Gideon's River Read online

  ‘’Morning, Alec.’

  ‘Good morning,’ Hobbs said. He came inside as Gideon, in turn, backed away, his face finely drawn, obvious signs of anxiety in his eyes. ‘I haven’t been down to Information or collected any reports yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve only just heard about Micklewright.’

  Gideon nodded, studying this man who came from such a different background and was dissimilar in so many ways, yet felt as deeply and as keenly for the reputation of the Force as any man who had been born and bred to it. He nodded again.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Alec,’ Gideon said, ‘if I’m not careful the Micklewright case is going to become an obsession. It mustn’t.’

  Hobbs gave a tight-lipped smile.

  ‘Every newspaper, every television newsroom, the Home Secretary and our own Commissioner won’t let us forget it. I had two newspapers on to me at my flat before I left.’

  ‘I daresay,’ Gideon weighed his words. ‘I don’t mind how I feel or you feel or anyone else feels. This is a human problem. We’ve done our job, we’ve got to hand the papers over to the Legal Department to brief the Public Prosecutor. Except for preparing the details, it’s out of our hands. I’ve got no comment to make and I want word to go out to every station – send a teletype message to all divisions and sub-divisional stations, telling them to make none, and to warn all the men on their strength to say absolutely nothing.’

  ‘I should have realised you’d already decided what to do,’ Hobbs said.

  ‘The real problem is to find someone quickly to replace Micklewright,’ went on Gideon. ‘Any ideas?’

  Hobbs pondered.

  ‘Do we want a man with a good knowledge of precious stones or someone with knowledge of smuggling up the river?’

  ‘A river man,’ Gideon answered promptly. ‘Someone who knows the river and the different forces concerned with policing it – he must know them well.’

  ‘I think I agree,’ Hobbs said. ‘There’s only one man I can think of who answers to all that.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Singleton of Thames Division,’ Hobbs said.

  Gideon had been concentrating on possible successors to Micklewright among men at the Yard, and had not given a thought to anyone at the Division. He was surprised and, after the first few seconds, pleased that Hobbs should think of a man close to retiring age who might easily be allowed to wear out slowly. Singleton – Hobbs probably didn’t know he was a friend of Micklewright. Gideon recalled all that had happened last night, remembered the challenge, the defiance, the gratitude.

  ‘Alec, talk to Worby and put it to him this way. That you think Singleton would be the right man but until he, Worby, agrees, you don’t want to put it up officially to me. You could even ask Worby to sound me out on it.’

  Hobbs’s eyes crinkled at the corners as, for the first time that morning, he began to smile.

  ‘I’ll do just that.’

  ‘Make it your first job. Worby’s in, he’s already told me …’ Gideon briefed Hobbs about what had happened, and Hobbs went back to his own room to talk to the Thames Division chief. Almost before he sat at his desk Gideon’s telephone rang again.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr. Hellier, sir, of EF Division,’ the operator said, and on that instance switched Gideon’s thoughts from diamonds and Micklewright to the missing Pierce child, of whom nothing had been heard for three days.

  ‘Yes?’ Gideon said.

  ‘We know where the Pierce girl is,’ announced Hellier, without a word of preamble.

  Chapter Seventeen

  GERALDINE

  Geraldine Pierce was still in the cave.

  She was wide awake, but ‘Dick’ was asleep.

  She was dizzy with hunger for they had not eaten during the previous day. She had a dull headache and a sense of nausea.

  She was secured by the strap and could not get at the buckle; she could move only a few inches. She felt cold, despite the touch of the man’s body against her; her toes were freezing. She had a sense of hopelessness, brought on by hunger, pain and utter helplessness. She knew what would happen if he caught her trying to get away again, she could still imagine the tightness of his hands round her throat.

  There was nothing, now, that she could do.

  Last night, late, as he had lain with her, she had pleaded and promised. If he would let her go she would tell no one, she would pretend she’d got lost or been on her own – even run away. As she had pleaded she had seen the dull light in his eyes and had doubted whether he really heard what she said.

