Roller Coaster

by Michael Gilbert

  Silence fell as this information was digested. Mr Tasker added helpfully, “Mrs Petrella senior is still alive and if any doubt is felt about these facts, a statement can easily be obtained from her.”

  “For myself, I can see not the slightest reason for doubt,” said Watterson.

  Liversedge once again nodded. Roper said, “If this Pedro Petrella is your cousin and not you, can you explain why his address is given as 27 Grove Road?”

  Petrella explained about his cousin’s use of the flat and added, “When he left there he was on the move and he kept it as his permanent address. Letters for him came there, including the one with the share certificate in it. When we spoke about it on the telephone he could only say that he never looked a gift horse in the mouth.”

  But the heat had gone out of the enquiry.

  Summing up, Watterson turned to Roper and said, “Since the complaint came to you, Jim, at MS 15, it will be for you to communicate with the Sentinel. I suggest that you send them two letters. A formal one, saying that we have examined the evidence and that it does not reflect in any way on the officer concerned, and a personal and confidential one to the editor indicating just where he has gone off the track. That should prevent him from pursuing the matter any further.”

  Roper said, “Very well.” Petrella thought that he did not sound happy.

  Chapter Twenty

  On Wednesday morning Petrella had a telephone call from Morrissey. The old man sounded uncommonly cheerful. He said, “You really had them by the short and curlies yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “At the PDE, you mean? Yes, it went very well. I’d always thought that if we could persuade the bull to charge we’d get a chance to stick him as he went past.”

  “Stick him? You cut his balls off! And I can tell you, it caused a lot of pleasure, not to say hilarity, at this end.”

  “Then the news has got round?”

  “You can’t keep a good story down. And have you seen the Sentinel this morning?”

  “I don’t get time to read the papers until I get home in the evening. What surprise has it cooked up for us now?”

  “The surprise is that for the first time in six months there’s nothing in it about the police. Not a word. Now they’re getting worried about Iraq.”

  “Plenty of room for worry there.”

  “And you remember that chap Wintringham? He’s gone back to Baghdad.”

  “He’ll be happier there, I expect, than he was in London.”

  Morrissey said, “Tell me how you rigged it. That business of the names.”

  “That was my father, not me. It’s an odd story and we haven’t got to the bottom of it yet. A few weeks ago – just after young Hoyland had muddied the water in Amsterdam – a man calling himself Harrington turned up in Casablanca. Seems he wanted to set up there the sort of outfit he’d had in Amsterdam. Plenty of young talent available. Nothing to do with my father, of course. But Harrington called on him, made some polite conversation, said he had met me in London. When he was going – very casual this – said he’d heard me called Patrick. Was this my real name, or was there some Spanish equivalent? Well, my parent, who was already deeply distrustful of the smooth Mr Harrington, didn’t see why he shouldn’t pull his leg, so he gave him my cousin’s names and thought no more about it – until they turned up on that absurd charge sheet. Then he got busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Finding out Harrington’s real name. He’ll do it, too. He’s got a lot of contacts.”

  Morrissey said, “Interesting. Very interesting. Got to ring off now. I’ve got a high-powered conference coming up about the ELBO cash run on Friday.”

  As Petrella put down the telephone one thing was puzzling him. However high-powered the conference, should he not have been summoned to it? Did that indicate dissatisfaction of his handling of the arrangements on the previous occasion? He put the thought aside and turned to half a dozen other matters that were clamouring for his attention. He noted that the unhappy Sergeant Kortwright had put in an application for transfer to another area. Could it really have been only a month ago that he had formed up to discuss his difficulties with Sergeant Stark?

  So much had happened in the interval that it might have been six months ago.

  “Well, gentlemen,” said Morrissey, “you all know what we’re here for.”

  Realising that the numbers present would have overfilled his own office he had secured the use of one of the small conference rooms for his meeting. Like many such rooms in the building it was wired for sound.

