Gideon's Fire Read online

  Then he saw a police car drawn up at the corner which led to Debben’s Warehouse, and noticed the reflected glare of headlights in the sky. On the instant, he had another mental picture: of little Ivy Manson, gagged, bound, violated, strangled. What the hell was he thinking about, it couldn’t be worse?

  He pulled into the side of the road as a policeman came up.

  ‘I’m sorry sir, but . . .’

  ‘I’m Commander Gideon, they’re expecting me,’ Gideon said, and the policeman moved back hurriedly. ‘My wife will stay here, she can move the car if it’s in the way.’ He got out, bent down and tried to smile reassuringly at Kate. ‘We’ll sort it out,’ he said, and straightened up. The policeman seemed awkward, a short, pale-faced man who looked almost as if he should still be at school.

  ‘Sorry I nearly moved you on, sir.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Gideon said. ‘Lesson one - never be sorry about doing your job, but do it with as little fuss as you can. A grin will persuade a driver to move on quicker than a scowl or a threat. How’re things here?’

  ‘I don’t think it looks too good, sir.’

  ‘Soon see,’ said Gideon. He strode to the corner, where a crowd of other people had gathered, neighbours, ambulance men, firemen. A fire-tender was in the middle of the street itself, another was at one side of the warehouse and hoses were being run out, but there was no sign of fire. Gideon saw the warehouse gates wide open. Men saw and recognised him, no one attempted to stop him as he strode on, massive as a bear. He saw Carson, talking to an enormously fat woman, and then he came within sight of the main scene.

  A big truck was drawn up in a corner by the loading bays. It was in such a position that no one could get at it, except from the front; it had almost certainly been parked there for the night. Police cars and motor cycles surrounded the bonnet and lights shone glaringly on to the windscreen, the cabin, and the man sitting at the wheel. At first, Gideon was interested only in what would happen if the man did what he threatened. He could send that truck leaping forward, scattering everyone in his path, and it was a ten-tonner; a lot of people would get hurt. He could swing out of the warehouse gateway - there were no gates - and into the street, where police cars were already drawn up. He wouldn’t get far, but if he did reach the street there was no telling what damage he might do.

  Then Gideon saw the man clearly, and recognised the beetle-browed driver he had seen that afternoon, the man he had thought looked the Lombroso type. And he had actually reproved himself for thinking so!

  Carson said: ‘Good evening, Commander. I regret that it was necessary to call you out.’

  ‘Nothing you could do about it,’ Gideon said, and looked at the revoltingly fat woman. He doubted whether he had ever seen anyone with wider hips or a vaster body; she was obscenely fat, so enormous that it was difficult to imagine her as a woman with a normal figure, more like a grotesque balloon blown up to the point of bursting. Her hair was straggly, she was as ugly as proverbial sin, her little eyes glittered in the bright lights. She looked like a fat old witch.

  ‘This is Miss Briggs, the man’s sister,’ Carson introduced.

  ‘Evening, Miss Briggs,’ Gideon said. ‘Think your brother will do what he threatens?’

  ‘He’s mad enough to do anything,’ the fat woman declared. ‘He’ll do it all right.’ She had an unexpectedly pleasant voice, a little deeper than most women’s. ‘Take it from me, I never gave it a thought until tonight, but now I can understand it. Used to scare my friends off, Jack did, even when he was a kid. Used to try to get me to have fun and games with him, too. He . . .’

  I have a public address outfit laid on,’ Carson interrupted her, ‘and I have warned Briggs twice of what will happen if he refuses to give himself up.’

  When he stopped, the humming of the truck’s engine sounded very loud. There was little other noise, only an occasional footstep, an occasional cough. It was an absurd situation in some ways, with at least a hundred men already gathered near the van, and Briggs at the wheel holding them at bay because he could so easily kill two or three of them.

  ‘Do you live with him?’ Gideon asked.

  ‘Ma and Pa live with us, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Away for the week, thank God,’ said the woman. ‘God knows what they’ll feel like when they know about this.’

  ‘Will your brother listen to them?’ asked Gideon.

  ‘They’re down in Cornwall, he’d have a job to.’

  ‘Anyone else he’ll listen to?’

