Vigilantes & Biscuits Read online

  Riddell shrugged and broke off, suddenly realising the betrayal of his inner state: a state not all that far from hysteria. He managed to smile.

  “Sorry, George. I’ll be getting the shakes in a minute if I don’t watch out.”

  You never spoke a truer word, Gideon thought grimly. Aloud he said gently, “Tom. Nobody knows better than I do how much you’ve put into this case. And whenever a copper gives everything he’s got to an inquiry for months on end, one of two things happens. Either he gets a nervous breakdown – or he takes a few hours off. Really off. Mind wiped clean. So, I want you to regard what I’m saying next as an order. Get to hell out of here for the rest of today. Go home. Go fishing. Do some gardening. Take your wife to the pictures.

  “Then, tonight, I want you round at my home at seven sharp to be Kate’s and my guest for dinner. You and I are going to have a rough time at this meeting. We might as well start the evening in as civilised a way as possible. Don’t you agree?”

  The expression on the other’s face told Gideon that his blend of confidence and sympathy had hit the mark.

  His voice unsteady with emotion and relief, Riddell stammered: “This is very good of you, George. But surely I ought to – ”

  Gideon’s voice became a roar.

  “You ought to be out of here, doing nothing for at least the next ten hours. And don’t think or talk a word about Wellesley in all that time. Got it?”

  Riddell nodded.

  “Then get out. I don’t want to see you again until we’re both enjoying one of Kate’s spectacular dinners.”

  Grinning gratefully, Riddell moved to the door, but turned before he reached it.

  “Just one thing, George. That meeting. It’s just possible that the vandals – ”

  “Will use it to stage an attack? Yes, I agree. It’s very possible.” Gideon found himself thinking aloud, furiously. “But on the other hand, if we pack the hall with uniformed men, we’re liable to make the police look a laughingstock – because, basically, it is an anti-police meeting. I think the answer is – six uniformed men stationed by the doors, just to remind the people of our presence, and ten to fifteen detectives scattered around the audience. At least two of the detectives should have firearms. Do you agree?”

  “Entirely,” Riddell said. “I’ll see to it before I go.” He hesitated for one more second, evidently wondering how to express his thanks again; but Gideon’s glare was off-putting. He smiled, turned and went.

  Sighing with relief that he had at least saved one crack-pot, Gideon thought grimly of all there was to do. He would have to get someone senior to take over on the Estate case for the day. It was too hot a potato to be left, even temporarily, in junior hands. In addition, he would have to see Sir Reginald Scott-Marie, the Commissioner, as soon as possible. In addition, there must be a report – verbal or typewritten – ready for Scott-Marie. In addition, he ought to begin planning the approach he’d take at tonight’s meeting. In addition –

  He glanced at his watch and grimaced.

  In addition, it was ten fifty, which meant that he’d kept Lem waiting for twenty minutes, and now had only ten minutes to deal with the Orsini case before Matt Honiwell came in to discuss the Cargill kidnapping.

  Fortunately, long experience had taught Gideon how to divide the day into watertight compartments. The moment Lemaitre came in, all thoughts of Riddell and the Wellesley Estate instantly vanished from his mind, leaving it wholly occupied with the problem of the two Orsini brothers, one of whom had been shot dead within a week of the other, the second after loudly proclaiming that he would avenge the first.

  Lem wouldn’t have been Lem if he hadn’t found some way of stressing how long he’d been cooling his heels in the corridor.

  “What time did you say our little talk was to begin, Gee-Gee?” he inquired innocently, as soon as he’d been waved to a chair.

  “I know, and what the hell do I mean by keeping you waiting,” Gideon returned wryly. “Fair point, Lem. Something came up that I couldn’t shorten. And I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you to keep even this interview as pithy as you possibly can. It’s turning into that sort of day.”

  Lemaitre, his moment of privileged badinage over, came immediately to the point.

  “The lay-out in a nutshell is this, Gee-Gee. It’s increasingly obvious that the Orsinis had those bullets coming to them. They were mixed up in a Mafia-type protection racket, putting the squeeze mostly on restaurants and strip clubs in Soho, but also operating in my manor, all through the Islington-Hornsey area. The head of the racket was – and is – Jack Rocco, who runs a gambling club over in Tottenham, and has mysterious connections with clubs all over Soho. The story goes that the first of the Orsinis to die – Nicholas – was rubbed out by, or by order of, Jack Rocco, for the old, old reason: he was keeping too much of his takings. The other Orsini – Mario – was killed because he was blabbing too much, swearing that he’d get Rocco, and so on.”

  “Are you telling me that you haven’t a shred of evidence to support any of this?” Gideon asked quickly.

  “Not a shred,” Lemaitre admitted cheerfully; then his wiry body tensed. “But yesterday, a man walked into my office with an offer to nail Jack Rocco once and for all… by using himself as a bait. His name was – Dino Orsini.”

  Gideon stared.

  “Brother of the other two?”

