Gideon's River Read online

  St. John stood up, looking intently into his eyes. They were slightly yellowish, with an outer fringe of green round the pupil, the lids sallow, with tiny folds of flesh about them. St. John did not voice any questions but plenty were in his expression.

  ‘I will come to the lift with you,’ said Morro.

  Again, St. John nodded.

  A few minutes later he stepped into a black Jaguar three-and-a-half litre parked in the forecourt of the block of modern flats. A doorman stood and watched him, indifferently. There was a hint of rain in the air but not enough to call for windscreen wipers. St. John drove towards the Embankment, with Victoria Station behind him. It was very dark until he drew near the River Belle and the Belle Casino over each of which was a glow of light. He parked fairly near the pier and looked across at the lights of the pleasure gardens, then walked past two policemen, towards the gangway leading to the pier. Three couples, the women beautifully dressed, came up from the casino. Two doormen were at the pier, another man stood on the gangway leading to the River Belle. Lights shone all over the old boat, two floodlights on the bows were slowly being swivelled round, and there was a sound of hammering.

  St. John went into the main salon.

  Gentian and two girls, all wearing pale mauve pants and primrose yellow shirts, were draping the windows with gold-coloured fabrics. Gentian had a mouthful of pins and was mumbling:

  ‘How about the height, dear … Not on the floor, but not more than half-an-inch above it … Is that right?’ He put in a number of pins, then looked across, saw St. John and widened his eyes in surprise. He took the pins out of his mouth carefully.

  ‘What are we doing wrong now? If anything?’

  St. John raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t come to see what you were doing wrong, I wanted to find out if anything was going right.’

  The girls exchanged meaning glances. Gentian made no comment.

  ‘What chance is there of being ready on time?’ asked St. John.

  ‘If we don’t get any more interruptions we shall be ahead of time,’ retorted Gentian.

  ‘And if we work all night,’ said one of the girls.

  St. John ignored her. ‘Has Sir Jeremy been here this evening?’ he asked Gentian.

  ‘No.’

  St. John nodded, and went out. As he disappeared and while he was within earshot, one of the girls said feelingly: ‘How I hate that man.’

  ‘He probably doesn’t like you very much,’ Gentian remarked. ‘Now, the other window, dear …’

  St. John strolled on to the deck, looked about him, seeing the beauty of the lights reflected from the Embankment and the bridges on the dark water, then crossed to the landing stage and walked towards the Belle Casino. The men on duty stood aside. He went in and sauntered about the crowded room. The two big roulette tables were besieged by well-dressed men and women, the blackjack nearly as crowded. Two redheaded girls and several long-haired youths were at the craps table, the girls giggling, one of them shooting the dice. In a far corner two tables of poker seemed to be part of a different world.

  The cashier was near the craps table, and the office was behind it.

  St. John went to the door of the office and tapped. It was opened after a few seconds by a hard-faced, middle-aged woman who stood to one side. An elderly, grey-haired man was at a pedestal desk, with a safe behind him.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  St. John laid the money which Holmann had paid him on the desk. The man took it, counted it, and handed him five notes back. Then he opened a drawer and took out an I.O.U. for four hundred and fifty pounds, signed by St. John. He handed this across.

  St. John picked a book of matches from a big glass ash-tray and set light to a corner of the paper and watched it burn. In everything he did there was an air of calculated insult.

  ‘St. John,’ the man said, ‘don’t ask me for money again.’

  ‘I won’t ask you for anything again,’ St. John said. He nodded and went out. The two red-heads were on their way to the powder room, and both glanced at him. He went to the roulette table, waited for ten minutes, then bought fifty pounds’ worth of counters and placed them on Number 7, straight. The croupier pushed other counters about, no one spoke, smoke was very thick. The croupier called: ‘Rien ne va plus,’ and paused momentarily before he spun the wheel. The soft whirring of the running ball sounded clearly against the background noises from the rest of the room, then slowed down to a hushed murmur.

