Thugs and Economies (Gideon of Scotland Yard) Read online

  “And then you always got the so-and-so’s who are too mean to pay for a licence,” Hill said. “Half this town’s so spread out, with a long drive to every house, that it’ll take a week to cover it, and then only if nothing else happens. Not that we’re likely to get another murder, unless we’re dealing with a madman, and he strikes again while the hunt’s on. Cheerful, aren’t I?”

  “Just keep at it,” Gideon encouraged.

  He rang off, and saw Riddell tapping his mouth as he yawned; Riddell had admitted having a late night, and had been working at half pressure all the morning. The others were still away, one with his flu and the other on the second week of his holiday. Gideon could recall the man from holiday, but knew that he badly needed a rest.

  Two telephones rang on Riddell’s desk.

  “Always thought these office jobs were cushy,” he grumbled as he lifted one and said: “Hold on,” and then turned to the other and said: “Commander Gideon’s office . . . yes, Riddell speaking . . . What?”

  He bellowed the last word; and for the first time Gideon saw him really excited.

  “Hold on,” he said explosively, and his eyes glowed as he stared at Gideon. “It’s Bell. They’ve cornered Micky the Slob on a Dutch cargo boat – Customs chaps found him. He’s locked himself in a cabin, says he’ll set fire to the boat if we don’t give him a chance. Bell says all our River chaps and all the men we can spare are needed for the job. Micky means what he says.”

  9

  THE CYNIC

  A cordon of Dock Police was thrown round the berth where the Dutch vessel van Doom was tied up. The crew had been taken off, except for the captain and two engineers, and were in a group some distance away, watching. Fifty police were at different vantage-points about the docks, all of them prepared for the one thing which was always possible with Micky the Slob: outside interference from his friends. Someone was almost certain to cause a distraction so as to give him a chance of getting away.

  There could be very little chance.

  Six launches of the Thames Division were drawn up in a fairly narrow semicircle about the van Doom, which was hardly more than a coasting vessel, bringing fruit and vegetables across the North Sea from The Hague. Each launch was manned by four members of the River Police, and several smaller motor boats, cruising up and down, were ready to make sure that no one could get aboard the van Doom. Every man present knew that Micky the Slob could not escape this time, and every man had a picture of Syd Taylor in his mind’s eye.

  Yet there was fear that he might yet fool them.

  In charge of the Divisional Police was Hopkinson of NE Division, and he knew the docks as well as he knew his own home. With the care of a military commander, he had blocked every possible escape route.

  Bell was also there.

  “Now what we’ve got to decide is whether to send a raiding party, or whether to starve him out,” Hopkinson said.

  “What do you want to do?” asked Gideon, into the telephone.

  “Raid.”

  “Is he armed?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I expect so.”

  “Is it easy to get to the cabin where he’s hiding?”

  “It’s at the foot of a small gangway, and he’s barricaded the doorway,” Hopkinson said. “He’s got some tins of petrol down there, and says that if we go down again he’ll toss petrol out, and start a fire. He knows he’ll hang for Taylor, of course, and doesn’t care which way he dies. But we can’t afford to have him stand us off again, George, he’ll have everyone in London laughing his head off at us.”

  “Right,” said Gideon. “You got the fire service there yet?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll lay it on,” said Gideon, “and I’ll lay on a couple of fireproof suits, too. We want a volunteer from the fire-fighting units, someone who really knows how to deal with a fire if it starts, and a volunteer from your chaps.”

  “Hopkinson.”

  “You keep out of it,” Gideon ordered. “That’s an order – don’t go down that gangway. We can’t risk losing top men. Can’t you get a volunteer?”

  “I can get dozens,” Hopkinson said. “I suppose you’re right. How’s the big war going? “

  “All right,” said Gideon.