  Afterwards, in that state of exhaustion she had become used to, she had said: ‘You will let me go tomorrow, Dick, won’t you?’

  And he had said: ‘I’ll never let you go. You’re mine.’

  She had not uttered a word after that but had fallen asleep after a long time; and now she was awake, with the memory of his words and of his expression as he had uttered them. He had bared his teeth and spoken from deep in his throat.

  ‘I’ll never let you go. You’re mine.’

  Now she began to think, drearily: ‘I can’t get away. He means it, so I’ll never get away.’

  Tears had flooded her eyes but she had repressed the impulse to cry for fear of waking him. After a while she began to toy with the idea of hitting him; if she could only be sure that he wouldn’t wake she could wriggle and wriggle and get at the bucket beneath the bed.

  How could she knock him out?

  She stared at his weak face, the two days’ old stubble, the slack mouth and eyelids smeared with white ‘sleep.’ There was nothing heavy or hard within hand’s reach, so all she could use were her hands.

  Hands.

  His were very strong and he could kill her just by tightening them round her neck. Were hers strong enough? She moved them cautiously, to study them.

  They were quite long, dirty because she hadn’t washed for several days, and her nails …

  ‘Geraldine! How often have I told you to file your nails!’

  Oh, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’

  She let her hands drop to the bed. They certainly weren’t strong enough, and in any case she couldn’t turn over and get them round his neck so as to grip tightly. It was hopeless, utterly hopeless, unless he were to go out and leave her. He had said something about going shopping today.

  Even that was useless, though; he would tie her up so tightly she wouldn’t have a chance. She hadn’t any chance at all.

  Unless …

  She held her breath as an idea came into her mind. She saw his teeth and the top of his slack tongue as his head lolled forward awkwardly from the pillow. The pillow. She had seen a television picture only the other day – that age ago when she had run in and out of her home whenever she had wished. In the film, a woman had placed a pillow over a sleeping man’s face and then pressed and pressed until his convulsive struggles had ceased.

  The pillow.

  She shifted round with infinite care so that she was facing him. She stretched her left arm over him and pulled the pillow a little further away from his head. He did not wake. She drew it free and his head fell just a little further forward. She could hardly breathe as she raised the pillow in one hand. Her mind was working very swiftly, and she could hear one of her school mistresses saying: ‘Think, Geraldine, think before you act.’

  Think …

  If she shifted her right arm high enough from the bed to touch part of the pillow beneath it, she could then hold it fast by lying on it. And she could stretch out her right arm and hold it tight on the other side. How long would it be before he stopped struggling? How long could she hold the pillow in position? Was she absolutely sure there was no other way?

  She thought, no, no, there isn’t.

  She took a tighte
r hold on the pillow and eased her body up, drew the pillow across Dick’s chest inch by inch, watching him tensely, frightened every moment that he would wake. If his eyes began to flicker that would be a sure sign.

  She got the pillow beneath her body.

  Her breathing was harsh and shallow and she was afraid that would disturb him. Now she had to decide whether to drop it on his face suddenly and put all her weight on to it, or whether to draw it gradually over his chin and then his face.

  Gradually.

  Gradually, gradually.

  It was on a level with his chin, she steeled herself to make the final movement, when a dog barked close by.

  On the instant, Dick woke.

  He woke out of a sleep troubled by strange dreams of weird creatures and weird faces and staring eyes and beautiful bodies, to a loud yapping. He felt the pillow beneath his chin and knew immediately what Geraldine was trying to do. He flung himself backwards off the bed, snatched up the pillow and brought it down on to her head and face. He left it there and spun round towards the boarded-up window. The dog barked again and a boy called: ‘Sprat, come here! Sprat.’

  The dog yapped again, less furiously. The boy called more gently: ‘Leave it, Sprat, leave it.’

