by John Creasey
Copyright & Information
A Backwards Jump
(Gideon's Month)
First published in 1958
© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1958-2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of John Creaseyto be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
EAN ISBN Edition
0755125738 9780755125739 Print
0755133765 9780755133765 Mobi
0755134141 9780755134144 Epub
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
www.houseofstratus.com
About the Author
John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.
Creasy wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the 'C' section in stores. They included:
Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.
Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.
He also founded the British Crime Writers' Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey's stories are as compelling today as ever.
1
THE FIRST OF THE MONTH
It was the first day of May, a beautiful day, and George Gideon was taking one of his favourite walks, through Hyde Park and across the fields. Some sheep were grazing not far off, a horde of Londoners sprawled on the grass and on chairs near the road, several riders, mostly young, trotted their horses along Rotten Row. A few people promenaded in their best clothes, as if determined to remember that this had once been London’s finest fashion parade on any Sunday morning. The sunlight shimmered on the many-coloured cellulose of the rivers of cars moving in each direction, and coming slowly to a standstill whenever the police or traffic fights held them up at one of the gates.
It was half-past twelve.
Gideon had just come from Scotland Yard, where he had been since nine o’clock, working on some jobs which had needed special attention. Now he was as nearly off duty as he could ever be, content in the sun which wasn’t too hot, enjoying the springiness of the grass beneath his feet, and looking forward to meeting his wife and taking her out to lunch. It was one of those rare Sundays when all five of the Gideon children still living at home were following their own devices. When Gideon had telephoned and discovered that Kate was alone, he had said: “Have a day off cooking, Kate, and come and meet me in town. I needn’t stay in the office much after twelve.”
She had hesitated.
“It sounds lovely, dear, but if I don’t cook the joint today there’ll be no cold meat for supper, or—”
“We’ll eat bread and cheese, or fish and chips. How about Marble Arch at one o’clock?”
Kate had laughed.
“All right, George, I’ll be there.”
Kate, the dependable, would be. Gideon had decided where to take her for lunch, and he knew that she would first protest against extravagance, then thoroughly enjoy herself. Gideon was gradually developing a mood in which the occasional extravagance was both possible and wise. Two of his daughters were earning enough to keep themselves, two of the boys, too; if a twenty-five-year-old son could be called a boy. Pension days were a long way off, but at least when he retired, at sixty say, the pension and his insurances would enable him and Kate to live comfortably, and he had managed to save a bit, in spite of the long family.
The mood of contentment, like the mood of extravagance, was comparatively new to Gideon, and was partly due to achievement. It was a good thing, at fifty-one, to realise that he was practically at the top of the tree. There was just one step higher than being Commander of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, and that was being its Assistant Commissioner. At one time he had worried about whether he would get that plum, ever, but now he seldom gave it a thought. Whether it came or not, he couldn’t complain.
He was aware, as always, of the number of people who glanced at him, some recognising, some half-recognising him. He knew, too, that even strangers looked twice, for he was big physically, with broad, heavy shoulders and a thick torso, although he wasn’t actually fat. Massive was the word most often applied to Gideon. He didn’t wear a hat, and his grey hair, thick and bushy, looked greyer than it was because of the sun. He wore a suit of brown tweed which fitted loosely, and the air of well-being was with him as he took long, unhurried strides through the London which was both home and life to him. No man living knew more about its seamy side, few knew more about its warmth and tranquillity. Here was Hyde Park on a golden Sunday, looking as it always had and always would – London’s favourite playground.
His mind was not on crime or criminals, and he gave none a second thought, but many a fleeting one. Across Park Lane, for instance, at one of the luxury hotels, two C.I.D. men were posing as guests and keeping an eye on a smart gentleman from Scandinavia who was probably going to try to sell property he didn’t own. In the same hotel was a man who had come out of prison six months ago, after a twelve-year sentence, with full remission. So far, he was doing all right, but working as a kitchen-hand could not be expected to keep an astute mind busy, and he would brood over his wife, who had gone off with another man within a few weeks of his sentence, and also brood over his past. There wasn’t much one could do for chaps like that, except have a word with them now and again, or see that someone else did, trying to make them realise that they weren’t entirely alone, and outcasts.
