by John Creasey
Marriott sat down.
A few minutes later, he said: “The water’s up to my ankles. What did they get us this colander for?”
“It’s okay. It—”
A curious plopping sound cut across the words. They did not know that it was the cork, forced out by the pressure of the water round the uneven edge, but almost at once the water rose to their calves, and suddenly Marriott gasped:
“We’re sinking.”
“Don’t be a bloody fool! We won’t sink—”
“It’s going down under us,” Marriott gasped. “I can’t swim. God! This gold will sink us. God!”
He began to tear at his clothes, but swayed to one side. The boat rolled over, shipping so much water that it capsized with frightening suddenness. The cold, oily, muddy water of the Thames closed over Marriott as his mouth was open to cry out in panic. He retched and began to struggle, but the heavy cloth was too wet, he couldn’t pull the sleeves off. Dorris heard a groaning kind of shout, and knew that it was Marriott. He caught sight of Win’s arms waving, already thirty or forty feet away from him. He didn’t shout back, didn’t open his mouth, he was so afraid of swallowing water. Fear was tearing at him wildly, and something near panic was about him – but his training for the ring helped to keep him steady, helped him to fight for his life.
These bloody gold belts …
A small freighter, coming up stream, caused a wake which suddenly lifted Dorris up several feet, then plunged him under. His mouth opened. He knew the terror of approaching death, began to strike out, to kick out, even tried to scream.
Chapter Twelve
Boy Lost
Roger stepped into his office, at half past eight next morning, and saw Cope already at his desk, collar loose, tie hanging down. It was hot and sultry. Cope looked up, and simply shook his head. Roger had anticipated that; if either of the wanted men had been discovered he would have heard the moment he stepped into the building. Yet he was acutely disappointed. The post, unopened, lay on his desk. A telephone bell rang, and before he took off his hat he picked up the receiver; hope rose again.
“Handsome.” It was Campbell, probably speaking from home. “Have we got Dorris or Marriott?”
“Not yet,” Roger said. He sat on a corner of the desk. “And if the Old Man wants quicker results, he’ll have to find someone else to get them for him. I’m at full stretch.”
“Now take it easy,” protested Campbell. “I have to call him at his home. All the stops are out, aren’t they?”
“Every stop I know about,” Roger said. He was twisting round awkwardly. “There’s a file on my desk which says: Dorris and Marriott—known associates. It’s as thick as your fist.”
“All right,” said Campbell. “I’ll be in by ten o’clock.”
Roger rang off, slapped his hat on a peg, then squatted at the corner of the table again and opened the file, the words on which had been upside down to him.
“Anything in this, Jack?”
“Dunno, yet. Golloway sent it up, by a messenger. He’s probably demonstrating that he’s right on the ball.”
“Glad someone is,” Roger said. He studied the report closely, and had to admit that Golloway was not only on the ball but was on top of his job. He had prepared a short dossier on Dorris, Marriott, and their families, friends and acquaintances. Each was on a separate piece of paper, which accounted for the thickness of the file. Special reference was made to their families – Marriott’s wife and three children, the youngest a boy of eight – Dorris’s old mother and father and a married sister, as well as a brother a few years younger than he. The dossiers included the places where all of these went to work (or to school if they were young), where they were likely to be found for drinks, what clubs they belonged to. At the top of each dossier was a note of the name and address, there was a brief description of the physical appearance and in many cases photographs were pinned to the top left hand corner.
“Any good?” Cope inquired.
“He must have had a couple of typists up all night for this job,” said Roger. “Go through it, will you?” He pulled a telephone to him, asked for Golloway, and was told that he was not yet in. “As soon as he arrives ask him if he can fill up gaps in the photographs of the people in his files as soon as possible.”
“Very good, sir.”
Roger rang off, and opened other files, some of them dealing with different cases. Nothing was helpful. He reported again to Campbell, who was increasingly gloomy about the failure to find the two wanted men. A morning which had started with disappointment grew into a day of greater disappointment, for after all the photographs had come in from Golloway, none of the known friends and acquaintances of Dorris or Marriott resembled either of the other men seen at the Covent Garden crime.
“Those two descriptions were pretty vague,” Cope pointed out, and did not greatly ease the situation.
Twice during the day false hopes were raised. By six o’clock, every known or suspected hiding place had been searched, but there was no sign of the missing men. Golloway sent in a note: “A Liberian freighter, the Glambia, sailed on the night tide last night. Our men could have been aboard.” Had there been the slightest evidence Roger would have had the ship radio’d, but it was sheer guesswork.
Just before six, when he was ready to leave, his telephone bell rang.
“Mrs Bennison would like to speak to you, sir,” the operator said.
“Put her through,” said Roger, automatically.
He held on for a few moments, wondering what she would want; he had always told her that if she needed any help that he could give, she had only to ask him for it. This might mean anything – the one thing he took for granted was that it would not be pointless. He had not inquired about Bennison for the last day or two. Since the news of the amputation of his right leg, nothing new had been reported. Semple-Smith had not been in touch with Simister lately, and as he held on Roger had a half guilty feeling, that he should have inquired further about the effect on the brain.
