Good and Justice Read online

  She had shopped for years in a part of Fulham which had changed in some ways out of all recognition. As she got out of the taxi at the entrance to the small shopping centre she usually patronised, she saw a huge banner across the front of one of the new stores, bearing the words:

  THE BEST BUY IN LONDON

  This was a Quickturn store, one of the chains, where the food was cheap. Huge posters in the windows showed prices which were anything from ten to twenty per cent below the private store where she usually went.

  The only thing which kept her out of Quickturn was the mass of people inside. “Her” store had only had a few customers and a manager who looked troubled.

  Superintendent Firmani left Scotland Yard feeling very pleased with himself. It was some time since he had been briefed by Gideon, not Hobbs, and Gideon had managed to convey the impression of a meeting of old friends. If that wasn’t enough, there was the news about the van salesman, and it should not be long before he was picked up. Already, there was a general call out for him in the London area, especially the restaurant districts of the West End, the City, Knightsbridge and Soho. And the Superintendent in Charge of a division which included the docks area, had jumped at the chance of sending men round to Jackie Baker’s home in Fiddle Street, Whitechapel.

  Firmani headed for the East End; driven by a long-jawed bony-kneed, big knuckled detective sergeant named Ebony. The radio was left on and snatches of talk, instructions and reports drifted into the car. They went by way of the Embankment, past the old sailing ships where cadets still trained. Then on beneath the underpass at Blackfriars, driving steadily until the stench from Billingsgate Market filled the air.

  “Slow down,” ordered Firmani, and the driver slid towards the kerb and the cobbled pavement. As he did so a City of London police inspector got out of a car parked a few yards along. No one in either of the London Forces was really aware of the anachronism of there being a Force, completely autonomous and independent, in the middle of the district covered by the Metropolitan Police Force. The truth was that they had grown up with it, and accepted it. Both Forces worked together and here was evidence of it. The City man, Greerson, was in uniform. He came towards Firmani with a smile.

  “Come to help me out?” he enquired. He was big, red-faced and jovial-looking.

  “Come to ask if you’ve heard anything about Baker yet,” replied Firmani. “I’m on my way to NE and his house.”

  “So far the answer here is a blank,” Greerson said. “There’s only one of the wholesalers seems to know him, and that’s by accident. Hold your nose.” He took it for granted that Firmani would want to come into the great Market, and Firmani jumped at the chance. An old man wearing a filthy cap was hosing down the cobbles of one of the entrances, and although he stood aside, water splashed over their shoes. Firmani had a feeling that it was done intentionally. He stepped into the great hall, with its high ceiling, the cubicles round the sides, the main selling blocks in the middle. Huge piles of block and crushed ice stood about, making the place as cold as a winter morning, so cold in fact that it seemed to nullify the smell of fish.

  There it was, on stone benches, in crates marked: Gt. Yarmouth or Felixstowe, Looe or Avonmouth, Hull or Grimsby, all the fishing ports to the east and the south-west of London. Small lorries and vans were being loaded by porters who wore their flat hats, like solidified and black-painted boaters, as if they were featherweight, although to some they must have seemed as if they weighed a ton.

  Firmani felt ice crunch beneath his feet, and nearly fell. Greerson steadied him. A short, astonishingly broad man wearing a black jacket and striped trousers came towards them with a little shrimp of a man whose “boater” looked far too big for him.

  “Anything more for me, Mr. Pettifer?” asked Greerson.

  “Depends what you call more,” replied Pettifer cautiously.

  “Superintendent Firmani, Mr. Pettifer, the manager here,” said Greerson.

  “How are you?”

  “How’d you do?”

  “Mr. Charley Peak,” said Pettifer of the shrimp. “You tell them, Charley.”

