walkers.

  There was more than vice, of course; much more, and Carosi was a directing genius.

  He had been born of an Italian father and an Irish mother.

  Nothing was outside the scope of Carosi’s activities, and he touched hideous things which the other gangs would not look at. His had been the most powerful gang which had operated for several years, and it had prospered greatly.

  For some years Carosi had owned a large country house, to which he retired at irregular intervals with his latest inamorata, and a luxury flat in the heart of Mayfair. He had been a familiar figure in the West End, at night-clubs as well as at the most exclusive restaurants. He levied tributes from many dance-bands and night-clubs, from public-houses, even from sections of the big London markets, but he did it with great skill.

  The Yard had set many a trap to catch Carosi but had failed.

  He had been known to have a set of dossiers of rich and of public men, and to extort blackmail. He had always been careful in his choice of victims, but had made one serious mistake. He had blackmailed Sir Mortimer Grant.

  The Yard still did not know the skeleton in the financier’s armour. They did know that Sir Mortimer Grant had not gone to the police; but he had told his son Michael. Quite cold-bloodedly, Grant had forced his way to Carosi’s apartment, and eye-witnesses agreed that afterwards it had looked like a Florida shanty struck by a whirlwind. What was more, Carosi had slipped out of the country, obviously afraid that young Grant could give evidence that would jail him for years.

  Grant had never vouchsafed such evidence, and Carosi had not stopped operating by a kind of remote control.

  During his absence, the Yard had built up an even more imposing record of the activities he sponsored, and sent several of his associates to jail. But they were still without the proof needed to put Carosi himself inside, and to break up the whole grim, forbidding, menacing organisation.

  At nine o’clock on the morning after the murder in Dorset, Roger West entered the office which he shared with four other Chief Inspectors. He was the first to arrive. Five bilious-looking desks and five battered-looking chairs awaited five massive policemen. He looked through his post, then pushed most of it aside, reading over a report which had come from Inspector Fratton by special messenger.

  He lifted one of the telephones on Iris desk.

  ‘Is the Assistant Commissioner in?’ he asked the operator.

  ‘I don’t know, sir, I’ll find out.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Roger.

  ‘Yip, he’s in,’ said a man who had just entered the office. He was tall, with a huge paunch, a long, pointed nose and a receding chin. Whenever he grinned, he showed his prominent teeth. ‘Spoke to him myself just now; he walked along the corridor with me.’

  ‘That’s a nice start to your day,’ said Roger.

  ‘No need to be sarky,’ said Chief Inspector Eddie Day, squeezing his bulk between an armchair and a desk, and going to his own place, which was near the window. ‘He’s all right when’s he in a good mood, Chatty is.’

  ‘Let him once hear you call him Chatty, and you’ll never know him in a good mood again,’ said Roger.

  ‘Gertcha,’ said Eddie. ‘What do you want him for?’

  ‘Carosi.’

  Eddie Day sniffed.

  ‘Put Carosi inside, Handsome, that’s what you ought to do—put him inside, no use playing cat-and-mouse with a type like ’im. Go wild and commit bloody murder one day, and once he tastes blood I wouldn’t like to say where he’ll stop. Here, what’s up?’ he demanded. ‘Have I struck something?’

  ‘There were two murders last night at an hotel where Grant was starting his honeymoon.’

  ‘Cor!’ exclaimed Eddie Day, and grinned. ‘I’ll bet that put an end to one sex orgy!’

  Roger smiled, stood up, and then picked up the telephone as it began to ring.

  ‘The Assistant Commissioner’s in his offic
e, sir.’

  ‘Thanks. Be seeing you, Eddie.’

  Roger went out.

  He was a fraction under six feet tall, and an exceptionally handsome man, hence his nickname. With his wavy fair hair and fresh complexion, he looked younger than his thirty-eight years, although he was still the youngest CI at Scotland Yard.

  He tapped on the Assistant Commissioner’s door.

  ‘Come in,’ called Sir Archibald Chatworth.

  He was alone, a big, burly man with a fringe of grizzled, grey hair, a brown, weather-beaten skin, round face and a permanent scowl, which barely lifted even when he smiled. A farmer behind an office desk.

  ‘Come in, Roger, and sit down.’

