Double for the Toff

by John Creasey

  What a witness Fred would be!

  Fred Martin was a little late on the road that day, but he did not hurry, because he followed only one rule of the road: it was as safe as sitting in your own front room provided you didn’t try to go too fast. He was not only big, burly, and tough, but he was placid. The one emotion which seemed to spark in him was for hymn-singing and trombone playing; those really woke him up. Otherwise he moved slowly, acted calmly and cautiously, and simply did his job. He was a good driver, although not outstanding. Sometimes he exasperated his employers, a large firm of grocers and provision merchants with shops all over the country, because he was inclined to be late; not lazy, just careful.

  He ran into the storm on the other side of Watford, and as the weather had been so dry for the past ten days, there was a lot of oil on the road. So he slowed down. The rain was very heavy, his windscreen wipers squeaked as they moved, cars passed, splashing muddy water over the windshield. At least it wasn’t cold.

  Then, in the teeming rain, he saw a man and a girl waving him down, obviously hoping for a lift. In dry weather he would have hesitated, but in a storm like this it was only Christian charity to stop and let them take shelter. Once they were in, he would take them as near their destination as he could. There was plenty of room in the cabin. He slowed down, and stopped right opposite the couple. The man was of medium height, wiry looking, with dark hair streaming with water which ran down his face. The girl had a plastic hood over her head and much of her face, and he could not see what she was like.

  One never knew, thought Fred Martin, but there might be the beginning of a conversion here. You never knew what prompted you to stop, or when an opportunity would be thrust in your hands. The difficulty was to recognise it when it came. It would take an hour to get to London, and a lot could be done in an hour.

  “Hop in,” he invited, and the man climbed up, surprising Fred, because he had expected the girl to come first. “Okay, Ivy,” he called. “I’ll be seeing you.” He slammed the door, and splashed Fred with the fine rain from his raincoat. “My girl’s got to get back to work,” he said. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Welcome,” said Fred, and was disappointed, because women were usually more interested in talk about religion; and this man did not look as if he would ever be very impressed. But one never could tell, Fred soothed himself, and drove for a few minutes in silence.

  Then they reached The Hill.

  It wasn’t really a steep one, and drivers on this road called it The Hill because it was the only one for a long way. Here and there it was quite steep, but it was the long climb on the way out of London which made it a feature of the drive to Watford and the North. The rain was teeming down. There was little traffic on the road, partly because at this time of day traffic was always light, and partly because of the rain; several cars were drawn up under trees. There was a sudden flash of lightning, and Fred found himself thinking that the drivers of those cars ought to avoid trees.

  He slowed down, to change gear, at the top of the hill.

  Then he felt a sharp pressure at his neck, turned in surprised alarm, and saw the eyes of his passenger close to his. He raised his left hand off the wheel, and involuntarily his foot came off the clutch. In the same instant he felt the great lorry with its heavy load gathering speed in the lashing rain; and he felt the pressure at his neck, at his windpipe, increased.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  He was being choked; and if he took his hands off the wheel he would lose control of the lorry. He knew great fear. He put his foot on the brake, and the lorry began to slow down, but the pressure at his throat increased, and the man had his wrist on the wheel so that he could not move it.

  Soon the man thrust his head back against the wood behind him, then put on the hand-brake, and opened the door. Fred could do nothing, he was in such pain, but he saw the man climb out while the lorry was crawling; then saw him lean inside and release the hand-brake.

  The man vanished as the lorry gathered speed.

  As Fred tried desperately to save himself and to grip the brakes and hold the wheel, he saw another lorry loom up out of the rain. He just managed to press on the horn, heard it blaring its warning; then the other van seemed to come back and hit him.

  He felt an awful pain in his head.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Accident”

  “It’s a funny thing,” said Jane Martin, a merry-eyed woman in the middle forties, “but Fred’s usually home from the Birmingham run long before this. He won’t be long now, Mr. Ar; I’m sure of that.”

