by John Creasey
“Check on him,” Gideon ordered.
Hobbs knew that his superior wanted to find a way of giving the police officer a pat on the back without overdoing it. There was no one like George Gideon on the human and personal side of police work; that was why the ball had gone with such a swing. And Hobbs shared Gideon’s pleasure that the police had had much the better of the night’s crimes.
“I’ll check,” Hobbs promised.
“What else is there?” asked Gideon.
“Not much that need worry you,” Hobbs assured him. “Except Riddell and Honiwell, who are due here soon – Riddell at eleven o’clock and Honiwell at eleven-thirty.”
“Any ideas?” asked Gideon.
“I think Riddell’s going to have a very bad patch,” Hobbs ventured, “and Honiwell looks as if he’s going to have a good one.”
“Because of the Jameson woman, do you mean?”
“Yes. He is not a bachelor at heart,” observed Hobbs, dryly.
Though neither of them realised it, the remark was the kind that Gideon had often made over the years. Just as Hobbs had relieved Gideon of much of the routine work, so much that was part of Gideon’s success with the Yard’s staff had rubbed off on Hobbs, whose thinking and attitudes were becoming more like Gideon’s every day.
“What’s your thinking about Riddell?” asked Gideon. “I’d forgotten what a wraith of a wife he had until last night.”
“His month’s holiday, which was long overdue, doesn’t seem to have done him any good,” replied Hobbs. “I think he’ll want to be taken off the Notting Hill inquiry, and unless you’ve very strong reasons to keep him on it, I’d let him go. And—” Hobbs hesitated and seemed to wait for Gideon, but when Gideon didn’t respond he went on: “I wish there was a way of putting him out to grass, so to speak.”
“He can retire whenever he wants to.”
“From what you saw last night, would you think retirement would be an inducement?” asked Hobbs.
Gideon sat contemplating him very thoughtfully.
Hobbs had been much quicker than Gideon had expected he’d be in seeing the importance to many men of a settled and unharassed home or emotional life. Gideon himself had once come close to a complete break with Kate, because he had put his job before the family interest; a policeman had to, there wasn’t any way out. The temperament of a policeman’s wife mattered a lot: some women could stand the long periods alone, the lonely or interrupted nights, but the pressure drove other women mad.
“No, probably not an inducement,” Gideon conceded. “Then what?”
“I can’t come up with a single idea,” confessed Hobbs.
“We’ll both think about it,” said Gideon, and he seemed to brace himself. “Well, it’s half-past ten, which doesn’t give much time. I’d like you here when Honiwell and Riddell come.”
“Thank you,” Hobbs said, turning to the door; then he paused and looked back. “George, Penny had the thrill of her life last night when she stood in for Kate. She revelled in it.’
“I couldn’t be more pleased,” said Gideon. He resisted a temptation to ask Hobbs how things were between him and Penelope, and when the door closed he sat back and actually laughed at himself. All he was thinking about just then was the troubled emotional life of some of his men, and he was forgetting how many were happily married – or at least contentedly. Piluski, for instance; Chief Superintendent Lemaitre, once in Hobbs’s position as his chief aide. Scott-Marie! He himself! Oh, there were dozens. It was always the same; one was more aware of weaknesses than of strength; of woes and worries than happiness and pleasures.
He dialled the typing pool.
“Send someone to me right away,” he ordered.
He knew perfectly well that he hoped Sabrina Sale would come; but instead it was a long, leggy girl in her early twenties, to whom he dictated with little confidence; but she took everything down at speed, he had to say that for her. He was still dictating at a minute to eleven, when Riddell was due.
At last he finished and sent the girl away. It was already two minutes after eleven; Hobbs probably knew he was busy and was keeping Riddell in his office. So Gideon rang the buzzer, and immediately Hobbs appeared at the door.
“No Riddell?” asked Gideon.
“No sign of or word from him,” answered Hobbs. “And he hasn’t been in this morning. He knew last night that he was due here, because he mentioned it.”
“Well,” Gideon said, “it’s not like him to be late. We’ll give him ten minutes before we find out where he is.”
Chief Detective Superintendent Thomas Riddell was at Notting Hill Gate.
He had been there since ten o’clock, when a call from Division had reached him not at the Yard but at his own house, in Wembley.
And he felt sick.
In the heart of his division there lived thousands of Pakistanis, nearly all in overcrowded accommodations but most in bearable conditions of hygiene and home life. There was a great deal of happiness here, especially with the children, and many young wives found things infinitely better than in the sand-swept villages or the crowded, heat-ridden, fly-ridden cities from which they had come. Perhaps the worst of the situation was not overcrowding but the segregation from neighbours, for there were areas which were exclusively Pakistani, others exclusively Hindu, others again exclusively Jamaican. And since each had different cultures, different traditions, and different habits, it was difficult for them to mix.
The Jamaicans – in fact, most Negroes – found it easier to mix with the ordinary Londoner than with the Pakistanis and Indians. They, like the whites, often felt a kind of uneasiness at close proximity with the Asian race, and there was mutual suspicion based on habitual mistrust rather than any specific reasons.
