As he walked away he was aware that the policeman was looking after him thoughtfully.
Chapter Five
“Two ladies to see you,” said Inspector Ambrose. “I told them you were busy, but I guess it would take an armoured division to keep them out.”
“Then you’d better let them in,” said Petrella. He consigned to the wastepaper-basket a memorandum on road safety. It was full of windy exhortation and devoid of constructive suggestions.
When Mrs Millington and Mrs Broad arrived in his room he could see what Ambrose meant. There was nothing offensive about them. They were both substantially built and well-dressed. Both were armed with the implacable force of women firmly established on the rock of middle-aged, middle-class stability.
Mrs Broad said, “We won’t waste your time, Superintendent. Mrs Millington and I are members of the East London branch of the Dorcas Society. Our normal function is making and distributing clothes to people in need. But on occasions we are able to help in other directions and our rector, Father Freeling, asked us recently to take charge of a party of boys on an educational trip to Amsterdam.”
“How large a party and how was it made up?”
“Forty boys, from eight different schools in this area. There was a fairly wide age spread, eleven to sixteen, which was one of the difficulties. However, we saw no reason to suppose that we couldn’t cope with them.”
“None at all,” said Mrs Millington, “if the hotel had been chosen a little more carefully.”
“In what respect?”
“It was a smallish place called the Witte Raaf – that is the White Crow – in the Ortelius Straat, behind the Orteliuskade, the main street which runs along the frontage of Rembrandt Park. It seemed to be a favourite place for school parties. One was leaving as we came and another took over our accommodation when we left. They may have been attracted by the prices, which were certainly on the moderate side.”
“So what did you find objectionable about it?”
“Two things. It had no night-porter and since the boys had keys to their own rooms, this meant that on nights when there was nothing organised for them they could come and go as they liked. Provided, of course, that they got back before the hotel was locked for the night. The other thing was the presence of a man who seemed to be a friend of the proprietor. He offered to take the boys on a sight-seeing trip round the red-light district – an offer which we naturally vetoed. This didn’t stop him hanging round and talking to them, when he could get hold of them.”
“What sort of man?”
“He looked like a crow himself,” said Mrs Millington. “A black one, not a white one.”
Mrs Broad said, “It’s never easy to be sure about people – foreigners particularly – when you don’t really speak their language. But one of the boys told me that he had also offered to take them to a strip-tease show. And when they said that they hadn’t got the money for that sort of thing, he said that he’d pay for them. We managed to stop that, too.”
“Had this man got a name?”
“The proprietor called him Hendrik. We never found out his surname.”
“Can you give me a little more description?”
Mrs Millington said, “I called him a black crow and that’s the most appropriate description I can think of. Always dressed in black, with smarmed-down black hair and a way of looking at you out of a sharp pair of eyes.”
“Turning his head quickly from side to side,” said Mrs Broad. “Just like a bird, really.”
Petrella said, “Thank you.” He had his tape recorder running. “Now, I gather you ran into trouble.”
“It was the last night. We were booked out next morning and the boys had been busy packing and had gone to bed early. I’d hoped for a quiet night. And so it was, until about four o’clock in the morning when I heard a car stop and someone at the front door. Also boys’ voices. That got me out of bed fast. I looked out of my window. A big, closed car was drawing away – I couldn’t get the number – and there were four boys on the pavement, all in a state of high excitement, saying things like ‘Hush’ and ‘Hurry up’ to one of them who had a key and was having some difficulty with the front door. By the time they got it open I was in the hall to meet them. As I’d half suspected, they were four boys from the Old Ford Chantry School. Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. As a group they’d been a nuisance from the start. There was an older boy with them, who’d tried to keep them in some sort of order. A decent kid. I was glad to see he hadn’t been out with them. I said, ‘What in the world have you been up to?’ But I soon saw I wasn’t going to get any sense out of them.”
“Oh, why?”
“Because they were all drunk. Or halfway there. I said, ‘You’d better go to bed. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’ Which I did. All I could get out of them was that Hendrik had produced a car and driven them round the town. The smallest boy, who was still a bit muzzy, kept saying, ‘Sights. He said we’d see sights. We certainly did see sights,’ and they all giggled.”
“Dead-end,” said Petrella. “I take it you spoke to the proprietor.”
“We certainly did. And he told us nothing. He didn’t know this intrusive character personally. Always called him Hendrik. Didn’t know his surname. He couldn’t stop people dropping in from time to time to have a drink at the bar. It was open to the public. And if he talked to the boys and the boys talked to him, what of that? We pointed out that they seemed, somehow or other, to have got hold of the front-door key. ‘Probably lifted it from the desk,’ said the proprietor. He didn’t actually say ‘boys will be boys’, but his greasy smile said it for him.”
Mrs Millington said, “We were on a bad wicket, because we knew, and he knew, that the bus was waiting outside to take us to the airport. So we had to leave it there.”
“And that was the end of the matter?”
“Not quite. When we got to the airport I noticed one of the boys who had been out seemed to be very flush with cash.”
“English money?”
