Seven Days to Death Read online

  “Got to get rid of him quick,” he said, “but put his bag in the car, come in useful that will.”

  11. Deep Snow

  Benson was getting to his feet, slowly, and wiping the knife on the dead man’s coat. He didn’t speak. Except that his lips were set more tightly than usual, there was nothing different about him. He bent down, and used the knife to slash at the leather strap which held the money bag to the dead man’s side. He picked the bag up, and the coins jingled; a sixpence fell out and dropped, to bury itself in the snow. Benson fastened the flap, and pushed the bag through the open window. Now, he looked about him, and Freddy Tisdale did the same; but no one was in sight, although in the distance two cars started up, and that meant that they would soon be passing the end of his row.

  Benson said, “Didn’t I see a car with plastic cover over it?”

  “Little one, left side row.”

  “Let’s push him under.”

  “Okay,” said Freddy. “Can you lift him?”

  “Yeh.”

  “I’ll keep a lookout,” the younger man said.

  When on tiptoe, he could see all over the ear park, and to the moving cars which were converging toward the exit from different directions. Neither of them would come near, but either driver might glance their way.

  Benson was picking up the dead man..

  “Hold it,” Freddy said.

  Benson stood upright, and might have been carrying an empty sack, for all the strain his face showed; but he felt something wet on his hand. He watched Freddy tensely, until the cars passed and Freddy said: “Okay now.”

  Benson moved swiftly, with Freddy leading the way. Freddy reached the little car, finding that the aluminium- coloured plastic sheet over it was laden with snow which was beginning to thaw. It was tied to each wheel with tapes. Freddy could have cut these; he didn’t, but plucked at one corner with his cold fingers until the knot gave way. He pulled the tapes out and lifted the plastic, but it caught against the running board; this car was twenty years old if it was a day. He eased the plastic up, and then Benson put Taffy flat on the ground by the side of the car, and shoved him underneath, pushing first with his hands and then with his feet. As soon as the body was completely hidden, Freddy tied the corner back again.

  But the melting snow was stained with crimson.

  Neither man spoke, but each scooped snow off the top of the plastic cover, and dropped it on to the blood, concealing it. Then they went back the way Benson had come, scuffling up snow with their feet to cover the bright red drops. They got back to the car, and the red ignition light still glowed. Freddy pressed the self-starter. It whined. He pressed again, and it whined more shrilly.

  “Cold as ruddy charity,” he said, and pressed again. The grating, whining sound seemed to echo all over the park. A car which they hadn’t heard start up moved toward the exit, followed by two more. Freddy peered through the windscreen and, in the distance, saw a little group of men; it looked as if something had happened to make them all come into the park together.

  “Get it going,” rasped Benson.

  Freddy was sweating.

  “Hold your ruddy trap!”

  Benson opened his mouth, but didn’t speak. Freddy tried again, and there was just the grating, metallic sound, setting their teeth on edge. The other men were drawing much nearer. Benson could now see them, and he had a hand on the door handle and another in his pocket.

  The engine spluttered.

  “Got —” began Freddy, and it died again. He began to swear at it in a low-pitched voice, and he didn’t stop even when the engine stuttered again, then began to turn more freely. He pressed the accelerator gently at first, to woo a welcome roaring. The car quivered. Freddy eased off the brake and moved slowly forward. He didn’t say, and Benson didn’t say, that the great fear now was that the car belonged to one of the men heading their way.

  They got out into the lane leading toward the exit, and in the driving mirror Freddy saw at least six men, talking and chatting. No one shouted. Freddy went up a gear, approached the roadway and turned toward the wide exit. Beyond was a street with a timber yard on one side and a small factory opposite. A timber truck was backing out, and a man behind it was holding up the approaching traffic, including Freddy. Freddy flicked the gears into neutral and waited while the great truck swung round in front of him. Benson did not glance at him. Three cars came in quick succession from the car park, one moving very fast. Freddy saw this leaping upon them in the mirror, and his sudden, hissing breathing made Benson look round. The car behind pulled up, brakes groaning; but neither man inside got out, just waited patiently.