  The ball almost settled in twenty-nine, and then went over seven into twenty-eight.

  St. John turned away. Two or three of the officials watched him thoughtfully. He spoke to no one but, outside, paused to take another look at the still surface of the river before moving up to his car.

  Another car, a red Mini Minor, started up just ahead of him and turned out into the Jaguar’s wake. At the wheel was a young man, by his side a girl with a lot of blonde hair which fell almost to her shoulders.

  At the Greenwich Police Station, Gideon was saying to Mullivan: ‘It will have to be attempted murder.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Wait for an hour,’ Gideon advised. ‘You may find he’ll be legally represented by then. How is he?’

  ‘Honestly, sir, I don’t know whether he’s still blind drunk or fooling. He doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. Our doctor thinks he’s drunk, the other man thinks it may be a nervous collapse.’

  For the first time, Gideon seemed to brighten.

  ‘If they prove that, it could help,’ he said. ‘Hell of a job, whatever happens. Is Singleton here?’

  ‘No, but he left a note for you,’ Mullivan replied, and handed Gideon a sealed envelope. Gideon did not open it until he was in the back of the car being driven home to Fulham. Then he read: ‘Just want to say thank you very much, sir.’

  His spirits lifted a little, and on the way home he was able to relax enough to reflect, a little sententiously, on the fact that just as two hours ago he had had no idea of what was in Micklewright’s mind, so at this moment he had no idea of what was being planned anywhere in London.

  Was there a plot to raid the River Parade, for instance? Was there a big organisation behind the industrial diamond losses? Was Geraldine Pierce alive, and if so, what ordeal had she suffered? What was going on in the minds of her parents? What other men, driven to drink and despair by the loss of their wives, might go berserk tonight? How many practised criminals were out on their furtive work, how many people were committing a crime for the first time in their lives?

  There was no end to the questions.

  And there was no end to the secrets in this vast, sleeping city through which the wide river flowed so silently and mysteriously, burdened with ships and their cargoes moving to and from so many parts of the world.

  Chapter Sixteen

  RING MARK

  Police Constable Charles Addis of the Thames Division had spent the first ten years of his working life, from fifteen to twenty-five, at sea as a merchant sailor. He had obtained his master’s certificate, then had met the girl he had wanted to marry and no longer desired to leave London for months at a time. So he had joined the Metropolitan Police Force, going immediately to the Thames Division and soon becoming a member of the crew of a patrol with Chief Inspector Singleton in charge, and Police Sergeant Tidy, ten years his senior, as second-in-command.

  Addis lay long awake that night, his wife Elsie sleeping soundly beside him.

  Everything was fine between him and Elsie – even though she didn’t like it when he was on night duty and had a secret longing for him to leave the Force. But this he didn’t know. Their first child was on the way, which delighted him and rather frightened Elsie. That night, however, he wasn’t thinking about Elsie or the child, he was thinking about that packet of industrial diamonds.

  He had hooked it
out of the water; had been the second man to touch it. He had a proprietorial attitude towards it – this was his case. He knew everything which had been done, had taken Micklewright and the Dutchman with the wide shoulders on a beat from Greenwich to Hammersmith and had heard them talking freely. Van Hoorn was sure there was a big organisation at work, and that the packet he, Addis, had found had been one of many. Micklewright had doubted this but had been prepared to look.

  Short of searching every ship which came in from the Western European ports, there was nothing else to be done. Van Hoorn had said to Micklewright only the previous day: ‘It is possible, surely, to have the Customs search every ship.’

  ‘Give us proof or even a good reason, and they will,’ Micklewright had said.

  So Addis, taking a chance, had talked to an officer of the Water Guard, a man whom he knew slightly.

