Gideon Combats Influence

by John Creasey

  She opened her tired eyes, smiled at him, and said in a voice it was difficult to hear:

  “You look as if you’ve got a headache, dear. Why don’t you have an early night?”

  “Yes, I will,” Ben Samuel said. “I’ll get your drink, and then we’ll go to bed. I’ve had rather a tiring day at the office.”

  Gideon, with the Big Brother Borgman shadow at his shoulder all the time, even when he was thinking of other cases, had not even heard of Old Ben Samuel, and did not know that the old cashier was likely to give him a remarkable chance to probe the affairs of John Borgman. Had he had foreknowledge, however, he would not really have been surprised. He had been amazed, in his early days, by some aspects of the gradual unfolding of the pattern of crime and the fight against it, but nothing really astonished him any more. The pattern was continually changing, but was always there. Often two cases overlapped, and even dovetailed. The ill-considered or the unconsidered trifles sometimes developed into key factors. The seasoned pickpocket, caught red-handed, might lead back to the fence, and, behind the fence, to a school of pickpockets working most of London. The shoplifter, caught for the first time and tearfully protesting her innocence, might lead to a corrupt store detective, or to members of the sales staff working together with the shoplifters. The child caught throwing stones at windows or glass doors might be doing it for the thief who was planning to break in.

  The shadow of Borgman was less evident this evening. Much darker was that of Tiny Bray. Gideon had been greeted with the news of Tiny’s death when he had entered the hospital, asked if Mrs Bray were there, and was told, yes. She had few close friends, because Tiny had lived in that half-world between the law-abiding and the law-breaking, not trusted by either. Soon after their marriage Tiny had been charged with complicity in a robbery with violence case, and had been sent to prison for seven years. His wife had waited, wholly faithful, wholly trusting. Two years after he had left prison, his innocence had been established. The bitterness had gone deep in Tiny Bray, and because he had been framed and made to pay for a crime he had not committed, he had set out deliberately to revenge himself on all who committed the kind of crime for which he had been imprisoned: he had been an informer for twelve years, and had always informed about the same kind of crime: shop-breaking. He had taken police money for the information he gave, but Gideon as well as everyone else who had known Bray believed that he would gladly have supplied the news for nothing.

  He had been a reliable informer, too.

  But no one had trusted him and no one had trusted his wife.

  “I’d like to go and see her,” Gideon told the Matron at the hospital, and was led to the private ward which the police had arranged for Tiny. There was Tiny, pale and thin in death, and not truly peaceful. There was his small, plump, mouselike wife, not knowing what to do, and a nurse and one of the Divisional detectives, who had been there with his notebook. This man, grey and elderly, shook his head at a silent inquiry from Gideon.

  “We’ll help in every way we can, Mrs Bray,” Gideon promised, and touched the woman’s arm. “I don’t think you should stay here any longer. Is your daughter at home?”

  Tiny’s wife turned round and looked up with her eyes filled with tears, her plain, plump face whiter than her husband’s.

  “If you would send for her I’d be ever so grateful, Mr Gideon, I would really. She’s gone out to Royston to live, you know. Mr Gideon, you will find out who did this to my Bert, won’t you? You will find the beasts.”

  “We shall find them and punish them,” Gideon promised.

  When he had arranged for Mrs Bray’s married daughter to come, and when he had left the widowed woman at the tiny house in Nixon Street, he saw a man whom he recognised vaguely, turning into the street from Walker Cut. This had been opened again to pedestrians, for the photographs had been taken and the place searched for clues. So far nothing useful had been found. Gideon didn’t start the engine, but watched the man walking briskly along, wondering where he had seen him before. He wound down his window, and called out as the man approached: “Detective Officer Moss?”

  The man, who was extraordinarily thin but not particularly tall, missed a step and peered into the car.

  “Yes, who—” He straightened up. “Mr Gideon, sir.”

  “You on the Bray job?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Got any line?”