  ‘No, I can’t say - ’ began Briggs’s sister, and then something caught her eye, and she stared past Gideon, her ugly mouth dropping open and showing several discoloured teeth and one or two bare gums. Carson moved his head sharply, and Gideon saw that he was almost as shaken as the woman. Gideon turned round, deliberately unhurried. He saw a little elderly woman with grey hair coming across the cobbles of the yard. Two policemen were immediately behind her, and a tall woman, rather like Kate in height and figure, was with the policemen.

  ‘For God’s sake, get her away,’ Briggs’s sister said hoarsely.

  ‘It’s Ivy Manson’s mother,’ Carson told Gideon. He moved forward, to get in the woman’s path. Mrs. Manson did not seem to notice him; she was staring fixedly at the man at the wheel of the truck. Yet she must have seen Carson, for she moved to one side, as if to try to evade him. The two policemen and the fat woman were very close behind her. Carson put out a hand and took her arm.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Manson,’ he said, stiffly, ‘but you’re not allowed in here. Go back with Mrs. Carter, please.’

  ‘That man killed my daughter,’ Mrs. Manson announced.

  ‘We can’t be sure of that, Mrs. Manson, and . . .’

  ‘That man killed my daughter,’ she interrupted. Her voice was pitched on a high key, and there was no fluctuation in its tone. ‘He did terrible things to her, and then he killed her. I’m going to . . .’

  ‘Mrs. Manson,’ said Carson firmly, ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t come any further. Mrs. Carter, will you please . . .’

  The elderly woman with the staring eyes snatched at the V of her blouse, and to Gideon’s astonishment, to the horror of everyone close enough to see what was happening, she whipped out a carving knife. In the white glare of the headlights it looked vicious, cruel and deadly. She slashed at Carson’s hand, and he hadn’t a chance to escape the blade. Gideon shouted, but was just too far away to help. Carson drew in a hissing breath. Mrs. Manson broke away, and darted towards the truck. Gideon was nearest to her, and could have stopped her, but he let her go on. She ran over the cobbles as if they were as smooth as a race track, brandishing the knife in front of her. Gideon saw the glitter in Briggs’s eyes, saw his mouth open, knew that Mrs. Manson had done what the crowd of men could not. He waited until Mrs. Manson reached the door of the cabin and clutched at the handle, then raced towards the other side. Briggs was glaring at the woman and the knife, and did not realise the second threat until Gideon wrenched open the door. Gideon hadn’t much room, but he drove his fist into Briggs’s stomach, and brought the man gasping forward over the wheel. Several policemen reached the other side, dragging Mrs. Manson away. Gideon put a foot against the floor of the cabin of the truck, leaned inside, took Briggs’s left wrist, and twisted so that the man could not move. Then other policemen scrambled in on the far side, and Gideon let the wrist go, heard the click of handcuffs, and turned away.

  Mrs. Manson was in the middle of a little group of people, including two policemen, the tall woman, and Kate. Kate. The bereaved woman was struggling and screaming and kicking out, Gideon thought she was actually foaming at the mouth. Carson was standing with two men, one of them pressing a thumb on the artery just above the crook in the elbow. There was a lot of blood on the back of his hand, and he looked much more pale than usual. Gideon expected him to faint.

  Then a big plainclothes man from the Division got behind Mrs. Manson and pinioned her ar
ms. Her screams were high-pitched and ear-splitting; maniacal. Her face was working, in the struggle her dress had been ripped off at one shoulder and on one side she was naked down to the stiff, steel supported corsets which held her bosom up.

  ‘Where the hell’s a doctor?’ Gideon was muttering. ‘Where the hell . . .’ he broke off, seeing men come hurrying, among them the Dr. Forbeson who had drawn up in a Rover that morning. It wasn’t long before a needle thrust into the raving woman’s arm brought almost instantaneous quiet, and not long before Carson was being attended by a doctor and two ambulance men. Gideon heard a doctor say:

  ‘It’ll need a stitch or two, we’ll get him to hospital.’

  Carson moistened his lips.

  ‘I am sorry about this, Commander,’ he said in a low pitched voice, ‘but my deputy is fully briefed and capable of carrying on. I hope that no one will blame the woman. Certainly I would not consider a charge is called for.’