  Charley began to speak in a voice so croaking that at first Firmani could not understand what he said, but gradually the import of it came to him. Charley was not a full time porter at Billingsgate: he was retired and “helped aht a bit”. He also helped small shops and wholesalers out when their staff was short because of holidays or sickness. That was how he had come to know Jackie Baker, who had started to call at wholesalers for fish and specialities at the end of the day.

  “Didn’t know a bloody fing about fish,” croaked Charley. “Didn’t seem to ‘ave no sense of smell. Strewth. I’d have dumped most of what he bought.”

  “Do you know where he sold it?” asked Greerson.

  “Search me, Guv’. I only know he took it away in a plain van. Green it was, with the name of the people who had it before painted out.” Charley appeared to have finished his statement, and then he added out of the blue, “Not the only one, neether.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Greerson.

  “Been several of the blaggers lately buying up old fish. Ought to be a law against it, that’s what I say.” He allowed this profound statement to hover, and then, struck by the enormity of telling the law there ought to be a law, he began to laugh; and the laugh sounded exactly as if he were choking to death.

  This alarming cacophony followed the two policemen to the doorway through which they had come in. The old man with the cap had moved further away but as they approached he began to swivel round, turning the jet of water gradually towards them while strengthening the pressure. It looked for a moment as if they would be swamped, but Greerson jumped round, over the jet, and then made a bee-line for the old man, who backed hastily away, letting the hose nozzle droop towards the cobbles.

  “Hallo, Smithy,” Greerson said. “Ever heard of resisting a policeman in the performance of his duty?”

  “I never was—”

  “Or using an offensive weapon? That’s a very serious charge.”

  “Offensive weapon my—”

  “I could even work in abusive language,” interrupted Greerson.

  “A hose ain’t no offensive weap—”

  “You’re out of date, Smithy.” Greerson would not let the old man finish a sentence. “A water-hose is now considered to be a powerful weapon, both offensive and defensive. It’s used to quell riots all over the world.”

  “I’m not no riot!”

  “You’d be surprised,” Greerson said, and he laughed. “My chaps and the Yard might be coming in and out of here for a few days, you be careful with that hose.” He took a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket and when Firmani refused one, proffered the packet to the old man. “How’s Maisie?” he asked casually.

  The deep-set eyes set in a lined face worn to the consistency of leather by the years of fighting for a living, stared at him unwinking. After a while the man stretched out a hand as gnarled as the branch of an old tree. He leaned forward to take a light from Greerson, and then said in a gruff voice without any of the anger and resentment he had shown before: “Think I’d be working if she was still around?” After a pause he added: “Lorst her, two years ago. Bloody cancer.”

  “Oh,” said Greerson, and he looked genuinely concerned. “I’m sorry, Smithy. Very sorry.”

  The old man nodded, and Greerson and Firmani turned away. They were out of earshot of everyone in the market and within earshot of a distorted voice coming over a police car radio before Greerson said in a tired-sounding voice: “You can’t keep track these days. If I’d known about his old girl I’d have gone to see him. Used to make a living stealing fish from the boats and the lorries, but he’s past that now. Want to know something funny?”

  The radio voice was very loud as they stood by the side of Firmani’s car.


  “I’ll buy it.”

  “He won’t claim an old age pension, won’t take anything from Welfare, won’t even take help from the Salvation Army. Independent old flicker.” He gave a guffaw of a laugh, this big, insensitive-looking man, and went on: “They don’t come like him any more. If a crook goes through a lean patch you find him on the dole!” Firmani found himself laughing, too, but suddenly his laughter and Greerson’s faded as a voice sounded more clearly from the car.

  “Fire in a disused warehouse at Whitechapel, near Brown’s Quay, caused the death of a man as yet unknown. The fire is now under control. Arson is suspected.”

  There was a pause before the man from Information went on:

  “Special message for Superintendent Firmani. Please contact Superintendent Lemaitre at NE Division. This is urgent.”

  The voice broke off, and only atmospherics sounded, until Greerson said: “You’re within ten minutes of him – why don’t you go straight on and I’ll tell him you’re on the way.”

