An Uncivilised Election Read online

The door opened, and Quatrain appeared, with Parsons in the hall just behind him. As Gideon stepped inside, he was aware – as he had been often in the past – of the difference between himself and a man like Quatrain. It was the difference between a cart horse and a race horse. This man had a quality which he could never have, and he had a strength and an endurance which this man would probably envy all his life. He had met Quatrain at some official functions, for when a member he had been on two Home Office committees affecting the police, including a committee which had investigated pay and conditions. Quatrain had been progressive and generous in his attitude and had probably helped to sway the committee into recommending improvements which had since come about.

  Quatrain held out his hand.

  “Commander.”

  “Mr. Quatrain,” Gideon said, “I’ve come myself so that you will have no doubt that we regard this as the most urgent matter on hand at the Yard.”

  Quatrain smiled.

  “I’m more than satisfied of that, and Superintendent Parsons has already proved by example what you have confirmed. Now I wonder if you will excuse me. I have a very heavy day ahead, even heavier than I had expected without my chief organizer and the party’s chief agent. The personal anxiety weighs heavily too. I must at least rest for an hour or two.”

  “We won’t disturb you, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Quatrain said. “Good night.”

  He entered a dressing room which, Gideon saw, led in turn to his bedroom and bathroom. The door closed, sealing off that part of the flat completely. Parsons, hand smoothing down his hair, looked at the closed door as if he were puzzled.

  “There’s something odd about that chap,” he said. “Damned odd. I didn’t expect to find him human enough to admit that he’s tired. Well, George, what did I tell you?”

  “I’m more interested in what you’ve got to tell me,” said Gideon.

  “I wish it was more.” Parsons patted his breast pocket. “I’ve got it all down here; you’ll have a report before I go off duty. It amounts to this: It was a plastic bomb in a red container. It was quite small, and did little damage to the wall or the doors. It was fastened to a light fitting above the door, and there was a kind of trip wire – here are the bits we’ve found – which made it fall as the door was opened from the inside.”

  “Inside?”

  “Yes. It must have hung about here.” Parsons pointed to a spot about six feet from the ground; some blisters on the framework of the door and the door itself, and some stains on the walls, were the only signs of the spot where the explosion had taken place. “As far as I can see – it will have to be checked by the ballistics, of course – as the door was opened the bomb fell to about head height and hung there. As Smith went out he walked straight into it, and it blew up instantaneously. Anyone coming out would be bound to get it full in the face. Quatrain says there was a flash, and the burn marks show that. The actual damage to Smith’s face isn’t great, though. He will carry scars, but not serious ones, and they might be removed altogether by plastic surgery. The damage to the eyes is a lot more serious. Hibberd, Quatrain’s doctor, won’t commit himself. Smith’s now at the Moorfields Eye Hospital.”

  Gideon nodded.

  “The last person to leave the apartment was Jefferson Miles, second-in-command to David Smith on the organization side of the Q party,” went on Parsons. “He lives not far away, in a flat at Park Mews. I called him, and he’s been here and gone. He swears there was nothing on the door when he left – he let himself out – and although he could have put the bomb there himself, the record says that he’s a fanatical Q man, and I don’t rate the possibility high. I’ve checked with all the people in the nearby flats, and none of them remember anyone coming in here after eleven o’clock. The two doormen on duty swear that they saw no one. I’ve got the division working on taxi drivers, on our own uniformed men, and on anyone known to have been in the vicinity since ten-thirty. I’ve been talking to the Yard, and Information has sent out a call to all divisions for information about any explosives expert who might have been here tonight – not that we have many in the country. I’ve talked to the Sûreté Nationale and made requests to all the other European police headquarters to ask if they know of any bomb expert over here.”

  Parsons paused.

  “Clues?” asked Gideon.

