An Uncivilised Election Read online

  “There’s a rumour – it could be stronger – that a lot more money has been going to both campaigns lately, and that the Fight for Peace people as well as the Q Men have had their ranks thickened by a lot of toughs who will stir up as much trouble as they can at the election.” Rogerson was emphatic. “All we need to do is make sure that there are no foreign influences at work, no funds from overseas. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Gideon conceded. “I’ll get onto it.” He felt a deeper sense of irritation, partly because he hadn’t given this possibility much thought. He regarded both of the extremist political factions as fanatics, each having some members on the lunatic fringe, but knew enough about both groups to be sure that most of the members were wholly sincere. The trouble with sincerity when it became passionate enough to grow into fanaticism was that it could persuade one to tolerate what was bad, or at least excuse it. Then, almost disgustedly, he thought, Moralizing ass. He sat down at last. “That the lot?”

  “Er—not quite,” Rogerson said.

  Now there was no doubt that he had something serious on his mind. It was seldom that he felt any kind of embarrassment or awkwardness with Gideon, yet obviously he did now. He was going to ask him to do something he didn’t want to do, Gideon thought, and even speculated that he might be saying that he was going off for a few weeks and would he, Gideon, stand in for him again? Rogerson was almost too conscientious, and had been away on sick leave a great deal recently. He was immaculately dressed, still the Guards officer, and oddly enough his crimpy hair retained its natural brown colour, but in the past year something had seeped out of him.

  “Let’s have it,” Gideon said, almost impatiently.

  “Straight from the shoulder, eh?” Rogerson said unexpectedly, and gave a wry smile. “All right, George. How long is it since you had a holiday?”

  Gideon was so surprised that he only stared.

  “A year?” asked Rogerson. “Or even more?”

  “Er—eighteen months or so, I suppose,” Gideon answered at last. “That’s if you mean two or three weeks in a row. I take the odd weekend off, and Kate and I slipped over to Ostend for a week last summer.” He finished almost aggressively. “Think I need a holiday?”

  As Rogerson stared at him, Gideon was acutely conscious of the contrast between them. He, Gideon, was in the middle fifties, as fit physically as he could be – except for that ten pounds or so overweight – and he had not had a day’s illness in the past ten years. He had never felt more completely in control of himself, and the only thing that made him lose patience was the attitude of some of the staff, for instance Lemaitre, who seemed to have lost their energy and their sense of dedication.

  “As a matter of fact, George, yes. I think you need a good one,” Rogerson declared. “I know just what it’s like, remember – it’s a long time since I had any zip to lose. But, then, I’m just an old crock. You—” Rogerson broke off, spread his hands, and went on: “You’ll go on until you live to be a hundred if you look after yourself. Working too long at a stretch is asking for trouble, and you know it. You tell other people about it often enough, and send them packing. Is there anything to stop you taking a couple of weeks off before the general election? The date’s fixed for Thursday, November 6th.”

  2: Own Petard

  Gideon’s first reaction was one of resentment, almost of anger. He sat staring at his Chief, having a fair idea what was going through Rogerson’s mind. He, Gideon, had often wondered how some of the senior C.I.D. men would take his blunt declaration that they were losing their zeal because of overwork. Now he didn’t have to wonder. Overwork? This had been the slackest period he could remember for a long time. Rogerson didn’t look away from him, and the only sign of tension was the way he pushed his tongue against his lips, giving them a swollen look. An echo sounded in Gideon’s mind: The date’s fixed for Thursday November 6th. The echo died away. Another replaced it. Nothing much, Lemaitre had insisted, and had remembered and related with such gusto the story of the Quack. Lemaitre was bored, remember, and getting slack – my God!

  A quick, spontaneous grin curved Gideon’s lips.

  Rogerson spoke almost too quickly.

  “Glad you see the funny side of it. I thought you’d want to throw me out the window.”

