by John Creasey
There was a conference of Assistant Commissioners and Commanders that morning, and decisions were apt to be made slowly. The Division was covering the initial investigations into the crimes, of course, and was not likely to miss much, but this would undoubtedly be a job for one of the Yard’s senior men, and Roger knew that he was the most likely. So he spent fifteen minutes reading through the early reports.
Among them was an eye-witness account of the attack on the guard, Blake. The eye-witness was a middle-aged porter, who had been carrying a pile of baskets on his head. He had been on the other side of the road.
“This chap come straight out of the doorway and I see him take the knife out of his belt. He didn’t mean to miss. He stabbed upwards, clean through the ribs. I knew the poor devil was done for before he hit the ground. All over in a flash, it was.”
Roger let this sink into the back of his mind while he considered the other statements. One thing was constant: the speed with which the attack had been carried out. A woman who had chanced to be looking out of an office window on the first floor of the building next to the bank, said:
“I could hardly believe my eyes. I saw one man, rather short and thickset I thought, strike his victim on the head with a bar of something—I think it was angle iron, my husband uses angle iron sometimes when building garages, and I know what it looks like. Then he seemed to pull his victim backwards while the other man snatched at his legs. There was hardly a pause before they swung him into the van, as if he were a sack of potatoes. I can still hear the thud as he hit the floor. The van began to move almost at once, and the two assailants jumped into the back. Then the van knocked over a truck of oranges, and disappeared round the corner.”
The porter who had been pushing away a truckload of oranges, on his way to supply some barrow boys, said simply:
“I didn’t see the attack but I heard shouting and saw the getaway lorry. I pushed my truck at the driver, but he swerved and only caught it by the handle. Lost me ten quids’ worth of oranges but I’d do it again if I had to.”
There were other witnesses, including a youth who said he “saw something was up” and jumped on to the back of the lorry, “but someone smacked a bloody great bar of iron on my hand”.
There were less positive reports about the guard’s murderer, the man with a knife. The first man and the woman from the window had seen most – and were the two most likely to have seen the faces of the three men involved. No one appeared to have noticed the driver of the lorry.
There was a note about that:
“The lorry belonged to Medley Brothers of West Ham. It was on loan to Medleys of Covent Garden, and had not been used that morning. It would have been driven back to West Ham later. The driver was having his lunch at the time of the theft.”
“We could do with a word with that driver, too,” Roger said sotto voce.
“Wassat?” asked Cope.
“Forget it.”
“Talking to yourself, first sign that is,” said Cope, bode-fully. He looked up and grinned. “Want to handle this job, don’t you?”
“I do and I don’t,” replied Roger, quite truthfully.
As he finished, one of the two telephones on his desk rang and he picked it up with the swift movement which came of long practice.
“West.”
“Oh, Handsome.” This was Campbell, the newly promoted Deputy Commander of the Criminal Investigation Department. The Commander was on holiday and the Assistant Commissioner had been called to Paris on an Interpol job, so Campbell was in charge. “You haven’t got any big job on, have you?”
“Not yet,” Roger said.
Campbell laughed.
“You’re right – I’m going to put a stop to that. The Covent Garden job. Will you have a quick look at it and let me know what you make of it by this afternoon? The Old Man is a bit worried.” The “Old Man” was the Commissioner, the head of the Metropolitan Police, and if he took a personal interest in any investigation, it meant that everyone had to be high on their toes. “There have been so many of these wage snatch jobs.”
“I’ll have a go at it,” Roger said.
“Give it priority, won’t you?”
Roger winked across at Cope.
“I’ll see the three eye-witnesses whose statements seem as if they might be some good before the morning’s out—they’re all over at West Central., I’ll check with the firm who employed Bennison—Revel & Son. I can’t quite understand why the attacker hiding in a doorway used a knife on the escort named Blake. I should have thought that a clout over the head would have been enough – and then it wouldn’t have been a murder rap. As it is, we’ll be able to hang the man who used the knife, and I for one—”
“Kamerad,” Campbell said, laughing.
He rang off.
“So you’ve got it,” Cope said gloomily. “That means I won’t be able to leave the office. Chained to a desk, that’s me. Worse than clink. Who’d be a copper?”
“Find out where Bennison lives, will you?” Roger said. “I mean, the kind of district. Get in touch with the Division, get all details you can about his family, age of the children and that kind of thing. I want a complete dossier on the dead man, too. And if you’re looking for a job after that—”
“Put a sock in it,” growled Cope. He picked up a telephone and said into it: “Mr West’s on his way. Send his car and a driver round to the front, will you?”
Roger nodded thanks as he picked up his murder bag, a square box-like case, which was always kept ready. As the door swung to behind him and he walked along the bleak, bare passages towards the lift, he thought half-amusedly, half-sombrely of his own and Campbell’s reactions; of Cope’s, too. Here was tragedy, swift and vicious. Men struck down in the course of doing their job, cold-blooded and ruthless killers at work. Here was a woman and her family suddenly plunged into anxiety and fear, and perhaps soon to lose the man about whom their world was built-and the Yard joked. The Yard had to joke. To show one’s feelings, even to feel deeply, would only get in the way of their job.
