Gideon's Fire Read online

  After Clapper’s arrest, Scarfe had been uneasy, but had no reason to believe that Clapper would name him as Spender. He had always paid Clapper well, and the man knew that he would be looked after when he came out of prison, and that his wife would live in comfort while Clapper was away. But Bee Clapper had made him realise that it wasn’t going to be so straight-forward; that had been obvious when she had telephoned him at the Mayfair flat, demanding to see him urgently. Scarfe had weighed up the situation carefully. Bee Clapper was a highly strung and emotional woman, and the only way to make sure she didn’t give him away to the police would be to kill her. But if he did, Clapper might break down, and give his second identity away.

  So there was a grave risk, either way, but Clapper could only give his second, London, identity, away; Bee could destroy his third and last hide-out.

  So, he had had to kill her.

  He knew Clapper very well, however, and believed that when the man heard about his wife’s murder, his fast reaction would be one of fear for himself - fear of what would happen after he was released from prison. There was an even chance that Clapper would keep his mouth shut.

  Until he knew for certain how Clapper would react to Bee’s murder, Scarfe alias Spender knew that he would have to fall back on his third line of defence, the third identity - of Arthur Philip Simpson of Brighton. Instead of going back to the Mayfair flat, he took everything that could give away his real identity to Brighton that afternoon. If Clapper kept quiet, he could pick up his other identities as it suited him.

  He had a small flat overlooking the sea on the east side of the promenade, in front of the miniature railway, well away from the gaudy, garish shops and catch-pennies on the pier and the front on the other side. No smell of fried fish, candy-floss or rock, no reeling, rolling crowds wearing silly hats and singing silly songs, passed here.

  Week-end flats were common enough in Brighton, no one was ever surprised that Simpson occupied the flat only at week-ends, and for a week now and again. It was small and self-contained, and no one ever worried about the fact that his week-end companions were often different - certainly he had a variety of mistresses each summer.

  He was sitting with his back to the window, oblivious of the gentle hiss of the sea running back across the smooth pebbles, watching the television screen and half expecting a police message. When it came, he tightened his lips and watched and listened carefully. Once it was over, he went and switched off, smiling thinly.

  As Arthur Philip Simpson, he would stay in Brighton and await developments.

  There was no reason at all why it should be known to him that only a few minutes’ walk away from his flat, in a house which had been converted into flatlets of convenience, a girl named Chloe Duval had recently moved. Nor could he know that Anthony Harrison, coldblooded murderer of three women, was in that flat at this very moment; or that at the request of the Sussex and the Brighton police a Scotland Yard detective sergeant was sitting and watching nearby.

  Gideon saw the photograph of Bee Clapper on his own television screen, chiefly to satisfy himself that everything had been carried out as he had hoped. Kate was upstairs. He had come home earlier than usual and she had been in the middle of a bath. None of the children was in. He found himself thinking of Matthew, and wondering whether Kate had got anything out of their boy, and wondering how long she would be. He went into the kitchen and opened the larder door, pondered, cut a piece off a hunk of cheese, and took an apple out of a dish on the dresser, and munching first one and then the other, stood looking at the neat little back garden. The water was gushing out of the waste, so Kate wouldn’t be long. He heard her moving about, and at twenty-five past six, she came hurrying downstairs. He saw at once that she had something on her mind, she even looked anxious and worried, and that gave him a shock.

  ‘Hallo, Kate,’ he greeted, and gulped down a piece of apple. ‘Catch you bending?’

  ‘I didn’t expect you quite so early,’ she admitted. ‘It’s silly to have a bath when the house is empty, someone always calls. What kind of a day have you had, dear?’ The question was perfunctory, whereas usually she made him feel as if she really wanted to know.

  ‘What’s up, Kate?’ he asked. ‘Is Matthew really in trouble?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

  Then the telephone bell rang, and it seemed like a knife slicing the atmosphere between them. It was no use ignoring it. Gideon muttered, ‘Blurry thing!’ explosively, and leaned across the kitchen table to pick up the extension instrument. ‘Blurry for bloody’, adopted when he had found the children mimicking his ‘bloody’, would never leave him now. ‘Gideon,’ he announced harshly.