  “I shall when I’ve digested this fairy story.” Gideon half wished he had controlled that grin, but it would be better to appear to take this well, no matter what he really felt. “Coming along here I was telling myself that Lemaitre’s getting slack. That’s what’s funny. Hoist with my own petard.” He didn’t now think it funny at all, but kept smiling and hoped that the stiffness of the smile didn’t show. “Anyone else put you up to this? I mean, the Old Man?”

  “No one at all,” said Rogerson. “All my own work. You look as if you would like to tear some of the chaps apart – you’ve been a bit lacking in that patience you’re famous for.” He was still talking too quickly, perhaps now with relief. “You need a rest, and I need you here when the general election’s closer at hand. I can sit in for you meanwhile.”

  Gideon said, “You’ve got enough on your plate.” He was still put out, but his mind was working more normally, ideas flashing through it. “Like to give Lemaitre the break he’s been waiting for?”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Let him stand in for me for a couple of weeks, and if he comes through all right, make him deputy commander. It would be just the incentive he needs. He’s a bit browned off always playing second fiddle.”

  Rogerson pursed his lips.

  “I don’t know that Lemaitre’s my idea of the right man for the job, but I suppose he knows the drill pretty well.”

  “Inside out.”

  “If only he wouldn’t jump to conclusions,” complained Rogerson. Then he spread his hands. “All right, but tell him if he’s in doubt about anything at all, he’s to come to me.” Rogerson grinned suddenly, broadly. “Like you always do! George, you’re quite a guy. Two minutes after being kicked in the teeth you start thinking about how to help someone else.”

  “Got to be sure the job’s handled while I’m away, and I wouldn’t like you to try it on your own,” Gideon retorted. He made himself thrust the unpalatable aspect out of his mind. “So it’s a general election on November 6th.” Suddenly, he realized why the date had registered in the way it had. “Great Scott – why didn’t they make it the Wednesday?”

  “Eh?”

  “Wednesday, November 5th.”

  “Good Lord!” gasped Rogerson.

  They sat there, these old friends who knew more about the crime of London than any other two men in the country, who knew the potentialities of criminals and the opportunities for crime, and the whole range of crimes from petty larceny to murder. They sat within a stone’s throw of the Mother of Parliaments, where on the 5th of November over three hundred and fifty years ago, a man had tried to blow up the House of Commons because he had hated what its members were doing. Over the centuries there had been many who hated politicians, many fanatics and much resentment, but never in Britain’s history had there been such an organization as that of the group of high-minded idealists in the Fight for Peace campaign, who were fighting their strange cold war for unilateral nuclear disarmament.

  “You know, George—”

  “If you ask me—”

  “Go on.”

  “No, you.”

  “It’s the kind of bloody-minded thing some of the hotheads might think up.”

  “A bomb under the House, you mean?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Yes,” Gideon said. He looked like a graven image for a few seconds, then shook his head. “No, it’s unthinkable. They’re capable of a lot of things, and when we have to shift ‘em from sit-down strikes and marches a few of them get violent, but a bomb—”

  “George,” interrupted Rogerson, “you know what I mean as well as I know myself. No one connected with the Fight for Peace Committee would do it, but the ver
y nature of the group means that there are a lot of lunatic fringes. After all, they’re a splinter group of the old Ban the Bomb campaigners who were too mild for the F.F.P.’s liking. You might find one or two among them who would think it worth trying to blow up the House, and the date makes it almost irresistible. Eve of Poll rallies will be all over the country on November 5th – what the devil was the government thinking of?”

  Gideon said heavily, “The Prime Minister’s a crafty old bird. He might have had his reasons.”

  “No one could be so inept as to choose that date accidentally,” Rogerson asserted, but was probably a long way from convinced. “Will you brief Lemaitre and everyone concerned so that all the reports and preliminary information will be available as soon as you get back?”

  Gideon stood up.

