Gideon's Fire Read online

  ‘Tell Joe Bell if you want to see me at any time,’ Gideon added. ‘Give this one priority.’

  ‘After eight deaths it’ll get all I’ve got, day and night,’ Margetson promised. ‘Funny how it gets you when kids are involved, isn’t it? Had any luck with that swine out at Islington?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about abandoning capital punishment,’ said Margetson. ‘Thanks again, Mr. Gideon.’ He got up, nearly kicked his chair over, and blundered out. Gideon was smiling faintly when he turned back to his desk and the mass of reports which had come in since half past twelve, and he began to read each one, quickly but thoroughly. He heard a footstep outside, the door opened and Bell came in and Gideon’s telephone rang. He lifted it while staring at reports on the watch smuggling investigation.

  ‘Gideon.’

  ‘Yes, put him through. It’s Cornish,’ he said in an aside to Bell. ‘Hallo, Cornish ... Eh?’

  Cornish had a note of resignation in his deep voice.

  ‘It was the same patched hole in the same glove - the one in the bank tunnel last week and the one at Bournemouth way back. Just thought you’d like to know you were right.’

  ‘Going to get you anywhere?’ asked Gideon.

  ‘Wouldn’t be surprised,’ said Cornish. ‘I’m going to have another go at the chap we have caught, named Lenny Clapper. When he knows we’ve tied it up with the Bournemouth job he might think we know more than we do, and there’s one other thing.’ Gideon had been sure that there would be, because nothing Cornish had yet said would justify this call. ‘Wouldn’t like to put any money on this, George, but that hole in the glove set me wondering. Remember we picked up the gun used on the night watchman out at Brentford, six months ago?’

  Gideon said heavily: ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Same kind of mark on the gun as there is here and there was at Bournemouth,’ Cornish told him. ‘I didn’t handle the Brentford job, but I remembered talking about the impression to Lemaitre, who did. I dug out the photographs of the print taken off the gun. Same one all right. So that means we’re up against a hardened killer.’

  ‘You be careful, then,’ Gideon ordered.

  ‘I’ll be careful all right. See what it means, don’t you?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It explains why Lenny Clapper hasn’t talked. He’d rather take what’s coming to him for this job, say seven years in chokey, rather than talk and get himself life - or put himself in bad with the man who killed that night watchman. This could be a very nasty job.’

  ‘Very,’ Gideon agreed grimly. ‘What you want now is the name of anyone known to use violence and also on Clapper’s list of acquaintances. Talked to Mrs. Clapper?’

  ‘All she says is that she doesn’t know a thing and doesn’t believe her husband would do such a thing,’ Cornish answered.

  ‘Why don’t you try to scare her?’ asked Gideon. ‘Bring her along here for questioning, say. If I go and bellow, it might frighten the wits out of her. How long will it take you to get her here?’

  ‘Ought to be able to fix it by half past five,’ answered Cornish. ‘Might be a good idea. Thanks, George.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Gideon said. ‘Before you go, though - if the same glove was used two years ago, it’d be threadbare by now, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ protested Cornish. ‘If these boys get a good pair of flexible gloves they can work in, they look after them like pearls. Old Tommy Ledbetter used the same pair for nine years, and he . . .’

  ‘All right, have it your own way,’ Gideon conceded, and Cornish hung up.

  Bell was putting the finishing touches to a report. Gideon sat back in his swivel chair, leaning backwards so that his head touched the wall, and for the first time that day he put his hand into his pocket and began to smooth the rounded bowl of his large pipe, one he seldom smoked but which was nearly always in that pocket. He did not think of the fact that the sky had started to cloud over, and it was colder in the office than it had been. He wasn’t thinking of Bell, nor was he really concentrating on any one of the investigations in hand. He was uneasy, and knew exactly why.

