A Backwards Jump Read online

  “Lemaitre.”

  “Jackson, KI Division,” a man said briskly. “We’ve just had a bank hold-up. Two bank clerks were injured trying to stop the getaway. Looks like a thirteen thousand pounds job. I’m going over myself, but we’re short of fingerprint men today, can you send someone over?”

  Lemaitre wanted to say: Why the hell don’t you handle it yourself?

  Gideon would say: “Yes, right away.”

  “Sure, right away,” said Lemaitre. “Got everything else you want?” Jackson was the last man in the world to suspect that there was any sarcasm in that question. “That’s good, good-bye.” He rang off, and immediately put in a call to Fingerprints, muttering as he waited: “Lap dogs to the Divisions and the provinces, that’s what we are. Lap dogs. Hallo, Micky? . . . send a Sergeant and anyone else you’ve got hanging around doing nothing to KI, will you? . . . bank job, better look snappy.” He grinned. “Yes, Mr. Finn, I’ll tell him.” He rang off, made a note on his desk, and sat back for the first time since Gideon had left the office.

  Downstairs, a woman waited, anguished because her child was missing.

  In the Divisions, the week’s work was really getting under way.

  Gideon had set aside his thoughts on the juvenile problem, and was agreeing with the Assistant Commissioner about which Superintendents to send out to the provinces. He would soon be briefing each man, who would choose his own aides. It was routine, even though each job had something different and had to be taken on its merits. The daily grind. It began to absorb Gideon, Lemaitre, Warr, and everyone else who had a specific job to do. Being absorbed, they stopped thinking about the other things, the things that might be happening, the crimes which hadn’t yet been committed, or hadn’t yet been reported. There was nothing new, and yet everything was new.

  There was the school for pickpockets and bag-snatchers, for instance, being run under the noses of the police, on the south side of the river. There was Frisky Lee and his beautiful young wife, preparing for their new life in Australia.

  And not very far from Scotland Yard, a girl in her early twenties was frightened for her life.

  3

  CAUSES OF FEAR

  “Reggie,” this girl was saying, “put the knife away. You don’t know what you’re doing. Put the knife away.”

  The young man smiled at her.

  It was not a cruel smile, and there was even compassion and gentleness in it. He was a handsome youth, and his looks as well as his veneer of culture had first attracted her to him. She had few friends, and her parents were dead. Her life had been aimless; a little travel, a little work if it suited her, a few charity committees, many acquaintances. She had met Reggie on a Mediterranean cruise, two months ago, and the cruise had given her the happiest three weeks of her life. She had felt so sure of him and his love, had felt a deep sense of security.

  She had married him.

  She was a bride of two weeks.

  “Reggie,” she said, with a sob in her voice, “put the knife away. Darling, don’t stand there looking at me like that, put the knife away.”

  He stood holding the knife, smiling, unmoving. He was between her and the door of the small service flat in the heart of London – a flat rented with her money, although she did not realise it. Everything was done with her money, and she had been aware from the beginning that he might be marrying her for it, but this—this was a nightmare.

  Nightmare.

  “Reggie, please put that knife away.”

  The advertisement which they had answered about this flat had stressed: Soundproof. Constructed by the very latest methods. Absolutely quiet and secluded from the neighbours above, at the side, and below.

  They’d talked about it, often; and never heard a sound, not even a radio turned up too loud.

  The girl was pale as death.

  “Reggie!”

  It was a knife with a broad blade; a game knife. The sun came in at the window of the living-room, and glinted on the steel, especially on the edge where it had been sharpened, to give it a perfect cutting edge. He held it quite loosely, not as a dagger, but as if he would thrust it forward gently, piercing the flesh with the sharp point. He stood two feet away from his wife as she stood against the wall of the tiny kitchen, and she could not look away from the knife, so did not see the expression in his eyes.

