by John Creasey
After a long time her shivering eased. She was still very cold and a spasm shook her from time to time, but she was no longer gripped with ague. She straightened up and began to beat her breast, flinging her arms about her as she had often seen Clive do when he was cold. And she could almost hear her aunt, saying: “Of course you’ll be cold if you just stand there. Jump about, walk, run – you’ll soon warm yourself up.”
So she began to walk, beating her arms about her as she went.
She could not run because the ground was so uneven, but gradually she walked more quickly, and suddenly she came upon a path. It was rough and there were loose stones but it was a path and it must lead somewhere. More quickly than ever, she began to walk away from the village.
Welbeck was a mile away now, both blessing and cursing the fog, which had enabled him to climb a wall unseen. Somewhere at the end of a copse of trees a few yards off the main road, there was a motorcycle, tank filled with petrol, all ready to go. He had only to find it to have a real chance.
The wailing had stopped, but the warders and the dogs were out and if he stayed free long enough, the soldiers would join the hunt, too. Probably the roadblocks were going up already. That was the first thing the police did. For they would know he was as far away from the prison as he could be; there was no point in his staying near; that way he would have no chance in the morning. They would block the roads and stop each vehicle to make sure he wasn’t in the boot or even in the passenger compartment. They would know that any seasoned Dartmoor prisoner would keep as close to the roads as he could, for these were his lifelines. As they drew away from the village and the prison, the roads grew farther apart and the moorland was full of death traps.
Every now and again Welbeck, a big man with huge hands and feet, saw the glow of headlights in the fog; it was a confirmation that he was close to a road and not in great danger. It would be better to go back to that hell of a prison than to die.
He hadn’t given up hope yet; he had only just started.
But my God – what a night! He was already cold through and through and his heavy boots, built for working on the moors, felt damp and icy, too.
Once he crossed a path, his footsteps ringing out; and he froze to stillness in case he had been heard.
Only silence came; and the swirling fog.
18
Search on Dartmoor
The Governor of Dartmoor was with his chief warder. The Governor looked a little like Scott-Marie, but was younger, and his hair was jet black. He was a good Governor, in many ways, but just now extremely worried; so he had a tendency to ask superfluous questions.
“Is every cell checked?” he wanted to know.
“Every cell and every corner. He’s over the wall, sir, no doubt about that.”
The chief warder was a chunky man with a massive chin and hair growing low over his forehead; despite his almost simian appearance and his hard life dealing with some of Britain’s toughest criminals, he was not a brute.
“Are the roadblocks up?” asked the Governor.
“Yes, sir. The police co-operated very quickly, as always.”
“Good. What about mil”We could do with it, sir – miracles can happen on a night like this. I should apply, sir.”
“I will. Did Welbeck have outside help, do you think?”
“There’s no evidence of it, sir.”
“What do you think of his chances?” asked the Governor anxiously.
“Unless he does have outside help, not a chance in a thousand,” answered the chief warder. “It’s been a very wet autumn and the marshes and bogs are at their worst. There’s been a roundup of ponies to keep them off dangerous areas. But Welbeck’s a cunning old bastard – begging your pardon, sir. He’ll have gone from here like a shot from a bow, and he’ll keep close to the roads. The police are in full agreement about that. We’re concentrating on all roads and paths a mile or more away from the prison. I think we could start two or even three miles away, but their way is probably safer.”
“I would think so,” agreed the Governor. “If we find the slightest clue, let me know.”
“Yes, sir,” the chief warder promised.
He was reflecting that there was one particularly good thing about this Governor; he didn’t waste a lot of time in recrimination. There would be an investigation into Welbeck’s escape and disciplinary action if the inquiry showed anyone to blame, but the job in hand was to find Welbeck. He hesitated in front of the big square desk.
“Is there something else?” the Governor asked.
“Yes and no, sir. I’m sorry to be vague. Entwhistle could be involved.”
“Entwhistle,” the Governor echoed, and there was a softening in his expression. “How?”
“Welbeck was often in the library, sir. They saw a lot of each other. And when he was questioned, Entwhistle was obviously very much on edge. It’s just possible that he knows how and when Welbeck escaped, but when he was being questioned he gave the impression that he might go berserk.”
The Governor sat up very straight and looked excessively severe.
“Will it help us find Welbeck if we know how and when he escaped?”
“Not tonight, sir,” the chief warder said. “There’s another thing, too, sir.” When the Governor nodded, he went on: “One of Entwhistle’s children, a ten-year-old girl, ran away from home this morning, and was seen at Exeter this afternoon. Her train was an hour late. No one saw her after that.”
For a few moments the Governor simply stared at him, but at last he said:
“Think she’s heading for the prison?”
“It could be, sir. I’ve asked our chaps to look out for her, just in case she’s around. The police are on the lookout for her, too.”
“Poor little devil,” said the Governor, then added comfortably: “But she’s probably all right. Where is Entwhistle?”
“In his cell, sir.”
“Have a special watch kept on him, and keep me closely informed,” ordered the Governor, and nodded dismissal.