  Present, in support of him, was John Anderson his number two, Chief Superintendent Watterson and Superintendent Kay representing Central. Chief Superintendent Liversedge was there from No. 2 Area with a nervous Superintendent Ramsbottom hiding behind him. Ashley Drummond had brought along his chief cashier, thus marginally restoring the balance between policemen and civilians.

  “This Friday we have another cash run from the bank to the head office of ELBO. And this time we’re not only going to see that the cash goes through, but we’re going to gather in anyone who makes the slightest effort to stop it. Now I’ve had a certain amount of information lately, from a man we’ve very carefully planted, about the opposition plan. Their scheme is to leave the cash carrier alone until he gets nearly to the top of Globe Road – to be precise, until he reaches the last right-hand turning, the one that goes past Meath Gardens into Limehouse Fields. Here they are going to mass every West Indian they can recruit. There’ll be no shortage of volunteers and no doubt additional help can be bribed or bullied. They count on having at least sixty – possibly seventy or eighty – men in Limehouse Fields. These erupt into Globe Road, block it, force the driver to open up by threatening to set the van on fire, collar the cash and disperse. Everyone with me?”

  The seven men who had been following this on their maps indicated that they were with him.

  “Now you’ll remember that last time the opposition got hold of duplicate keys of Meath Gardens and hid the get-away car there. This time the lock’s been changed and we’ve got the only keys. Our plan is to feed fifty men into Meath Gardens by the north-west gate in Roman Road. They’ll go in on Thursday night and lie low. A second lot of fifty men will come up into Limehouse Fields from the south, using the track beside the canal. Additional reserves will be on the west side of Globe Road, ready to come out from Chudleigh Street or Stepney Way.” Drummond said, “Will they be armed?”

  “With motor-cycle crash-helmets, to protect their heads, and with truncheons.”

  “To use on the heads of the sambos,” said Kay happily.

  “Should be worth watching,” said Drummond.

  “We might be able to fix you up with an observation post.”

  Everyone seemed satisfied with these arrangements, except for Watterson. But he refrained from criticism.

  That evening Len Farmer left his house on the Essex marshes and drove north by a private road until he reached Newham Way. Here he turned left and left again down to the Blackwall Tunnel, emerging, as the last of the light died over the Kentish hills, into that desolate area of half-built and half-destroyed houses which surrounds the tunnel entrance. He drove with confidence, as one who knew the area well. His objective was a small riverside public house. Considered as a building it had much in common with the prostitutes who frequented it, being both flashy and dirty. Here he was evidently well-known and the lady who doubled as bartender and madame showed him straight into her private parlour.

  Torpedo Hicks was waiting for him.

  When the ritual drinks had been consumed, Farmer leaned forward with both elbows on the table and said, “I’ve got some news for you. Hot from the press.” Whereupon he repeated, almost word for word, what Morrissey had told the meeting that morning.

  “I suppose this is straight goods,” said Hicks, scratching his chin with one great thumb. “You’re not being sold a load of old cobblers by any chance?”

  “My informant has been perfe
ctly reliable in the past.”

  Hicks grunted, took a long pull at his drink and said, “OK. So what do we do?”

  The fact that he was being deferred to by Hicks, coupled with the manner of his speech, would have made it clear to a listener that Farmer was the leader. He said, “Someone once remarked that the best general was the man who had his troops on the field fifteen minutes before his opponent. I propose to turn that upside down.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that we do nothing – for the moment. Let them mobilise a hundred and fifty men – two hundred if they like – this Friday, next Friday and the Friday after. They’ll soon get tired of it. They can’t keep it up for long. And as soon as we hear that they’re letting up, we go in. Right?”

  “All right,” said Hicks. “I’ll pass the message on. To tell you the truth, some of them won’t be sorry. They wouldn’t have enjoyed a stand-up fight on level terms. Six to one is their idea of good odds. One thing worries me. And when I explain the scenario to them it’ll worry them too. It seems that Morrissey knew a bloody sight too much about our plans.”