Just along a street leading off Park Lane was the house which, two weeks ago, had been besieged by sightseers and gawpers; the house where Lucy Love had been murdered. A pretty kid, she’d had everything, or nearly everything; films, television, a career in Hollywood if she’d wanted it. She had decided to play one man off against another. Who should one be sorry for? The dead girl or her murderer, who had tried to kill himself, failed, and was now in hospital, ready to be charged the moment he came out; without any hope left.
A Rolls-Royce went by, and inside was a leading Queen’s Counsel, with an income of £50,000 a year. Not long afterwards an old-fashioned
but spotless black Daimler passed, driven by one of Her Majesty’s judges whose salary was not much more than a tenth of the Q.C.’s. A man walking by the side of a woman with three young children trailing behind straightened up abruptly when he saw Gideon: this was Sergeant Wylie, of the uniformed branch.
“Good morning, sir.”
“’Morning, Sam. Lovely day. ‘Morning, Mrs. Wylie.” Gideon raised a hand and smiled at the children, and went on.
Earlier, he had seen another man with his wife and three children who had turned round quickly to avoid the need for speaking to Gideon; a pickpocket who would almost certainly be back in jail before the year was out. He seemed to stay out of jail just long enough to put his wife with child again, and then get sent down until the child was born. And his children were taught to steal; to pick pockets, snatch handbags, become expert in shop-lifting.
All his life Gideon had been trying to understand why a man who knew that crime didn’t pay could train his children into his own anti-social folly. What would be the result if all criminal parents were separated from their children? The first thing would be an uproar about the freedom of the individual, of course, and a lot of sentimental bosh.
Gideon looked ahead at the crowds near Marble Arch, with his lips more relaxed and his eyes amused. He could hear a high-pitched voice carried to him on the quiet wind, but could not yet distinguish the words. The voice was unmistakable; he had heard it, on and off, for twenty-five years. This was Little Willie, on his Topic For the Day. It might be anything from World Government to the price of cabbages; whatever it was, he would have the biggest crowd of all the soap-box orators of the park, because he could be funny – not always intentionally. Several other speakers were up, of course, and the sun had brought them audiences much larger than usual. They were battling one against the other, gesticulating, remonstrating, condemning, threatening with hell-fire, cursing the Government, making full use of the Englishman’s freedom of speech, and seldom abusing it.
Some did abuse it, of course. That was why several uniformed policemen were on the fringes of the crowd, listening, knowing which man was more likely to start using bad or abusive language, ready to quieten him down; knowing which man was likely to switch from criticism of the Government to criticism of the Royal Family, then go near enough to treasonable utterance to be warned. A warning was usually enough, for very few of these men were ever taken from their boxes by the police.
Mingling with the crowd, now several thousand strong, were half a dozen C.I.D. plainclothes men. This morning could become a pickpocket’s harvest, and the best way to prevent it was to have C.I.D. men known to the thieves mixing with the crowd, as well as one or two who couldn’t be identified.
The high-pitched voice of Little Willie became louder.
“. . . and the lifeblood of this country is being sapped, that’s what it is, being sapped by the worship of sport. Ess—pee—o—ah—tee, sport. I tell you again that the thought of millions of able-bodied men standing round a grass field and watching twenty-two men kicking a little ball about—”
“You ever played football, Willie?” a man called out.
“You ever been to a football match?”
If Willie said he had, the roar would be hypocrite, with a gust of laughter. If he said he hadn’t, the roar would be then what the hell do you know about it? and another gust of laughter. But Willie was too old a hand to be caught so easily, and he spread his thin hands wide and waved his arms as he stood on the platform, spare and small and grey-haired.
“My information on this subject is taken from the highest authorities in the land,” he retorted piercingly, “and the only thing I’d like to play football with is your head.”
He won his laugh, but didn’t join in with it. “Think, ladies and gentlemen, think. God gave you a mind, why don’t you use it for once? Think about the awful iniquity of sport, consider how it is sapping the very lifeblood of our country. Export sales fall, prices rise, the working man wants more and more money, and why? I’ll tell you why; it’s because of this worship of sport. Think, will you, just for a minute. Please! One million able-bodied men attend football matches every Saturday afternoon. Not a hundred, not a thousand, not a hundred thousand, but one million able-bodied men. Allow them one hour to reach the match, one hour to get home, two hours there, and that comes to four million working hours. Do you realise what kind of thing can be made in four million working hours? A hundred aeroplanes! An atomic pile! Enough clothes to dress a hundred thousand families! Thousands upon thousands of bicycles! A month’s food for half of London. Think, ladies and gentlemen, I beg you to think. Pause only for a moment, and other tremendous advantages will occur to you, other commodities vital to the community which could be made by able-bodied men working for four million hours. You, madam – can you think of something? Can you imagine how much good—?”