Nothing must get in the way of it; he wanted that killer; he wanted all four of the men concerned.
Chapter Four
Disquiet
The body had been taken away from the scene of the murder, but the police had cordoned off part of the pavement and of the roadway. Only one-way traffic was possible, much to the disgust of the drivers of fruit and vegetable lorries and small vans, even to the disgust of the porters wheeling trucks. To make it worse, a hundred or more people were on the other side of the road, gawping. Three youngish girls had climbed up on top of a big trailer which was loaded with produce, and were standing up, pointing, gesticulating, taking photographs. Uniformed police were moving the crowd along as best they could. Two or three plainclothes men from the Division were mixing with the crowd, and a tall, thin, raffish-looking individual named Simpson was bending over the chalk lines which indicated the spot where the body had been found. More chalk lines showed the position of the stolen lorry and approximately where the two men had stood when they had attacked Bennison.
Simpson was a sniffer.
“They told me you’d be along, Handsome,” he said. “Can’t say I’m sorry to see you. Quicker we can let traffic move along here the better. They’ll start pelting us with bad oranges soon.”
“All the photographing done?” asked Roger.
“Yes.”
“Swept the pavement and the road?”
“I can lay it on whenever you like,” said Simpson.
“Thanks.” Roger went down on one knee, and studied the smaller chalk marks. Simpson, recently promoted Chief Inspector, was as good as anyone at the Divisions and better than most. He had marked wherever there were spots of blood, footprints, heel prints, anything at all the slightest degree unusual. There was a fresh scar on the pavement, for instance, obviously made
by something hard. It was marked: “Weapon used in attack may have struck here—it fell from the assailant’s hand.” There were a dozen other little notes, all made on slips of paper and sealed in plastic containers which were stuck to the ground.
As he went on with die check, Roger asked questions, and the answers were all as he expected. The Divisional Police Surgeon had been and pronounced Blake dead … some prints of photographs should be along within the hour … the three witnesses whose statements he had picked out were all available. Simpson had not kept them away from their work but arranged that they could be available for questioning the moment they were wanted. Three other eye-witnesses had now come forward but none of them appeared to have seen as much as the three already known.
“But I’d have a word with them, Handsome.”
“Yes,” Roger said. He straightened up. “I think we can take the barricade away now—you obviously haven’t missed anything.”
“I’ll get the place swept up and vacuumed,” Simpson said. “You going to see those eye-witnesses?”
“I’ll see the bank people first, and then the office staff at Bennison’s place,” Roger said. He wondered how Bennison was. The hospital was only a few minutes away from here, and it might be a good idea to go in and see him. “Anyone at Bennison’s side?”
“What do you think?”
Roger smiled.
“But he won’t be able to talk for a couple of days at least,” Simpson gloomed.
The bank officials were troubled, but could not help very much. It was true that Mr Bennison collected five hundred pounds or so every week, but he had never been careless. It was a comparatively small sum for four men to aim at. Any one of the bank staff knew how regularly the money was collected, of course, and presumably a lot of other people could have known. This particular morning one of the two escorts had not turned up – the bank officials did not know why.
“It’s a small sum all right,” Roger said. “Do you have any large regular payments which go out on a Friday?”
The Bank Manager, middle-aged, a little slow speaking, perhaps because he was so worried, admitted that there were.
“We have four wages accounts of over two thousand pounds which are drawn every Friday,” he said. “Most of them are drawn on Thursdays these days, but …”
“Will you let me have the details of the accounts?” Roger interrupted.
“I’ll have a list and all additional information typed out for you.”
“Thanks,” said Roger.
He walked along towards Revel & Son’s premises. Two vacuum cleaners were buzzing, each of them running off a battery in a car, and two plainclothes men were sweeping the pavement and the kerb, and putting the dust, straw, pieces of paper, straws from horse droppings, tobacco shreds, bus tickets, orange peel, matches, everything they could find, into large plastic bags. Someone on the other side of the road was using a cine camera – it was a B.B.C. Television Unit. A man called out: “Mr West—can you spare a moment?”
Roger, knowing he was being photographed, put on a tight-lipped smile and waited. A man with a microphone came up.
“Are you in charge of the investigation into this shocking crime, Mr West?”
“I’m working with the West Central Division—and with Chief Inspector Simpson,” Roger said. Simpson was keeping out of range; Roger beckoned him, and he gave a harsh sniff and came near quickly enough. The camera was busy all the time, and amateur photographers were clicking away.
“Have you any clues yet, Mr West?”
“We’ve got very good descriptions of at least three of the men involved.”
“Was any one of them known to the Yard?”
“If they’re known to Records, we’ll soon have them.”
“Is it true that the amount stolen was five hundred pounds?”
“About that amount, yes.”