  “Nothing on the carpet, wall or doors. No fingerprints we can’t identify, nothing but the pieces of the bomb and the damage caused by the explosion. I’ve had every fire exit and fire escape, every liftman, every door which leads into the building checked – and the result is damn-all.” Parsons drew a deep breath. Gideon could not fail to see how tired he looked; his eyes were bloodshot, and he kept rubbing the right one. “All we can do is pray that sooner or later we’ll find someone who saw the devil.”

  Gideon said, “We’ve got to, and quick.” It was a fatuous remark and yet did not sound fatuous to either of them. “I’ll get the BBC to put out a request for help from anyone who passed between a quarter to eleven and twelve-thirty to report if they saw anyone coming in. We’ll have to get it on television too. The evening papers will play, and…”

  As he talked he knew that all this had to be done, but for the second time since he had heard of the bombing, he felt a heavy weight of depression. In a normal case, even in one of murder, he would have set everything in motion, hoped for quick results, and yet acknowledged philosophically that the odds were against getting them. The investigation would be a matter of patience and perseverance. Whether the pay-off came in a week or two or a month or two did not greatly matter in most cases, for time was not of the essence. Now it was. There was a driving urgency. He hated to think of the effect of a huge publicity build-up in the public mind if the man who had planted the bomb remained at large for even twenty-four hours.

  9: Reaction

  Rogerson, his lips and cheeks quite noticeably bluish and his eyes glassy and protruding, opened the door of Gideon’s office at a quarter to nine. Lemaitre, called to the Yard early, was rasping into the telephone: “I don’t care who you have to interrupt, get him for me. Bloody secretaries,” he muttered, and then caught sight of the Assistant Commissioner. He froze.

  “Good morning, Lemaitre. Commander—” this was Rogerson at his most official – “the Commissioner would like to see you in his office at nine o’clock.”

  “Right,” said Gideon.

  “Is there any news?” inquired Rogerson.

  “David Smith will probably lose the sight of one eye,” Gideon replied. “He won’t be about again for at least six weeks. So that’s put paid to any work he can do for Quatrain in the election. The newspapers are besieging the Back Room. I had five of them on my private line and had to tear a strip off them before they would stop worrying me.”

  “I can imagine. But have we any idea who the man was?”

  “No,” said Gideon.

  Ten minutes later, with Rogerson, he entered the office of Lieutenant Colonel Scott-Marie, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Scott-Marie was a tall, lean, greying, rather aloof man, always somewhat remote from his men and appearing remote from the job – until a crisis arose, when he proved to be both alert and fully informed. In a way, he reminded Gideon of Quatrain, although he was an older man, an autocrat rather than a potential demagogue.

  He shook hands.

  “What progress are we making?” he inquired.

  “None at all yet,” said Gideon flatly.

  “I see. So we really haven’t any idea who did it?”

  “None at all, sir,” admitted Gideon.

  “Are you making the obvious investigations?”

  “Into the F.F.P. people, do you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s being covered,” said Gideon, “but we have no reason to think that any of them would do this kind of thing. They’ve resisted arrest and they’ve resisted the Q Men from time to time, but in general their methods have been of passive resistance.”

&n
bsp; “That doesn’t mean that one or more of them hasn’t lost patience,” reasoned Scott-Marie. “Gideon, let me be quite frank. I shall be subjected to a great many pressures. They will come from the Home Office, from Downing Street, and from many other sources. I am going to be asked all kinds of questions, both reasonable and unreasonable. I must have an answer for them all. Whatever specific question I am asked about our handling of the case” – a smile teased the corners of his lips – “I want to be able to say that we are investigating that particular angle. I know I don’t need to tell you how serious this is. I want to assure you that you may have whatever men and whatever authority it is in my power to give, so that you may proceed at all speed with the investigations. If necessary, all but absolutely essential work on other cases must be suspended. The BBC, the ITV, and the press will give us all possible help.”

  Scott-Marie paused. Gideon rubbed his chin. Rogerson shifted his position in an uncomfortable chair.

  “Don’t you agree?” Scott-Marie asked, almost acidly.