  “That’s exactly it, Gee-Gee. But Dino’s what you’d call the white sheep of the family. He’s the kid brother whom the other two Orsinis cosseted. They never let him dabble in anything criminal; but it was with their money that he bought his little business – a successful restaurant over in Finchley – and he reckons he owes them something. So he’s offering to do exactly what his brother Mario did. To go to the same bars that

  Mario went to, swearing that he’ll get Rocco in exactly the way Mario did. The difference is, he wants us to cover him, and be there when Rocco’s hatchet-men move in.”

  Gideon whistled.

  “He’ll be taking a hell of a risk. Is he a family man?”

  “Very much so. Wife and five bambinos. The wife, I gather, practically on her knees begging him to forget the whole thing. I don’t mind telling you, Gee-Gee, that I ended up liking this Dino very much. He’s one of those fat, black-haired Italian restaurateurs who are ten a penny round Soho, and certainly no hero – or the popular conception of one. By the time he’d got through talking to me, he was quivering like a jelly. But nothing can alter his determination to go through with this. That’s what I meant when I told you in the corridor that I was facing a pretty peculiar problem.

  “It’s not difficult to supply Dino with two night-and-day bodyguards – but if they stay too close, Rocco will scent a trap and merely bide his time. On the other hand, if they keep their distance, how can they possibly give Dino any kind of real protection? What makes it worse, the man isn’t prepared to give us any time. He’s determined to start his loud-mouthed bar threats tomorrow, while he still has the nerve to do it. It’s a frightening situation – like trying to come between a Kamikaze pilot and the ground. I’ve been up in Records trying to see if there was some case in the past where the Yard gave a hundred per cent protection – completely undetected by the enemy. But so far, I’ve drawn a blank.”

  Gideon grinned.

  “You weren’t looking in the right records, Lem – that’s why. Special Branch are the most likely people to .have the answer to this one.”

  “And you’re the most likely man to be able to prise it out of them,” Lemaitre said. “Will you try, Gee-Gee?”

  “I’ll try,” promised Gideon, “and let’s hope it works.”

  With the appearance of Matt Honiwell, the atmosphere of strain returned to Gideon’s room. Matt was looking in better shape than Riddell, perhaps because he was a considerably younger man. But all the signs of anxiety were there: in his white cheeks, his tired step, his troubled eyes.

  He came to the point even faster than Lemaitre had done.

/>   “George, there’s been an odd development in this Cargill business, and I may have made a rather silly decision. Over these last weeks, I’ve become very friendly with both Gordon Cargill and his father. We’re on pretty confidential terms.”

  Gideon nodded. This, he told himself, was the most striking evidence of the power of Matt’s humanity. Other families in the Cargills’ position would have been deeply suspicious of the police, and perhaps downright hostile, by now. But Matt had won them over – and Gideon knew how. Matt would have sweated and suffered alongside them all the way.

  “This morning,” Matt went on quietly, “Gordon confided to me – as a friend rather than a Yard man – that they were thinking of approaching a seer.”

  Gideon started violently. That was the last word he was expecting. He wondered, in fact, if he had heard aright.

  “A – seer?”

  “Yes. You know. An extra-sensory perception man; a clairvoyant; a – ”

  “Thanks,” said Gideon tartly. “I have an English dictionary somewhere in the desk, as it happens. I do occasionally read it.”

  Matt ran a hand through his still plentiful brown hair, suppressing a smile as he went on blandly, “The man they are consulting is a Czech called Jacob Brodnik, a naturalised Briton who lives in Maxwell Grove, West Dulwich. He often works on the Continent, I believe. The Belgian police, the Dutch and the French Surety have all used him at one time or another as, I think it’s called, a corpse-diviner.”

  “You frighten me,” said Gideon dryly. “Does Barbara Cargill have to be written off as a corpse?”

  “I’ve told both Gordon and his father that after six weeks of hearing nothing from the kidnappers, it’s a possibility that has to be faced,” said Matt, his voice deliberately matter-of-fact. “They’re prepared to accept the worst, if worst it is. What they find unbearable is the tension – the not knowing. They’re hoping that this Brodnik, if nothing else, can sense if she’s alive or dead.”

  “H’m,” said Gideon. “When are they going to see him?”

  “Gordon’s off to Dulwich tonight. He has an appointment with Brodnik at eight. He asked me if I’d go with him – to hold his hand, as he put it. Without thinking, I said that I would. It was only later that I realised that I might have made a major blunder. If the papers get hold of this, they might take the line that Scotland Yard was officially calling in a seer. Every tabloid paper in Britain would go to town on it.”

  “They couldn’t – if you make it clear that you’re only going as an impartial observer,” Gideon said judiciously. “No, Matt: your real difficulties will come later. Supposing this Brodnik ‘sees’ Barbara’s body lying in a certain wood, or hidden in a certain house? The Cargills will expect us to investigate, but we won’t be able to. No matter what the Belgians or the Dutch may do, I simply can’t allow the valuable time of valuable men to be expended on E.S.P. wild-goose chases.”

  Matt’s face hardened.

  “Do you really think I’d ask you to?” he said dryly.

  Gideon took a deep breath. It seemed to be a morning for dealing with men at the end of their tether.