“Is it true that the lorry used had been stolen?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“Have you had any further news of the second victim—Mr Paul Bennison?”
“I hope to have, soon,” Roger said. “And yes—I do hope for quick results! That’s provided I can get on to the job quickly.” He grinned, the man with the microphone smiled, Roger said in an aside to Simpson: “Give ’em details of what you’ve done so far.” He walked on, leaving a highly gratified Simpson. Roger found two uniformed policemen near the open doorway of Revel & Son, and was taken up the narrow, wooden staircase. There was no lift and the landings were dark and gloomy. At last he reached the top floor, where walls had been knocked down, years ago, to make one large office. The manager, named Kent, was suffering severely from shock. He had some difficulty in keeping his lips steady, and there was a tremor in his hands. He obviously felt responsible because he had not made sure that a third man had gone with Bennison and the escort.
“I’ve always been s-s-s-so careful, never b-b-b-b-believed in taking chances—”
Roger treated him as gently as he could.
A middle-aged woman with straight hair and a fringe gave him all the information he asked for about the dead man – and about the other escort, a messenger who had been taken ill, according to his wife.
Roger made a note of his name: Harry Myers, with an address in Kensal Green.
Next, Roger started trying to find out who knew about the regular visit to the bank, and learned what he had feared – everyone knew. Thirty-one members of the weekly wage staff, eleven of the office, salaried staff – and probably a lot of temporary workers, messengers who came in and out with orders or to collect goods. At least seventy-five people knew, and the difficulty of finding out which one, if any, had given the information to the criminals was almost insuperable.
Most inquiries looked like this in the beginning, but the blank wall had seldom seemed as high and unclimbable as this time. Roger reminded himself that he had three eye-witnesses and three descriptions of men who were wanted; he was being pessimistic for the sake of it.
Something about this case filled him with disquiet.
He tried to analyse his reasons as he kept asking questions, but didn’t get very far. When he had finished with Kent and the office staff, and was about to leave the premises, a very old man with snowy white hair and a cherry pink skin appeared. He was leaning on a stick and looked as fragile as old china.
“This is Mr Revel, sir,” the secretary said, in a subdued voice.
“You’re West, aren’t you?” The old man’s voice was not as frail as his body.
“Yes, Mr Revel.”
“I want you to know that I will leave nothing undone, nothing at all, to find this murderer. I am prepared to offer a reward of five thousand pounds …”
“I wouldn’t just yet,” Roger said, when Revel had finished. “We may get results quickly without that. If we do—” he checked himself from saying that the five thousand pounds might be much more useful for the Bennisons. The man and the policeman too often overlapped. “We shan’t waste any time, I assure you.”
“I should hope not,” said Revel. His eyes looked tired, and watered a little; there was a speck of white “sleep” in the corners. He leaned heavily on his stick as if afraid of falling, without it. “I ask you to think of the side effects of this—this wicked crime. Bennison’s family, for instance. My manager, Mr Kent, he—he has had a terrible shock. I’ve never seen such a change in a man. You are looking for very wicked men, Superintendent.”
“Yes,” said Roger. “I know.”
Wicked men –
Issues were simple for some of the old people, for the Revels of this world. When had the word “wicked” gone out of date?
Roger went out. The sweeping up had finished and traffic was flowing in both directions now. The TV unit had gone, and so had most of the crowd on the other side of the road. It was ge
tting very warm, the sun was high and the mist all gone.
Simpson was coming out of the bank, carrying an envelope.
“The bank manager’s list,” he said.
“Thanks,” Roger took it. “We’ll need to keep all of these firms in mind, the attack might have been intended for one of their cashiers, not Revel’s.” He slid into the car which was parked nearby, and the driver came hurrying from a corner. “I’m not going anywhere yet,” Roger said, and flicked on the two-way radio. “Superintendent West calling … Give me my office, please.”
Cope’s voice soon sounded, very distorted.
“Get in touch with Kensal Green, have a man go to see a Harry Myers, at …” Roger gave the address. “Myers was the messenger escort who didn’t turn up. Check if he’s really ill, or whether that could have been faked.”
“Right,” said Cope.
“I’m sending round a list of other firms who draw their wages money from the same bank,” Roger said. “Telephone all of them, and ask if there’s the slightest reason for any of them to think that their messengers might have been the target this morning. Just get them started – I’ll go and see them as soon as I can. I’d like to have the fullest story possible when I get there.”
“Right,” said Cope.
“Anything more in?” asked Roger.
“Nope.”
“Bennison?”
“His wife’s at the hospital. He’s still on the operating table.”
“I see,” said Roger.
He rang off, got out, and told Simpson what little there was to report. It was wise to work closely with a Divisional man, as well as with the Press and the TV authorities. He was wondering what he had left undone, and then realised that he had not yet seen any of the eye-witnesses.
First he saw the porter whose truck of oranges had suffered. He was a short, sturdy, elderly man with close-clipped iron-grey hair, and the look of the old soldier about him; he made his statement as if he were before the Commanding Officer. There was nothing to add.