by John Creasey
“All right, Mum,” the girl said.
The boy hesitated, stared again at Roger, and went out. He was very tall for a lad of twelve, and moved well; rather like Richard, at home.
“Do come into the other room,” said Mrs Bennison. She led the way, and hesitated at the door of the front room, caught between going in first, and standing aside for them. As a result, she collided, breast to breast, with Roger. Her body was stiff, her bosom firm. “I’m sorry,” she said, and wasn’t far from tears. Yet in a way that helped, because she gave a little sniff and a choked sob, and stepped ahead hurriedly. Her voice was stronger. “Do sit down. It was very nice of you to call. Michael will be all right, and so will Rose, but—well, Paul’s the one who worries me. He hasn’t said a word since he was told what happened. Not a word. He just got out the books for his holiday task and started reading. It’s almost as if he’s pretending that it didn’t happen.”
Then she switched the subject quickly. “Mr West, have you any fresh news? Mr Semple-Smith, the surgeon, told me that it will be five or six days before we can be sure that my husband is out of danger. Nothing’s changed, has it?”
As she spoke, a hideous thought obviously occurred to her, and for a moment she went so pale that Roger thought she was going to faint. “Paul’s not—”
“Nothing’s changed at all,” Roger said hurriedly. “I really came to tell you that you can be absolutely sure that the best possible advice will be available for your husband—everything humanly possible will be done to help him.”
Mrs Bennison dropped on to the edge of a chair, and put one unsteady hand in front of her face.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
“And we want to know if there is anything we can do to help you,” Roger went on after a pause.
“No,” she said, huskily. “No, I shall be all right. Mr Revel has been in, he is very good. I shall be all right. I’m worried about Paul, but it’s early yet.”
Everyone was very good, Isobel Bennison thought when the Wests had gone. Everyone. But nothing altered the fact that in a few moments their whole life had been savagely attacked. Nothing altered the fact that Paul lay in that hospital bed, drugged, desperately ill, with his broken body, perhaps dying, perhaps dead. Oh, God. It was so lonely. Rose tried to help but she was so young as well as frightened; while Paul was – strange.
She hardly recognised her own son.
Later, in bed, alone, she began to cry. In the next room Rose lay sleeping, but across the landing Paul lay awake, listening, hearing.
“I know exactly how you must feel,” Janet said to Roger. “I want results as desperately as you do. That boy looked almost like an old man.”
There was no news, and no clue, on the Saturday, and none on Sunday.
On Monday and Tuesday the Divisional chiefs reported one after another that they had not been able to put their hands on any one who answered the description of the robbers and who had suddenly come into money. With the exception of the man who had actually knifed Charley Blake, the descriptions of the others were so general that they might have fitted any one of hundreds of people.
“No one with a record of wages snatches or hold-ups of any kind fits in,” the Divisional men all told Roger.
“The truth is that they didn’t get away with enough cash to make them start painting the town red,” said one. “There’s one thing I am doing, though.”
“What’s that?” asked Roger, forcing an interest. “I’m checking all the boxing men on the fringe of this kind of job,” the South Eastern Superintendent told him. “According to a further statement from two of the witnesses, one of the men had a cauliflower ear.” “Get after them,” Roger said.
When he rang off, he faced the fact that he had a sense almost of defeatism; only one thing could counter that effectively. He looked across at Cope, said: “Ask Simpson to meet me at Revel’s office in an hour’s time,” and went downstairs and got into his car. This time he drove himself. Driving in the thick traffic absorbed him enough to ease the sense of failure. He drove first to Charing Cross Hospital, took a chance with parking, and went to inquire about Bennison. A Yard man was by Bennison’s bedside all the time, in case the victim should come round and make some comment; or in case he talked in his drugged sleep. As Roger turned into the passage, the ward door opened and Mrs Bennison came out, followed by a nurse. They stopped.
“Good morning,” Roger said. “How is he?” “Just the same,” replied Mrs Bennison. “I didn’t realise you had a man with him all the time.” “My man wasn’t in the way, was he?” “No. I just didn’t realise it.”
“Can I drive you anywhere?”
“No,” Mrs Bennison said, and then changed her mind: “Well, I wonder if you’re going anywhere near—Paul’s office.”
“In five minutes,” Roger said. “I won’t be a minute longer.”
In fact he spent less time than that with elderly, white-haired Detective Sergeant Winfrith, who sat with a book in his hand and a notebook and pencil handy. Winfrith was a gentle-voiced man who had broken an ankle chasing thieves over a rooftop, a few years ago, and was given as many sedentary jobs as the Yard could find for him.
“He hasn’t stirred, sir,” he reported.
Roger nodded. “So I gather.” He looked over the top of a screen at the face of the unconscious man, and had a shock for the face was so like young Paul’s. It also looked like the face of death beneath that turban of bandages.
He went out, understanding even more of Isobel Bennison’s frame of mind.
She got into the car and he took the wheel.
“How is young Paul?” he asked.