  Kate saw the tightening of his grip on the telephone. She sensed the way his thoughts were wrenched off what she had said. She moved past him, doing up a button at the back of her blouse; she was always inclined to prefer separates.

  Gideon said: ‘How serious?’

  He paused.

  ‘I’ll come as soon as I can,’ he said, and put the receiver down. He turned and looked at Kate, raising his hands in a curiously appealing little gesture - and as he did so, he realised that a crisis had developed in this last few seconds. Kate had come hurrying, anxious to tell him about Matthew’s trouble, and God knew he wanted to share it with her. It wasn’t often, these days, that there was any serious conflict between home interests and the Yard’s, but in the past they had sometimes clashed dangerously. He had sworn he would never let anything come between him and Kate again.

  She was looking out of the window.

  ‘What is it?’

  Gideon answered: ‘They’ve cornered the man who killed Ivy Manson. He’s shut himself up in a warehouse yard, and he’s at the wheel of a truck containing a lot of paint. He says he’ll set the paint on fire and drive it at our chaps and the firemen in front of it if they don’t let him pass.’ Gideon stopped and saw the expression change in Kate’s eyes, knew that the fact that this was Ivy Manson’s killer had caused the change. He sensed the struggle going on within her. The fact that it was such a struggle made the situation worse: what the devil was the trouble with Matthew? What could the lad have done which would worry her so much?

  ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ he asked suddenly. ‘We can talk on the way. It’ll take half an hour at least to get there.’

  Her face lit up.

  ‘I haven’t put the car away yet,’ Gideon went on. ‘I’d thought we might go for a spin. Five minutes?’

  ‘Less,’ Kate promised, and as she passed him to go upstairs, she brushed his cheek lightly with her fingers. ‘Bless you.’ She hurried upstairs, and Gideon strode across to the larder again, cut off a larger piece of cheese and put it into a tin half full of biscuits, dropped some apples into his capacious coat pocket, and was at the foot of the stairs when Kate came hurrying down, legs and ankles slim and trim for so tall and fine-bodied a woman, wearing a cloth coat trimmed at the collar and cuffs with mink. He handed her the cheese, biscuits and apples.

  ‘We can start on these, and if the Islington job doesn’t take too long we’ll have a meal up Town somewhere.’ He opened the passenger door for her, slammed it, and went round to his own seat. As he drove off along the quiet street, passing the parked cars of neighbours, he wished that it had been possible to talk to Kate about Matthew quietly and at home; but better this way than not at all.

  ‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what’s the bother?’ ‘You’re not going to like it,’ Kate said, quietly. ‘Matthew has got a girl into trouble.’

  9 TROUBLE

  They had just turned a corner which led towards one of the main thoroughfares, New King’s Road, and there was only a cyclist on the move. Gideon glanced swiftly at Kate, his expression showing how startled he was, and for that second he had no reaction but of shock. He was not even in complete control of the car, and it swerved towards the cyclist. He straightened out quickly, said: ‘Sorry,’ and stared straight ahead. He knew that Kate was studying him, and guessing wha
t was going on in his mind; the confusion and the astonishment. Matthew, of all people; he wasn’t yet nineteen years old, he was on his way to Cambridge, he had such great hopes - the bloody young fool.

  He didn’t say that to Kate, but turned into New King’s Road. There wasn’t a great deal of traffic, all except the sweatshops, the pubs and the newsagents’ shops were closed.

  ‘I suppose there’s no doubt about it,’ Gideon said at last.

  ‘I don’t think so, George.’

  ‘Couldn’t be some little bitch taking him for a ride?’

  Kate didn’t answer.

  ‘Could that be it?’ asked Gideon, and his hopes lifted.

  ‘No,’ said Kate.

  She would not be so definite unless she was absolutely positive. Gideon glanced at her again, and saw that she was staring straight ahead. There was no sign of any emotional upset, but her eyes were very bright.

  ‘Do you know the girl?’

  ‘It’s Helen Miall,’ Kate answered.