  ‘Search every ship?’ the Customs man had echoed. ‘You’ll be lucky! It’s a filthy job, takes a hell of a time – you ever crawled along the propeller shaft and got yourself covered with stinking grease, mate? And we wouldn’t do it unless there was a hell of a good reason. Do you know what you’re asking? With those freighters we might get fifty in a day! Fifty! Have a heart!’

  And he was right.

  ‘Besides,’ the Customs man had added, ‘they could be in a waterproof container, made to float, and tossed overboard in the estuary, miles before Tilbury even, and picked up by a small boat. If you suggest this lark, chum, you’ll be the best hated man in the Water Guard.’

  He had laughed and slapped Addis on the shoulders.

  Addis could almost feel the force of the blow as he lay there.

  To make such a search even for one day would, be impossible, unless there was a very powerful motive. It would require thousands of men from the Force, Customs, City and Port of London police. If a couple of coppers were bumped off, now …

  ‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’ he muttered, half serious, half laughing at himself.

  It would need that kind of sensation. All the same, there must be a way of cracking this problem.

  He began to think of the packet, picturing it in his mind’s eye. There had been that round mark on one side, the kind of mark that was caused by rubber feet standing on a plain surface. He had a typewriter which made the same kind of mark on paper, even on a table. Could that have any significance? The packet was at Scotland Yard, trust them to hog everything there was in the way of evidence. But there were some photographs of it at the Wapping station.

  It was nearly dawn – five o’clock, he guessed. He turned over and looked at the bedside clock; it was ten to five. He could lie awake no longer; he’d had it. He got out of bed cautiously, and, thank goodness, Elsie didn’t stir. It wouldn’t surprise her if he were gone when she woke, he was due off soon after seven, anyhow – always waking himself rather than putting on the alarm early enough to wake Elsie. He dressed very quietly, went downstairs and made himself some tea, then set off for the Wapping High Street Station.

  His wife heard the front door close.

  She stretched right across the bed, pulled his pillow under her, and dozed off again, slightly resentful.

  Why did he always have to wake her up?

  Perhaps if they had twin beds it would be better.

  The night duty men were still at the Wapping High Street Station when Addis arrived. The man on duty in the Chief Inspector’s room made the inevitable crack: ‘Your wife kick you out, Charlie?’ He went out, through the boat shed where one of the small patrol boats and the Superintendent’s launch were being serviced. Round the propeller shaft to the patrol boat was a coil of thick steel.

  ‘Got to take the prop shaft off to put that right,’ a mechanic complained.

  ‘My heart bleeds for you,’ Addis remarked, and went out towards the pier. Here the river was wide and smooth. On the far side were the warehouses and wharves; not far off were the big piles of timber in the Surrey Docks. Two lighters, each towing four barges, were following each other up river. Not far off, a ship’s siren blasted – either as the ship arrived or when it was about to leave. A Customs cutter went past, busily. Over on the far side, in the roads, were at least a dozen barges: on one of them was a man. Addis turned away from the water, which put new life into him, and looked into the Inspector’s room again.

  ‘Anyone seen the man on the barges at Elbow Roads?’

  ‘Fred went over and had a look. He’s a Rodent Officer, they’ve got some rats over there,’ the duty man replied. ‘They used to call ’em rat catchers.’

  ‘That’s when they caught rats!’

  Addis went into the C.I.D. room, where the photographs were pinned on the wall next to a notice about a Police Federation meeting. He stood studying them intently. There were six – one from each side of the packet, one from each edge, which all looked the same. The faint ring showed up more clearly in the photograph, because of the way the flash had been positioned. Addis began to frown. He had seen something like this before. It was like the ring impression made by a suction cap. Mines were stuck on to the hulls of ships with small round suction caps.

  His heart began to beat very fast, and he could hardly wait for Old Man River to come in.

  Gideon was up next morning before Penelope or Malcolm, grumbled to himself while he made some tea, decided to breakfast at the Yard, and was there before eight o’clock. The night duty men were just going, all with that rather worn look that night workers always had, the day duty men were coming in, with some of the office staff. It was a bright morning, much more crisp than yesterday. He rang for a messenger, and an old, retired constable now on the civil staff came in.