  “I agree on the gravity of the situation if it develops,” Gideon said. “I also think we could exaggerate it, sir. In fact I’m beginning to think that I overplayed it by calling on the broadcasting and television authorities so quickly.” He gave the Commissioner a chance to interrupt, but Scott-Marie simply stared at him, as if in disapproval. Gideon, knowing that look, felt ill at ease; he also felt stubborn. It was as if the bomb, and everything concerning it, was exerting pressures he could hardly withstand. He spoke very deliberately as he went on: “We want the perpetrator, but we don’t want anyone to think we’re treating it as a disaster.”

  “It could become one,” Rogerson observed.

  “Couldn’t it?” Scott-Marie asked Gideon.

  “If this was an isolated case of a man or woman with a special hatred of Quatrain and what he stands for, it isn’t likely. If the worst has happened and it is the first move in a campaign of violence—” Gideon broke off, waving his hands in an uncharacteristic gesture. “But I can’t believe it is.” He stood there solid, aggressively stubborn. “I’m much more worried about the kind of chain reaction it might set up.”

  “Chain reaction?” Scott-Marie sounded surprised.

  “One effect, and a bad one, could be to start others off,” Gideon declared. “Individuals without the moral courage to originate such an outrage might get on the band wagon. We’re always up against reaction crimes, as you know. One bank robbery may set off a chain, as sex murders are inclined to. Any crime which can be committed on impulse is liable to start an impulse in other people. Criminals often imitate one another, and when all’s said and done, criminals are only ordinary people with a kink. Some of the F.F.P. people are so involved in their cause that they’ve got a kink already.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” Scott-Marie conceded. He sat quite erect in his chair, rather like the president of a court-martial. Gideon had never felt more uneasy in his presence. “I think you’ve overlooked one thing, Gideon.”

  “Have I, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask what?”

  “I think you’ve overlooked the fact that Quatrain’s men might already be planning reprisals. Quatrain himself might be able to restrain them for a while, but the only thing that I think will stop them from trying to take revenge is if we find the man who left that bomb there. That’s why I think the situation is so serious.”

  Gideon said, “I see, sir.”

  Another man than Scott-Marie might have said, “Well, had you forgotten that?” Another man than Gideon might have said, “I’ve had that well in mind, sir.” Neither of them spoke. Rogerson shifted his position again. Gideon wished he would sit still.

  Gideon said at last, “There’s one thing it would be easy for us all to overlook.”

  That faint smile played about Scott-Marie’s lips again.

  “Yes?”

  “One man planted this bomb. A few dozen or a few hundred others might lose their heads because of it. We have one dedicated group in Quatrain’s supporters and another in the F.F.P. Battle Committee’s supporters, but put ‘em all together and they still represent only a minute fraction of the people – of the electors, sir. We want to show everyone that we’re going all out to find the man who planted this bomb, but we should also show them that we don’t expect a lot more trouble. We want to make it clear that we rely on the levelheadedness and common sense of the man in the street.”

  Scott-Marie sat like a graven image for some seconds. Then he stood up quickly, surprising Gideon and making Rogerson move again. Gideon thought, Now I’ve caused it. He himself was caught between the two stools of overrating and underrating the danger of the situation.

  “You mean, our attitude to the public and press must be that this is one isolated crime, but that internally our whole organization must give it absolute priority.”

  Thank God for a man with a razor-sharp mind.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  Scott-Marie said briskly, “Handle it that way, Gideon. Talk to the press yourself. Make sure that no one else on the force makes any statement at all, we don’t want two different stories put out. Report to me twice daily, please, and if necessary more often. I will leave instructions that you are to be put through, whatever I may be doing. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Gideon. He felt a deep relief.

  By the time he got back to his desk the newspapers had arrived. Every one of the popular dailies had put out a special late edition, and the two evenings had given the whole of their front pages to the story. Gideon read the headlines and the first few paragraphs of each. There was an interview with Quatrain, quoting:

  “DASTARDLY POLITICAL CRIME” – Q

  There was another, more dangerous headline:

  Q LEADER ACCUSES NUCLEARS

  Gideon studied that more closely. The impression given was that Quatrain had accused the nuclear disarmament group, but in fact it was a statement by Jefferson Miles to a news agency. Jefferson Miles had ranted.