  “Okay,” Benson said.

  Ten minutes later they were out of the built-up area, and driving along a main road leading south. The road itself had been cleared, but banks of snow on either side were huge and massive; water from them, thawing out, was running across the road; the wheels kept splashing though it.

  Benson turned round, leaned over the back of his seat and picked up the cash bag. He took out a handful of small silver, mostly sixpences, and began to count. It took a long time. “Twenty,” he would say. “Ten bob” - and drop that money into one pocket. Again: “Twenty - that’s a quid. Twenty - thirty bob.” Then after a few minutes, there was a note of deeper satisfaction. “Some two bobs and half-dollars in this pocket, ‘bout time too.”

  The counting took him twenty minutes.

  “Talk about a day out,” he said; “that’s five quid all but two bob.”

  “I’ll take the odd money,” Freddy grinned.

  “Like hell you will. How’s the petrol?”

  “Half empty.”

  “Why don’t you bean optimist and call it half full? Okay. We drive on for a couple of hours and then we’ll make a change. I want to make a phone call, too.”

  After a long pause, Freddy asked: “Who to?”

  “Pal o’ mine,” said Benson, and now he was smiling. “Pal I can rely on, too. Knows my so-called wife. Sent me up a message by Jingo’s wife a coupla times. Know what? My wife’s got a boyfriend, a sissy who runs a dress shop! How do you like that? Nice-looking gentleman, I’m told.”

  The car went speeding on. No one took any notice of them from the roadside. More powerful cars flashed by them, splashing the melting snow onto the windscreen. The sun was breaking through reluctant clouds, and it was warmer than it had been for three weeks.

  “You going to put that right?” Freddy asked.

  “I’m going to put a lot of things right,” said Benson. “They can only put me back again. Freddy, you take a tip from me. You do everything you want to do, while you can. They’ll pick us up for the car park job unless we can get out of this flicking country; and if we get out, it’s got to be soon.” He paused, but soon went on: “I know a man who can fix it for the pair of us. He’ll want five hundred nicker - how much can you put your hands on?”

  “I dunno,” Freddy said; “but if I need five hundred nicker to get my head out of a flicking noose, I’ll find it. This chap okay?”

  “Yeh.”

  “There’s only one thing we can do,” Freddy Tisdale said, “we can try, can’t we? I wouldn’t like to be the guy who meets me and recognizes me, No, sir!”

  He laughed on a high-pitched note.

  Then: “We could stop for some fags,” he said, “And I wouldn’t mind a cuppa.”

  “We go on until we’re ready to ditch this car,” said Benson, emphatically. “We want to be within walking distance of a town when we do that, too.”

  “We want to be in a town,” Freddy said, very thoughtfully. “We want to leave this wagon in a car park or someplace where no one will think it looks funny. We aren’t so far from Stoke. That be okay?”

  “That’ll be okay,” Benson said.

  That was at a quarter past one.
/>   At a quarter past two, held up by traffic and by some roads partly blocked by snow, they reached Stoke. They left the car in a crowded car park, shared the money, and walked off together; no one took any notice of them. They had ham sandwiches at a snack bar, keeping their hats on like several of the other people, and finished up with sweet, strong tea. They bought cigarettes and chocolates, and then went out of the cafe. Walking about in the town, among people dressed in ordinary clothes, was like a dream. They kept together, didn’t talk much, and looked like two reasonably prosperous businessmen. Benson’s shoes began to pinch, but he didn’t complain.

  At half past three, he went into a telephone booth, and Freddy watched him from the outside. He put a call through to a Mile End number, then waited, leaning against the side of the booth and watching Freddy and the passers-by.

  A man came up and obviously wanted to use the telephone. He hung about.

  Noises on the line.

  A girl operator’s sharp voice: “You’re through, caller.”