  ‘Oh, God,’ breathed Gideon.

  The Mialls were neighbours, and lived only five doors away from the Gideons. The children - two Mialls, and the middle three of the Gideon family - had gone to the same schools and the same Sunday schools, played the same games, attended the same parties. Helen Miall was nearly as familiar to Gideon as one of his own daughters in all but those little touches of family intimacy. She was rather a small, rather a shy girl, just a year older than Matthew; their birthdays usually fell in the same week, and in childhood there had often been a two-family celebration. She was a nice kid, too. Miall was an insurance agent who did fairly well, but his wife lacked Kate’s taste in the home and Kate’s careful use of money. They were pleasant and acceptable as neighbours, but there was one big obstacle to real friendship; they were strict chapel people, members of a small nonconformist group. There was nothing hypocritical about them; as far as Gideon knew they believed everything they said and did, but very few could have narrower religious views.

  Kate began to talk more freely.

  ‘Matt says they’ve been afraid of it for the past month, but she’s two months late, and she’s beginning to feel sick in the mornings. She’s terrified of what her father and mother will say and do. And Matthew wasn’t exactly anxious to talk to us.’

  ‘How did you get it out of him?’

  ‘I could see that he was jumpy this morning, and you’d been so sure that he was worried, so I came straight out with it as soon as the others had gone off this morning,’ answered Kate. ‘I’d wondered if there was a girl - wondered if he’d fallen in love, or thought he had, and was beginning to wish be hadn’t got to go to Cambridge. So I asked him if it was a girl. Then it just came out.’

  Gideon put out his left hand, and took Kate’s.

  ‘Nice work,’ he said.

  ‘We talked about nothing else all the morning, of course,’ Kate said. ‘He’s gone out until ten o’clock, now, I told him that I’d have told you by then. We must be back by ten, George.’

  ‘We will be.’ They were going over the bridge by St. Mark’s College, and a train chugged underneath them. Gideon had completely forgotten John Stewart Briggs, and the ‘must be back by ten’ had reminded him; but this time the picture of Ivy Manson did not become very vivid. He was thinking, among other things, that Matthew hadn’t dared to tell him and Kate earlier. A month ago it might have been comparatively easy to help, but two clear months gone made it difficult. Impossible, he told himself. What had he been doing, to let the lad lose his head so? And why hadn’t Matt confided earlier? Was he, the father, an ogre? Was Kate . . .

  ‘He says that he couldn’t bring himself to tell us until they were sure, he didn’t want to hurt us,’ Kate said. I think he’s been tormented for the past month.’

  ‘No wonder he couldn’t sleep or concentrate,’ said Gideon gruffly. ‘Good job he’d got through his exams; this would have put paid to any scholarship. Say anything about marrying the girl?’

  Kate said, very hesitantly: ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s he say?’

  ‘He doesn’t want to.’

  Gideon didn’t speak.

  ‘And nor does Helen,’ Kate went on.

  ‘What the hell have they been up to, if they feel like that about each other?’ growled Gideon. ‘Goddammit, they’re old enough to know what they’re doing. If they were talking about being hopelessly in love I could understand it, but . . .’

  He broke off, and Kate glanced at him but made no comment. He was forced to slow down near some traffic lights, and then to stop. He turned to look at her, and for the first time since they had got into the car, he grinned, and actually chuckled.

  ‘You see what an upright Victorian parent I am. Matt probably knows me better than I know myself. Did he try to explain?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Kate, and there was a warm note in her voice, as if she were anxious to comfort him. Or Matthew? ‘He hasn’t talked to me like it for years - in fact he’s never talked to me like it, he was always shy about me bathing him sooner than the others!

  Malcolm still couldn’t care less.’ Unexpectedly, she laughed, too, and the warm note was still in her voice. ‘There were three or four occasions.’

  ‘Good God!’ gasped Gideon. ‘And that’s funny.’