“He hardly says a word,” Isobel Bennison replied. “I honestly don’t know what to do with him.”
“Have you had a word with his doctor?”
“I haven’t yet. I suppose I should.” Roger was keenly aware of her intentness. “I feel so helpless,” she went on. “I didn’t realise how completely my husband took control of everything, except the household affairs. Do you think I should tell the family doctor about my son?”
“I’m sure you should.”
“Then I will,” she decided.
Roger parked near Revel’s office under the benevolent eye of a Divisional policeman, and went up to the top floor with the woman. Old Mr Revel himself was there, but the manager, Kent, was still off-duty. Roger checked one or two minor points, and left Mrs Bennison.
Simpson, brown trilby hat on the back of his head, and looking more rakish than raffish, was downstairs.
“What do you want me to do, Handsome?”
“Question all those witnesses again, and then try to have a word with everyone who saw or might have seen the lorry,” Roger told him.
Prosy little Mrs Gossard had little to say in many words. She thought the drawings were “quite good”. So did the porter whose oranges had been thrown all over the road. He repeated his story as if he had learned it off by heart.
The tall, burly-looking Calwin was striding along a side street with at least ten baskets of fruit on his head. He talked and behaved as if it were a skull cap.
“Thought it wouldn’t be long before I seen you again,” he declared. “Especially after the chap remembered that cove what had a thick ear. Got anyone yet?”
“I haven’t found enough witnesses.”
“Want more like me, that’s what you want, ’Andsome.” Calwin’s impudence had a certain attractiveness. “Well, even I ain’t made no progress, so don’t fret yourself. I’ve been asking questions until they’re sick of the sight of me—start pelting me with over-ripe melons if I go on much longer. To tell you the truth,” he went on, actually lowering his head and so performing an incredible feat of balance with the baskets, “it was seeing Mrs Bennison what did it. ’Ow is she?”
“She’
ll make out.”
“Musta give you a shock when she asked you why you let it happen,” remarked Calwin sagely. “Any special line you’d like me to work on? No charge—all for love.”
Roger said: “That cauliflower ear chap was probably a boxer. Talk it over with any fight fans in the market, will you?”
“Mixing business with pleasure that will be,” said the porter. “Okay, guv’nor. Mind your ’ead.” He gave a curious kind of body twist, lowered the baskets in his hands and placed them on the ground; they stood higher than he did himself. “Trust me!”
“What we want,” Roger said to Simpson, “is plenty of these spread around.” He took out prints of the composite pictures, without showing them directly to the porter. “How many can we put in the market?”
“A dozen of each, I’d say.” Simpson decided.
“’Ere, let me look.” Calwin peered down, breathing very heavily. After a long pause, he said: “Not bad. No, not bad, but not them, if you know what I mean.”
The other witnesses all said virtually the same thing.
Roger went back to the office, reached there in the middle of the afternoon, and was not surprised to find a message: would he call Campbell, urgently. He needed no telling that Campbell was after results.
“The Old Man’s getting really restive,” the Deputy Commander complained. “Can you give me anything to pass on?”
“I’ll send a set of those composite pictures,” Roger promised. “That might help.”
“Do that,” said Campbell.
He hung up and Roger looked across at Cope’s empty desk – Cope was somewhere in the building – sent for a messenger, and had him take the sketches up to the photographic department for more copies. When the telephone bell rang again, he looked at the instrument almost sourly, then picked it up.
“West speaking.”
“Handsome, I think I’ve got something.” It was Simpson again. “Calwin didn’t lose much time. One of the Covent Garden fight fans thinks he’s seen the man with the cauliflower ear before.”
“Where is he?” Roger asked sharply.
“In my office, at this very moment.”
“Send him over to the Sporting World offices in Fleet Street,” Roger urged. “I’ll meet him there. Have him ask for the assistant editor.” He rang down on Simpson’s “Right,” and stood up, and took his hat off the hat stand, glad to be on the move again. He went across to Cope’s desk, and was about to write a note when the door opened and Cope came in.
“What are you pinching?” he demanded.
“Be a help if you were around when you’re wanted,” Roger said. “I’ll be at the Sporting World offices. Ring Medway and tell him I’m on my way, will you? I want a man to examine all the photographs of boxers who fought in the immediate past or are fighting these days. We’ve got a line.”
Chapter Nine
Second Job
“All I’ve got to say is, I’m broke,” said Mo Dorris. “I’m cleaned out.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Marriott said.
“Take it easy, Win.”
“You said you could stretch that money to last for three weeks. It’s not a week yet.”
“Well, I’m cleaned out.”
“How’d you lose it?”
“Bloody dogs.”
“I always told you—”
“What’s the use of talking?” demanded Dorris. “I’m flat. You got ten quid you can lend me?”
Marriott said: “And what are you going to do for money after that?”
“That’s not answering my question,” Dorris said, resentfully. “Have you got ten nicker?”
“I could manage five.”
“Five’s no good.”