  “The fact had not escaped me. When he was talking to the others, he didn’t actually name his informant, but he gave a pretty broad hint. He said, ‘a man we’ve very carefully planted’. Can only be one person.”

  “That ex-cop Lampier.”

  “Must be.”

  “And now that you know—”

  “Now that I know,” said Farmer, with a butcher’s smile on his broad red face, “I propose to abate the nuisance.”

  “How are you going to find him?”

  “No problem. My informant has supplied me with his current address. We’ll pick him up tomorrow and put him on trial for his crimes. If we’re not going for the ELBO cash, it’ll be a useful diversion. Give them something to do. The boys always enjoy it. Piggy suggested that you might like to watch.”

  “Look forward to it,” said Hicks.

  At around midday on the following day Lampier was sitting in the front room on the second floor of a house in Earlham Street. Among a number of things that he wanted, the most urgent was a cigarette.

  He had suggested to his landlord that perhaps he would oblige by nipping round to the corner shop and buying him a couple of packets. His landlord, who had one eye and a number of convictions for minor offences, had said that it was no part of his fucking job to run errands for his fucking tenants. If his tenant wanted cigarettes, why didn’t he fucking go out and buy them?

  Lampier, unwilling to give him the real reason, which was that recently he had felt increasingly nervous about being seen on the street before dark, had withdrawn the suggestion and was suffering in silence.

  The half-hour striking from the church up the road seemed to make up his mind for him. It was the lunch-hour and the street which he could see from his window was practically empty. Chance it.

  He crept down the front stairs and out into the hall. The house was as quiet as the street outside. He opened the front door, thumbing down the catch so that he could get in again. Then he was out in the street, sliding along the south side of the road in the shadow cast by the midday sun.

  Through the open door of his ground-floor sitting-room his landlord watched him go. He suspected that he might never see him again, but since he had taken a week’s rent in advance the thought did not trouble him unduly.

  When Lampier came out of the tobacconist there were two men on the pavement and a car drawn up at the kerb with a driver behind the wheel and its rear door open. Each of the two men grabbed one of Lampier’s arms, lugged him, struggling and kicking, across the pavement, pitched him head first into the car and climbed in after him.

  The car drove off.

  Two ladies with shopping baskets saw this happening and decided it was nothing to do with them. A man watching from a window opposite picked up a telephone and started to dial. A car, parked further up the street, edged out and started to move.

  In the confined space at the back of the car Lampier had very little room for manoeuvre. Henty and Buller were both stronger than he was. They twisted his arms behind his back and slipped handcuffs over his wrists. Lampier had by this time recovered his wits sufficiently to say, “What the bloody hell—” when a broad strip of sticking plaster was slapped over his mouth.

  Henty said, “Shackle his feet?”

  “Would mean carrying the bastard,” said Buller. He put his mouth down close to Lampier’s ear and said, “Listen, boyo. If you try to run away you’ll lose both knee caps. Understood?”

  Lampier nodded. It was the only movement left to him.

  When they reached Glibbery’s shop the car drove into the back yard. Lampier was pushed out and punted towards the back door which Glibbery was holding open. When he stumbled, Buller helped him on his way with a swinging kick which landed an inch below the bottom of his spine.

  Once they were all inside and the door was shut, Glibbery showed them a cupboard. It was full of musty clothing, in bundles and boxes, but there was just room for Lampier.

  “Keep an eye on him,” said Henty, showing his dog’s teeth. “We want him in one piece. He’s our main course for this evening.”

  “Well, gentlemen,” said Farmer, “the court’s open.”

  “Before we get down to business,” said Piggy, “I wonder if I might make a suggestion.”

  “Provided it is made respectfully and in accordance with our customs and usages, you may do so.”

  “Just to say that the quicker we get rid of this bastard”—he indicated Lampier, even more securely roped—“the happier I should be. Speaking personally, that is.”