“Five-pound and ten-pound notes. And he had a lot of them. Fifty pounds at least. It was hardly something I could enquire about. What money he brought with him was his own business. But I couldn’t help wondering. Then the whispering and giggling started. It was impossible not to hear bits of it. It was clear that they had been photographed, or filmed. Something like that.”
“And paid for their services.”
“So it seemed. When we got back we made a point of seeing the parents of the boys concerned. One of them said he’d already heard rumours of what had happened and had questioned his son, who had shut his mouth tight. Not a word. No more giggling. One of the other fathers said the same thing. His boy seemed scared to open his mouth.”
“Although they’d talked about it freely to their friends on the plane on the way home.”
“Never stopped talking. In fact, at that point, they were boasting about whatever it was had happened.”
“And now they were scared to talk. Were all the boys like that?”
“All four of them. Just the same.”
“Well, thank you for telling me,” said Petrella. “Though it’s difficult to see what we can do about it from this end.”
“It’s some sort of racket. It wasn’t just these boys. There’ll be other parties there, too. Surely it ought to be stopped?”
“Yes,” said Petrella. “It ought to be stopped.”
It was while he was thinking about this that a name occurred to him.
Wilfred Wetherall.
When he had first met him, Mr Wetherall had been headmaster of the South Borough Secondary School. Though he had long passed the compulsory retirement age his services to education had been considered too valuable to be dispensed with entirely and he had been given the job of ‘adviser’ to the new and inexperienced head of East London District. Those who knew Mr Wetherall were not surprised to be told that he was soon running the whole outfit.
Petrella knew him well, from the days w
hen, as a detective inspector at Gabriel Street, he had lodged below Mr Wetherall’s flat in Brinkman Road. When he was not otherwise engaged there was nothing he had enjoyed more than an after-dinner gossip. Mr Wetherall’s knowledge of London schools and London schoolboys had been extensive and entertaining.
A telephone call brought him round to Petrella’s flat that evening.
“Of course, I’d heard about it,” he said. “The story was all over East London. At least, to be precise”—Mr Wetherall was noted for his precision—“what was quickly spread was the fact that there was a story. Not the details. It seems that on the plane coming home the boys let drop a number of hints – more about the money in their pockets than about what they had done to earn it. This, no doubt, was being saved up for recounting later, in less public circumstances, to their particular friends. But it didn’t happen. Not a word. They went dumb.”
“I suppose their parents had told them not to talk about it.”
“If you really suppose that would stop them,” said Mr Wetherall acidly, “you display an astonishing ignorance of boys of that age and class. Advice from their parents is seldom listened to and even more rarely followed. What had happened was that they had been visited. By men who were able to frighten them into silence. I imagine you’ve heard of the Farm Boys?”
Petrella nodded. His dislike of that band of agricultural thugs was growing stronger every day. It was no surprise that they should be acting as protection to a filthy racket. Interesting, all the same. The promptness of their action demonstrated a fairly close tie-up between Amsterdam and London.
“I would surmise,” said Mr Wetherall, “that they explained to the boys, in detail, exactly what would happen to them if they opened their mouths. Dave Cusins, who was with them at the hotel, is my godson. He comes from the same school and, as an older boy, he’d been more or less put in charge of them and I imagine he felt some responsibility for what had happened, though I don’t see how he could have stopped them.”
“I suppose he’d be the boy the Dorcas lady told me about. She said he was a decent kid, who’d refused to join the jaunt.”
“I doubt whether it was moral scruples that held him back. The fact is that he’s a very promising athlete. Football and boxing. He probably calculated that if he was going to get anywhere he had to keep his nose clean.”
“Cusins? That wouldn’t be Franky Cusins’ son?”
“He’d be flattered to hear you suggest it. Franky’s well over eighty. No, he’s Lefty Cusins’ grandson.”
To Petrella the Cusins were names, remembered dimly. Both of them had been world-class boxers. He said, “Have you got any idea at all of what actually happened that night?”
Mr Wetherall’s leathery and wrinkled face settled into a mask of distaste. He said, “I’m sure you don’t want second-hand evidence.”
“Second-hand, third-hand, any evidence at all,” said Petrella.
“Very well. It was repeated by one boy – not himself concerned – that one of the four, not named, had said to him, ‘Lovely money for being photographed with your trousers down.’ “
“I see,” said Petrella. “Much what I thought.” He produced the page of photographs that Hoyland had given him. “I imagine that these are stills from a film made on an earlier occasion. As you see, the focus has been quite skilfully adjusted. The faces of the boys are unidentifiable. They haven’t been so careful about the girls, from which I assume that they may have been prostitutes. Or maybe girls brought in off the street, who weren’t too fussy about being recognised.”
Whilst he was speaking Mr Wetherall had settled his spectacles on his prominent nose and was subjecting the photographs to the sort of attention he might have accorded to an essay given to him for correction. Petrella waited for his verdict. In the end he said, “Incredible,” and handed the page of photographs back. “I thought I knew boys of that age and type fairly well. It seems quite incredible to me that twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys could have been persuaded to perform like that with girls of that type.”