  “Just going to have another word with a girl who might have seen something,” Moss said eagerly. “I can’t be sure, but this used to be my beat, sir, and I got to know everyone pretty well.”

  “I remember that testimony you gave on the Ericson case,” Gideon said.

  Moss’s eyes lit up.

  “Very good of you to say so, sir.” The testimony had won him his transfer from the uniformed branch. “Well, this girl said she saw nothing but I think she was scared, and her mother’s an old bitch who would rather lie herself black than help us at all. The daughter’s a nice kid, though. If I’m right, the old woman’s sleeping off the booze at the moment, and I hope the daughter will be on her own.” He coloured suddenly, and his Adam’s apple began to work wildly. “I’ve come on my own with permission, sir; it was thought that if there were two of us then Rachel Gully—that’s the girl—would be too frightened to talk.”

  “Carry on,” said Gideon. “I’ll be round the corner— let me know what happens.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gideon drove on, smiling to himself, and pulled up round the corner. Here was part of the pattern unfolding again. According to the lately retired superintendent of NE Division, Moss had an extensive and exceptional knowledge of the people on his beat, and could soak up anything he noticed like a sponge. But he had not yet learned to extract the juice of evidence from reports or formal written statements; he had to see before facts registered, and the old Chief had said that, given ten years, there wouldn’t be a better man in the Force.

  Moss was likely to find promotion difficult because of his scraggy figure and that Adam’s apple, though; noticeable Adam’s apples and authority seldom went together. Gideon took out his big, rough-bowled pipe, and began to fill it; and took a long time pressing the tobacco down, and was finicky with the little strands which hung over the bowl of the pipe. He saw an elderly man with silvery hair come out of one of the tiny houses: that was Freddy Wayne, who had spent twenty of his sixty years in prison and was almost certainly getting ready to go back again: he was a forger, and sometimes seemed to forge for the love of it.

  Funnily enough, Freddy’s only son was a leading light in the Salvation Army, who was ready to bend over backwards in order to try to undo the harm his father had done. Gideon was thinking of that, and wondering whether Borgman would have been difficult had he had a son, when he saw Moss hurrying round the corner. Even in the movement of Moss’s legs and feet, which Gideon saw first, there was a hint of alarm.

  Moss came up, breathing hard.

  “I’m a bit worried, sir. Would you mind putting a call out for Rachel Gully?”

  Gideon moved forward in his seat almost before the request was made, and flicked on his radio; immediately, the teeming ether woke to life. He recognised the voices of three men on the air, picked up reports on some of the night’s crimes, then pushed the switch over again, and said: “Gideon calling Information, urgent, please.” He pushed open his door. “Get in, and tell me what it’s all about.”

  Moss bent almost double to get in.

  “The girl’s not at home, sir. The old woman’s sleeping it off, as I thought, but the daughter’s gone. A chap next door said that he saw a strange man come for her, and she went off with him. Rachel Gully isn’t one for the men, and from the description of this chap, he could have been Syd Carter.”

  “Red’s brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Information, sir.”

 
“I want a general London call out for a girl named Rachel Gully, and a special watch kept on Red Carter and everyone associated with him,” Gideon said. “Stand by for a description of the girl.” He handed the microphone to Moss, listened while Moss gave a brief and precise description, and then said: “Have Red Carter taken to the divisional headquarters for questioning.”

  “All noted, sir.”

  “I’m switching off,” Gideon said, and nicked again. With almost the same movement he started the engine, and they began to move. “You’d better get to the station as soon as you can,” he said, “and I’ll have a word with Mr Christy.” It would have been superfluous to ask if Moss really thought that the girl, had seen the attack on Bray; as superfluous to wonder whether Moss had any personal interest in the Gully girl: obviously he had. “Anything else you think we could do to help?”

  “Can’t think of anything, sir,” Moss answered. “But I hope that girl’s all right.”

  “The worst they’ll do is scare the wits out of her,” Gideon said reassuringly.