  “Have you any reason for suggesting this change in our procedure?”

  “The reason is, I don’t trust that shower Morrissey. He’s brought in a lot of men round here lately. He’s up to something, no question.”

  Whilst Piggy had been talking, Farmer had been thinking. Lately, he had noticed, Soltau had taken to making suggestions. Some of them quite sensible. It had been his idea to invite Hicks to that evening’s proceedings. But he didn’t really approve of his subordinates making suggestions. Could Piggy be angling for the leadership? And was Morrissey really moving in on them? If Lampier was on his payroll they would, no doubt, have been keeping an eye on him. So they could have seen him being picked up. It was possible. But one thing he was sure of. No one could have followed them to the Packstone Building. Their approach to it was very carefully organised. They came by separate routes, which were designed to make undetected following impossible. Having thought this through, he decided to compromise.

  “What I’ll do,” he said, “is to present the case for the prosecution. If you find it convincing, OK. We can skip any further talk and decide how the prisoner is to depart this life. Right? Then let me tell you that a very reliable contact in the ranks of our enemies gave me, yesterday, three pieces of information. The first was that Morrissey knew exactly what our plans were for tomorrow. Plans, incidentally, which we’ve now changed. The second was a broad hint that the information had come from this piece of filth you see on the floor. The third, which was obliging, was the address where we could find him. I don’t think”—he looked round his audience—“that there’s much room for doubt.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “Then, if the prisoner has nothing to say—”

  Here it became apparent that the prisoner did want to say something.

  “A speech from the scaffold,” said Farmer genially. “Let’s have it.”

  Buller grinned and ripped the plaster from Lampier’s mouth.

  Lampier said, in the high, squeaky voice of a frightened child, “That’s a lot of balls. How could I tell Morrissey what your plans were? How was I supposed to know them? No one ever told me anything.”

  This produced a moment of thoughtful silence.

  Before Farmer could speak, Soltau said, “I think I can deal with that.” He turned to Hicks. “I assume that you’ve had to exp
lain tomorrow’s plans to some of your boys.”

  “To the leading ones. Yes.”

  “Well, two evenings ago I saw some of them in the bar of the Deptford Giant and the prisoner was chatting them up. No doubt he’d have picked up enough to guess the outline of the plan.”

  Farmer said, “How he found out isn’t important. The fact that he did find out is proved by the fact that he passed on the information.”

  The faulty logic in this escaped his audience. They didn’t want talk. They wanted action. “Now, any suggestions?”

  Dog said, “String the bugger up and dump him in the river. If the body turns up, so what! It’s just another nasty little grass has got his come-uppance.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “Then if that’s a unanimous decision – you’ve got the rope, Bull. Sling it over the beam, would you? And lock the door, Goat.”

  “There ain’t no key.”

  “Then bolt both doors, stupid. Top and bottom. We don’t want any visitors, do we? Not now that we’ve reached the most important part of our proceedings. Right. All ready. Then haul away.”

  “On the whole,” said Petrella, “I shouldn’t do it. Or rather, all I can really say is that if I was in your shoes I’d let it go.”

  “The paper wasn’t all that kind to you,” said Stark. “Though we’ve all noticed that they seem to have turned the tap off a bit sudden. What happened? Did they run into a brick wall?”

  “You might put it that way.”

  “And you really think I’d have no chance, if I started an action?”

  “I think you’d have a fifty-fifty chance. Which is the most fatal thing in the world. Because you dive in without really knowing if the water’s deep enough. And if it isn’t, you get the hell of a crack on the head. Another thing. If you did start an action it’d be for libel and you’d have to find the money out of your own pocket. You can’t get legal aid in a libel action.”

  “That’s a clincher,” said Stark with a grin. “All the same, I’d have liked to have a smack at them. Not because of suggesting I bumped off that journalist. I’d have given them a kick on the bottom for that. No. It’s what they said about me in Ireland—”