  He rang off, and immediately called the Superintendent who maintained a close liaison with the fire-fighting service, especially on all matters relating to arson. He made all the necessary arrangements, rang off, and had a few minutes of respite. Riddell kept glancing across at him. On Gideon’s desk were the usual reports, and he had not yet briefed half of the officers on the cases which had hung over from last week, or had cropped up this weekend. It would take fully two hours, and he had never felt less like working on that job.

  Riddell said out of the blue: “You know your trouble, don’t you?”

  Gideon was astonished.

  “Trouble? What’s that?”

  “You haven’t grown up,” said Riddell, looking almost smug. “Still wish you were a copper on the beat – you’d rather be going down that gangway than anyone else, wouldn’t you?”

  Gideon was surprised into a laugh.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he conceded, and leaned back in his chair, massive, tie hanging down, shirt open at the neck, grey hair a little untidy. Under his hand were the records of criminals and crimes both small and big, wife-beaters, drunks, pickpockets, shoplifters, small-time vice racketeers; organised prostitution, fraud, rape; requests from two men to be extradited, one from France, one from Germany. There were recommendations for arrest, recommendations for investigation into the activities of private companies, three pending prosecutions for customs offences, the beginning of a big probe into currency forgeries, with slush being produced either in England or just across the Channel. His job was to bring his great experience to bear on all of these things, to consider each and to advise the men who were doing the work of investigation: yet Riddell was right, he would give his right arm to be the Divisional man who volunteered to go aboard the van Doom. “Didn’t know you were a big thinker,” Gideon went on, and there was only a touch of malice in his words.

  Riddell sniffed.

  “Lot of things about me you don’t know,” he retorted. “I don’t believe in keeping my nose to the grindstone like you do. Perhaps it’s my conscience that’s wrong. But for twenty years I’ve been in the Yard, and I’ve never known the time when we ever had a fair break. Supposed to dedicate our whole lives to it, that’s what you say, in effect – and you do it. So do a few others, but there aren’t many.”

  “If you’re going to use the word ‘dedicated’, nine of our chaps out of ten are,” Gideon found himself arguing.

  “Maybe,” said Riddell, “but only while they’re on the actual job. There are a lot like me, George, who decided years ago that if we weren’t careful, we wouldn’t have any home and private life at all. The Yards doesn’t own us body and soul, you know. That’s another angle you might put in this report you’re going to draw up. They pay us only about half of what we’d get in a commercial job which needed half the brains, and treat us like a lot of bloody soldiers. At least, they would if we’d let ‘em. And if you think you’re going to make any impression on the Home Office and the VIPs, you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. You’ll be in favour while you sweat your guts out for them, and you’ll probably get a medal and a pretty speech, but policemen – they’re not people. Why, they’re not even civil servants! Take it from me, Gee-Gee, it’s time you stopped banging your head against a brick wall, and just settled down to giving a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. That’s all you’re paid for and all you owe them.”

  Gideon’s smile had become very set.

  “Who are the ‘them’?” he asked.

  “Our Lords and Masters, who pay us and treat us like puppets. Come under the Home Office, don’t we? “

  “Hm,” said Gideon, and stopped smiling altogether. “Well, you’re honest about it, if nothing else.” />
  “But you don’t agree with me.”

  “I think you’ve got the wrong approach entirely, and I think you’re wrong about the number of men who agree with you,” argued Gideon, “but that’s something else I’m going to find out. I take it you don’t like the pressure in this office? “

  “It just about drives me up the wall!”

  “We can soon stop that,” said Gideon. “Get everything on your desk tidied up, with notes about any matters pending, and then go down to Bournsea and help Hill. He needs as much help as he can get.”

  “No, Gee-Gee—”

  “And don’t Gee-Gee me!” Gideon roared and was astonished at the harshness in his own voice. “I’m Commander to you in future, and don’t you forget it. You blurry fool, if you talked like this in the Army, they’d shoot you.”

  Riddell said: “Very good, sir,” in an icy voice.