  “All I’m pointing out,” he said quietly, “is that if you go to this Brodnik session, you might be under very great emotional pressure to make such a request. And I’m warning you in advance that my answer would have to be ‘no’. With that reservation, you can go to this meeting with my blessing.” His voice softened. “And incidentally, you can tell Gordon Cargill something from me.”

  “And what is that?”

  Gideon, for once, pulled his briar pipe out of his pocket. He stood, staring down at it, turning it over in his hands.

  “As a man – not as a policeman – I sympathise with what he’s doing. If Kate had been kidnapped, and I hadn’t heard anything for six weeks, I’m not sure I wouldn’t be queuing up to see this Brodnik myself.”

  Gideon stayed like that, staring down at his pipe, for a full minute after Matt Honiwell had gone. It was hard to remember a morning when he had had quite so many strange and harrowing problems to solve.

  How to afford a man invisible – yet a hundred per cent effective – protection against a gangster’s bullets.

  How to cope with the incalculable results of a seer’s vision on a kidnapping case.

  How to halt a vigilante movement in its tracks … and convince the residents of an Estate that had been torn apart by violence for three months that he could restore law and order in a week.

  It was the last problem that demanded priority.

  Gideon seated himself heavily behind his desk, and began to make notes – partly for a report to Scott-Marie, partly for a plan of action to be carried out that night.

  He wished devoutly that he had some of the alleged powers of Jacob Brodnik. He would have given a year’s salary for a moment’s insight into what was really at the back of the violence on the Wellesley Estate.

  One thing that was really happening there was that Marjorie Beresford was lying on the bed in her son’s room, shaking with silent sobs.

  She had been lying there for hours now, and had only gone downstairs once – to answer Kate Gideon’s telephone call, v and to ring her various customers, cancelling appointments for the day.

  When she returned, she had drawn the curtains, so that she could lie in the dark with her grief, her deeply felt sense of shame.

  Marjorie was not only the widow of a policeman; she was the daughter of one. Law and order had been part of her life from the day she was born.

  So nothing had prepared her for the shock she had received at about eight o’clock that morning.

  Eric, her son, had left home unusually early, at around seven forty-five. He had said he wanted to see a friend about something before he went on to school.

  Marjorie had decided to tidy his room straight away, before she went out to keep her eight-thirty appointment at the Gideons’.

  It was while she was making Eric’s bed that she had suddenly felt one of the floorboards creak beneath her feet.

  Thinking it needed a nail, she had gone down on her knees to examine it, and found that it came right up in her hands.

  Peering into the cavity, she had seen a number of objects carefully concealed within it, objects that, with all her experience of the police, she recognised on sight.

  A stocking, stretched and shapeless, as if after use as a face-mask.

  A cosh.

  A flick-knife.

  A white shirt stained with blood.

  It was the shirt which swam before her eyes now, in the artificial gloom of that curtained room. It was Eric’s shirt, there was no doubt of that.

  But Eric had not cut himself, or sustained any serious injury that she knew of, in his life.

  So whose, whose, whose was all that blood?

  And what, what, what, in God’s name, should she do about it?

  Ring the police and tell them that her thirteen-year-old son was a mugger, perhaps a murderer? Unthinkable. Destroy the evidence which would make herself an accessory after the fact? For a policeman’s widow, equally out of the question.

  This much was sure. She must confront Eric with what she had found; try to talk it over; try to understand –

  If only he hadn’t been so withdrawn lately.

  If only the world hadn’t suddenly become such a strange, incomprehensible place.

  If only – for example – this room would stop swirling round –

  If only there wasn’t this mist in front of her eyes, the colour of that bloodstained –

  She must get help, somehow, somewhere.

  She staggered off the bed, to the landing, then, clinging to the banisters, reached the hall where the telephone was.

  Without quite realising what she was doing – out, in fact, of a deep subconscious compulsion – she started to dial a number.

  But she stopped herself after the first three digits.

  What on earth had she been thinking of – trying to ring the Gideons’ home?

&n
bsp; 4

  Crimson Light

  By half past seven, the sinking September sun, touched by an early autumn mist, was spreading over London an air of unreality, changing the Thames into a mystical river of fire. Even the placid red-brick houses of Harringdon Street, Fulham, had been affected, turned to a vicious crimson.

  It was, in fact, a nightmare sunset; a sunset to heighten tension, deepen fear.

  Yet inside No. 20 Harringdon Street, the mood was cheerful and relaxed. Despite her hectic day of wedding preparation, Kate had found time to rustle up the most sumptuous of lobster salads to set before Gideon and Tom Riddell, and a bottle of Sauterne to wash it down. Gideon was surprised and relieved to see that Tom tackled the food with relish; his ten hours off the case had evidently done him good. Gideon himself was suddenly equally ravenous.

  Seeing them eating so heartily, no one would have imagined that within an hour they were due to attend a crucial confrontation; but it was that very fact which was putting an edge on their appetites. However formidable the vigilante meeting might be, it at least held a promise of action, which was something of a relief after the long months of baffled, fruitless conjecture. In a curious way, Gideon was looking forward to it.