Roller Coaster

by Michael Gilbert

  At that point the telephone rang. When Petrella picked up the receiver he heard the voice of Arnold, high with pleasure, excitement and incipient hysteria.

  “They’re at it again. You told us to watch. We saw them drag him in—”

  Petrella put down the receiver and said, “You wanted action. Come on.” He raced downstairs. It seemed that the meaning of Arnold’s message had been appreciated by Inspector Ambrose, who said, “Hoyland’s here with your car, sir.”

  “How many of our patrol cars are on the streets?”

  “Two, at the moment.”

  “Tell them to rendezvous at the corner of Manchester Road and Sterndale Street.” And to Hoyland, who was waiting by the car with the door open, “the Packstone Building. As fast as you can, but don’t break our necks.”

  His impression of the next five minutes was a succession of hair-raising twists and turns as Hoyland, avoiding traffic lights, manoeuvred the car out of the main streets and through uncrowded by-ways. Stark spoke only once. He said, “The boy’s wasted here. He ought to be on a race track.”

  Petrella said, “Slow down before you turn into Packstone Passage.” As he said it the car jerked to a halt. A metal barrier, with a red light winking in the middle of it, blocked the mouth of the passage. As Petrella jumped out he saw John Anderson, leaning against one corner of the barrier, grinning.

  He said, “I’ve got orders to stop everyone, but I expect the old man wouldn’t say no to you. Or the sergeant. A bit of extra muscle.”

  Petrella said to Hoyland, “Bring the other two cars up here, but tell them to wait.” Then he set off down the pavement with Stark padding like a silent shadow behind him.

  The front door of the Packstone Building was ajar. He pushed it open and they went up into the foyer. This was full of men. Ten at least, he thought. But he had eyes only for Morrissey who was crouching in front of the inner door, his eye to the keyhole. As Petrella moved forward he straightened up and said, “Now.”

  This seemed to be an agreed signal. Petrella saw that an eight-foot length of telegraph pole lay on the floor. Four men picked it up, swung it a couple of times, then smashed it against the double doors where they joined, carrying both away, bolts and all. The men dropped the pole and surged through.

  Petrella, coming behind them, got a photo flash of the scene in the room before it dissolved in movement. Six men staring, in different states of shock and unbelief, and Lampier strung to a beam in the ceiling, eyes staring and face empurpled, swinging in a slow arc in front of them.

  The only man to show fight was Buller. He charged forward with a bellow of rage, straight at Stark.

  The sergeant moved aside, buried his left fist in Buller’s stomach and, as he keeled over, hit him in the face with the full swing of his right arm.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The cars were stationary. Petrella wondered what had happened. Perhaps the power had failed. He hoped not. Peering over the side he saw that it would be a long climb down. One advantage of not moving was that he could examine the car opposite more closely. There were significant differences from last time. No more Farm Boys. All the seats were filled by well-dressed, smiling, City types, chatting amiably to each other. So crowded were they that the only intruders, Maurice and Mamma Meinhold, had given up their seats and were clinging to the outside of the car.

  “When the car starts they’ll be in danger of falling off,” said Petrella.

  His wife said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s high time you snapped out of it.”

  Petrella rolled over in bed. “Sorry,” he said. “A dream. Or was it the end of a nightmare?” He looked at his watch. “Christ! We’ll have to hurry breakfast. I’m seeing Morrissey at ten. He wants to have a general discussion before we see the Crown Prosecution bods at eleven.”

  “So that you both tell the same story,” said his wife drily.

  “That’s the idea, I imagine.”

  Two weeks had passed. The equinoctial gales had blown away the last remnants of that long, hot summer. The Farm Boys and Hicks had come up twice at Bow Street and twice had been remanded in custody. The five were charged with the murder of Flower; the five, with Hicks, with the attempted murder of Lampier.

  Morrissey was in excellent spirits and had good reason to be. He had done the job his superiors had wanted and was being rewarded for it.

  “You’ll see it in Orders, when the idle slobs get round to publishing it. I’m being put up to Commander.”

  “That’s splendid,” said Petrella. “Too late, but splendid.”

  “It’s good for me. Means that when I go out in December my pension will be based on a Commander’s pay. And good for Johnnie when he takes over from me, as he will. Incidentally”—he looked out of the corner of his eye at Petrella—“that means finding someone to take over the four London squads. I suppose you wouldn’t be interested?”

  “Do you mean that I’m to be offered the job?”

  “When I spoke to Lovell, he seemed to have it in mind.”

  “Before I decided on anything, I’d have to have his reactions to a memorandum I sent him a week ago.”

  “Yes,” said Morrissey thoughtfully. “I read it. Interesting stuff. A real-life whodunnit. Trouble is that one of your suspects was at school with Lovell. Makes it difficult for him to be dispassionate.”

  “But not impossible,” said Petrella coldly.

  “Let’s hope not. However, that’s not what you came to talk about.”

  “What I want to understand is exactly how you pulled off that pantomime at the Packstone Building.”

  “Pantomime?” said Morrissey thoughtfully. “Is that what it looked like to you?”

  “A mixture between a pantomime and the last act in Hamlet, with you as producer and stage manager.”