  “Reggie,” she said brokenly, “you don’t know what you’re doing. Put—please put that knife away. I’ll do anything you like, I’ll give you anything, but put that knife away. Please—”

  Reggie lowered the hand with the knife, and then put them into his pocket and drew the hand out, empty. His wife’s relief was so great that for a few seconds she could only stand shivering despite the warmth of the day, looking at him as he continued to smile at her. A strange thing seemed to be happening, now; his mouth was working as if he was on the point of crying. He didn’t cry, but moved slowly away from her, into the living-room. Beyond was the bathroom and the bedroom, and beyond that the soundproof walls. He walked stiffly, keeping his hand away from his pocket. He went out, closing the door behind him slowly, although it snapped.

  The girl felt herself trembling, and leaned against the small dresser to keep herself upright.

  “Reggie,” she said in a choky voice, and her voice began to quiver. “You can’t be—”

  She didn’t finish.

  She made herself move towards a chair and drop down, burying her face in her hands, too weak to think at first; but it was not long before she began to think and fear and feel again.

  The flat was silent.

  Soundproof!

  She stood up, staring towards the door, which Reggie had closed so firmly. She reached it, and touched the handle, but for a moment was almost too frightened to try to turn it. Then she did turn it, and pulled, but it didn’t open. She pulled again and again, but it would not budge, and she knew the truth although she would not admit it to herself. He had locked her in.

  “Reggie!” she screamed. “Let me out of here! Let me out!”

  The door did not open.

  Soon she gave up tugging and crying, and went to the window. This was a corner apartment, and it had one great disadvantage which she had not realised before; the windows overlooked the blank walls of another building. All she could see was the distorted shapes of the windows of the six floors below her.

  The ground seemed a long way off.

  She leaned out.

  It would be impossible to climb down, absolutely impossible; she would fall to her death against the concrete below. If only Reggie—

  She heard the door open, and swung round. He came in, briskly, smiling, almost gay. The strange look in his eyes was gone, and he had changed his suit for a pair of flannels and a jacket. He rubbed his hands together and said briskly: “I’m famished, pet, aren’t you?”

  She gaped at him.

  “Come on, pet, don’t look at me as if I were a ghost,” said Reggie. “I’m famished. Marriage does something to me, I get hungrier than when I was single, and do I sleep in the afternoon! I must have slept for a couple of hours today. How about some of that cake and extra thin bread and butter you’re so good at?”

  His bride said gaspingly: “Yes, yes, darling, of course. I won’t be long, I’ll put a kettle on.” She swung round towards the electric stove, snatched up the kettle and filled it, splashing the water over herself, the stove, the floor.

  While her back was turned towards him, his smile was not nice.

  When she turned to look at him, it was charming.

  She did not understand him, and did not know what to do. He was ill, of course, mentally ill; one of those people with two minds. No, not two minds, split minds. The ordeal was sapping her own intelligence, she was unable to think clearly, and hardly knew what to do as she fetched the butter from the larder,
then the cake, then the bread. She took a bread knife out of the drawer, and began to slice the bread. Then she saw him looking at the light shimmering on the blade, and she cried out, and almost dropped it.

  “Careful,” Reggie said, “you’ll cut yourself.”

  That was Eve Dennis and her husband, Reggie.

  Marion Lane was very happy, although she was not married yet; and wouldn’t be for an hour or so. She was still Miss Marion Lane, and had expected to be Miss Lane for a long time, but Robert had literally swept her off her feet. They had met at a dance run by the tennis club. In an old-time waltz he had swung her round and whirled and pirouetted until she had been breathless, and dazed with excitement. Life hadn’t been quite the same since then, the pace had been so much faster than she was used to. Oddly, the tennis club itself had brightened her existence a great deal before she had met Robert. Clubs were wonderful for young girls who had no close relations, and certainly none at all who mattered; and she wasn’t bad at tennis.