  ‘She won’t be charged,’ Gideon said.

  He wondered if Mrs. Manson would ever be sane again, for he had never seen a clearer case of a woman driven out of her mind by shock and horror.

  It was a little before eight o’clock when the last of the clearing up was done, most of the police had gone, both of the ambulances, the fire-tenders, the reporters. When Gideon reached his car, the policeman he had spoken to earlier was standing by it, and he opened Kate’s door quickly. Gideon said: ‘Good night,’ and the constable gave him a broad smile and a hearty: ‘Good night, sir, and thank you!’ Gideon drove off, slowly at first, and neither he nor Kate spoke. He was in Tottenham Court Road when he flicked on his radio, called Information Room, and asked:

  ‘I want all the information I can get about Mrs. Manson, Mr. Carson, and Briggs. I’ll be waiting for it with my radio on.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ a man said, and Gideon left the radio crackling slightly, rather like a car receiver which was suffering badly from static.

  ‘George,’ Kate said, quietly, ‘don’t ever let me try to stop you from doing what you have to do.’

  Gideon said: ‘I’m not worried about that, Kate.’

  ‘I tried tonight,’ Kate said. ‘I almost hated the Yard.’ They went on for several minutes, along Oxford Street where most of the lights were green, where there was little traffic, and where only a few hundred people strolled past the brightly lit windows of a few shops, and the uninviting darkness of many others. ‘What would have happened if you hadn’t gone? If you hadn’t been able to?’

  ‘Can’t imagine anything that would have stopped me, even if I’d hated going,’ Gideon said, and went on thoughtfully: ‘If I hadn’t been there, Carson or one of the others would have worked it out. I don’t fool myself thinking that I’m really needed on a job like that. It’s not just a question of being there to do anything, it’s a question of, well, responsibility, I suppose. Someone would have had to give the order to close in on Briggs, and I’m the obvious man. If I’d been at home, well . . .’

  ‘Who would have blamed you?’

  ‘I would,’ answered Gideon. He found it difficult to explain, even to Kate, and was a little surprised that she was forcing the question, until he glanced at her. The glow in her eyes told him that she wasn’t simply asking questions, she was making him talk, to ease his mind. ‘That’s enough of that,’ he growled. ‘If one of the girls is ill, where do you want to be? On the other side of London?’

  ‘This is your London, isn’t it?’ Kate said, very quietly. I don’t think even you realise how you think, George. You just follow your conscience.’

  ‘If you’re trying to get me into a soft mood over that young fool of a son of ours . . .’

  ‘Believe it or not I wasn’t thinking about Matthew,’ said Kate. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but I actually forgot him for half an hour tonight.’

  ‘Calling Mr. Gideon,’ a voice announced over the radio. ‘Calling Mr. Gideon.’

  ‘Gideon speaking,’ Gideon said quickly.

  ‘Information Room reporting, sir, on the KL job, as requested. The prisoner, John Stewart Briggs, has made a full statement admitting his guilt, and is now being examined by Dr. Emmanuel.’ Emmanuel was the Yard’s own psychiatrist, today as essential as a pathologist in criminal investigation. ‘Superintendent Carson has had eleven stitches in his right arm and the back of his hand, and will be at the North London Hospital for several days. He . . .’

  Gideon interrupted: ‘Anyone told his wife?’

  ‘Mr. Haydon here asked whether you wanted us to send someone, sir, or whether you . . .’

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ Gideon said, briskly, and glanced at Kate as he pulled into the left of the road and slowed down. ‘Check that he lives at 180, Marylebone Road.’ He let a stream of traffic past, and then swung round in a U turn. ‘We’ll be back in time for Matthew,’ he assured Kate. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Driving on, he wondered whether he was really trying to delay talking and thinking about Matthew; whether he wasn’t taking refuge in his job.