The chief warder went off to help to organise and supervise the search on Dartmoor. He did not believe that Welbeck would have a chance to get far away unless he had already broken through the natural defences of the prison. He did believe that there had been some slackness, some carelessness, even conceivably some co-operation with the escaped killer, either by other trustees, such as Entwhistle, or by an employee. He, the chief warder, would carry the brunt of responsibility: and the best hope of easing the burden was to recapture Welbeck.
By now the moor was alive with police and warders, and the military would soon join them. It was like beating the bounds; or like a hunt, with a man as the quarry. The whole of the moor was under surveillance and there was an ever-widening circle. The chief warder felt it more likely that Welbeck was a long way from the prison itself, and there was no point in searching the village or the prison yards.
And within the area he was sure was clear, Carol went walking, stumbling, terrified, cold; and very hungry.
The first reports about the damage at Long Street to reach the office at the Yard where Rollo and Piluski were in charge were both good and bad.
There was no sign of sabotage; but there were some reports of hideous overcrowding. Rollo was out in an area near Islington, in North London. Piluski was across the river in a smaller area in Battersea. Gideon, thought of going home forgotten, was at his desk when there was a tap at the passage door, and Honiwell came in. He looked brisk and alert, and his appearance had changed a little because he had had a haircut sometime during the day.
“Any word of that child?” Gideon asked. “Sit down.”
“Yes,” Honiwell said. “Exeter police found a ticket collector who saw her on the eleven-thirty train to Exeter this morning. He identified her photograph at once.”
“Have you talked to Devon?” asked Gideon.
“Yes, sir; as you were deeply involved in this other business, I talked to Chief Superintendent Biddlecome at Exeter. He’s alerted all his patrols, and will get in touch if there’s any news, but his forces are stretched pretty thin. Did you hear about the escape?”
Gideon sat back in his chair as Honiwell at last began to sit down. He felt as if he had been slapped across the face, and did not speak for a few moments. At last he said:
“From Dartmoor?”
“Yes. There’s a full-scale search under way.”
“So there should be a better chance of finding the child,” Gideon observed hopefully. He began to smooth the bowl of his pipe, looking at Honiwell as if he were trying to see into his mind. “The prisoners have television in their recreation room, don’t they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there any risk of Carol’s journey being reported on television or in the newspapers?” Gideon was thinking that if Entwhistle knew that his daughter might be lost on the moor it could snap the thin thread of self-control and cause a flood of temporary insanity.
“As far as I know, no one’s found out. The aunt certainly won’t talk. I did wonder, sir—” Honiwell broke off.
“Go on.”
“Whether this might be a chance for me to go and see Entwhistle. To go and see him and tell him about his daughter and at the same time tell him that we are making inquiries.” Honiwell raised his hands breast high. “He must be feeling like hell. And if he hears about his daughter without some compensating good news he might lose his mental balance. It’s been touch and go with him for weeks, I’m told.”
Gideon, who had been thinking hard as the other talked, said slowly: “Yes. Yes, I think you ought to go down in the morning. But not until morning. Let me know the latest before you go.”
Honiwell looked both relieved and grateful.
“I will, sir. Thank you. Er—anything from the big search yet?”
“Nothing conclusive,” Gideon replied. “Except that the overcrowding in some places is as bad if not worse than it was at Long Street.” He nodded, and Honiwell went out slowly and deliberately. Gideon stood up and went to the window, looking out onto a beautifully misty night; not foggy, just misty with the colour of pearls. There were the three-lamp standards over the bridge with wide haloes, and the lights on the Embankment each held a halo, too. The moving beams from cars made the mist seem like ectoplasm; ghostly, thought Gideon, and he wasn’t being fanciful. There were lights at the County Hall reflecting, like the bridge lamps, on the smooth surface of the water. It reminded him that he did not know whether that Thames Division patrol boat had found anything in the river. And it reminded him, as he was so often reminded, of the unsuspected crime which was undoubtedly taking place throughout London at that very moment; and the crimes being planned, of which the police would know nothing until the morning: perhaps for days or even weeks. Or never.
His Yard exchange telephone bell rang; he recognised the tone of the ringing, and went across to it.
“Gideon.”
Piluski’s throaty voice set the earpiece quivering.
“Piluski here, sir,” he said. “I think you would be advised to come and see the place I am in now.” After a pause, he went on: “It has to be seen to be believed. I think we would be well advised to have both press and television coverage, too.”
“Where are you?” Gideon asked. “Still in Battersea?”
“Yes, sir. Pentecost Street.”
Gideon almost groaned at the name.
As Gideon was driven across Battersea Bridge, where the smoke from the great power station chimneys looked sulphurous and hazed with red from neon lighting caught and carried by the mist, three things of direct concern to him were happening in London.