Crime throve in the area, there was some drug trafficking and addiction; a great deal of petty larceny, particularly thefts from cars and pocket picking and bag snatching, mostly within the racial groups. But perhaps the worst crime of all was a civil, not a criminal offence: overcrowding, by letting and subletting houses and flats at exorbitant rents.
Riddell had been checking this for a long time.
In the beginning he had been objective enough, although he had known he was out of sympathy with all coloured people and his emotions always responded to political calls to “keep Britain white.” Gradually his prejudices had grown too strong for him, as Gideon knew.
But he was very deeply involved.
He knew that there were whole families, husband, wife – sometimes two wives – and several children living in one room; and many of these row houses, once so white and attractive but now dilapidated even on the outside, had a dozen rooms. He knew of houses in which over a hundred human beings shared perhaps three bathrooms and, when the plumbing worked, three WCs. There was always an odour from the too few facilities, and the aroma of spices and exotic foods was added to this. It had been a long time before Riddell could see the people here as human beings; until in fact he had found the one girl, he had seen them all as “creatures.”
Too often he still did.
But not now, at this moment when Gideon and Hobbs were waiting for him. He had completely forgotten the appointment. He was standing, bent forward, with a huge beam across his shoulders; a sloping beam. Two men, taller than he, one a West Indian Negro, one a cockney, were on his right; a shorter man, another on his knees, and one with a huge steel rod which he was using as lever, were on his left. Just behind them yet another man was calling:
“Heave!” They heaved. “Heave!” They heaved. “Heave!”
Every muscle in Riddell’s body was stretched, every vein in neck and forehead stood out; and it was the same with all the others.
“Heave!” They heaved. “Heave!” They heaved.
Every time they raised the beam a little higher, off the bodies of three
young children they knew to be beneath the rubble.
5
Collapse
The house, one of a row of eleven, had collapsed before Riddell had arrived. Divisional police and firemen were already there, although no fire had started. Gas and electricity engineers had turned the supplies off at the main but there was a heavy smell of gas over the street – Long Street, W 7. The police and fire brigade had cordoned off the area, then evacuated the residents, and Riddell had been on the spot as that had been done.
He could recall a divisional detective sergeant say in an unbelieving voice: “My God, there can’t be more!”
But there were more. In a steady stream, men, women, and a host of children were shepherded out of the neighbouring houses, and that exodus continued long after the first house to be damaged had been emptied; or so the police had thought. Riddell had watched as policemen and women, some of them coloured, and firemen, some of them coloured, had escorted the fugitives out. Long Street was a narrow thoroughfare with a road at one end and an old railway embankment blocking the other. It backed onto a railway cutting, too, and there were a few houses at either end in cul-de-sacs which also ended at the cutting. Beyond the street in the other direction houses in neo-Georgian and late Victorian styles stretched out in a maze.
In one block of streets was an old church, which had been condemned but had been kept in reasonable condition so that it could be used for clubs and meeting places for the new population, though it was used only occasionally. This morning the doors had been opened wide and the refugees were being ushered into it, while emergency kitchens and clinics were rushed into service.
All this Riddell was aware of.
Sickened by what he had seen, he had gone back to Long Street and talked to the fire brigade chief who was directing the salvage and rescue work. By that time civil defence crews were in action, and men used to breaking and collapsing walls were moving cautiously about the rubble of the middle house in the street, the one which had collapsed.
One man had appeared at the doorway, alarm vivid in his face.
“We need some volunteers,” he called. “Some kids are under the rubble.” There was a moment’s pause before he went on: “It’s bloody dangerous. Two floors could collapse on us.”
And now Riddell was beneath those two floors.
Now the fireman in charge was calling: “Heave!” And they heaved. “Heave!” And they heaved. There was a creaking and groaning of wood and some falling rubble; somewhere, water was splashing. Dust was thick everywhere. Daylight came through a gaping hole in the roof and in one wall. There was a sickening stench of gas. Occasionally a sharp crack came, of an impending fall. If the rest of the house did fall in there would be little help for the straining men.
“Heave!” And they heaved.
Suddenly a child began to cry.
It was not a wail or a scream; it was more a whimpering and it came from the rubble just beyond them. A man swore. Another, very small, in fireman’s uniform and wearing a steel helmet, was squeezing himself between the beam and the rubble, and clearing away the bricks by hand. There was no room for anyone else.
Riddell felt as if his back would break.
“Heave!” And they heaved as they had never heaved before.
The child went on crying and the strong men bore their burden, and the fireman pulled away brick after brick. At last the beam was high enough for a second man to crawl beneath and help to clear a way, also brick by brick, toward the buried children.
Gideon looked at the watch on his big wrist with its dark hairs that reappeared on the backs of his fingers. It was twenty minutes past eleven; Honiwell was due in a few minutes and there was still no sign of Riddell. Gideon, although telling himself that there must be a good reason, was exasperated; there was never enough time.
He buzzed for Hobbs, who came in almost at once.
“Any word?” he asked.