  With her parents she had left the north of England for London six years ago, and afterwards, life had been dullish for several years. She had not needed to work, for her parents had been comfortably off, and her mother had also some money in her own right. Church socials, church meetings, a little committee work for the church and for charities, the occasional garden fete and Christmas Party hadn’t exactly been exciting. Rather like Eve Dennis’s life. The death of her parents within a few days of each other from virulent influenza had first stunned and then numbed her, and she had lived aimlessly for a year, keeping on the house and letting the top half to an elderly couple. Then at last she had joined the tennis club. From that moment it seemed just a breath or two away to Robert, dancing, courtship and this, her wedding day. She was as thrilled and excited as she believed a bride ought to be, a little sorry only because it was not to be a white wedding, but in a registry office, with a few friends. As if a wedding dress made any difference!

  She was alone for half an hour now, her one close friend and would-have-been bridesmaid had gone out to get some oddments needed for the ceremony. That was to be at two o’clock, and it was already nearly twelve.

  Marion wasn’t yet dressed, but she had bathed and a dressing gown was loose about her. She felt warm, her body flushed with the hot water and with the heat of the day. Her cheeks were flushed, too, and her blue eyes seemed unusually bright.

  She had the oddest feeling.

  Alone, in the large room downstairs, which had once been the drawing-room and was now her bedroom, she found herself studying her reflection in the long mirror of the wardrobe. Her bare feet looked pink; her hands, her face and throat did, also. She found herself easing the dressing gown back a little from the front, found herself slipping the gown off, feeling strangely guilty. She looked at her fair, flushed young body, and imagined Robert, just behind her; Robert coming close.

  Then she heard a car draw up outside, and thrust her arms into the sleeves again. By the time Ethel had arrived, she was in bra and girdle.

  Ethel was five years older, plain, angular, and too thin. She came in briskly.

  “You’ll have to hurry or you’ll keep him waiting,” she said. “I don’t know that it would do him any harm, but registrars don’t like it.”

  “Oh, I’ll be on time!”

  “So I should think,” said Ethel, and then seemed to be struck by the sight of her friend’s reflection in the dressing-table mirror, and move slowly towards her. “Marion,” she went on quietly, “you look lovely, I must say that.”

  “Oh, don’t be ally.”

  “I’m not one for paying compliments,” Ethel declared, “but you look really lovely.” Then she moved abruptly. “If a girl’s not looking at her best on her wedding day, when will she? But do hurry, dear.”

  “I’ll be in plenty of time, you’re fussing too much.”

  They didn’t speak for several minutes after that; and said nothing of significance until Marion had put on her dress, and Ethel was zipping up the back. The dress was tight-fitting, and showed the rounded curves of her breasts beautifully. It was high at the neck, and of a shiny blue taffeta, just the shade she had fancied. It also brought out the blue in her eyes. She stood in front of the mirror while Ethel zipped, and as she let the zip go, Ethel said abruptly: “Marion?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re quite sure, aren’t you?”

  “Of loving Robert ? Of course.”

  “Marion, you do feel absolutely sure of him, don’t you?” Ethel spoke so quickly that the words seemed to be gabbled. “After all, you haven’t known him very long and no one knows a lot about him. I agree that he seems all right. I like him myself, but marrying a stranger doesn’t seem right, somehow. And he has no relatives. Are you sure?”

  Marion turned round.

  “You’ve asked me this several times, dear, and I can only give the same answer. I’m absolutely positive. Don’t worry. I shall be very, very happy.”

  “Before you put on your make-up, you’d better have a sandwich and something to drink,” Ethel said gruffly. “You won’t want to make a mess of your lipstick afterwards, and there isn’t much more than an hour to go.”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Marion said to herself; “I’m absolutely sure. I couldn’t want anyone better than Robert.”

  Robert Carne left his one-roomed flat for the ceremony, half an hour before it was due, and walked briskly, as if without a care in the world. He looked nearer thirty than his forty-one years, his lean figure helped that appearance of youthfulness, and there was a curious little smile at his lips, attractive to most people. His curly hair was thinning a little, but that did not really age him. He wore a beautifully cut suit of navy blue.