David Wells was riding his bicycle along a poorly lit street, away from his home. He had to get rid of it quickly. The evening papers had mentioned a bicycle clue, and he had lost his head. He had to get rid of it and the quickest way was to push it into the river somewhere off Chiswick Steps. He had removed all traces of his ownership, as far as he could tell, wiped the front mudguard, handlebars, frame, bell, brake levers, everything. He would not be able to rest until the cycle was gone. His panic was such that he had not thought of what questions would be asked because the bicycle was missing.
What he did not know was that a policeman had been watching him; and that the policeman, Oswald, could hardly wait for him to pass before pulling out his radio, and reporting the moment he was answered:
“It’s the same man, sergeant – the one I saw the night before last. I’m positive. The light’s about the same, too. I’d know if it was someone else.”
“Good,” the sergeant said. “We’ll have him tailed for a bit longer, see what he’s up to.”
Why has he gone out so soon after supper? Ellen Wells asked herself hopelessly.
Had he gone to see her? Whoever she was.
And then she added, aloud: “Will he come back?”
At the same moment a little man known to be a runner for antique and picture shops telephoned the NE Divisional Superintendent, Lemaitre, at his home.
“I can tell you where Max is,” the informer said. “But I need fifty quid, Mr. Lemaitre. Can you go to fifty quid?”
Detective Sergeant Benbow entered a small restaurant in Fulham Road, and was met by a young cockney, who led him downstairs into converted cellars which made it much more spacious than it had seemed to be from the outside. This restaurant specialised in every variety of English home cooking, from Yorkshire pudding with gravy to steak and kidney pies and puddings; Lancashire hot pot, roast beef, stuffed loin of lamb and stuffed shoulder of veal; black sausage and faggots; sausage and mash and toad-in- the-hole – luscious pork sausages cooked in a batter. Practically every traditional dish was available, and the restaurant had been here under the same ownership for seven years.
The wife of the partnership was both the madame at the desk and the “wine” waiter; but here only British beers and ales and stouts were served, with elderberry and ginger wines made from the berries of the hedgerows of England as well as ciders and English gin and whisky – the only spirits available. Benbow settled in a corner with a table beneath which he could stretch his legs. The big, handwritten menu did him a world of good, and when the woman came to ask what he would drink he had already decided on Devonshire cider.
As she nodded approval, he drew out Greenwood’s photograph and showed it to her.
“Well, fancy seeing Mr. Greenwood again!” she exclaimed without a moment’s hesitation. “I often wondered why he stopped coming. He came here regularly once, always had the same girl friend with him, a really lovely young woman. She—”
Benbow took out a photograph of Margaret Entwhistle and placed it by the side of Greenwood’s picture.
“Love-a-duck!” exclaimed the woman. “That’s the woman!”
She had a remarkably good memory; and she talked freely, between courses and while Benbow was eating. But nothing could spoil his appetite that night.
Gideon, on the other hand, felt sick to his heart and to his stomach.
He was in the candlelit cellar of a house near the river, and it stank. Water had seeped in from the floor and the walls, and there was the stench of dampness, and the odour of spices and stale meat, and the reek of urine and excrement. There were open privy holes dug in the ground, pits which no one had attempted to cover.
There were the women; and a few men.
There were the children, sleeping or drowsing.
There were the infants at the breast, too often a dank and shrivelled, milkless breast.
And there were the rats; in the corners, creeping about the floors, tiny eyes like beads.
On the floor above it was much the same; so it was next door and
next door again and again and again.
On the top floors conditions were slightly, very slightly, better. There was electric light and gas to cook by; WCs which didn’t work and closets which were stinking. There were bathrooms in which children slept and clothes hung to dry. In a corner, a policeman was quietly being sick.
Gideon looked at Piluski.
“Yes,” he said. “We’ll have the press in, but we’ll warn them what to expect first.” He was still nauseated when he got out into the street, where the air itself seemed fetid, and answered questions from the waiting newspapermen, such as:
“Do you think this could be where typhoid starts, Commander?”
“Haven’t the health and sanitary inspectors been here?”
“Did you find any signs of sabotage, Commander?”
When they had finished questioning him they went in: and saw; and were silenced.
It was nearly nine o’clock when he arrived back at the Yard. Piluski was still at Battersea but Rollo was in from Islington, and when Gideon looked into the operations room he was leaning on his desk and saying to the men on night shift:
“I’ve never seen anything like it . . . Riddell only touched the surface . . . and if the Ministry of Health man is right there’s a child in one house with smallpox.” Rollo looked up, saw Gideon, and pushed his chair back. “That’s true, sir,” he went on doggedly. “It’s a case of suspected smallpox.”
“After what I’ve seen, I can believe it,” Gideon said. “How many reports are in?”
Rollo glanced across at a sergeant standing by a wall chart which hung from pins alongside the big maps. The round-faced, round-headed sergeant cast a perfunctory glance at the chart, and reported:
“Twenty-two so far, sir, and an additional eleven venues have been added to the original thirty. All venues have excessive overcrowding but eleven have good to passable sanitary conditions. At least the plumbing works after a fashion. Some have communal kitchens and crèches and nurseries all provided by the landlords, but there are five very bad reports in addition to the one Mr. Rollo is telling us about, sir.”