  There was a moment of silence before Morrissey said, “If we’re going to bring down the curtain without any last-minute hitches, maybe you ought to know what was going on behind the scenes. But anything I tell you, stops with you.”

  “I’m not likely to pass it on to the Sentinel.”

  “Can’t stop you discussing it with your wife. But it goes no further. Right? Well, then, you knew that Kay was in Farmer’s pocket?”

  “I suspected it, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “Same with me. So I bloody well made sure. I let him in on my plans at the very last moment. The only way he could get it across in time to Farmer was on the blower. From a public box, of course. So I tapped Farmer’s own phone and I had Kay followed. Result, we know that he made a call at five that evening from a box, duly received by Farmer and recorded by our man. So I knew where I stood. Next step was to get my hooks on one of the Farm Boys. Soltau seemed the most likely and I’d been treading on his heels for some days. My men were told to haunt him – quietly. Shop at the same shops, drink at the same pubs. I calculated that his nerve would go and so it did. Three nights ago he came round, very late, to my place and we made a bargain. When the boys were safely behind bars and we’d made suitable arrangements for his protection, he’d turn Queen’s evidence. But until that time he wanted all guns pointed at Lampier.”

  “Who was the cheese in the mousetrap.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not a very comfortable role for him.”

  “Between you and me, I didn’t give a brass farthing what happened to Lampier. He was a renegade policeman. In my book that means a lump of shit. If they’d succeeded in hanging him I shouldn’t have lost five minutes’ sleep over it.”

  Petrella was busy trying to work out the moves in the Machiavellian game of chess that Morrissey had been playing. He said, “Then you told Soltau and he told the boys where they could pick up Lampier. Practically invited them to do so.”

  “Right.”

  “And Soltau was your assistant stage manager for the grand finale in the Packstone Building. I take it he had persuaded Farmer to bring Hicks along.”

  “Had to have Hicks there. Once he
was pegged we reckoned the West Indian gang would fall apart.”

  “And are you going to be able to bring these charges home?”

  “Got a good chance of it. Can’t say more. Soltau’s our only witness to the murder of Flower. Unless we bring in your young friend Arnold who doesn’t seem anxious to talk. Child witness. Always risky.”

  “Soltau’s going to have to stand up to a raking cross-examination. And what’s more, you haven’t even got a body.”

  “No,” said Morrissey with a grin. “But we’ve got all his teeth. Piggy was meant to throw them away, but he hung onto them. Most of them have been filled or capped or chipped in some way. His dentist will say that the chance of them belonging to another man is about a million to one.”

  “There’ll be a lot of argument about that.”

  “Could go to the House of Lords. Our legal boys would love that. However, we’re on firmer ground with the second charge. We can all say what we saw when we broke down the door. If you string someone up, you have to argue bloody hard to prove you weren’t trying to kill him.”

  Petrella said, “I’m not a lawyer. But it seems to me you might be in some difficulty in bringing home a charge of attempted murder if it transpired that the attempt could never have succeeded, seeing that Lampier was being watched and protected by you and your men.”

  “How do you suggest that’s going to come out? I’m not going to talk. And the team who were watching Lampier were picked men. Picked by me. Men I could rely on not to speak out of turn.”

  Petrella said, “I see.” He was beginning to do so.

  “One other thing. What do you intend to do about Kay?”

  “He’s retiring. As of now. At his own request.”

  “No disciplinary proceedings?”

  “Difficulty is I could only convict him of treachery by admitting that I’d had Farmer’s telephone bugged. At this stage in my career I wasn’t prepared to put my head on the block.”

  Petrella again said, “I see.” It seemed inadequate, but he could think of nothing more.

  “Then if that’s all, we’d better go along and make our mark with the legal eagles. I think, on the whole, the less you say the better. You could mention that you told us about the Packstone Building and the boy Arnold.” At the door, he added, “One good result. I’m told that my daughter’s dropped Lampier and transferred her maidenly affections to Sergeant Stark.”

  “A sound swap,” said Petrella.

  That, and the news of Morrissey’s promotion, were the only things he had heard that morning which caused him any pleasure at all.

  “Before reaching a final decision,” said Lovell, “I wanted your own reaction to the idea of this cross-posting. You realise that it would mean promotion.”

  “It’s attractive,” said Petrella. “And there’s no one I’d rather work under than John Anderson. But there’s a piece of unfinished business that I feel I must wind up before handing over to my successor. I mean the matter which I set out in the memorandum I sent you last week.”

  “Yes,” said Lovell, “we shall have to deal with that. I’d have answered it sooner, but I had to take it up to the Commissioner and there was one point in it which had to be referred to the Home Secretary. Let me lay out the facts, so that you can see whether I’ve got them straight.”

  Counsel for the defence, thought Petrella.

  “You assert that there is an organisation headed by certain City men - Seamark and Ringland are named – which arranges for video tapes to be shot involving boys. These were shot in Amsterdam and may now be shot in Morocco. When brought to England they go to a bookshop owner called Meinhold who sends them out to members of a club which has been formed to receive them. Club fees are paid to Meinhold in cash, which he passes on, less his commission, to his masters in the City. Right so far?”