  In fact it was fifteen minutes later when Firmani stepped into Lemaitre’s office in a big old-fashioned building in the heart of Whitechapel. Lemaitre, tall, spare, bony, grey, sporting a red and white spotted bow tie and a green and white check suit, stood up with his hand outstretched, and said in exaggerated Cockney: “Wotcher, me old mate. Dunno what you’ve started, do you? That cove you’re after, Jackie Baker, burned to a cinder in that warehouse, van and all. And it was arson, all right – got the fire boys on to it already.”

  8

  SUDDEN PRESSURE

  FIRMANI and Lemaitre stood and looked at the gutted shell of the warehouse. Here and there crates and cartons still smouldered, giving off a pungent smoke. The van was burned right out except for the driver’s cabin, which had been protected by the old refrigerator, itself a charred box. The heat had cracked, but not shattered the windscreen. Police were in the cabin, one man taking photographs, one using grey powder in a search for fingerprints. The man climbed down when he saw Lemaitre.

  “Wotcher got?” demanded Lemaitre.

  “No doubt about it, sir – Baker’s prints are all over the wheel. All over the cabin, if it comes to that.”

  “Anyone else’s?”

  “I haven’t found any yet, si”We need some,” Lemaitre declared. “Don’t miss a thing, George.” He turned away and grinned at Firmani showing good but wide-spaced teeth. “Talking about George, how is Gee-Gee?”

  “On the ball as ever,” answered Firmani.

  “Ask him when he’s coming out this way,” Lemaitre urged. “I haven’t seen him since the police ball.” There was a nostalgic expression in the bright eyes, for Lemaitre had been Gideon’s right hand man for many years, until changes in the structure of the Yard had given him a chance to come out here as the Divisional Superintendent. There was neither jealousy nor envy in him for Hobbs; but there was wistfulness at times.

  “I’ll do that,” Firmani promised, but he was still looking at the sheet of canvas over what he knew to be a charred heap of ashes, all that was left of Jackie Baker. He had a feeling which he knew Lemaitre shared: this was not an unconnected incident; this was the beginning of a major case. He felt it, as it were, in his bones.

  So did Gideon.

  First, he had the news from Firmani by telephone. Next, he had a call from Gillespie, the Chief Fire Officer for London, who confirmed that the cause was arson; a quick combustible preparation known as Firex had been thrown, or shot through the window and had set the place on fire in seconds.

  “The poor devil didn’t have a chance,” the Fire Officer said.

  “Is Firex used much?”

  “It’s used commercially for quick combustion and it’s also used when big stacks of rubbish have to be destroyed. It’s easy enough to get from the manufacturers and a few wholesalers.”

  “Will you let me have a list of all you know?”

  “I’ll do better,” the other said. “I’ll let you have a list of all producers, suppliers and stockists; in London for a start, and then for the rest of the country.”

  “Thanks,” said Gideon.

  He rang off, and contemplated the file in front of him. A first-class restaurant buying cheap fish from an on-the-make salesman who saw no further than the end of his nose was one thing. But why kill this man, and use such hideous means, except to make sure that he could not talk?

  Someone knew that the police would find him very quickly; and someone feared that he knew enough to give the police vital information about them. What could that vital information be? Almost certainly it was information about crime on a large scale; people didn’t kill in such a way unless it was. The sense of uneasiness which Firmani also felt was very strong in him. He called Tiger on the inter-office machine and asked: “What’s the news on Cockerill?”

  “He hasn’t reported yet, sir.”

  “The message that I wanted to see him went out, I hope.”

  “The moment I came back to my desk, sir.” Gideon grunted, and was about to ring off when the other man repeated: “Sir.” Gideon detected a note of urgency in Tiger’s voice. What was the trouble now? he wondered.

  “Yes.”

  “There is one other thing that’s just come in, sir. Very nasty.”