  A Police Sergeant in plainclothes, who happened to come out of a tobacconist’s shop where he had been making some fruitless inquiries about the bank raid that morning, saw Carne, and watched him without appearing to.

  “Where’ve I seen that chap before?” he wondered.

  He could not call it to mind, and could not give Carne a name; all he knew was that there was a certain familiarity, and that he associated it, vaguely, with his work. He saw Carne hail a taxi, but did not hear his directions to the driver. Had he heard “ . . . registry office” he might have recollected where he had seen Carne before, and might possibly have stopped or at least delayed the wedding. For recollection would have told him that he had seen Carne in connection with the death of his, Came’s, wife, by food poisoning. That had been two years ago. The Sergeant had been a rookie then, and still had to learn to use his mind like a camera and his memory like a card index.

  So he got on a bus and went to the Yard to report negatively.

  The Assistant Commissioner for Crime at New Scotland Yard was a tall, lean, astute-looking Lieutenant-Colonel, with a fine war record and considerable administrative experience. Gideon knew him well and trusted him; and he was shrewd enough to know that although Gideon wanted action of the Henderson business, his chief preoccupation was with Frisky Lee.

  “Any objection if I put a couple of men on to checking everything we can about Frisky?” Gideon asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And while you’re here, what about these young kids?” the A.C. asked. “The Home Office wants a comprehensive report on all child shoplifters and pickpockets caught in the past six months.”

  “They like it tonight?” Gideon asked abruptly.

  “In the next few weeks.”

  Gideon grinned. “They could really have it tonight. I’d dress it up for ‘em.”

  He went out, satisfied that he could do whatever he thought best, and now wondering whether he was letting the old failure against Lee rankle enough to distort his own judgment. Everything about Lee was phoney; even his nickname; he was called Frisky because of his trick of absolute stillness.
>
  Gideon briefed three Superintendents for the provincial jobs, then detailed two older men, an Inspector and a Detective-Sergeant, to work on the Lee probe, co-operating whenever practicable with Hemmingway of NE Division. Then Gideon went back to his office. He pulled his tie apart again, and stepped to the window, which was wide open. He pushed it up another fraction of an inch. The morning was warming up, the sun seemed to reflect too brightly from the Thames, the smell of petrol was stronger than ever, the first whiff of a London summer’s perfume. He turned back to his desk, and looked at several notes which Lemaitre had put there, stopping longest at the report that a woman was waiting for him downstairs. He had come in at a side entrance, or would probably have seen the Hall Sergeant, and been told about this before.

  Gideon called the hall, and the Sergeant answered.

  “Hallo, Joe, that woman still waiting?”

  “Patient as a midwife, Mr. Gideon.”

  “What name did she give?”

  “Crow.”

  “What?”

  “Crow.”

  “Hmm. Get anything out of her?”

  “As a matter of fact, she doesn’t seem to know much herself,” the Sergeant said. “If she hadn’t insisted on asking for you, and if I didn’t know you like to see anyone who does, I’d have put her off.”

  “How old is she?”

  “’Bout fifty.”

  “What type?”

  “Lower middle-class, sir, I’d say.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the lower waiting-room.”

  “I’ll come down,” said Gideon, adjusting his tie again. “Don’t tell her I’m on the way.”

  “No, sir,” the Sergeant said, and he sounded much more cheerful.

  Lemaitre was still busy taking down the message. Gideon went out, walked along to the lift, then decided to use the stairs. He went steadily, head jutting forward, pondering over everything he’d done and heard that morning, until he reached the ground floor. Then he switched to the thought of the woman who was waiting for him. His name was in the newspapers more than any other officer at the Yard, and it wasn’t unusual for people to ask for him personally. The Sergeant and others on duty could usually scent the curious-minded and the gossips, and Gideon was seldom worried by them. Acquaintances, both of his own and of his family, sometimes called, some trading on their acquaintance, hoping for special consideration for themselves or for friends in trouble. If Mrs. Crow was one of those, two minutes would be enough.