  It was one thing to investigate a clear-cut job, in which the crime had already been committed. It was another to be working against people who might commit crime after crime until they were caught. If there was a connecting thread among these fires, for instance, if the same man had started them, where would he strike next? Every fireraiser had a touch of insanity, unless he was working for an insurance pay-off. Lucky Margetson had put a finger on the spot: firebugs hadn’t developed in that part of their mind which was fascinated by fire. Whatever the motive, any man who could start five such conflagrations was mentally unstable - and so there was no telling what he might do next. Moreover, looking for a madman was ten times more difficult than looking for a criminal working for gain. This firebug - still assuming that it was all the work of one person - might be living a normal family life in some respectable home, might appear quite sane to those who lived and worked with him.

  How could one seek a madman who crept about at night with fire in his hands, and was simply one of London’s eight millions?

  How could anyone make sure that he would not start another fire with even more dreadful consequences?

  And how was it possible to make sure that there wouldn’t be another Ivy Manson case tonight - a child sleeping peacefully, and being bestially attacked?

  How did one make sure that another night watchman wasn’t shot and killed by the man who wore a cotton glove with a small darn in it?

  There was only the one way to make sure of all these things: finding the criminals. In each case, the burden of responsibility upon the Yard was very great. One more attack on a child; one more fire; one more murder by a gunman; and by the very nature of its position the Force would have to carry the stigma and the guilt of failure. Because he was the Executive Chief of the Department mainly concerned, that responsibility would devolve upon him. There were plenty of officers at the Yard who would refuse to admit this, who would say that their responsibility and his stopped at putting the best they could into their job, but the truth went much further than these men realised. Supposing one of them made a mistake? Supposing Lucky Margetson had delayed making a report to him - as he almost certainly would have done - and there had been another fire tonight? Whose ‘fault’ would that have been? Lucky’s, because he had not wanted to make a fool of himself by submitting speculation for consideration? Or his, Gideon’s, for not making sure that every man who had Lucky’s kind of mind came to see him, or at least sent a written report, on all such conjectures?

  Rogerson, the Assistant Commissioner for Crime, would call all of this a policy of perfection. Well, why not aim for it?

  One thing Gideon could not escape, and that was the feeling of uncertainty and anxiety which would grow in him like a canker until all three problems were solved and all three criminals under arrest. There were other matters, too, the countless crimes that were taking place and being planned within the area of the Metropolitan Police and of which he knew nothing. At least he need not blame himself for any of them, but tomorrow might bring as much as today in the way of horror and anxiety.

  He didn’t like today at all.

  He liked it no better after seeing Clapper’s wife, a young, well-dressed, nice-made-up woman with a flouncing walk and a brassy manner. Her Lenny wouldn’t commit any crime, she declared, she didn’t believe he would for a single moment.

  Gideon did not need to tell Cornish to have the woman followed.

  Kate was out when he arrived home and only Malcolm, the youngest of their six children was home, struggling with homework and conscience, for there was a sporting programme on television. Gideon was satisfied to sit, watch, think, and make mental notes of all that he wanted to do next day. When Kate came in, just before eleven o’clock, bright-eyed after a quick walk from the bus stop, Gideon felt the satisfaction and the glow of well-being she alwa
ys contrived to give. But when they were upstairs, undressing, he heard the warning bell of a fire-engine in a nearby street, and his thoughts flew to the tenement fire and to all that this alarm might mean.

  6 WIFE AND UNDERSTANDING

  About half past eleven that night, when the Gideons were getting into bed and while Michael Ericson was up in his room, whistling a song which his father and mother had never heard, Ericson knew that there would be no sleep for him or Joan until he had talked to her about Roscoe and the fraudulent shares. The evening had been bitter-sweet. Joan had realised a long time ago that he was worried but hadn’t questioned him, it would not be fair to wait any longer before telling her what might happen. The vivid comprehension of the fact that imprisonment would mean separation from her, and the barrenness of despair which followed, had done more to depress and to worry him than anything else. She was out in the kitchen, cutting up some pieces of fish for the cat, for in spite of the five thousand a year it cost them to live, they had no living-in maid.