“They were drunk. Or so Mrs Millington said, when she saw them at four o’clock next morning.”
“Mrs Millington?”
“A member of our local Dorcas Society. I’ve got everything she told me on tape. Perhaps you’d like to hear it.”
When he had heard it, Mr Wetherall said, “One thing is quite clear. I have enough influence in educational circles to ensure that no party of schoolboys goes to the Witte Raaf Hotel again.”
“I’ve no doubt you could. And I shall shortly be asking you to do just that. At the moment, however, I’d prefer you to hold off. This character, Hendrik, could operate just as easily from any other hotel, once he’d fixed the proprietor.”
“Block one hole,” agreed Mr Wetherall, “and the rats will soon find another. So what do you propose to do?”
“I might be able to get in touch with a senior Dutch policeman. I’d do it through my father. Before he retired he had a lot of European contacts. But the Dutch police can only move if we give them detailed information. The essential point is to find out where the boys were taken that night. If we promised him to keep his name right out of it, surely one of the boys would be prepared to come across?”
“Maybe,” said Mr Wetherall. “But I’m not sure that any of the boys could help you, even if they were persuaded to talk. I got a pretty full account of the earlier part of the evening from young Cusins, who’d had it all from the boys, whilst they were still talking, on the plane coming home. The transport was a big saloon, with blinds over the rear windows. The boys travelled in the back of it. First stop was a Braunen cafe. There’s one in almost every street. They’re fully licensed and it was here that the boys were introduced to the pleasures of Dutch beer and geneva. When they were well primed they moved off again, cruised around for a bit – no doubt to confuse the boys’ sense of direction – and ended up at a place which they described as a mixture between a warehouse and an office block. They were hustled out of the car without having any opportunity to see the name of the street. Same routine on the way back.”
“A careful crowd,” said Petrella.
“One of the boys who seems to have kept his head better than the others – or maybe drank less – says he remembers crossing a stretch of water on the way out. It was near the zoo in the Artis Garden, because he heard one of the lions roaring. After touring about a bit they re-crossed the same water, but not, he thought, by the same bridge.”
“How could he tell?”
“He said it sounded different.”
“Leaves a lot of options open,” said Petrella, who had furnished himself with a map of Amsterdam. “There’s only one way of tackling the problem. Next time Hendrik operates he’s got to be followed. It’s not going to be easy to fix it. But I’ve got the outlines of a scheme in mind and I shall need your cooperation.”
“You shall have it,” said Mr Wetherall. Petrella noted the frosty gleam in his eye and smiled.
“It won’t be very active, I’m afraid. I’ll tell you about it when I’ve sorted it out a bit.”
That evening he put the whole problem to his wife.
He said, “One thing’s clear. On the information which I have at the moment, second-hand from the Dorcas ladies and third-hand from Mr Wetherall via Dave Cusins, I can’t possibly initiate official action. And yet—”
“And yet,” said his wife, suspending repairs to one of Lucinda’s undergarments, “you want to do something because you think – as I do – that it’s a foul and dangerous racket.”
“Certainly. But there’s more to it than that. The speed with which the heavy mob got on to those boys suggests to me that the whole thing may be organised from here.”
“Filming in Amsterdam. Distribution in London.”
“That could well be right. And if it is, it’s my job to do something about it. But there’s no chance of getting Central to move unless I can give them some facts. Where the filming’s done, who does it and,
more important, how they organise the import of the finished product into this country.”
His wife said coldly, “You’re circling round the problem like a cat round a suspect dish of meat. It’s quite clear what’s got to be done. Someone’s got to go to Amsterdam and ferret out the answers to all those questions. If he can’t go officially, he’ll have to go unofficially. Right?”
“Your logic is impeccable. The only point you have evaded is the vital one. Who is to go? And don’t suggest me for the job. I’ve got far too much to do here. Anyway, it would be inappropriate. It’s a job for a junior officer. He could be given a week’s leave – on compassionate grounds – there’s a police fund which assists with things like that. It would help if he could make himself understood in Holland – most of them speak French or German—”
“Someone with a degree in foreign languages?”
Petrella looked at her suspiciously. “That would certainly be useful,” he said. “Have you anyone in mind?”
“You know perfectly well who you want to send. Perry Hoyland’s cut out for the job.”
“His name had occurred to me.”
“Then why are you dithering?”
“I’m not dithering. I’m thinking. The choice is between sending someone like Hoyland, who doesn’t look much like a policeman and who might therefore be able to pick up the information we want. Or sending, say, Sergeant Stark, who’d be recognised as a policeman on sight. He’d be perfectly well able to look after himself and would learn nothing.”
“Then the choice seems obvious.”
“It may seem obvious to you. But don’t forget. The men behind a racket like this will be well organised and dangerous. And Hoyland is young and inexperienced. He’s been a detective constable for less than six months.”
His wife thought about this, whilst her needle performed a number of arabesques, then she said, “Just how old and how experienced were you when they sent you to Bordeaux to look into that drug-smuggling racket?”
Petrella made the gesture of a fencer acknowledging a hit.
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