  10 TED MIALL

  The moment that Carson’s wife opened the door of the flat in St. John’s Wood, one of a small block of postwar apartments, she sensed that this meant bad news. She knew Gideon only slightly, chiefly through meeting him at social functions arranged by the Yard. Kate, just behind him, remembered vividly that when she had first been introduced to the woman, she had been astonished that a cold-blooded, aloof man like Carson should have married a warm-blooded woman of Italian extraction, with quite beautiful dark eyes and a lovely, slightly olive complexion. She had lovely hair, too; dark, glossy, feathery.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs. Carson,’ Gideon said, and his smile as well as the tone of his voice held reassurance. ‘I was out this way and thought I’d come and tell you what’s happened, but it’s nothing really serious.’

  ‘Is Sydney hurt?’

  ‘Yes, but not . . .’

  ‘You must come in, please,’ Mrs. Carson interrupted, and led them into a living-room which was beautifully appointed, with a colour scheme of pale green and grey, a thick pile carpet almost as white as snow, a grand piano taking up one corner and with a pale, polished sycamore case. ‘How badly is he hurt, Mr. Gideon?’

  ‘He’s got a nasty cut in his arm and he’s had some stitches. He’s in hospital now, but it’s only a matter of a few days.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mrs. Carson said. She sat down rather heavily on the edge of a silver grey brocaded settee, and brushed a hand across her forehead; the more Kate studied her, the more attractive she seemed. ‘It is very good of you to come and tell me yourself, Mr. Gideon. Like Sydney I expect you are very busy. He works too hard, I think.’ After a pause, she went on, ‘When Sydney left, he told me that he expected you would come to Islington. Please tell me, is that man caught?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gideon answered. ‘It wasn’t the man who did this, it was your husband trying to help...’

  He explained, with an economy of words which report-making and reading had taught him, and he probably did not realise how vivid he made the picture. By the time he had finished, Mrs. Carson had recovered from the first shock. She got up to get some drinks, and then quite suddenly swirled round, hands raised in a kind of alarm, and exclaimed:

  ‘But you have not had dinner?’

  ‘We’ve had a snack,’ Gideon said hastily. ‘We don’t . . .’

  ‘Oh, please, you must stay. I was waiting for Sydney - he is often very late home for dinner. I was not hungry, I hoped he would perhaps be home in time, but he will not be, and the dinner will be wasted. It will not take long.’

  ‘You’re very good,’ Gideon said, ‘but . . .’

  ‘We’d love to stay,’ Kate decided for him, ‘but we have to be back at ten o’clock, one of our children will be waiting for us.’

  ‘But that is easy, it will be early enough if you leave here at half past nine, that is plenty of time,’ declared Mrs. Carson. ‘If you will just excuse me for a few minutes, everything is re
ady. Lia, my maid, she will be very glad.’ She hurried out, as if she were delighted. Gideon put his head on one side and said to Kate:

  ‘Don’t blame me.’

  ‘It will help her to get over the shock,’ Kate said. ‘If I were in her shoes, I’d much rather be too busy for an hour than sitting and thinking about you.’

  ‘Have it your own way,’ Gideon said. ‘I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to be quite a meal, too. Carson really does himself proud, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Envious?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I can’t imagine anything I would like less than to have no children,’ Gideon said, and added gruffly: ‘Even tonight.’

  It was five minutes to ten when Gideon swung the car into his own street and drew up outside his house. A light in the hall and one at a small bedroom window - Priscilla’s window - did not tell them whether Matthew was in. There was no light on at the front of the Mialls’ house, a few doors along. Gideon reached Kate’s door as she started to climb out, said: ‘Now I’m for it,’ and led the way to the front door, taking out his keys. He wasn’t looking forward to this interview at all. Kate would make sure that he was not interrupted, but it was a pity he would have to use the front room, because that would make the other children wonder what was up. A discreet word about ‘Cambridge’ might satisfy them. He heard footsteps along the street, of a man and a woman, and as he opened the door, Kate whispered:

  ‘George.’

  He turned his head. ‘What?’

  ‘They’re both coming.’

  ‘What?’ Gideon stared along the street and saw Matthew passing beneath a street lamp, with Helen by his side. They were walking a few inches apart from each other, as if making sure that their arms and legs did not touch. ‘Damn it, she’ll go home, won’t she?’ said Gideon, as Kate said hastily:

  ‘Don’t stand staring at them. Get indoors.’

  Inside the passage, Gideon said lugubriously: ‘Did he say he was going to bring her?’