  Roger obeyed.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ Chatworth went on.

  ‘Carosi,’ said Roger, and won all the attention he wanted.

  ‘So you want to be off to Dorset?’ Chatworth said when the report was finished.

  ‘As quick as I can,’ said Roger.

  ‘Yes. No need to worry about formalities; the Dorset Chief Constable called me last night and said he’d be glad if we’d send someone down if Grant intended to stay there more than a day or two.’ Chatworth looked at Roger narrowly, then asked in a growling voice: ‘Come on, what’ve you left out?’

  ‘There’s a strong streak of coincidence running through the business,’ Roger said mildly.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Chatworth.

  ‘You know that Michael Grant married Arthur Morely’s daughter, don’t you, sir?’

  Chatworth said: ‘Yes. Can’t blame the daughter because her father was lucky to get a reprieve after murdering his wife.’

  ‘Morely was at the church yesterday morning—Jameson spotted him,’ Roger said. ‘He watched the girl, kept his face hidden from her, and went off straight after the ceremony. No fuss, no trouble, but—’

  ‘You mean it’s odd that he should have turned up there?’ mused Chatworth. ‘Natural thing for him to do, surely. I’d say it’s a point in his favour that he didn’t thrust himself forward so that his daughter couldn’t miss him. He’s pretty well on his uppers, and might have thought that it would be easy to get some money out of his newly-rich daughter. Hardly a coincidence, though.’

  ‘Arthur Morely was an artist, and maybe he still is. He specialised in portraits. So did Prendergast, who was knifed last night.’

  ‘I see,’ said Chatworth. ‘H’m, yes. Well, you’d better go down. But don’t jump to any conclusions, will you?’ he added, almost sarcastically. ‘About what, sir?’

  ‘Michael Grant’s innocence. These big money barons get high above themselves at times. Sir Mortimer Grant must have a nasty blot on his past to lay himself open to Carosi’s blackmail. We never knew that. His son presumably got the incriminating stuff from Carosi. Did he get anything else?’ Roger said: ‘I won’t overlook any of that, sir.’

  ‘Sure you won’t. Keep this in mind, too. We believe Carosi tried to blackmail Sir Mortimer, but the quarrel may have some other basic cause.’

  ‘You mean, when thieves fall out,’ Roger said dryly. ‘And possibly Michael Grant kept as silent as the sphinx, after discovering whatever the truth was, so as to make sure he didn’t give anything away to harm his father. There was talk of one law for the rich and another for the poor when we didn’t tackle young Grant for raiding Carosi, remember.’ ‘Just what’s on your mind?’ Chatworth asked suspiciously. ‘The Monitor is the newspaper which began the rumour, and if we bring them on to the inside of this job—’

  ‘You’re in charge of the case,’ Chatworth interrupted. ‘Just remember that regulations say we must treat all the Press without fear or favour.’

  ‘Can we help it if some are more equal to the occasion than others?’ Roger asked.

  Chatworth said: ‘You be careful.’

  Roger hurried back to his office, cleared his desk and then telephoned the Monitor, asking for a reporter named Fingleton.

  He was told that Fingleton was away for a few days, and replaced the receiver thoughtfully.

  That morning Roger, with Detective-Sergeant Hubert Gill in his car, and his equipment in the back, made a hurried detour leaving London: he went to his home in Bell Street, Chelsea.

  Janet, his wife, was waiting with sandwiches prepared for the journey, and a small suitcase packed.

  She looked a little forlorn when he drove off, then poked her fingers through her dark hair, and turned back to the household chores.

  Chapter Six

  The Bathing-Pool

  That afternoon was fine and warm. Michael and Christine left Uplands after lunch to walk across the far hills. They were not surprised that a detective, to whom Fratton had introduced them, followed fifty yards or so behind.

  They walked for half an hour, exchanging only a word now and again, until Grant said abruptly: ‘We’d better get back. This police shadow almost makes me wish I hadn’t said a word to them.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Christine said practically. ‘But I suppose we may as well turn back.’ She gave a little laugh, not very gay. ‘It’s funny, this policeman’s made us forget that someone we can’t see may be watching us, ready for a chance to—’

  ‘Now get this clear,’ said Grant, firmly. ‘We are not in danger every minute of the passing day.’