  “Tell him I’d like to see him, will you?” asked Rollison. “I’ll be back by half-past four.”

  “He’ll be in—never goes out after a run,” Martin’s wife declared. “He says all he wants to do is take it easy for a couple of hours. Can’t have much more than that to-night; it’s band practice.”

  “I don’t promise to come to that,” said Rollison.

  He was a little uneasy, because this delay was the kind of coincidence which could be the herald of trouble. He had not wanted to give Jane the slightest cause for alarm, so had not told her that he was going to the big yard where the lorry would be unloaded, to find out if there was any news of Fred. It was close to the docks, and when he was stopped at the gates by an elderly gatekeeper who seldom had Rolls-Bentleys in the grime and confusion here, he saw twenty or thirty lorries backed against loading platforms, men busy, machines working, and in the distance the docks from which much of the food was unloaded. He saw the derricks of three ships, and heard the rattle of cranes.

  “Do you know if Fred Martin’s back?” he asked the gatekeeper.

  “No, sir. He’s in Truck 36; should have been in at two o’clock, and it’s now half-past four.”

  The gatekeeper was frowning, probably because he was sure that he had seen this man before, but did not know where.

  “Have you any idea how far he is on the road,” Rollison asked.

  “They might have some news at the office,” answered the gatekeeper. “I haven’t heard anything. It’s okay to go through if—Cor!—aren’t you—”

  Rollison said, smiling absently: “Yes, I’m Rollison.” He was worried, in spite of his smile. “Thanks, I’ll go and find out.”

  He drove through the gateway, knowing that the man was staring after him and gaping. The huge lorries all glistened from the afternoon storm, although the sun was shining now. He reached a door marked: “Office, Report Here”, and tapped on the door and stepped inside. The moment he did so, he sensed trouble, and it did him no good at all. A tall, very thin girl, so flat-breasted that she hardly seemed mature, was standing by a desk. A short, fat man with a face like a monkey sat with his hand at a telephone. A boy, with ginger hair and freckles, looked scared.

  The monkey-like man said: “Good—good afternoon, sir,” as if he felt sure that this was someone from the management. “He—he’s dead.”

  Rollison made himself ask: “Who’s dead?”

  “Why, Fred Martin, of course. Didn’t you—” The man broke off and peered, as if short-sightedly, at Rollison; and then he stood up quickly. “I’m sorry, I thought you were Mr. Lennox; he said he would come over. There was an accident on the hill, sir. Terrible. He was the most careful of drivers, Fred was. I can hardly believe that Fred would die in an accident.”

  A tall, middle-aged man came in, and stopped abruptly.

  “Did you say Fred Martin is dead?” he demanded.

  “I can’t believe it,” Jane Martin said, almost stupidly. “There must be some mistake. My Fred’s not dead.” All the merriment had gone out of her eyes, and she stood motionless by the fireplace of her parlour, with its polished furniture, its sepia photographs, its Victorian brica-brac; and Fred’s trombone in its long, shabby black case. She was very plump and rather pigeon-breasted, and now she was pressing a hand into her plump bosom. Two neighbours, each from the Army, were in the room with her and Rollison. “There must be some mistake,” she repe
ated drearily. “He was the most careful driver in the world. He always said he would rather be an hour late, or a day if it came to that, rather than take chances. It must be a mistake. My Fred can’t be dead.”

  There were two men with Rollison, dressed in the familiar blue uniform, and with the Salvation Army printed on the bands of their hats. They had driven with him to the morgue at Watford, and now they looked upon the cold face of their dead colleague. The Chief Inspector of the local police looked questioningly at each in turn, and each nodded and turned away, one too distressed to speak, the other saying in a hoarse voice: “It’s Fred Martin all right, no doubt about that.” So the identification was made formally, and they were led out.

  Rollison saw a plump, ruddy-cheeked man in the Chief Inspector’s office, and was introduced to him as Dr. Campbell.