“You haven’t made yours last so long, have you?” jeered Marriott. Their friendship could be strained almost to breaking point over money, for Marriott was known to be very mean, whereas Dorris was an easy spender.
“You know what? We ought to pull another job, that’s what.”
Marriott rubbed his square chin.
“You’re not going to let big-head Stevens stop you, are you?”
“No one’s going to stop me. I’ll do what I want to do.”
“So what’s the delay? It’s been nearly a week, now, and we haven’t had any trouble. Not a single question asked. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“We’re in the clear, all right,” Marriott said.
“So what’s stopping us?”
In fact, the menace in Stevens’s voice and eyes when he had last spoken to them, was stopping Marriott. He did not want to admit it. He wanted to pretend even to himself that whatever he did was entirely of his own volition. Yet he sensed that Dorris was in a bad temper, and would soon realise the truth. It was his boast that he wouldn’t knuckle under to anyone.
“Okay,” said Marriott, speaking slowly so as to cover the quick succession of his thoughts. “What’s stopping us? But we’ve got to be careful.”
“Of him?”
“Who cares about him? We’ve got to watch out, though, the cops aren’t fools. We want to do a different kind of job.”
Dorris leaned back in a chair in the room he shared with a younger brother, who was out, and asked brusquely:
“Okay, so long as it’s a job. Got any ideas?”
“What ships are due in?” asked Marriott.
“Couple of Dutchmen and an Elder Dempster Line from Australia.”
“That’s the one we want to watch,” said Marriott. Now that he had gone so far, much of his self confidence returned. “They have plenty of dough to come from those long trips. Where’s she tying up?”
“Milner’s.”
“Sure?”
“I’m working her.”
“Okay,” said Marriott, his voice going very hard. “We’ll pick off a couple of the A.B.’s off the E.D. What’s she called?”
“The Tropics.”
“We’ll make it hot all right.” Marriott giggled with laughter. “You find out what time they’re paying off the crew, and knock off half an hour earlier than that, and be at the Cut as they pass through. Okay?”
“Now you’re talking,” Dorris said. “Some of these chaps draw a couple’ve hundred quid. Last us for another three or four weeks, that would.”
Marriott did not think of the obvious retort then. Later, if all went well, and when Dorris had spent his share of the money, he would talk sarcastically about three or four weeks lasting only three or four days, but now he was planning and scheming – now he was the man in charge again. He forgot Stevens, for the time being; but once or twice during the day he thought uneasily about him, especially once when he caught sight of Alec Gool, nipping by on a motor-scooter. That was something new, Alec had invested some of the proceeds from the Covent Garden job.
Arthur Christie, able seaman on board the S.S. Tropics, was one of the best liked although one of the most frugal men on board the ship, which had a crew of fifty-one. It had been away from London for over five months, and had called at most Australian ports, at Samoa, Singapore, Hong Kong, before coming up through Suez, and the baking heat of the Red Sea. Although Christie had gone ashore at every port, he had spent very little money, and none at all on women. He was going to get married at the end of this trip.
In fact, he was going to get married on Saturday.
His shipmates knew that, although he had no idea that they were planning to club together and buy him a television set for a wedding present – to keep his new wife out of mischief when he was at sea, the gift note would say. He knew that the steamship company would give him a handsome cash present, for he had worked for them for seven years. By taking very little of his wages while at sea and in port, he had a tidy lot to come – well over two hundred pounds.
; He had only ten minutes to walk from Milner Dock to Risher Street, where he lived and where Millie would be waiting for him. True, he had to go through the Cut, and at night he would not have ventured there alone, but in broad daylight there would be nothing to worry about.
He collected his money, shook hands with those of the crew he knew well, and went off. No one actually stood on deck to watch him, and he felt a little disappointed. Usually any member of the crew who was going to get married before signing on again, got a big send-off. He was much more concerned about seeing Millie, however, and the indifference of everyone else did not make him downhearted for long. He had no idea that the indifference was deliberate, and that crowded in one of the galleys, some members of the crew were roaring their heads off about him. Their present attitude would make the television surprise packet even more complete.
The tired-looking sergeant-at-arms was at the foot of the gangway. Two cranes were working the holds, as well as the ship’s derricks.
“You off, Art?”
“That’s right, Sam.”
“Do right by that girl of yours, now.”
“Didn’t anyone tell you?—I’m going to marry her.”
They both laughed.
Christie walked very quickly over the steep rails on which the cranes ran, then between the warehouses, then towards the Gut, which was a narrow alley between warehouses; once upon a time it had been a narrow stream. It was a cool, rather blustery day near the end of August, but his thoughts of Millie were warming, and he did not give much thought to the hot weather he had left behind. He did wonder whether Millie might agree to go and settle in Australia or New Zealand, but there was plenty of time to decide that.
He entered the Cut.
It was gloomy along there, and the black cobbles were more uneven than he remembered. He couldn’t hurry, and haste was all that mattered. Half way along, he thought he saw a movement ahead, and frowned – then a few yards further along, he did see one.
There was Millie!