  Benson said, “That you, Charlie?” He paused just long enough for the man to say yes, and then went on: “Listen, Charlie, I’m coming down to see you, be there in a couple days. Had an unexpected holiday, see. Bit o’luck, wasn’t it?”

  Charlie said with a gasp, “Yes, yes – it – listen. Be —”

  “It’s okay,” Benson said, “I’m going to be careful. But do something for me, Charlie. I want to see my kid. You know. The boyo. They’re keeping a pretty sharp eye on him, aren’t they?”

  “You couldn’t say a truer word,” Charlie told him and then waited, breathing noisily into the telephone.

  “Well, get him away from them,” Benson said. “He’ll be anxious to see his dad, won’t he?” Even Freddy, watching his companion’s face, realized that Benson’s smile was as evil as a smile could be. “Just have him there for me, Charlie, and don’t go making any mistakes, you know what could happen if I were to open my trap. Oh, and Charlie?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t forget what I could tell the world about you,” Benson said. “Expect me when you see me, old cock. So long.”

  He rang off.

  The man who had waited to use the telephone was staring impatiently. Benson kept his face covered, and the man went straight into the telephone booth and dropped pennies into the box. Benson and Freddy walked off briskly, with danger forever on their heels.

  “We going to knock off another car?” Freddy asked.

  Benson said, “I don’t want to play my luck too far. We want a car that no one will miss until morning, and the way to fix that is lay up in a house until after dark, then take a car out of a garage. Say we pick another empty house, and keep an eye on our neighbours. That okay?”

  “Sure,” said Freddy.

  Twenty minutes later, they found the house they 1 were looking for. They also saw the house across the road, from which they could probably take a car. At the moment the car wasn’t there; but the garage was standing empty, doors wide open. A young woman, quite something to look at, could be seen moving about inside the house, often a silhouette against the light which she had put on early.

  Freddy Tisdale couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

  Soon, it was dark.

  The husband came home in a small car, which he drove straight into the garage. The young woman hurried out, and neither man nor wife realized that they were being watched.

  “They haven’t been married long,” Benson said, grinning. “Looks okay.”

  “Looks wonderful to me,” Freddy said. “Maybe I’ll give her a nice surprise, and stay the night.”

  For Gideon, the rest of that day was wholly unsatisfactory. Days came like it every week, sometimes two or three times a week, but there was seldom the degree of urgency and gravity which he sensed now. There was no news at all about the six men from Millways, except the reports, which were coming from a wider area than ever, that one or the other of them had been seen. The Yard, the London Divisions, the Home Counties, the Midlands and the North country police stations were swamped with such reports, and dozens of men were being interviewed; none was really like any one of the wanted men.

  Gideon knew nothing of the body under the car in the car park.

  He knew nothing of the furnished house or the burgled grocery shop.

  He knew nothing about the two men in the empty house opposite No. 24 Wittering Street, Stoke-on-Trent.

  The police just weren’t getting the breaks. The evening newspapers were adopting a sharper note, there were two editorials about slackness at Millways jail, and with six prisoners still at liberty there was likely to be a lot of public anxiety. Gideon knew how often these things ran in cycles. Once a moan started, there would be the risk of a barrage of complaints, and with the perverseness of fate, or whatever directed the affairs of men, there would probably be a run of poor results. Already, there was Edmundsun’s suicide in the remand cell at Brixton to make ammunition for the critics.

  It was all very well to shrug one’s shoulders and pretend to ignore or be indifferent to these periodic attempts to ginger-up the Force, but they got under one’s skin, and could make the difference between doing a good job and a bad one. Gideon wasn’t absolutely proof against them, Lemaitre certainly wasn’t, and young chaps like Abbott probably keyed themselves up until they were almost nervous. People too easily forgot that policemen were human.

  Edmundsun had died without making a statement. He had probably had accomplices in the embezzlement of nearly forty thousand pounds from a big commercial banking house; and for Cummings and the Fraud Squad there was likely to be week after week of slow, laborious research to try to recover the missing money and to find out who had conspired with the dead man.