At heart, of course, he did not want to admit the possibility of idiocy.
“Mr West?” The moment he heard the woman’s voice, he was sure that there was an emergency.
“Hallo, Mrs Bennison.”
“Mr West, Paul has run away!”
Roger thought: “Run away”, blankly. Paul Junior, of course, but – run away? He could picture those dark, intent eyes, eyes which did not show any expression and which had turned slaty grey in the boy’s determination to remain aloof.
“When did you last see him?” Roger inquired, still mechanically. He was trying to see the significance of this, beyond the fact that it might drive Isobel Bennison to desperation.
“This morning,” she answered. “He went out for the day—he told me he was going to the Oval, to see a cricket game.” “Game” was a woman’s word for “match”, the word Janet often used in spite of the scoffing of her three “men”. He left early, and I took it for granted that he meant what he said. But he didn’t go to the Oval.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure. He was to have met some friends when he got there. He told them that he would be late and couldn’t travel with them. He was to have been at the gasometer scoreboard. Does that mean anything to you?”
“It means a great deal,” Roger assured her. “How many other boys were there?”
“Four. They were all neighbours’ children. Paul has been so strange lately that I asked Mrs Abbott—you met her, didn’t you?” Mrs Bennison gave Roger no time to answer, but went on breathlessly: “I asked her if she would get her boys and some others in the street to organise a party somewhere. Paul’s always been fond of cricket. His father, too. And he seemed to jump at the chance. I don’t know what’s happened to him, he’s been so strange—”
“Have y
ou told anyone else about this?” Roger interrupted.
“No, no one.”
“I shall telephone the local police at once, and I’ll be over myself in half an hour or so,” Roger said. “Don’t talk to anyone else yet, will you?”
“I’ll do whatever you say,” Isobel Bennison promised.
Cope, still at his desk, had obviously gathered the drift of this. Roger told him to contact the Wimbledon Division, so that the search for the lad could be started at once.
“And have a word with the Kennington Division and check the Oval,” Roger said. “We want that boy’s movements traced from the time he left home at half past eleven this morning. Have we got his description?”
“A vague one,” Cope said.
“Take this down. Aged twelve, could pass for fourteen or fifteen. Five feet six or seven. Slender build. Very dark hair, left side parting, hair inclined to curl at the temples but usually kept fairly flat. Grey to dark grey eyes. Rather good-looking, you might say Gregory Peckish. I don’t know what clothes he was wearing—ring Mrs Bennison herself about that. Don’t let the Press get hold of the story.” Roger was already at the door, but suddenly checked himself. “One other thing—small scar on the lobe of the left ear. Oh, and he had long—exceptionally long—thumbs. Got it?”
“Yep.”
“Call my home for me and tell Janet I’ll be late-ish, will you?”
“Okay,” said Cope.
Roger drove himself again, conscious of the busy, impatient rush hour traffic, which was only just beginning to tail off. From the moment he had seen Bennison’s son, he had been troubled by him. His reactions hadn’t been normal even allowing for shock from the news of the injuries to his father. Shocks like this usually brought out whatever was latent in a human being, they put nothing new in. What would the boy do? Was he bitterly disappointed because the police had not yet made an arrest? Could he possibly have conceived some foolish idea of looking for the men himself? It wasn’t rational, Roger knew; but little about this case was rational.
He found the traffic thinning as he drove through Fulham and Putney, and had a fairly quick run up the hill. Soon, just beyond the common, he was in Acacia Avenue. No little crowd stood about near the Bennisons’ gate; it looked as if the public interest in them was satiated.
The garage doors were closed, the garden gate and windows were closed, too. The house had a deserted appearance.
Roger wondered suddenly whether the boy had been found, and his mother was on her way to him, but as he went up the path to the front door, it opened. Isobel Bennison stood there for a moment, her hands half raised in front of her. She was looking very, very tired.
“There isn’t—isn’t any news of him?” she asked, half hopefully, half despairing.
“There soon will be,” Roger said. The inadequacy of the remark irritated him, but he had to say something. The woman stood there and he saw that she was frightened as well as tired. She did not move. He took her right arm, and turned her round slowly and gently. She began to walk mechanically, passing the front room along to the kitchen quarters. The silence of emptiness lay upon the house.
“Where are the others?” Roger asked, searching for their names. “Michael and—Michael and Rose.”
“They’re staying with their grandmother,” answered Isobel. “They usually go to her for a week in the summer, and this was the time we’d arranged. Paul wouldn’t go. He said—he said he had to stay at home and look after me. I couldn’t make him go, could I?”
“Of course not.”
She began to walk about the kitchen, picking things up, putting them down. She was nearer distraught than Roger had realised, and he wondered if anything else was worrying her. He wished she would do something: make some tea or coffee, get a drink, anything.
She talked all the time.