  Moss’s tone altered, and he said politely: “I hope you’re right, sir.”

  He was not reassured, but was genuinely frightened of what might happen to the girl if she had seen the attack. There was no certainty, but probably he had cause to be frightened: no one had yet proved that Red Carter’s mob had killed anyone, but there had been two deaths – both officially accidental – which had never been fully explained. The trouble with Red’s mob was that it had run for nearly two years without a serious set-back. Criminals with the gangster mentality always became over-confident, always began to think that they could get away with murder.

  Gideon pulled up outside the ugly red-brick building which housed the NE Division’s headquarters, found himself wondering when they would get round to building a new station here, and nodded good-bye to Moss, who got out and ran up the stone steps. Moss was really alarmed, and somehow managed to pass on his disquiet.

  But the Gully girl couldn’t be far away; she was almost certainly within half a mile of this spot, now.

  “I hope to God she’s all right,” Gideon said to himself, and then got out to go and have a word with Christy. As he reached the top step, a car turned the corner and, moving too fast, approached the station. The driver jammed on his brakes, two doors opened almost simultaneously, and Gideon had a sense of foreboding that this was bad news.

  Instead, he saw that the first man to get out was hand cuffed to another; the first man was a divisional detective sergeant, named Willis, and the man handcuffed to him was small, round-faced and bald-headed.

  “Baldy!” Gideon found himself exclaiming. The sergeant was grinning, obviously on top of the world; the other man who got out of the police car raised his hands together like a boxer acknowledging the crowd. The policeman on duty at the foot of the steps was making a desperate attempt in dumbshow to tell the newcomers that Gideon was here, but they did not take the hint: and Gideon could not blame them, for Baldy Lock had been on the wanted list for nine months. He had got away with fifteen thousand pounds in a pay snatch, and no one on the Force had seen him since.

  Then all three men coming up the steps saw Gideon. Willis missed a step, Baldy Lock looked downwards, as if he did not want to meet Gideon’s eye, and a plainclothes man with them announced:

  “We’ve caught Baldy Lock, sir,” and then flushed as he realised the inanity of the comment.

  “We’ll have to mention you two in dispatches,” Gideon said. “Where’d you get him?”

  “Followed his wife, sir—she led the way to an old barge in Duck’s Pool. He’s just back from Holland, judging from some money in his pocket and some papers.”

  “Fine. Didn’t see Syd or Red Carter on the way, did you?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact,” Willis said, quite casually, “I did see Syd Garter. He had a girl with him. Going towards Duck’s Pool for a bit of you-know-what, I should think. Don’t want him for anything, do we?”

  Chapter Four

  Duck’s Pool

  Duck’s Pool was nearly half a mile from the river, a disused unloading point for barges which, years ago, had weaved their way through the small canals and the backwaters which led off the Thames. Now, with mechanical loading and unloading taking far less time, unloading stations nearer the main docks were used and Duck’s Pool, like dozens of others in the vicinity, had been left to become foul and noisome. Moored alongside were five old barges, two of them little more than rotting hulls, one of them towed here only a few months after having her bows staved in. Occasionally, tramps used the barges as doss-houses; more often, the lovers of the night came out, to use the hard boards as divans. By day, especially when it was hot, children played, tossed stones at old tin cans or at sections of the barges that were not yet broken. Here, the neighbourhood’s cats were drowned. Here, the occasional drunk fell in and was drowned, also. And here one of the people, whose ‘accidental’ death had never really been accounted for, had fallen to his death; he had been known to quarrel with Red Carter only a few days before his end.

  One approach to Duck’s Pool, from the south, was protected by a high warehouse wall. No one coming from that direction could be seen, and it was along here that Rachel Gully came with Syd Carter’s right arm entwined in hers in such a way that she could not free herself.