  The evening papers headlined the suicide and the fact that the six escaped prisoners were still at large. Two of them came out with stories about Ruby Benson’s fear and of the police watch on her and the children.

  Gideon had at least made sure that everything was moving as it should. In a quiet way, the Yard had geared itself to exceptional efforts, since five of the six men still at liberty were Londoners. Their wives, their homes, their friends, their children, were all kept under surveillance. There was no way to hide the fact that this was being done; and Gideon had the sinking feeling that Benson, at least, would be smart enough not to come home. But one couldn’t tell. He might act on the belief that Muskett Street would be the last place the police would expect him to go. Or he might be driven by desperation, hunger, and cold. These factors were more likely to lead to the recapture of the men than anything else.

  The police could usually sit back and wait.

  They couldn’t afford to, with men like Benson and the others.

  It was nearly seven o’clock when Gideon checked everything, yawned, saw patient, grey-haired Jefferson making out reports, and then stood up, fastening his collar and tie as he did so.

  “I’m off, Jeff.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “Call me if there’s anything worthwhile; I’ll be home all the evening.”

  “I’ll try not to worry you, sir.”

  “I’ll be in the sergeants’ room for the next ten minutes,” said Gideon. He put on his big hat and went out, letting the door close behind him on its hissing hydraulic fixture. The rubber tips at his heels made little sound as he moved along the bare, brightly lit corridors. Two or three junior men passed him. He went up one flight of stairs, and then into the big room where he expected to find Abbott and probably Cummings. Yes, they were there, sitting together at a table, probably exchanging notes..

  They stood up at Gideon’s approach.

  “Sit down,” he said, and ignored the other sergeants in the room. “Thought I’d catch you here. How’d things go, Abbott?”

  “Absolutely uneventful, sir,” said Abbott. “I had a w
ord with the Divisional Inspector who came round just before I was off duty. He says there’s nothing at all to report, none of Benson’s known friends have heard from him.”

  “Known friends” was good.

  “It’s the beggars we don’t know about that we’re after,” Gideon said. “Anything else?”

  “Benson’s wife looks pretty worried, sir, and there’s the man Small - he went to her home tonight. I gather he’s going to stay there until it’s all over. He looks a bit edgy, too.”

  “Who wouldn’t? The children?”

  “The girl clings to her mother. As for that boy - well, sir,” said Abbott, with obvious feeling. “I don’t know him well enough to be sure, but he looks as if he could turn out to be a nasty customer. He didn’t actually say anything to me, but...”

  Gideon smiled. “Looks could kill, eh? Yes, he might be strongly pro-Dad. Watch him closely.”

  “I will, sir!”

  Gideon concealed his smile, then; the eagerness of a new man always struck him as amusing; pleasing, too. He turned to Cummings, who wasn’t so young - in the middle thirties, in fact. It was a pity how Cummings ran to fat; he looked flabby and startlingly pale against Abbott’s healthy tan. His grey eyes always had a rather tired look in spite of his needle-sharp mind. It was hard to believe that he had a genius for figures and could find his way through involved books of accounts which were Greek to Gideon.

  “No luck at all with Edmundsun, eh?” Gideon said.

  “I was by his side from the minute I reached the hospital, but couldn’t get a word,” said Cummings. “Just muttered his wife’s name once or twice before he died, that’s all.”

  “Any ideas who did the job with him?”

  Cummings didn’t speak.

  “Well?”

  “Don’t like guessing,” said Cummings, winning Gideon’s silent applause, “but you know that Mr. Harrison and I were always worried about the chief prosecution witness - the manager of Edmundsun’s department, furniture and household hire purchase. Now I come to think of it, it wouldn’t surprise me if the manager isn’t deliberately being obscure. He’s no fool. Used to be a solicitor, and he knows a lot of the tricks. If he worked on the job with Edmundsun, he may have planned to give his evidence so as to get Edmundsun off. It’s only a guess, sir, but it could be worth following up.”