“I’m glad you agree—some of the neighbours think I ought to have made him go. I can’t even be sure why I didn’t. Am I being selfish? I hate the thought of being here alone, and—well, Paul is more like my husband. Rose tries so hard, bless her, but she isn’t much help. She’s younger than her years, and keeps trying to comfort me by using phrases out of books.” Isobel stopped in front of Roger, looking straight into his eyes. “It’s been terrible on my own, especially since—”
She broke off, hands working, lips working. She turned her back to him, and put her hands to her eyes. He moved forward and rested a hand on her shoulder, a token of comfort. He had never felt more troubled about anyone, man or woman, outside his own family. He felt the trembling of her body as she fought back tears, and sensed that she was very close to complete collapse.
“I don’t know what’s coming over me,” she said, in a shaking voice. “Worrying about myself when Paul’s missing. Oh, God.” She made those two short words sound like a prayer deep from the heart. Roger’s hand pressed more firmly. “I don’t know what I shall do if anything happens to Paul. I just don’t know.”
“Nothing will happen to Paul,” Roger said. “There isn’t the slightest reason why it should.”
She didn’t turn round.
“But he’s been so strange.”
“It’s been a shock.”
“It’s more than a week now. He ought to have got over it.”
“It’s bound to take time.”
She turned round, suddenly – so suddenly that he couldn’t get away. She banged against him, but hardly seemed to notice it. Her face was very close to his, her body, too; and her eyes were glittering, as if she had a fever. Words spilled out, as her lips moved with strange baffling intricacy and speed.
“I feel I’ve failed him. I ought to have helped him more. I ought to have made him feel that everything was going to work out all right. But I couldn’t do it – not with Paul. Rose believed me, and so did little Michael, but Paul – he knew how terribly worried I am. He knew from the very first. Where is he? Where has he gone? Don’t let anything happen to him. Please, please, don’t let anything happen to my son.”
Roger eased away a little while she spoke. He took her hands, which were trembling with her passionate fears, and her self-blame. Her fingers were icy.
“Before I left my office, I sent a general call out to all police in London,” he told her. “They are all on the lookout for him. If I had to guess – and I’ve two boys of my own, to base a guess on—”
He broke off, deliberately trying to force her to ask what he would say if he had to guess. She was staring at him with burning intensity; and still quivering. It was as if she had stored up all the shock, the fear and the dread while the children had been here, and now it burst out like a flood, the gates opened by this new fear for her son.
“What would you guess? Tell me! What would you guess?”
“I would say that young Paul is desperately unhappy because he can’t help you,” Roger said. “I would think that above everything else, that’s what he wants to do.”
Was there a little fading of the fire in her eyes?
“Do you—do you really think so?”
“It seems to me what Paul would feel.”
“You might be right,” she said. She did not take her hands away, but actually drew a little nearer, as if she were afraid that he would let her go but did not want him to. “I don’t know. Ever since this morning—but he didn’t hear, he couldn’t have heard.”
“What couldn’t he have heard?” asked Roger gently.
“The—the doctor came to see me,” she said. Now her voice was steady and small – and touched with a chill which seemed to affect Roger, too; he was almost afraid of what he was going to hear. “Dr Whittaker. Our—our doctor. He had—had a long talk with the surgeon. Semple—Semple-Smith.” Now there was no mistaking the fact that the flame of fear in her had been chilled by some new, greater, awful fear. “He was very good—to come. He told m
e that—he told me—”
She couldn’t say it; and as Roger stood there, waiting, gripping her hands tightly, he knew what it was she couldn’t say, and a furious rage built up in him against the doctor.
“He told me that Paul might be—be simple. Simple. That he might never be the same again. Oh, God, it’s awful, it’s awful!”
The bloody, bloody, bloody fool! Roger thought savagely.
“What am I going to do?” Isobel Bennison cried. Her voice quivered with the chill of that deepest fear. “I haven’t been able to think since I heard. I just haven’t been able to think. I can’t tell anybody. I can’t tell neighbours that—that Paul’s going to be an idiot. I can’t tell the children. How can I?” She did not want an answer, she simply wanted someone who would listen, someone who might even understand. “I’ve been alone all day. I was glad Paul was out, I didn’t feel I could talk to anyone. I’ve just sat here—all day, I tell you. It wasn’t until this evening that I realised he hadn’t been to the Oval. I happened to look out of the window, and saw Meg Abbott’s children back. I went to find out what had kept Paul, and they told me he hadn’t turned up at all. I telephoned you, right away. I had to telephone you.”
“Of course you did. And everything, everything possible will be done to find Paul.” Roger gulped. “Do you seriously think he might have overheard what the doctor said?”
“Yes,” she answered, huskily. “We were in the front room. I was so surprised to see Dr Whittaker. I was afraid it was bad news. I didn’t say much to Paul, just told him to stay out here, but – the door wasn’t quite shut. He might have been in the hall, he might have heard everything. He was so strange this morning, but then he’s been strange ever since this happened.”
She closed her eyes as if she wanted to shut out some awful dread.
“What am I going to do if my husband does become an idiot? What am I going to do?”