  “Oh,” said Gideon, and he thought: We’ve had everything “very nasty” that we want, not more of it, for God’s sake. “What?” he asked, his mind still on the fire at the old warehouse. He did not know Baker himself but had heard reports of him; a fairly harmless little man who wanted life to be on Easy Street.

  “You know Dr. Kelworthy, sir, don’t you?”

  “I know of him,” Gideon replied, wrenching his thoughts away from the other problem. “Why?”

  “He was murdered this morning, sir. Just an hour or so ago.”

  Gideon echoed, stupidly: “Murdered?” then asked, in wonder, “But why?”

  “The husband—” began Tiger, and from that moment Gideon understood. He heard Tiger going on “The husband of the woman who died in childbirth, a man named Moreno, went berserk. He killed him with a carving knife, sir.”

  Oh, God. Oh, God.

  Kate.

  “Are you there, sir?”

  “Yes.” Gideon made himself speak firmly. “Have we got him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What?” Gideon roared, as if this were Tiger’s personal responsibility.

  “Apparently he raced out of the house and drove off in the doctor’s car, sir. Apparently—” Tiger, obviously, was nervous—”the doctor often kept his car keys in his hand – but that’s guesswork, sir. It was an hour before we learned about it, apparently the dead woman’s mother went all to pieces and the landlady, a Mrs. Jameson, was out shopping. Fulham is handling the case, sir. There’s a general call out for the car, but as far as I know nothing’s been reported yet.”

  “Let me know when it is,” Gideon said, and rang off on the other man’s “Yes, sir.”

  Gideon sat still and solid in his chair.

  It was one of the most awful things in his experience. Could they not—could he not have spotted that the loss, first of the long-awaited child and then of the cherished wife, had turned the husband’s mind? A thousand, a million minds placed under the same awful strain would not have broken; this man’s mind must have been already close to breaking-point.

  Kate must know by now.

  He wanted to go to her, but it was impossible. He was not even sure that he should telephone her. On her own she would probably hold up well, but if he were to talk to her she might break down. Suddenly, he thought: “Priscilla”. She was his married daughter, living in a London suburb with children of school age; Priscilla might be able to go and see Kate for an hour or two. He put in a call to her through the exchange and then looked up the number of a Dr. Malcolm Henby-Kite, one of the Yard’s con
sultants on psychiatric and pathological cases, a man often called on to give expert evidence of the state of mind of a man charged with a grave offence.

  A woman answered his call, bright and brisk: “Dr. Henby-Kite’s office.”

  “This is Commander Gideon. Is Dr. Kite there?”

  The woman hesitated. “Well, Commander, he’s with a patient.”

  “Is it a matter of life and death?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Mine could be,” Gideon said. “Put me through at once, please.” The nurse did not argue and the exchange telephone did not ring, so there was no answer from Priscilla yet. His inter-office machine began to ring, and he picked it up with his free hand. “Gideon.”

  “I’ve just had word from Mr. Cockerill,” Tiger said. “He’s been up to Northampton, sir, and only just got your message. He’s on the M1 and should be here by half past three.”

  Gideon looked at his wristwatch and saw that it was nearly two o’clock.

  “Send him to me as soon as he arrives,” Gideon said. “And have the canteen send me down something to eat. They know what I like.” At that moment a mellifluous voice sounded in his other ear; this was Henby-Kite’s, who had one of the most impressively gracious-sounding voices imaginable. Even in the witness box he talked as if judge and jury were patients who needed to be soothed and indulged.

  “Good afternoon, Commander. How can I help you?”

  “With a very quick off-the-cuff opinion given without the full knowledge of the facts,” said Gideon, and startled Henby-Kite into a laugh which was rather less considered than his usual speaking voice. “I can but try, Commander.” Gideon explained, with the lucidity born of long years of making sure that he was clearly understood; and he described what little he knew of Moreno and of the young doctor: the murdered doctor. The very thought made him wince.