  ‘It’s not funny in that way,’ Kate said, with the humour still deep in her voice, ‘but the way he broke all the bridges once he started confiding in me was rather - well, funny!’ She gave the little laugh again. ‘George, can you remember when you were eighteen?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It won’t help us if you and I get prudish or heavy-handed,’ Kate reasoned, suddenly changing her mood and tone. ‘When he first told me, I felt as if he’d committed the biggest crime in the calendar, but now . . .’

  ‘Just tell me how he softened you into accepting three or four occasions, as you put it,’ Gideon growled.

  ‘George,’ said Kate, and paused as if she meant to pick every word with great care, ‘it began at New Year’s Eve, after the dance they went to at the tennis club. Do you remember Matt coming home almost tipsy? I wanted to send him up to bed, and you told me that he had to get broken in sooner or later, and if we let him get away with it his headache next morning would do more good than all the lectures.’

  ‘Kate,’ said Gideon, heavily. ‘I think you’re trying to get me out on a limb. There’s a world of difference between . . .’

  ‘That was the first night,’ interrupted Kate. ‘The Mialls were out at Watch Night Service, but they’d allowed Helen to go to the dance. I was surprised at the time, I hadn’t thought they would. Their house was empty, Helen had had drink for the first time in her life, and . . .’

  ‘Oh, once I can understand.’

  ‘Matt says that it simply went to their heads,’ Kate interrupted. ‘From what I can gather, the - the experience was wonderful. For about a week, they were infatuated. Then they had a quarrel, and tried to avoid each other. Matt says they both felt a bit scared and rather ashamed. It was about a month before they saw each other except when they chanced to meet in the street. But when she missed her first month, Helen told him. If Matt’s telling the truth, and I think he is, they both feel certain that they aren’t in love and hate the thought of having to marry. That’s worrying them more than anything else, I think. They’re afraid that the Mialls and the Gideons will try to make them.’

  Gideon didn’t respond for some time. He was driving much faster, and going along streets of tall terraced houses in a district which Kate hardly knew. In ten minutes they would be at the warehouse he had seen that afternoon; in ten minutes he had to switch from one nightmare to one of a different kind.

  Nightmare.

  ‘Blurry young pup,’ he said. ‘I know what I’d do with him.’

  ‘George . . .’

  ‘I’d hand him over to Ted Miall for a week,’ Gideon growled, and Kate laughed, but this time there was a note of suppressed emotion in her voice.

  �
�I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘What do you think Ted will say?’

  ‘He’ll throw the Bible at me, and every interpretation he, his minister and his wife have ever put into it. Oh, Lord, what a thing to happen.’ Gideon paused, for breath. ‘It’s a hell of a situation, Kate. What ought we to do? Be really Victorian, or . . .’ he broke off.

  ‘Do you think the Mialls will try to insist on them getting married right away?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Gideon, and did not speak again until they were at the lights where he had spoken to the policeman that morning. He put a hand on Kate’s knee, squeezed, and went on: ‘I’ll go round and see Ted Miall as soon as we’ve talked to Matt. And I do not need telling that it won’t do any good to go off the deep end with the boy.’

  The lights changed.

  As he drove on, another kind of nightmare only just round the corner, he felt a little desperate, almost despairing. He could almost picture his son and Helen, a little slip of a thing - and then he remembered that the last time he had seen her, she had seemed to have matured suddenly; instead of a gentle curve at the bosom she had been provocatively bra’d. The picture of them fumbling, excited, eager, tipsy, glowing, the picture of them locked together, was strangely and almost painfully vivid. If they wanted to marry, it wouldn’t be so bad, but bad enough.

  There was another aspect which he hadn’t yet thought about, but would have to: what would be best for Matthew and the girl, apart from what they ought to do judged by orthodox moral standards? And what would be best for them, apart from their present mood of antipathy towards one another? Suddenly he had been jolted out of a kind of smug satisfaction with his own family into a position of acute difficulty.

  The essential thing was to have time to think clearly; nothing must be done in haste, whatever Ted Miall wanted.

  The brief mood of rationalising vanished in a sudden burst of anger.

  Of all the things to happen! Matthew and a girl he’d known all his life, friends, neighbours. It couldn’t be worse - It couldn’t.