  “I haven’t had time to do an autopsy yet, of course,” said the pathologist, “but—at your request, I understand—I’ve come down from London to have a look at the body. There are no outward signs which are not quite consistent with this kind of accident. He obviously lost control going downhill.”

  “Brakes?” asked Rollison, of the Chief Inspector, and he knew that both men could see how shaken he was, and was grateful that they showed no resentment at his brusqueness.

  “We’ll have a quick look, but there seems to be nothing wrong. It was raining heavily at the time, and the road was greasy. The driver of the lorry in front said that he was having difficulty and was looking for a place to pull in. I should say that the driver lost control and didn’t see the lorry in front because of the rain. Visibility was down to twenty or thirty yards.”

  “I don’t believe that Fred Martin would take the slightest risk,” insisted the Salvation Army major.

  “It’s amazing how often the best driver has a momentary lapse and gets away with it,” the pathologist remarked. “I’m going to get busy now. Will you wait, Mr. Rollison, or shall I telephone you—or send a message through the Yard?”

  “If you’ll call me I’ll be grateful,” Rollison said.

  Grice was still in his office, taking full advantage of the fact that his wife was away, and doing what he always enjoyed most: working. He seemed slightly older and rather less sure of himself as he looked at Rollison, shortly after seven-thirty that night – little more than twenty-four hours since Rollison had come here to see him about Dwight.

  “The facts speak for themselves,” he said quietly. “I tell you that I’ve had Campbell’s autopsy report by telephone. There is absolutely nothing at all to suggest foul play. No bruises in unusual places, just a bump on the back of the head where Martin was jolted against the back of his driving-cabin, and a badly smashed forehead when he went forward. The lacerations, cuts, and bruises are all commensurate with the smash. It’s no use being obstinate about it, Rolly. He died in an accident after losing control of the lorry.”

  “If you’d told me that he’d had a heart attack I might have believed you,” Rollison said bleakly. “It wasn’t an accident, Bill.”

  “Just because—” Grice began.

  “Bob Benning didn’t go away with that girl. Martin told his wife enough to make that clear. Hearsay isn’t evidence, but Martin could have given evidence to prove that Benning didn’t follow Marjorie Fryer from the pub when she was killed. Now a key witness is dead of violence.”

  “There’s the autopsy report. There’s the official police report on the condition of the brakes. There’s nothing at all to suggest anything more than an unusual accident at a time when conditions for driving were bad.”

  “Bill,” said Rollison, stonily, “Benning didn’t kill the Fryer girl, and this man wasn’t killed in an accident. I’ve checked everything possible about his habits, his mood, his caution. He simply isn’t the man to take the slightest chance.”

  “If anything were the matter with the brakes I might say there was something in the argument,” Grice interrupted, testily. “But there’s nothing at all.”

  “Bill—”

  “Rolly, there isn’t a thing I can do.”

  “Bill, that boy could spend all his life in jail because you’re being stubborn. It will cause you some extra trouble, and perhaps make a couple of men stay on overtime, and it may make the Yard’s name mud. All right. It might save the boy, too. If the brakes are all right, if nothing is mechanically wrong, then Fred Martin wasn’t alone in the cabin.”

  “Oh, nonsense!”

  “Telephone Watford,” Rollison urged. “Ask them to question everyone who was on that road yesterday. Have a radio and television request put out for information from anyone who saw the lorry. If there was a passenger—”

  “There isn’t the slightest justification for it!”

  “Do it, Bill,” Rollison urged. “Make sure you don’t have this on your conscience.”

  “It simply isn’t justifiable. The Commander and the Assistant Commissioner wouldn’t authorise an approach to the BBC or independent television.”

  “Bill,” said Rollison, almost savagely, “I have a lot of friends. I haven’t had to pull that kind of string to make you do something for a long time, but if necessary I will. If the appeal isn’t in the night’s news, I’ll start from the House of Lords and work downwards. You could do this on your own authority and apologise afterwards if it wasted time. You might even pretend that you thought of it yourself. We want to know if anyone was in the cab of Martin’s lorry yesterday.”