  Was the problem getting under his skin? Gideon asked himself later in the afternoon, when Riddell had packed his things and gone, and a detective sergeant was at the aide’s desk, doing little more than taking and sending out messages. Was he expecting too much not only of Riddell, but all the others? Had he grown so used to extreme pressure on himself that he took it for granted that others ought to feel in the same way? Was he asking more than anyone could possibly expect? Was the best way to get what he wanted, more money for the staff, to allow things to become slack?

  Was it really worth fighting?

  Scott-Marie had warned him that the best he could reasonably hope for was the status quo.

  How typical was Riddell of the status quo? How far out of touch was he, Gideon, with his men? Were there only a few like Bell, Syd Taylor and Hopkinson?

  Hopkinson had said that he could get dozens of volunteers to go down below on the van Doom.

  Could he?

  “We want someone to go down that gangway,” Hopkinson was saying to a group of men not far from the gangway which led to the main deck of the van Doom. “There’s a fireman on the way, you’ll have fireproof suits if the Slob does get up to his tricks. Single men only.”

  Seven men said promptly: “I’ll go down.”

  Hopkinson surveyed them and experienced a bad moment, the moment when he knew that he would have to make a decision as to who should go. There was a sound chance that Micky the Slob would be caught without serious trouble, but the ghost of Syd Taylor seemed to be standing by the side of each of these men. Had there been two, he could have said ‘toss for it’ and got away with that, but now he could not evade the responsibility. One was a detective officer of thirty-odd, a man he knew well, who had no relations and had been widowed for three years; not a daredevil, but an officer who would take considered chances all his life.

  “Okay, Forbes,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Forbes, as if he meant it.

  The sun was shimmering on the Thames, where the launches and the small boats kept up their constant patrol. Not far away, ships were being worked, and the whirr of derricks and cranes made a constant background of sound. A fire-fighting trailer had arrived, and Forbes went to join the Chief Officer.

  Forbes, who had his fair hair clipped in an American crew-cut, and was a bony man who seldom smiled, was briefed for a few minutes, and then helped into the fireproof suit; he felt as if he was getting ready for deep-sea diving. Then he and the fireman went to the gangway. Movement was surprisingly easy, and he could see the whole scene through the fireproof goggles which covered his eyes. He saw Hopkinson wave, and waved back from the deck of the ship. One dock policeman and a member of the crew were at the top of the hatch leading to the gangway, and the cabin where Micky the Slob was now hiding.

  There was a small public address system controlled from the wheelhouse on the bridge, with loudspeakers at various key points. Suddenly Hopkinson’s voice came over clearly: “Micky, we’re coming for you if you’re not out in five minutes. Don’t make things worse than they are.”

  There was no answer.

  “Just drop everything, open the cabin door, and come out,” Hopkinson called.

  Forbes waited, only two treads behind the fireman.

  Up on the bridge of the boat, with the master by his side, Hopkinson could see the whole of the dock area. There was a little confusion at the nearest gate; a woman was there, apparently arguing with the men who were on duty, stopping anyone from coming in or going out. Hopkinson saw this as he saw so many things: almost casually.

  “Four minutes,” he called, and knew that the warning could be heard in the cabin where the murderer waited; he tried to think of everything he knew about Micky the Slob, to decide whether Micky would really make a fight of it; or try to. If he decided to fight, what would he fight with?

  Just the petrol?

  Hopkinson saw two men coming at the double, with a woman between them. The sun shone on her dark hair, even on her red lips. She was a dumpy little piece, and as she drew nearer she could see that for her height she had an enormous bosom. She had stumpy little legs, too, and a very pale face. One of the men with her was calling out.

  Hopkinson said to a detective sergeant with him:

  “Go and see what she wants.”

  “She answers the description of the girl who tricked Syd Taylor,” the sergeant told him.

  “That’s right. Get going.”

  The sergeant went hurrying to the side of the deck, and the girl disappeared from sight, hidden by the deck itself. Hopkinson had never been more wary. The sergeant was right about her but he could not think of any way in which she could hope to fool them now. She could fool one man, but not fifty.