  ‘Bacon and eggs for a hungry man, Jim!’

  ‘Yes, Mr. Gideon. Coffee as usual?’

  ‘Everything as usual,’ Gideon said, reflecting that it must be three months since he had last had breakfast at the Yard. He went into Hobbs’s office, but no new reports had reached Hobbs yet, not even about Micklewright. It was strange but he, Gideon, wanted to shut out the recollection of what had happened last night, and even resisted a temptation to telephone Mullivan.

  The messenger brought in an enormous breakfast.

  ‘Thought you could manage three eggs, Mr. Gideon.’

  ‘How right you were!’ Gideon knew that he was being over-hearty, but knew also that this was the best way to treat this particular messenger. He watched the man spread a white cloth over a small table and lay knives and forks and everything needed for breakfast. Then the messenger said: ‘Is it true about Mr. Micklewright, sir?’

  Gideon looked at him levelly.

  ‘What have you heard, Jim?’

  ‘That he’s been charged with the attempted murder of his wife, sir.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is true,’ Gideon admitted, quietly.

  ‘I couldn’t be more sorry,’ the messenger said. ‘A very kind gentleman, Mr. Micklewright.’

  ‘So it’s all over the Yard,’ Gideon remarked.

  ‘Proper buzzing with it, sir.’

  Gideon nodded, sat down and gradually began to concentrate on his breakfast. The messenger brought in three morning papers: there was nothing about Micklewright, but the Globe carried a front page picture of four attractive looking girls and Sir Jeremy Pilkington, Pilkington looking gay and very handsome. The caption read: Sir J. Pilkington and Parisienne models in London for a Big River Mannequin Parade. See p. 7. The other papers also carried the story. Tucked away in a corner was an account of the unsuccessful search by frogmen near Richmond. Gideon finished eating – and almost at once the telephone bell rang. He leaned across to take the call.

  ‘Mr. Worby, sir, of Thames Division.’

  Worby, to commiserate.

  ‘Put him through.’

  Worby’s voice was pitched on a high note, without a hint of commiseration, and he announced
without preamble: ‘George, one of my chaps has had a brainwave.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gideon. ‘What kind?’

  ‘He thinks that packet of industrial diamonds might have been stuck to the hull of a ship, and come off by accident.’

  Gideon said slowly: ‘Yes. Yes, it is a possibility, he’s quite right.’ He thought: what’s the matter with us, why didn’t someone think of this before?

  ‘What I want to do is get the frogmen team busy,’ went on Worby. ‘They can cover a lot of the river if they start early – no searching needed, just a quick glance round the ships. We can say we’re after a body, perhaps that Pierce child.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Gideon agreed without hesitation.

  ‘Right!’

  ‘Which of your chaps was it?’ Gideon wanted to know.

  ‘You may remember him – the young one who was with you when you had your river trip.’

  ‘Addis, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Charlie Addis, that’s the chap. Once he’s on a job, he doesn’t let go.’

  ‘He should make a good policeman,’ said Gideon. ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ll get cracking,’ said Worby. ‘’Bye – oh, George?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Er—I—er—couldn’t be sorrier about Micklewright.’

  ‘Nor could I,’ Gideon said dryly.

  ‘Have a problem with Van Hoorn now, won’t you?’ Worby asked.

  ‘He’s gone back to Holland for a few days, so that can keep,’ Gideon told him. ‘What about the River Parade?’

  ‘Everything’s set,’ said Worby. ‘Including the newspapers. Have they gone to town on this!’

  ‘You’d expect them to go to town,’ Gideon remarked.

  He rang off, and almost at once heard a movement in the next room. Was Hobbs in at last? He pondered young Addis’s idea, recalled the eager, youthful face, then got up and went towards the door. It opened as he reached it, and he came face to face with Hobbs, who dropped back.