  At that moment, Jones made his great mistake; pushing back the bolt, he opened the door and peered out to find that some of the protecting sandstone had fallen. Across the stretch of water, only three or four yards away, the boy stood looking at him.

  And as they stared at each other, Geraldine screamed:

  ‘Help me! Help me! Help me!’ Jones jumped away from the door, saw Geraldine leaning on one elbow, her face suffused, her eyes screwed up, her mouth wide open; a series of high-pitched screams followed one another in quick succession. He sprang towards her and gripped the sheet, screwed up a corner and rammed it into her mouth so that her screams faded into a hoarse gurgling sound. Flinging the pillow over her face, he ran back to the door. He could hear no sound now, but saw the boy, fifty yards up the shallow side of the quarry, the dog at his heels. They were scrambling up, dirt and stones falling after them. Jones knew exactly where the path was, reached it and started after the boy, who saw him and made a wild effort to go faster. He drew level, only ten feet or so away from the boy, who would have had no chance but for the dog.

  The dog leapt at Jones. Jones kicked out, missed, and kicked again. The dog stumbled, steadied, and leapt at the man’s hand. Its teeth buried themselves into the fleshy part of the ball of the thumb. Jones screamed in pain, lost his footing, and fell down several feet. The dog raced away; and a few seconds later both dog and boy reached the top of the quarry and disappeared. Jones came to rest nearer the foot of the path than the top, blood streaming from his hand, face scratched, knee suddenly painful where he had banged it on a stone. He picked himself up and staggered towards the mouth of the cave.

  He went in.

  He saw Geraldine, lying very still, the pillow on one side but the corner of the sheet still in her mouth.

  He thought: she will tell the police what I have done.

  He thought: I didn’t hurt the boy, he doesn’t matter. She mustn’t tell anyone what I’ve done.

  They’ll put me away forever if she tells them, he thought.

  Her eyes were closed, and she did not seem to be breathing. He pulled the sheet slowly away from her mouth and dropped it. He picked up the pillow, held it in both hands, then lowered it slowly on to her face.

  The boy was seen by a motorist, who stopped to see what was the matter.

  The motorist drove furiously to the nearest house and telephoned the police.

  The police were at the edge of the quarry in seven minutes and inside the cave in ten.

  ‘We’ve found her, sir,’ Hellier said on the telephone to Gideon. ‘She’s dead. Only been dead a few minutes, too.’

  ‘Have you tried …’ Gideon began, helplessly.

  ‘Tried the kiss – tried everything,’ Hellier said.

  Gideon asked heavily: ‘Do the parents know?’

  ‘I’m going to see them now,’ answered Hellier.

  When he rang off he put the receiver down and sat at his desk for several minutes, with no comfort but his thoughts, and they were little enough. The girl had been in his manor. It was a well-hidden place but it should have been found. Whichever uniformed man covered the area would be in trouble for this, so would the detectives who had searched the quarry. In fact, Hellier could not blame himself, but nevertheless he did. Not bitterly, but with a dull, aching sense of failed responsibility.

  Now he had to go and tell the Pierces.

  God knew how they would react.

  And only yesterday Pierce had thrown up his job and joined in the hunt for his child. Poor devil. Poor, poor devil.

  He sent for a car and was driven to the Pierces’ home. No one had yet alerted the press, thank God, no one was outside the Pierces’ house. It was after nine o’clock. Two school-children ran from a front door, hair and satchels flying, and a woman called from the open door:

  ‘Mind you’re careful in the High Street.’

  A bright-eyed, red-haired girl cried: ‘Okay, Mummy.’

  A smaller boy called; ‘’Course we will.’

  They raced past the police car without a glance at Hellier, but a woman opposite, brushing down a doorstep, stood up and stared across, then waved vigorously at someone out of Hellier’s sight. He stepped out of the car and opened the iron gate of the Pierces’ house, walked with long strides up to the front door, hesitated for a moment, then rat-tatted; the door seemed to shake. He waited, his face set, but there was no answer. He knocked again and pressed a bell-push at the side of the door. Then he glanced round. Faces were close to several windows and three women were now on the spot where the one had been. A car passed, the driver looking towards him.