  It seemed an age since she had opened the front door and seen him standing there, tall, dark-haired, strong; a bigger man than his brother, whom he seemed to worship. He had piercing dark eyes and shaggy eyebrows, and he talked very little; no one expected Syd to say much.

  “Want to talk to you,” he had said.

  “I—I can’t come out now. My Mum—”

  “Come on,” he had insisted.

  Rachel had been doing what she was told nearly all her life, and she had always been frightened of men like the Carters because her mother had thrust such fear deep into her. She had heard her mother snoring in her chair, her arms hanging by its sides. She had tried to resist when Syd had taken her arm and drawn her forward.

  It was a warm evening, and she had left without a hat or coat, heart thumping painfully. She had heard Garter slam the door. He had let her go for a moment, and she had felt an awful urge to run, had been about to when he had caught her again; since then he had not let her go. She had not realised where they were heading until she had seen the warehouse wall, with its empty windows gaping against the darkening sky; she knew the reputation of Duck’s Pool as well as anyone in the East End.

  In panic she tried to draw back.

  “Come on,” he growled, and twisted her arm a little, thrusting her forward so that she walked a step ahead of him. She was finding it hard to breathe now; her asthma made the air wheeze through her lungs. She saw the oily, slimy water of the pool, sinister in the fading light. She saw the old barges. She knew that people had drowned here. She knew that Syd had not come here with her simply because she was a girl to take.

  “I don’t want to go along there!” She gasped.

  “Want to talk to you,” Syd said. “Don’t want anyone to hear, neether.” They neared the pool itself, and the uneven cobbles were slippery. Once Rachel slipped. “Step lively,” Syd ordered, and thrust her towards two planks which stretched over a yard of water between the side of a boat and the cobbles.

  She wanted to scream but could not make a sound.

  She stepped on to the planks, and there was an awful fear in her lest he should push her into the water; but he held her steady. They stepped on to the creaking boards of the barge, and then stopped at the entrance to tine living quarters. It was like the opening of a dark hole.

  “Get down there,” Syd ordered.

  “Syd, no, I—”

  He gave her a shove, and she fell forward, snatched at a hand rail, and jolted it out of its socket. She nearly pitched into the hole, but somehow steadi
ed herself, and then began to climb down the upright ladder, the only means of getting in or out. There was a stench of foul water, making her feel sick. Syd filled the entrance now, and it was pitch dark in here. She heard him scramble down.

  “Syd—”

  “You see Tiny Bray tonight?”

  “No! No, Syd, I—”

  “You’re lying,” Syd said, and his hand touched hers, his fingers gripped her wrist and twisted. “You tell the cops anything?”

  “No!”

  “If you told the cops—”

  “I tell you I didn’t.”

  “What didn’t you tell them?” he demanded, and the pressure of his fingers became more painful.

  “They wanted to know if I’d seen anyone in the Cut, but they didn’t make me say anything. I didn’t say a word, Syd, I swear it.”

  “Did you see Tiny in the Cut?”

  “I—yes, I did, but I didn’t tell the police.”

  “See anyone else?”

  “No!”

  “Why don’t you tell the truth?” Syd demanded roughly. Every question he asked came tautly, as if he disliked the need for saying so much; and with every question there was a little extra pressure and pain. “Who did you see set on Bray?”

  “I—I didn’t mean to see anyone, Syd. I didn’t stay, I just went round the long way.”

  “See Red?” Syd demanded.

  “Yes, I did see him, I happened to see him,” Rachel almost sobbed, “but I didn’t say anything to the police, and I never will, I swear I never will.”

  “That’s right, you won’t,” Syd said. “Okay, you can get out, now. I’ll give you a hand up.”

  The change in his mood was almost as frightening as if he had struck her, or kept calling her a liar. He hauled himself out of the stinking little hutch, and then stretched down for her. He took her wrists, tightened his grip, and hauled her up bodily. Her knees scraped against the boards. Then, in the darkness which now seemed complete, he held her with his left arm round her waist, and they went towards the side.