A little woman standing next to a biggish man grinned and shook her head.
“Well, madam, what about your husband? I’m sure he—”
“I can tell you, Willie!” the husband shouted. “Four million bloody footballs, that’s what they could make.”
Gideon found himself chuckling as the crowd roared. Even Willie gave a half-hearted grin.
Gideon went on, towards Marble Arch itself, knowing that Kate would be here at any minute. He didn’t want to keep her waiting, that happened often enough when it was unavoidable. Then an incident set his thoughts on to criminal parents and their children again. A woman, presumably the mother, struck a child of six or seven. It was a much more vicious blow than appeared justified by misbehaviour, and the child went white until colour began to flood his cheeks. But he did not cry. He did not protest. He did not even look up reproachfully, but turned and walked just ahead of the woman, his head bowed a little and thin shoulders bent. Obviously the child was used to being struck like that. Two couples stopped and looked as if they would protest, but the spiteful mother glared at them, their courage ebbed and they went on. Then a policeman stepped from the kerb towards her, and stood in front of her, solid and impassable.
She glared up. “What do you want?”
“What did you hit that child for?”
“None of your business,” the woman retorted harshly. “I’ve got a right to correct my own child, I don’t want no interference from you or no one else.”
The woman was right, the policeman wrong, on legal grounds. Take a thing like this to court, even report it to the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and what did words say? That a mother had smacked her child across the face for some trivial offence. A thousand mothers had probably slapped a thousand children that morning, and a thousand more would this afternoon. It was the way it was done, the glitter in the eyes, the cowed behaviour of the child, which made this incident different and justified the policeman – as a man but not as a police officer – in interfering. And it explained Gideon’s surge of interest.
Obviously, the policeman wasn’t quite sure how to handle the situation now, and a policeman should not allow his heart to rule his head. The two couples hovered near; encouraged by the law, they might join in the protest. Behind Gideon, Little Willie and the other speakers were still delivering their wisdom and their witticisms, and in front of him was this unexpected drama, watched almost pleadingly by the child, as if he were longing to say: “Don’t make any fuss, please don’t make any fuss.”
“Listen, ma,” the constable said, “I’d watch what I was doing, if I were you. It’s one thing to punish a child, it’s another to try to knock his head off. You be careful, or you’ll find yourself in trouble one of these days.”
The woman didn’t speak, but dodged past him.
It was never possible to be sure whether the effect of such intervention would be good or bad. The woman might take it out of the child later; you could seldom find out what happened behind the closed doors
and closed windows of the millions of homes which made up London.
Gideon caught up with the constable, who looked round, recognised him, and was immediately edgy; a man in his late twenties, Gideon saw, smaller than the old-style London policeman but fully trained in all the arts he needed in dealing with tough customers if not with spiteful mothers.
“Good morning, sir.”
“’Morning,” said Gideon. “Ever seen that woman and the kid before?”
“Oh, yes, sir, most Sundays.”
“Regular, is she?”
“That’s the third time I’ve seen her strike the child like that, and I couldn’t let it go again, sir. I know that the book says—”
“Can’t always follow the book, I know,” said Gideon. “Ever talked to any of the other fellows about her?”
“No, sir.”
“Does she always hit him out of the blue, like that?”
“I’ve never seen him do anything to deserve it,” the constable said. “I could understand it if he got in her way, or started kicking stones about, but he just walks along and she hits him. Makes my blood boil.”
“Children of your own?”
“Twins about the same age, as a matter of fact, sir.”
“Hmm. Well, ask the other chaps if they’ve seen her hit him, and check where else she’s been noticed.”
The policeman’s expression told its own story: that line of inquiry hadn’t occurred to him.
“Lot of pocket-picking and bag-snatching about, I know, sir.”
“Yes. If you get anything, report to the Division in the usual way.”
“I will, sir.”
“What’s your name?” asked Gideon.
“Smith, sir, William Smith.”