  “I will. I’ll come in tomorrow and Saturday, then take a couple of weeks off.” He nodded, opened the door, and strode straight into the passage, bypassing the secretary’s little office. The door closed with a snap. He was in no mood to say anything else to Rogerson, and now that he was alone he stood quite still, bracing himself to face the situation. He did not feel like telling Lemaitre or anyone else about it yet; he wanted to cool off, to make sure he had himself under full control.

  That general election date, even with Guy Fawkes Night the Eve of the Poll, had receded again.

  He passed the door of his own office, hearing Lemaitre on the telephone, his voice raised. Gideon went up one flight of stairs, nodding to the people he passed, speaking to no one. A long corridor with open doors on either side led to the offices occupied by the chief inspectors and the detective sergeants. Through the open doors he saw men sitting, talking, lounging, smoking, speaking into telephones, poring over reports. Every now and again someone moved away from a window or a desk quickly, as if caught out in some guilty act; and those who lounged looked aghast when they saw him. Usually the fact that Gideon was on the prowl reached the offices well ahead of him, but today he had caught them by surprise. He knew what was happening in those offices, the kind of thing that was being said: “My God, Gee-Gee’s around.”

  “Why the hell didn’t someone tell us?”

  Looking as if he were unaware of this, Gideon turned into the last office on the right. Here, where there were six desks, two people were working, one of them staring at a lot of drawings on his desk, a bald-headed man, grey-moustaches, on the plump side, and with very big hands. A pencil in his right hand looked like a matchstick. This was Piper, one of the older chief inspectors. The other man, twenty years younger, was Cummings, a man recently promoted from sergeant’s rank, and a member of the Fraud Squad. Both men were immersed in what they were doing, and looked up vaguely. Cummings almost dropped his pen as he jumped to his feet.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”

  Gideon nodded. Piper pushed his chair back.

  “After me, sir?” Had Cummings not been there he would have said “George,” for they had known each other for nearly thirty years.

  “Yes. All right, Cummings,” Gideon said. Did the idiot think he would eat him? “Give me a chair, will you?” Cummings snatched a chair, lifted it, banged a leg on a corner of the desk, muttered “Sorry,” and put the chair too close to Piper’s desk. “Thanks,” said Gideon, and shifted it and sat down. “So you haven’t got the Quack yet?” Gideon said to Piper.

  “I’ve got some pretty pictures of what he might be like, and some Identikit makeups,” Piper said. “I’ve been studying them for the past hour – since I got back from Sydenham, where he did his latest stint.” Piper was mildly amused, and yet took this quite seriously. He was the Yard man in charge of the inquiries into the pseudo-medical man, and liaison with all the divisions where the “doctor” had practiced. He had interviewed the first woman who had been suspicious of the locum with roving hands. She had told the locum she was going to the police, and had got out quickly.

  Piper had also been in touch with all divisions concerned and with the British Medical Council.

  “I can’t say I’m much further on though,” he continued. “I’ve talked to four of the women this chap examined in Sydenham. The trouble is, most of them get so damned embarrassed. Faked, I sometimes think. The one thing in common is that all four say he’s about thirty and has dark hair. In all, that gives us five different hair colours!”

  Piper was pushing papers across to Gideon, who had put everything else out of his mind so that he could concentrate on this; concentration on a problem was what he needed more than anything else.

  “Five colours?”

  “Very fair, yellow, grey, black and auburn-ginger,” explained Piper. “Which makes him good at dyeing his hair.”

  “If he’s really the same man.”

  “Don’t think there’s much doubt about that,” said Piper. “I’ve talked to the Sydenham doctor, who came rushing back when he heard what had happened – he looked as if he could have jumped off a roof, he was so upset because he’d let some of his women patients in for this. This chap’s the same build, and has rather moist hands. That’s been mentioned eight times.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “All wiped away. He hasn’t once slipped up over that,” Piper went on. “He’s no fool, he knows what we’ll do the moment he’s been around. He always judges the reaction of the patients well, and gets out the moment he thinks anyone might complain about him. Did you hear from Sydenham?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dowsett would like to interrogate every one of the women the man examined – wants me to do the rounds with him.” Dowsett was a chief inspector at the division. “Symes isn’t so keen.” Symes was the divisional superintendent. “He thinks it’s going to cause the women a lot of unnecessary embarrassment, especially the married ones. And he doesn’t think it will help much – we know what the chap looks like, we’ve got plenty of descriptions including the doctor’s. The doctor dislikes the idea of tackling each of the women – for obvious reasons.”