  ‘Darling,’ Christine said, with a tremor in her voice, ‘I don’t like being scared. I don’t like seeing you edgy, either, and you often are. Don’t let’s fool ourselves.’

  ‘H’m,’ said Grant, and then ignored the police shadow and held and kissed her until she was almost breathless. ‘Sweetheart, I don’t think there’s another woman who would have been as patient as you have,’ he said. ‘Don’t put up with my moods too much, though; half the world and every newspaper will tell you that I’ve been spoiled. Your job’s to unspoil me.’ He let her go. ‘Now, the story of me and Carosi—’

  He told her the story that Roger West had discussed with Chatworth and added very quickly, while they stood looking at each other: ‘The blackmail stopped. At Carosi’s fiat I found some so-called evidence against my father, and some of information against other people which would have opened a few eyes. I burned the lot, but Carosi didn’t know that. He probably thought I’d keep it and use it myself.’ Grant looked quite fierce. ‘He doesn’t know right from wrong, my darling; he’s incapable of anything but evil, because to him there’s no such thing as right and wrong. There’s only money and power. Now! Let me kill another bird while I’m at it. My father’s as safe as a pontificating bishop now, and I’m fond of him, even if his heart is made of whatever makes most money at the moment. As mine is! The stuff which Carosi had on him could have ruined him socially. Me, too, because of that Biblical bit about the sins of the fathers. I destroyed the proof but not Carosi’s knowledge of it. I didn’t intend to stand by and see my father ruined, or see his life made miserable by blackmail. But before young Derek Allen died, it was just a family feud. Now it’s very much deeper.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Christine, and gave a funny little laugh. ‘Will you think I’m heartless if I say our fathers did leave us quite a legacy, didn’t they? Mine—’

  ‘That’s enough of that!’

  ‘But it isn’t, Mike,’ Christine said firmly. ‘We may not be in the mood for talking about it again for a long time. Whatever your father did, he can hardly have a worse—worse past than mine.’ Her eyes were very bright, and she spoke too quickly.

  ‘You know that he lulled my mother and went to prison, you know that he was an artist. Every time Prendergast spoke to me, it seemed as if he were reminding me of that. I’ve an early photograph of my father, the only one I’ve seen. He wasn’t like Prendergast, but he looked rather plump, and as if he might be pink and fluffy. I was brought up by an aunt and uncle, I’ve told you all abo
ut them. They were kindness itself, but they would never talk about my parents. Darling – it’s strange that Prendergast was so like my father, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ insisted Grant. ‘If you go on like this I’ll think you’re suggesting that Prendergast was your father, which would be absurd and impossible, as he’s still in prison.’

  ‘He isn’t,’ Christine said.

  Grant looked startled.

  ‘No?’

  ‘He was outside the church yesterday morning,’ Christine told him. ‘But of course he isn’t like Prendergast now, he’s much older. I wouldn’t have recognised him, but yesterday morning I had a letter, delivered by hand.’ She put her hand in the neck of her blouse, and drew out a crumpled envelope.

  Grant stood very still.

  ‘I didn’t tell you, I didn’t want to spoil the day, and—I was so happy,’ said Christine hesitantly, ‘and afterwards—well, there wasn’t a chance to tell you last night, was there? At the hotel I had a feeling that everything we did was watched, everything we said was overheard. The detective behind us doesn’t matter, up here.’ She put the envelope into Grant’s hands.

  He drew out the contents. There was a small sheet of paper, a few typewritten words, and a snapshot which had been taken on a fine day, so that every feature of the subject was there. The man was small, with a deeply lined face, rather pathetic eyes, with a fringe of grey hair.

  The note said: ‘This was taken of your father a week ago. He was released from prison in February this year.’

  Grant put the photograph back in the envelope.

  ‘You and I ought to get the booby prize for idiocy,’ he said. ‘Each of us deserves it. We’ve got to get rid of this crazy idea that we can help each other by keeping personal worries to ourselves. So I’ll tell you one more thing, which I was determined to keep to myself to my dying day! Carosi knows your father. He mentioned him when he telephoned two days ago. I preferred not to tell the police that.’