Seven Days to Death Read online

  All nine of them had made it this time: a triumph.

  Benson didn’t know that two of them had already been recaptured when, with Freddy Tisdale, he had reached the house where they were now hiding.

  They had made a beeline for this spot because Benson knew that they wouldn’t last long in the bitter cold and the snow unless they had some clothes, food, and rest. He’d picked the house out, with his dispassionate cunning, from the Houses to Let advertisements in the Journal, a local weekly newspaper which was available in the library at Millways, with certain items of news duly censored. Being a chatty, parochial weekly there wasn’t much blacked out, and Benson had made sure that, when studying the advertisement, he hadn’t been noticed by the librarian or a warder.

  There had been three houses to let furnished, and only one with an agent’s name and address; this, Benson shrewdly suspected, meant that the house itself was empty at the time.

  Another big advantage of having Freddy Tisdale with him was that Freddy knew the Millways district - every street, lane, and alley, almost every backyard. The police would watch Freddy’s home, of course, and his friends; but to Benson, Freddy’s chief usefulness had been the ability to take him straight to 15 Nortoft Road, a semi-detached house in a street not far from the big canal. They had had to take a chance of some kind, and the chance they’d taken was coming here in daylight, with the risk of being seen by neighbours.

  As far as they knew, they hadn’t been seen. They had been here several hours, no one had called, and they’d had plenty of luck. The main electricity was still on, and there were two electric heaters, which would not give off smoke or betray their presence in any way. They put the fires in a small room next to the kitchen, where there were armchairs, rugs and a radio which, tuned very low, was on all the time. This room had only one window; the curtain had been drawn when they-arrived. They had spent some time blacking this out so that they could put on a light without being noticed.

  Benson was quietly congratulating himself. In fact, there was only one thing wrong: he was hungry. In fact, he was so ravenous that it was a gnawing ache inside him. He even felt annoyed with Freddy, because Freddy didn’t complain about the lack of food, just took it like a stoic.

  The larder had been absolutely bare, without even an old packet of biscuits or any tins of food; nothing. Now, four o’clock that afternoon, when it was still broad daylight outside, Benson felt sick with hunger, but knew that neither of them dared break out until the dark. He had spent a lot of time going over every detail of what had happened, and didn’t think that there was any risk of their being discovered that night if they remained in the house. They had been very thorough, and had even stopped near the canal, tied some old sacks round their feet and shuffled along to the house; this way there had been no footprints in the snow.

  Benson watched Freddy, who sat in an armchair on the other side of the two fires, wearing a big coat which they had found in a locked cupboard upstairs. Each of them was warmly clad now, and the prison clothes were outside in the scullery, drying. During the night, when no one could see the smoke, these could be burned. They had also found shoes, although these didn’t fit very comfortably. Freddy’s were better, just a little loose on his small feet; Benson’s were too tight. That didn’t matter now that he could keep them unlaced, but he would have to lace them up when he was outside.

  Freddy sat reading, apparently oblivious of background music. He had fair, curly hair, a pale face - everyone in Millways had that, anyhow - and bright blue eyes. He was beginning to irritate Benson a little, because he didn’t talk much either and even in these circumstances could become absorbed in a book. Benson wasn’t one for much reading, and there were no old newspapers in the house. Freddy had never smoked, but Benson had an unbearable craving for a cigarette. To make it worse, Benson could have had tobacco, but had forgotten to bring any away with him. There were two pounds of it in his cell! The ruddy screws would get it now, and they’d swear they didn’t know he had it. They might not even tell the Governor, might just pass it on to one of the trusties and get a cut in the proceeds.

  Freddy flipped over a page.

  “Freddy,” Benson said, “we’ve got to eat.”

  Freddy glanced up. “S’right,” he said.

  “It’s nearly dark outside. Must be.”

  “Got to wait until it’s pitch.” Freddy was obviously impatient to get back to his book. “Got to find some food that won’t be missed. That shop at the corner’ll be okay, but it won’t close until six. Got to wait until half past six, anyway.”

  He was right, of course; there was nothing of the fool about him. He was good, and he had a strong nerve. He would go out and break into the shop, and Benson knew he could trust him. But Benson didn’t like his cocksure manner.

  Freddy turned back to his book. Now and again he grinned, now and again he read so fast that his eyes seemed to swivel to and fro in his head. All that Benson knew was that the book was a Western - and that Freddy might soon begin to get on his nerves.

  He got up and went out of the room, going from room to room everywhere in the house. It was still daylight outside, and the sky was grey, but it wasn’t snowing. Snow had been swept from the middle of the road and packed into great banks on either side. Lights were on at several houses. Children were snowballing, some with furious enjoyment. In sight of the front-room window, which Benson approached cautiously from one side, there were three snowmen, each in a tiny front garden. Everywhere it was gently quiet, and even the children’s voices did not sound through the closed and latched windows.

  Benson went downstairs again and sat for a while until, without looking up, Freddy stretched out a hand and pressed a different button on the radio. The music stopped; instead, a man was talking about the weather. Benson opened his mouth to ask: “What’s that for?” and then realized why Freddy had changed the station. The news would be on the Home Service in a minute or two, and they would be “news” with a vengeance. He forgot his momentary annoyance because Freddy was so self-sufficient.