  “What do you think?” inquired Gideon. For the first time since leaving Rogerson he thought, November 5th, but the date faded quickly from his mind.

  “Can’t see it would help much, unless—”

  “Go on.”

  “The more women who know what happened to them the more will be keeping a sharp lookout for him, and we might strike lucky one day,” said Piper. “Can’t afford to be too pernickety. If a woman patient doesn’t want to tell her husband what happened she can say she only talked to him.”

  “Except that she’s already told her husband what a thorough examination she had,” said Gideon dryly. “I’m sure you’re right, and so is Dowsett. I’ll have a word with Symes, and fix it.”

  “Thanks.” Piper’s rather tired smile suggested that that was exactly what he had hoped for.

  “What else have you got on?” asked Gideon.

  “Nothing that can’t wait. I’ve been checking chemists’ shops for drugs which might have been bought on the cheap – we’ve had three vanloads of pharmaceutical stuff stolen in the past five weeks. It’s routine, mostly, and I’ve got a couple of sergeants and the divisions on it. Like you said,” Piper added hastily.

  “We’ll put the sergeants onto the pharmaceutical job, so that you can concentrate on the Quack,” Gideon decided. “If you need a man, let Mr. Lemaitre know. It’s time we got this character, and he warrants a man full time. Handle it as you think best, check with me or Mr. Lemaitre, and I’ll let all the divisions know that you’re going to get right behind it.”

  “That’s what it needs,” Piper said, with satisfaction. “Sometimes the divisions want a bomb under them. The trouble over this job is that too many of them think it’s funny. Mind you, there is a funny side.” Piper gave his rather tired grin again. “When he was over at Streatham, this chap had one of the local prostitutes as a patient. She tumbled to his game pretty quickly, and threatened to sue him for indecent assault!”

  Cummings, silent until then, burst into a guffaw. Gideon smiled, chu
ckled, nodded, and went out. He knew that Piper was delighted that he had been given this job, and no one would put more work into it. In a much more relaxed mood Gideon walked back to his office; no one was lounging in his sight this time. Lemaitre was sitting back at his desk, one telephone at his right ear, another pressed tightly against his chest.

  “… no, he’s not… Well, I told you … Yep. Hold on, I’ve got NE on the other line.” He switched telephones. “Hallo, Christie … the great man’s here, hold on.” Without lowering his voice, he called to Gideon: “Christie thinks he knows who did that bank job at Acton, want a word with him?”

  Gideon was already lifting a receiver from his own desk. “Hallo.”

  “Micky Bane was out last night,” Christie of NE Division declared. NE, the East End Division, was still the home of a greater proportion of men known to the police than any other London division. “And I’ve just discovered that his wife rented the shop opposite that Acton Bank under her maiden name – she took in dressmaking and repairs. Ideal place for Bane to drill from and he went very deep so as to dodge all the supply mains. She’s given the shop up, of course, but if I bring both her and Bane in for questioning—”

  “Do it right away.”

  “Going to send anyone over?”

  “Not yet. Let Lemaitre know what happens. If you think it’s safe to make a charge, he’ll send someone over. Thanks.”

  Gideon rang off. Lemaitre was putting down the other telephone, and staring across at Gideon frowning, one eyebrow cocked above the other. “What’s your game?” he demanded.

  “What about?”

  “Me,” said Lemaitre suspiciously. “What did you tell Christie to contact me for?”

  “I’ve come to the conclusion that you haven’t enough to do,” said Gideon. “So I’m going to put a lot more work onto you.”

  Lemaitre almost screeched. “You’re going to do what?”