  Grice said: “It’s not possible. Let’s drop the subject. Have you talked to Dwight yet?”

  “I’ve hardly seen him.”

  “I’m told he’s back at your flat.”

  “Yes,” said Rollison, “and reunited with his Kitty. Jolly couldn’t keep them apart. I talked to Jolly on the telephone, and Dwight won’t say a word about what happened to him. Apparently he seemed as frightened as ever. What made you so co-operative over that and so stubborn over the other?”

  Grice said: “I’ve talked to the A.G. this afternoon, and there are one or two things I can tell you. For the past twelve months we’ve been worried by reports of a gang operating a series of thefts. Sometimes they’re from shops—like Kitty Dwight’s—sometimes they’re smash-and-grab, sometimes they’re post-office hold-ups, sometimes straightforward burglaries. They last for about a week. You’ve often seen stories about them, and you thought the same as we did, at first: that it’s a case of follow-my-leader; there always has been a crop of the same kind of crime, and it dies down. We fooled ourselves with that one,” went on Grice, “but gradually we picked up reports which made us wonder whether we were right. The description of the men was always remarkably the same—well built, medium-sized men, rather ordinary to look at, and very fit. Whenever they got into any kind of difficulty they were always able to fight their way out of it. They were highly mobile—using motorcycles which looked old but had great power. We caught several men on the crimes, but none admitted that they were associated with anyone else, and we couldn’t prove that they were. But these men we caught were all very much alike in build and behaviour, they all wore dark clothes, they all had empty pockets. Five of them are serving sentences for different crimes at this moment.”

  Rollison, standing by Grice’s desk, was very still.

  “They were similar type of men to those you found at Apex House,” Grice went on. “They will never talk. It wasn’t until we learned that one of them had drugged himself that we realised you were involved in this inquiry—because all of them have had morphia pills, enough to put them out for twenty-four hours, enough to kill them if they wanted to die. That was the one connecting link, and we’ve been working on it. Then there was this case of Cedric Dwight. Everything I told you about him is true. He has had these illusions. His family has consulted psychiatrists about him. There was absolutely no reason to believe that he was in any danger, but when you told me about the man on the old motorcycle, I took a deeper interest.”

  “Ah,” said Rollison, owlishly.

  �
��Then you were attacked over there,” went on Grice, pointing out of the window to the sunlit Thames. “I knew at once that you were on to this particular job. What I didn’t believe was that you knew nothing about it. I thought you realised just what you were after, and were trying to dig information from us that would help. So I played dumb. It’s no use asking me how big or how widespread these crimes have been,” Grice went on quite briskly. “They may have been organised for years; they may run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. We don’t know: we do now know, thanks to you, that they’re after Dwight. The A.G. and the Commander agreed with me that it was better to let you see if you could find out the truth, rather than let us tackle Dwight and his wife. This is a job where you might get the truth quicker than we could. And there’s one interesting factor: although Dwight’s been terrified, and in spite of his wife’s fears, and the volume of crimes, there has never been a murder: violence, sometimes, but never murder. See what you can find out about it, Rolly.”

  Rollison stared out into the shimmering Thames, seeing the odd car pass, and the river-boats, and reminding himself of all the things of life that Martin had lost: and which Bob Benning might lose.

  “Bill,” he said, “put out those S.O.S. calls on the radio and television to-night, and I’ll work on the Dwights. Refuse to put them out, and I shall tell the Dwights that I can’t help them, and refer them to you.”

  He moved towards the door.

  Grice said: “You’re the most obstinate man I know.”

  Now Rollison could hardly wait for the nine o’clock news, which would tell him whether or not he had won the day.

  But there was plenty to do. He checked over all the incidents of both the Benning and the Dwight case, and for a while seemed to be almost in a trance. What had he left undone? And what had he missed? If he could only see it, there was the answer to most of the problems.

  Sam telephoned from the gymnasium.