  The weather report ended, and the Greenwich time signal came: Peeep, peeep, peeep, peeep, peeep, peeep. At last Freddy put down his book. Both men leaned nearer to the radio, which was tuned very low, so that the voice was only a whisper. Foreign news, Parliamentary news, a Royal visit, all of these came in headlines. And finally:

  “Three of the nine convicts who escaped from Millways Prison early this morning have been recaptured, two of them within half a mile of the prison walls, the third as he attempted to obtain clothes from a second hand shop on the outskirts of Manchester.”

  Benson and Freddy looked at each other, now equally tense. Details would be given later, they would have to listen to all the other news before learning which of the three had been caught. Benson’s nerves were at screaming point, but at least Freddy Tisdale didn’t go back to his book. Once the news was over, it would be dark enough to go and get some food.

  As he waited, Benson knew how sick hunger could make a man feel.

  5. The Primrose Girl

  Gideon hadn’t been able to go straight to H5 Division and see young Rose. Two things had come in while he had been talking to Mary: a smash-and-grab job in Soho, and a panic about a Foreign Office man who was missing from his home and his office. The F.O. job was rightly the Special Branch’s; but everyone was sensitive to the antics of diplomats, and Gideon had hurried along to a hastily summoned conference with the A.C., the Special Branch Chief, and a Foreign Office representative for whom Gideon had little time. He had hardly got back to his office when his telephone bell rang, and he lifted the receiver as he reached his desk.

  “Gideon.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” a man said, “this is Detective-Sergeant Cummings. I’m with the gentleman from the Public Prosecutor’s office, and there are a few matters I’d be grateful for your advice on.”

  “Hmra,” grunted
Gideon.

  “If we could come along for five minutes, sir.”

  “All right, I’ll be here,” said Gideon. He put the receiver down, scowled, and told Lemaitre what it was. For once he didn’t find himself smiling when his C.I. said: “These new P.P. barristers get on my wick, twice as much trouble as they’re worth. Should have thought Cummings could have handled this chap, though.”

  Gideon said, “They can’t all have your brilliance, can they? Did you fix everything for Benson’s wife, and all the rest?”

  “All done. Sent Old Percy and a youngster to Mrs. B.’s - Abbott. You remember, he jumped on a car and nearly won himself an early coffin.”

  “Divisions take it seriously?”

  “Everyone takes Benson seriously,” Lemaitre said. “Mind if I give you a word of advice, George?”

  Lemaitre grinned as he said that. His lean face, with its rather leathery, hungry look, had adroitness which couldn’t be missed; and when he grinned, it was with one side of his mouth and with one eye screwed up a little - this because he so often had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. He hadn’t now, but the mannerism remained. He had sleek, almost jet-back hair, which was brushed back from his forehead without a parting; and although he was as old as Gideon, there was hardly a grey strand except at the temples and the back of his neck. His eyes were brown, restless, and very bright, and he was always on the move. Take his one big drawback away, and he might become brilliant. There wasn’t a better man at the Yard on routine, and whatever the situation, there wasn’t a man who knew how to get things moving more quickly than Lemaitre, or who could move” faster. He was the ideal second-in- command.

  Gideon kept a straight face.

  “I’m always ready to take advice from my betters,” he said.

  “And learning, too” marvelled Lemaitre. “I know, I know, you’ll tell me to keep my big mouth shut, but here it comes. Don’t waste your time on the Primrose Girl job, you’re going to have plenty to do over this Millways job. Give you three to one that before the afternoon’s out we’ll have a conference with the Home Office; you know what they’re like on a case like this. And if you’re not sitting at the end of a telephone, you’ll rile everyone except the A.C. and perhaps even him if the Commissioner gets narky.”

  “Lem, you couldn’t be more right,” said Gideon.

  Before they could say any more, Cummings and a bright-eyed, fresh-faced young man from the Public Prosecutor’s office came in. If anything was certain, it was that the P.P.’s man was not being officious. He looked competent, intelligent and amiable, and there was no long-suffering air about Cummings, either. This was a genuine problem about the case against Edmundsun. Within two minutes, Gideon had shaken hands with the barrister, whose name was Harrison, and had put everything out of his mind except the embezzlement case. The prosecution’s main hopes lay in one police witness; the great weakness, that the witness might be shaken by the defence. Young Harrison said that he’d read all the statements and studied the witness’s statements, and was sure that the defence couldn’t shake the witness, who was vulnerable on two points. How could they block the defence?

  The session, interrupted by four telephone calls, lasted for over an hour. Cummings, a youngish man who ran to fat, and whose face and forehead were shiny all the time, had a complete grasp of the intricate case; Harrison seemed to have it all under his hat, too. Gideon knew that he had seen the man before, but couldn’t say where; probably in court, when the police had been there in strength.

  They all stood up, at a little before one o’clock.

  “Better have a day to think this over.” Harrison said, “we don’t want to put Edmundsun in court and see him wriggle out.”

  “Give me a ring, and we’ll have another look at it tomorrow,” Gideon offered.