  “Perfectly right, sir.”

  “Now we come to something rather more difficult. Your identification of Seamark depends on the evidence of a nurse in the Central London Hospital. Evidence which is controverted by the doctor involved. Of Ringland, by his possible involvement with the operation in Amsterdam and by your father’s success in identifying him with the man calling himself Harrington. He got this information informally, through friends in the Moroccan Immigration Service and he might be embarrassed if forced to produce it in court. Right?”

  Petrella nodded. He knew, now, where they were going.

  He said, “I did say, in my note, that the evidence against the City ring was slight and that is why I suggested how it could easily be strengthened, if not made conclusive.”

  “I considered that suggestion very carefully,” said Lovell.

  “My real point was, that this is an ongoing operation. And there’s no easy way for them to stop it. The club members have paid their entrance fees and subscriptions, and are conditioned to getting their periodical doses of stimulation. If they stop the supply the City organisers will be in much the sort of trouble that other suppliers of drugs are in when they try to stop their operation. Particularly now that they no longer have the hired bullies to keep the club members in line.”

  “I’ve no doubt you’re right about that.”

  “Then there are just two ways of breaking down the racket and getting onto the men at the top. Either pull in Meinhold on suspicion and frighten him into talking. Or, simpler and even more effective, hold and inspect all mail going into and out of that shop. That would give you the names of the organisers and the club members and demonstrate the connection between them.”

  “I put both those points to the Commissioner and through him to the Home Secretary – whose authority would be needed to interfere with Meinhold’s mail. His answer was, first, that the case against Meinhold was too inconclusive to justify either personal action against him, or interference with his mail. Secondly, that even if all that you have asserted was proved, legal action against the organisers would not necessarily succeed. Our advisers first considered proceedings under the Protection of Children Act, 1978. That’s the Act that makes it an offence to take indecent pictures of children or to sell or distribute such pictures for gain. In this case the organisers don’t take the pictures and there’s no question of sale. The tapes are simply one of the perquisites of being a club member. At first sight, the Criminal Justice Act, 1988, looked more hopeful. Section 150 makes the mere fact of possessing such photographs an offence. It was considered, therefore, whether, by regarding Meinhold as an agent for the City men, a charge of conspiracy to possess the photographs might lie against them jointly. Unfortunately, this won’t work. Section 150 only creates a summary offence and in such cases no charge of conspiracy can be framed without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. A consent which, in the circumstances of this case, he was not willing to give.”

  “Because he was at school with one of them,” suggested Petrella.

  “On more sensible grounds than that,” said Lovell. If the last comment had annoyed him, he was too experienced to show it. He said, “Think about my offer. Why don’t you discuss it with your wife? We’ll talk about it again when you’ve had a chance to do that.”

  The discussion started before supper and continued after supper, until Petrella applied the closure. He tried not to speak bitterly.

  He said, “I’m sure the offer was a perfectly genuine one and it would be an interesting and worthwhile job, but I couldn’t accept it at the price put on it. That I tear up my memorandum and forget all about Intriguing Publications and the paedo-porn outfit, which would presumably go quietly on, with tapes imported from Morocco or some other country. All right. I’ve learned my lesson. In police work, particularly if the establishment might be involved, what action you take doesn’t depend on the rights and wrongs of the case. It depends on the nature of your quarry. If he is a member of the criminal class, anything goes. Telephones can be tapped, policemen can suppress evidence, one suspect can be chivvied until he changes sides. Another one can be manoeuvred into a position
where he is scared out of his wits and then three-quarters strangled. Now turn over another page. This time the quarry is a respectable bookshop owner, acting for top men in the City. Now the situation is quite different. No one must be harassed, their privacy must be respected, their telephones and their mail are sacrosanct. Everyone must behave with decorum. And if it really does look – perish the thought – that they might be guilty, then you can always scratch around among a few Acts of Parliament to prove that you were completely justified in doing nothing.”

  Jane yawned, put away her mending and said, “No point in talking about it anymore. You know what you’ve got to do.”

  When it got around that Petrella was leaving the police force and going to help his father run his fruit farm in Morocco, different people expressed different views on the matter.

  Chief Superintendent Watterson said to Deputy Commissioner Lovell, “We’ve lost a lot of good men lately. I’d put him about top of the list.”

  Lovell said, “Yes. A great pity.”

  Chief Superintendent Roper said, “Just as well, perhaps, that he’s got out. I’ve a feeling that we should have had to take official notice of some of the things he did.”

  Chief Superintendent, soon to be Commander, Morrissey said, “Stupid bugger!” but said it affectionately.

  The editor of the Sentinel said, “Must be something behind it.”

  Bob Seamark said to Toby Ringland, “I’m having second thoughts about opening up in Morocco. Do you realise that there’ll be two Petrellas there? Why don’t we try Italy?”

  Ringland said, “It’s an idea. Cut the Mafia in on it. It’d cost money, but we’d be dead safe.”

  Detective Constable Peregrine Hoyland said nothing, which was wiser than saying what he thought.

  The only person who was unreservedly in favour of the move was Donald.