“No,” said Hobbs. “Every call that comes I expect to be from Riddell. Instead—”
“It’s someone to tell us what a great success it was last night,” interpolated Gideon sourly. “The Commissioner was positively enthusiastic when he telephoned.”
“He quite let his hair down,” Hobbs approved.
He broke off when Gideon’s Yard exchange telephone bell rang. Gideon turned, stretched out, and picked it up. Outside, an ambulance bell rang; outside, Big Ben began to strike his sonorous hour; outside, traffic was fast and noisy along the Embankment.
“Gideon,” said Gideon. “Who? . . . yes, put him through . . . extension,” he said to Hobbs, who vanished into his own room. This was the division which included Notting Hill, and the operator had said that it was very urgent; divisions did not say that to Gideon unless it was so.
“Saxby,” a man announced. “Commander Gideon, at once.”
“What is it, Mark?” asked Gideon quietly, for the tension in the other’s voice was unmistakable.
“George,” said Saxby, with a familiarity bridging the years. “A house has collapsed in Long Street, Notting Hill. It looks as if a whole row might fall. Most of the occupants have been evacuated – over a thousand from eleven houses! Three children are buried beneath the rubble. Riddell’s in there helping to stop a wall from falling on them. I doubt if he’ll get out alive.”
Gideon felt as cold as ice. He could almost see Riddell’s face as it had been last night, haunted by what he had discovered and by what he was experiencing.
“I’ll come over,” Gideon said quietly. “Who’s been told?”
“Presumably the Ministry of Housing and the Home Office. The fire service is present in strength.”
There was a nagging question in Gideon’s mind: why hadn’t he been told before? If the fire service was there in strength some time must have elapsed. But compared with what had happened that was trifling – except that time saved could mean lives saved.
“I’ll come over,” he repeated.
“I hoped you would. Ambulances are standing by.”
“Good. How weak are the remaining walls?”
“So weak it looks as if a high wind would blow them over,” answered Saxby. “God knows what’s been going on to bring this about. This has all the makings of a major disaster. I hate to say it, but—” He paused, and Gideon heard noises in the background, raised in excitement if not in alarm, and cold dread filled him for fear that those walls had collapsed. The voices continued, closer, still full of excitement, and Saxby kept calling out: “What? . . . where? . . . how big?” and similar questions. Gideon began to think the divisional man had forgotten him, but suddenly Saxby boomed into his ear:
“George! A mob’s after the landlord. They’re screaming, ‘Lynch him.’ “
At this instant there was born a new and major task for the police – for George Gideon. And now, at this very instant, he realised that he lacked information. He had to learn more very quickly, so that he could decide what action to recommend. As these thoughts flashed into his mind the communicating door from Hobbs’s room opened and Hobbs came in with his usual controlled briskness.
“You handle this landlord threat,” Gideon ordered. “Use Rollo and Piluski if they’re free, and make sure they have all the help they need. Have the neighbouring divisions standing by and alert the Flying Squad. We want that landlord, both to save his neck and—” He broke off, with a savage grin. “Well, we want him. Just concentrate on that.”
Hobbs said one word: “Honiwell.”
Gideon hesitated for a second.
“Have him fix a car for me with a driver, and we can talk on the way to Notting Hill. I’ll talk to the Commissioner now.” Gideon knew that he should go through the Assistant Commissioner, but there simply wasn’t time.
Hobbs, already at the door, said: “Donaldson isn’t in.”
“Thank God for that!�
� Gideon was already dialling the Commissioner’s number. As it rang and he forced himself to wait patiently, he felt tension so great that it set his teeth on edge and stiffened his stomach muscles. Scott-Marie wasn’t in his office, it seemed, and this was hardly a subject about which to leave a message. He forced himself to wait for at least two minutes, and then rang off.
For the moment he was nonplussed.
He kept imagining Riddell, helping to hold up that wall; Riddell, who in one way was going to pieces. And he kept picturing a mob howling after the landlord. The Home Office had to be told through the Yard even though it already knew. Alec – that was it. Alec could keep trying for the Commissioner when Gideon had left.
The door opened, and Scott-Marie came in.
A pale grey suit seemed to emphasise his gauntness, and his manner was brusque. He closed the door on footsteps in the passage and, not far off, the sound of a man laughing.
“Good morning, sir,” Gideon said.
“Morning. What’s this at Notting Hill?” Scott-Marie demanded.
“Ugly wall collapse, with Riddell trying to help hold it up, apparently,” Gideon answered. “I’m going over at once. Hobbs will keep on top of things here. Did you hear that a mob is after the landlord?”
“No,” Scott-Marie replied. “I had a vague call from the Home Office.” He paused as Gideon ruffled through some papers on his desk, and went on: “What’s this about Riddell?”
Gideon gave him the essence of the story, even etching in Riddell’s personal attitude and Gideon’s doubts over what to do about his future. He leaned against the desk, a file in his hand. There was some quality in Scott-Marie which brought out the best in Gideon.
At last he stopped. In his mind there was a different kind of pressure: he ought to be on his way, for God knew what was happening at Long Street. Another thought followed fast upon that. There wasn’t anything he could do if he got there, except show everyone how important the disaster was to the Yard.