  “Thanks,” said Harrison, and then gave a boyish grin. He was public school, probably Oxford; he dressed immaculately and expensively, and he got on as well with ex-elementary schoolboy Cummings as he would with the Home Secretary in person. “Mind if I say it’s been nice meeting you? The only time we’ve met before, you made mincemeat out of me.”

  “I did?” Gideon couldn’t recall any encounter with him. “Where?”

  “Number One Court at the Old Bailey,” Harrison said. “I was junior counsel for the defence of Sydney Benson, and my leader had been called out. I opened my-mouth, and you put your foot in it! Never felt smaller in my life - and never been so wrong,” Harrison went on, earnestly. “I hear that Benson’s one of the crowd to escape from Millways. That ought to make everyone happy - except perhaps his wife.”

  This man was no fool; in a few years he would probably be a big name; and he could be human enough to think anxiously about Benson’s wife.

  He went on very slowly: “I was very green in those days, almost believed that Benson was innocent and the police were perjuring themselves, until I saw the way he looked at his wife when she gave evidence. Remember the way he spoke to her, just before she stood down?” Harrison hesitated, then tightened his lips and spoke so that they hardly moved: a good imitation of Benson’s way of speaking. ‘Okay, Ruby, I’ll pay you for this.’ If he’d threatened to slit her throat he couldn’t have sounded worse.”

  Gideon said, “So that’s where I’ve seen you. Well, don’t worry about Ruby Benson, we’re looking after her.”

  “I didn’t need to ask!”

  Gideon grinned. “Think we can’t take a hint? How about coming down to the canteen for a meal?” he added. “Or we could go across to the pub.”

  “Wish I could but I’ve got to get back,” Harrison said. “Seen anything of Ruby Benson since the trial? I used to wonder if she let Benson down because there was a boyfriend waiting until he went inside.”

  “It’s a funny thing,” Gideon told him, “but I heard something about her only a few weeks ago. She’s been working so as to keep the two kids going; made out all right, too. Assistant in a gown shop. Recently she found a boyfriend, and you know what suspicious minds we coppers have. The H5 Divisional chaps made sure that she’d never met the man before. He took over management of the shop where she works, only a few months ago.”

  “What a future,” mused Harrison, slowly. “Husband in jail, and when he comes out he’s likely to kill you. Work to keep your children decent, have a boyfriend who hasn’t a chance of marrying you for twelve years or more, and probably not then. Why can’t it work out as badly as that for Benson?” That seemed no more than a casual remark, and Harrison went toward the door, adding, “Know any of the other men who escaped?”

  “Only one,” said Gideon. “Jingo Smith. The others got into jail without any help from me.”

  He shook hands, nodding to Cummings, who looked pleased with himself, then went back into the office. Lemaitre, who hadn’t shown any outward interest in what had gone on, but who had undoubtedly heard everything, glanced up to speak. Before he could, one of three telephones on his desk rang; he plucked it up as the ringing reached full blast.

  “Lemaitre ... Okay, that’s fine, ta.” He rang off, almost in the same motion with which he had lifted the instrument, and said quite casually, “They’ve picked up the chap for that hit-and-run job in Battersea; commercial traveller who lives at Brixton. Blood on the mudguard and tires. Better just leave it to the Division, hadn’t I?”

  “Yes,” said Gideon. “You hungry?”

  Lemaitre looked suspicious. “What’s this?”

  “We could send for a couple of sandwiches,” said Gideon.

  “When it’s your public school pals, you take ‘em to the pub and stand ‘em a meal,” Lemaitre jeered, “but your real friends ...”

  Gideon’s telephone rang.

  Gideon moved toward it, while Lemaitre was still speaking.

  “I suppose you want to get all the desk work done so that you can go and see H5 thi
s afternoon. Fat lot of use giving you advice! But you’ll regret it, George; I can smell a busy day, and - oh, hell. But what did I tell you?”

  One of his telephones was ringing.

  “Lemaitre,” he barked.

  Gideon picked up his own receiver. He did that as he did nearly everything: with an outward appearance of slowness, as if he were giving himself plenty of time to think. It was simply that he had learned not to rush at anything, except in dire emergency, and even then it often did more harm than good. He put the receiver to his ear, and looked thoughtfully across at Lemaitre, who was snapping briskly.

  “Gideon,” said Gideon.

  “Your wife’s on the line, Mr. Gideon,” a girl operator said. “I told her I thought you were in.”

  Gideon didn’t answer at once; he really needed a moment to get used to the idea that Kate had telephoned him. It was utterly unexpected. He couldn’t recall her doing so for years except in real emergency. That was the result of the early bitter estrangement between them, and it had grown into a habit. Would Kate ring now unless something was the matter?

  With Pru, Priscilla, Penny, one of the boys?

  “Put- her through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gideon was kept waiting only a few seconds, but his heart was beating faster than it should. Lemaitre was now barking into his telephone, but Gideon made no attempt to follow what he was saying, just tried to reassure himself about this call. Then Kate came on the line. He couldn’t tell from her voice whether she was really worried or not; she was a remarkable woman for controlling her emotions.