  There was another:

  F.F.P. LEADER DENIES CHARGE

  Mr. Cunliffe Moncrieff, Chairman of the Battle Committee of the Fight for Peace Movement, said to a Globe reporter: “It is unthinkable that anyone associated with this organization which seeks only peace could be involved in such a crime. Every one of our Committee – and I am sure every one of our members throughout the country – condemns it utterly.”

  Parsons, who was with Gideon, said gruffly, “I wonder.” Then he went on: “Paterson of the House told me to keep an eye on Guy Hetherington and Reginald Corbett, left-wing and pro-Ban the Bomb.”

  “Anything cropped up with them?”

  Parsons said, “No, I think they’re toeing the party line. All the Communists are too.”

  “Save us some trouble,” said Gideon. “What’s the general build-up like?”

  “It’s off to a slow start,” said Parsons. “This will warm it up though.”

  Amanda Tenby sat in the window seat of her apartment with a morning and two evening papers spread out on the floor about her. She was in her black slacks and black sweater, and the only change in her appearance was that her hair, instead of falling about her shoulders, was held together by a velvet ribbon into a ponytail. Her eyes were aglow. Daniel Ronn sat on an upright chair, back to front, and leaned precariously on it, only two legs on the ground. He watched her as she scanned the headlines.

  After she had read one with rapt attention and looked up, Ronn asked: “Do you?”

  Do I what?”

  “Do you condemn our anonymous bomb man?”

  She looked at him. “It’s a pity Smith didn’t die.”

  “Amanda!” Ronn pretended to be shocked.

  “They’re not fit to live.”

  In a more gentle voice, Ronn said, “Amanda darling, we can go too far.”

  “Not with the Q Men,” she said.

  He began to frown. “Amanda—”

  “Supposing
you stop calling me Amanda like that,” she said, mimicking him.

  He was frowning more deeply and looking at her very oddly. She turned to other papers, leaning forward so that she could read the stories. He stared at the top of her head and the ponytail; he could just see her forehead and the tip of her nose.

  “Do you know anything about it?” he demanded.

  “What?”

  “The bomb.”

  She didn’t look up.

  “There’s only one bomb I’m interested in.”

  “Look at me, Amanda.”

  “I’m busy.”

  Ronn let the chair settle back on all four legs, stood up, and went toward her. She didn’t look up. He trod on one of the newspapers, and the pressure wrinkled the one she was reading. She glanced at the shiny brown toe of his shoe but still did not look up. He put his hand down to her head, and she ducked. He hesitated, then slowly put his fingers round the ponytail, and gripped it tightly. He pulled, not hard enough to hurt but enough to make her feel the pressure. She resisted it. He pulled more strongly, and she slapped his leg. He didn’t move.

  “Do you know anything about it?” he demanded, in a hard voice.

  “Let me go.”

  “Answer me.”

  “If you don’t let me go—”

  He jerked the hair so sharply that she cried out. She could no longer stop her head from rising, and for a moment they were face to face. Ronn now had to pull her hair while his hand was round her neck, but he found no difficulty, and kept her neck taut – a beautiful pale neck against the black sweater. She made no attempt now to avoid his gaze.

  “I want to know,” he insisted.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” said Amanda.

  “Do you know what that bomb could do?”

  “Wipe out the Q Men.”

  “Don’t you make any mistake,” Ronn said softly. “It would wipe us out and F.F.P. as a political force. The country wouldn’t stand for it. If there was any suspicion that you or anybody connected with the Battle Committee was involved in this, there wouldn’t be another effective demonstration. They think we’re lunatic fringers as it is, and if they thought we were violent too—” He broke off, thrust his face closer to hers, held her in exactly the same position, and said, “Do you know anything about the bomb attack on Quatrain?”