  He heard her call: ‘Tibby, come along, Tibby.’ A draught cut in as she opened the kitchen door. ‘Tibby-Tibby-Tibby!’ There was a pause, before she talked to the cat in the half endearing, half amused way which she had with it. The doors closed, and she came briskly from the kitchen into the living-room, with its beautifully brocaded curtains, its luxury furniture, the décor which she had carried out herself only last year, but which had cost a small fortune. In fact that had been the period of final overspending, and the time the plot had been hatched with Roscoe.

  Joan looked bright-eyed but not tired, and Ericson had not seen her so lovely for a long time, although that might be because of the way he was seeing her. It wasn’t altogether, of course; the middle-forties suited her. She was justly proud of the fact that she was still slim and shapely at the waist and slender at the hips, and she had quite beautiful legs. She came across and sat on a pouffe in front of him, hugging her knees.

  ‘Coming up, darling?’

  ‘Yes, I think I will,’ said Ericson.

  ‘Going to have a night cap?’

  ‘Like one?’

  ‘A teeny-weeny,’ she said. ‘I’ll get it.’ She jumped up, and her own daughter could not move with greater suppleness or freedom. Ericson watched her as she picked up the whisky decanter, and poured out, splashed soda into both glasses, and turned round.

  ‘Joan,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to talk to you.’

  She brought him the drink. ‘Yes, I know, darling.’ She stood over him, and as he took the drink, her hand touched his. They were not a demonstrative couple when passion was spent, and they would not be demonstrative now. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t make me ask you what was worrying you.’

  ‘How long have you guessed?’

  ‘I suppose for the past five or six weeks,’ Joan replied and sat on the pouffe again, tucking her legs under. ‘Don’t hate me, but at first I thought it was The Other Woman.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘Shocked, darling?’

  ‘Shocked?’ Ericson echoed, and laughed, actually feeling lighter-hearted than he had for a long time. ‘Not exactly, but it hadn’t occurred to me that you might even suspect . . .’ He broke off, tossed half the drink down, put the glass on a table by his side, and leaned forward. ‘God knows how you’ll hate me when you know what I’ve done, but at least you can be sure that there hasn’t been another woman, even for five minutes, since we met.’

  ‘I think I knew that, too, once I was over the first base suspicions,’ said Joan. ‘Is it business?’

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘Are we broke?’

  That question made him think that whatever she suspected, she did not dream of the truth. ‘Are we broke?’ A year ago, that was exactly what it had amounted to; they had been broke, he had owed ten thousand pounds but they were civil debts, the worst that could have happened had been bankruptcy. He had shied away from it with horror, like a bloody fool.

  ‘Are we, Charles?’ Her voice was gently insistent.

  He could not bring himself to answer immediately, it was as if the words stuck in his throat, choking him. He saw the beginning of a frown at Joan’s forehead, and the first shadows in her eyes, as if at last she began to suspect that it might not be as simple as she had made it sound. She didn’t speak again, and he brushed his hand over his wet, warm forehead, moistened his lips, and made himself say:

  ‘I wish that were all.’

  ‘I think I can take it,’ Joan said. ‘How bad is it, darling?’

  ‘Very bad.’

  ‘Have you . . .’ She broke off, looked up at him for a long time, and said: ‘Is this anything to do with Jimmy going away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was that issue of shares fraudulent?’ Joan asked.

  Ericson was so astounded that he darted back in his chair, hands raised, lips parted. Joan sipped her whisky and put the glass down, but didn’t get up.

  ‘So it was,’ she said, slowly, painfully.

  ‘How - how on earth . . .’ Ericson gave up.

  ‘I suppose I’ve always been worried about that issue of shares,’ Joan said. ‘It came at such a convenient time, didn’t it? I knew that we weren’t doing too well. Twice last year you checked the home accounts very closely, and you’ve never done that before. I just had an uneasy kind of feeling.’ She fell silent, but still looked at him. ‘Whose idea was it?’ When he didn’t answer, she went on heavily: ‘I suppose it doesn’t really matter, all that matters is trying to put things right. How - how much is involved?’

  ‘About fifty thousand pounds,’ Ericson told her.