  The sergeant was shouting.

  The girl’s voice sounded in reply, but Hopkinson could not hear what she said. All about him the small ships were moving, the men were massed and waiting – and there was that shrill voice warning him.

  The sergeant swung round, cupped his hands, and roared:

  “She says he’s got nitro-glycerine, sir!”

  “He has,” the girl gasped. She was breathless with running from the dock gates, and the words came out gaspingly. “He said he’d never be caught alive and he’d take as many police as he could with him. He said he’d got petrol for a fire, but he’s got nitro.”

  “Nitro!” roared the sergeant.

  Hopkinson clapped a hand over the microphone, and called down clearly:

  “Go and get those men back!” He took his hand away from the microphone, and spoke again to Micky the Slob. “Don’t let’s have trouble for the sake of it, Micky, we’ll give you a fair deal. I’ll give you another five minutes to think about it.”

  There was no possibility of an answer; no way of finding out what the trapped man was likely to do. There was not even any certainly that the girl was telling the truth; this might be a kind of trick which Hopkinson had not anticipated.

  If she had come to help the Slob, how did she expect to do it?

  The sergeant had disappeared down the hatch.

  There was no sound.

  “Micky,” called Hopkinson into the silence, “don’t make us come down and get you.”

  If he had nitro-glycerine, when would he use it?

  The girl was climbing from the gangway now, and at closer quarters, Hopkinson saw what a good complexion she had, and her bold good looks; had she not been so dumpy and fat, she would have been remarkably attractive. She was being brought to the bridge.

  Then he saw Forbes and the fireman, still in their fireproof clothes, come through from the gangway, and felt a deep sense of relief. The girl – in fact she was thirty or more – came stumbling towards him, still gasping for breath.

  “I mean it, he really has got nitro,” she told him, and seemed desperately afraid that he would not believe her. “He really told me he would never be caught alive, and he’d take as many cops as he could with him.”

  “When did he tell you this?” Hopkinson asked.

  “Before he came aboard. I came with him from Pitt Street, see, when he escaped.”<
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  “You the girl who trapped Taylor?”

  “Yes,” she answered tensely; her eyes were bold and bright with fear which Hopkinson could not quite understand; but he found himself believing that she wanted to help the police now. “Yes, I did it, I didn’t think they’d kill him! I couldn’t sleep all last night thinking about it, that’s God’s truth. I hoped Micky would get away, but when I heard you’d trapped him here I knew what he’d do, and I couldn’t have any more lives on my conscience. For God’s sake don’t break into that cabin, he’ll blow the ship up.”

  Hopkinson believed her now.

  He wondered, gloomily, about the next step. As far as he could tell, they would have to play the game patiently, and hope to wear Micky down, but that would tie up dozens of men for hours, perhaps for days. More: it would be rated as a defeat. The public always sympathised with the man who defied the weight of the law like this, and if they could not get Micky alive, the police would be the laughing stock of every criminal in London.

  That wouldn’t last for long but it might last long enough to do a great deal of damage.

  He thought: “I’d better check with Gideon.”

  “We want to find a way of getting near enough to that cabin to pump tear gas in,” Gideon said.

  “It won’t do, George.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s only got to drop that nitro, and it’ll blow up.”

  “If our chaps are outside the door, they won’t get badly hurt. They’d only get hurt if they had the door open. Try it, Hoppy.”

  “All right,” said Hopkinson, without enthusiasm.

  “How many volunteers did you get?” Gideon asked, and could not quite make the question sound casual.

  “Seven,” answered Hopkinson, and wondered why it mattered. He rang off, turned to the Dutch master, who was in the wheelhouse, and unrolled a plan of the van Doom, on which the barricaded cabin was already marked in red. “What we really need is an engineer who can find a way to get round this way.” He traced lines with his fingers.