  The Pierces surely weren’t out.

  He knocked again and at last footsteps sounded on the stairs. A man’s. Hellier drew himself up, massive, an almost forbidding figure. Pierce, with a red dressing-gown pulled but not tied about the waist, thin hair awry, face unshaved, peered at him.

  Slowly, Pierce’s expression changed. The tiredness drained away. The lines seemed to fade. A strange, defensive expression crept into his eyes, and Hellier knew that his mission had already been accomplished. Pierce realised why he had come. They stood absolutely still, and said nothing. Then Mrs. Pierce called from upstairs.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Pierce moistened his lips but didn’t speak.

  Hellier called ‘It’s me, Mrs. Pierce, Superintendent Hellier. I’m afraid I’ve—I’ve bad news for you.’

  Again there was silence; utter silence. Pierce moistened his lips again and moved back a step. Hellier did not know what to say or do. Pierce backed further away, and turned round; Hellier had an odd feeling that the man had forgotten he was present.

  Wanda Pierce appeared at the head of the stairs.

  ‘So she is dead.’ There was the flatness of resignation in her voice, a kind of fatalism, none of the hysteria which Hellier had expected.

  ‘Stay there, Wanda,’ Pierce said in a level voice. ‘I’ll come up to you.’ She ignored him and came down a step. ‘I said, stay there,’ he ordered.

  ‘Superintendent, have you seen my daughter?’ Wanda demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ Hellier said.

  ‘Is she—disfigured in any way?’ asked Pierce.

  ‘No,’ Hellier wanted to add: ‘Thank God,’ but he could not even put a warm or sympathetic inflection into his voice, he felt so taut.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘The …’ he hesitated, boggled, over ‘mortuary’ and said, ‘At the police station.’

  ‘In the mortuary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My wife and I will want t
o see her. Please send a car for us in an hour’s time,’ Pierce said.

  He turned towards the foot of the stairs and then went up, slowly, to his wife. She hadn’t moved again; she was all eyes in a pale, pale face. Hellier felt that they were oblivious of him, that he was utterly unimportant. He saw Mrs. Pierce’s face pucker as her husband reached her, saw Pierce put an arm round her, had a strange sense that this weak little man had found a strength that he, Hellier, had not suspected him capable of possessing.

  Mrs. Pierce began to cry.

  Her husband led her out of sight, and a door closed. The sound of crying was shut off. Hellier closed his eyes and turned round slowly, as the woman from next door, Mrs. Edmonds, came hurrying into the hallway.

  For the first time, Hellier spoke in a relaxed and gentle voice.

  ‘She’s dead,’ he said. ‘But I think they’ll be all right. I shouldn’t go in yet, if I were you.’

  He did not hear Mrs. Edmonds say in surprise to her neighbour: ‘He’s got a heart after all.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘NEW’ JOB

  ‘Inspector! Mr. Worby wants you!’

  Singleton looked up from the patrol boat into which he was stepping as a younger man came hurrying down the pier, kicked against one of the ridges and nearly fell.

  ‘Pick ’em up, pick ’em up,’ growled Old Man River. ‘We don’t want to have to fish you out.’ He strode up to the repair shop, past the stores, saw the store-keeper and young Addis sparring, pretended not to notice, and climbed the stone stairs to Worby’s office. He tapped.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ Worby was close to the door, just beneath the crossed cutlasses on the wall, souvenirs of the days when the River Police were armed with pistols, blunderbusses, knives and cutlasses. ‘’Morning, Jim,’ he went on, putting a book of regulations on a shelf. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘What am I supposed to have done?’ Singleton struggled not to go on but lost the struggle. ‘Didn’t upset the Commander last night, did I?’