  He saw the colour receding from her cheeks, and the shadows go dark in her eyes. She actually closed her eyes for a moment, and he realised what an awful shock this must be, in spite of the fact that she had been half-prepared. Fifty thousand pounds stated baldly like that, was a shock in itself. Oh, God, what had got into him?

  She opened her eyes wide, and her voice was quite free from emotion.

  ‘How much could we raise if we - if we sold everything, Charles? I mean everything. My coat and stoles, for instance, and my jewellery.’

  ‘Possibly, ten thousand,’ Ericson answered. He had reckoned it up time and time again.

  ‘Would that help to - to stave things off ?’

  ‘No,’ said Ericson. ‘No, I don’t really think so. It - it’s a question of an investigation, if the police go any further.’

  ‘Further?’

  ‘They’ve questioned me several times, and old Haileybury of the law firm is terrified. It’s really only a question of - of the police proving that Jimmy’s surveyor’s reports were falsified. I’ve a nasty feeling that they are already having another survey made. For the time being, Jimmy’s gone to earth, so that they can’t question him.’

  ‘Is it absolutely hopeless?’ asked Joan, and at last she stood up; but she did not start pacing the room, simply went to the sideboard and poured herself another drink, then turned round to face him. ‘Surely . . .’ she broke off.

  ‘I think it’s hopeless,’ Ericson said firmly. ‘I’ve kept fooling myself that it wasn’t, that we could get away with it by claiming that the issue was made in the honest belief that the iron was in the hills, but when I think dispassionately, I have to admit that the story won’t fool the police. If we had fifty thousand to pay back, withdrawing the issue because we’ve discovered an error in the report, it might conceivably save the day. But even if we had to do that, the firm would be finished.’

  ‘I’m not very worried about the firm.’ Joan surprised him now by being so brisk and matter-of-fact. ‘It’s been a real anxiety ever since your father died, he was the only business man among the board, darling.’ She said that as if she had always known it. ‘The firm can go to pot so far as I’m concerned, but - what’s the worst that would happen if the worst did happen?’

  After a tense pause, Ericson said: ‘I should think seven years’ imprisonment.’

  She drew in her breath ve
ry sharply.

  ‘I know how it must hurt,’ Ericson said, trying desperately to keep his voice steady and his hands from trembling, for now the awfulness was sinking in. ‘I wish that were all, too, but imagine how they’ll dress this up in court. Fraudulent issue on a fraudulent claim, fifty thousand one-pound shares from small investors.’ He stopped, clenched his hands, and felt his voice breaking. ‘The worst part about it is that it’s true. There were a lot of small investors. There always are. And the newspaper reports would start immediately. Then there’d be the trial and everything it means for you, and for Michael and Joanna. I’ve spent night after night trying to think of a way out, but I don’t think there is one.’ His lips puckered. ‘And I don’t think I can face . . .’

  ‘Charles!’ Joan exclaimed, and moved sharply towards him. He had never seen her looking quite like this. There was anger in her eyes, and colour burning in her cheeks. Her voice was very sharp, angry. ‘Don’t talk like that. Don’t ever say it or think it. You’re just forty-five. If the worst came to the worst and you had to go to prison for seven years, you would only be fifty-two when you came out. Don’t talk a lot of emotional nonsense about not being able to stand it. You’ll have to stand it. We all will. You may think that the disgrace will hurt the children, but how much worse would they feel if they had to live with the fact that their father had committed suicide?’

  She was standing over him, commandingly. He put his hands out, blindly. She took them but stood very still and erect.

  ‘You see that, Charles, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he mumbled, and hated the fact that his eyes were wet with tears and his voice was hoarse. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, Joan. I - I’ve been beside myself for too long.’

  ‘I don’t mind what you do, I don’t mind what happens, I don’t mind what we have to give up, but don’t let me live in fear that you might kill yourself,’ Joan said.

  ‘No,’ he managed to assure her, and after a pause he added bitterly: ‘I doubt if I would have had the guts, anyhow. I haven’t had many, have I? If I’d faced . . .’