Gideon's River Read online

  ‘Don’t, don’t let him hurt me,’ Mary Rose pleaded. ‘Don’t let him hurt me.’

  ‘No one’s going to hurt you,’ the man said, ‘unless it’s Screw Smith.’

  She gave an agonised squeal.

  ‘No, no, no, no!’

  ‘Nice fingers and thumbs you’ve got, doll. Remember that.’ He glanced round and went on: ‘Okay, Screw, they’re ready for you, all nice and ripe.’

  Screw Smith came into the room.

  At close quarters he was vicious and cruel-looking; it was hard to believe that anyone could like him. He needed a shave and he needed a haircut, and when he raised his hands they showed up grimy, with blackened, broken fingernails.

  ‘You talked to them?’ he asked.

  ‘I just told them the facts of life.’

  Tom moistened his lips and muttered: ‘I don’t know what you want, I don’t know anything.’

  ‘I don’t either. I swear I don’t!’ cried Mary Rose.

  ‘Tom, you’re coming along with us,’ Smith said. ‘We want a little talk.’

  ‘But I don’t …’

  ‘Shut up,’ Smith ordered. ‘You’re coming.’

  ‘I’ll call the cops! I’m not coming with you – I’ll call the cops!’

  As he spoke, both men moved with bewildering speed, the stranger gripping Mary Rose’s arm and wrenching it free, Smith kicking Tom savagely in the groin. Tom doubled over, clutching his stomach, and staggered about the little room. The stranger pulled Mary Rose to the table, dumped her into a chair, and forced her to lean back. Screw moved to her side and took her right arm, bare to the elbow. He stretched it across the table, hand palm downwards, and with his free hand took out the little instrument for which he was so notorious.

  Mary Rose began to sob.

  ‘I didn’t know what I was doing, Screw, I swear I didn’t. I got scared when he started kissing me, I thought you’d think it was my fault. But it wasn’t, I swear it wasn’t.’

  Slowly, Tom Argyle-Morris straightened up, his face grey with pain and terror. Yet there was shock in his expression, as if he could hardly believe the girl would say such things – would try to blame him, alone.

  Smith said: ‘Okay, Tom. You come with us quietly, or the girl gets a squeeze from this. She likes being squeezed. If she wasn’t a lying bitch you wouldn’t be in this situation – would you?’

  ‘Oh, God. No, no, no,’ moaned Mary Rose. ‘It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘Here’s one squeeze she doesn’t seem to want,’ Smith said. He spoke in a flat, emotionless voice, as he took her soft, white thumb between his thumb and forefinger; and the other man held her arm firmly on the table. She had nice hands, well-kept, and with beautifully shaped nails. ‘Coming with us Tom, old man? If you do, okay, Mary Rose can go and get herself cuddled by some other poor mutt.’

  ‘Tom,’ moaned Mary Rose. ‘Don’t let them hurt me. You know it was your fault, you know it was.’

  Tom Argyle-Morris stared at her, gulped, then looked at Smith and muttered: ‘How do I know you won’t hurt her if I come?’

  ‘We won’t need to, because you’re going to tell us all we want to know.’

  Tom moistened his lips again. He didn’t really blame Mary Rose but he felt she had let him down. He still felt the physical nausea from the kick, and it was worsened by a nausea of fear of what they would do to him. But if he didn’t go with them then they would get to work on her, and he couldn’t stand by and see them hurt a woman.

  He said thinly: ‘I don’t know a thing, but—but I’ll come.’

  The stranger loosened his grip on Mary Rose’s arm. Smith released her hand. She sat there, pale-faced, her eyes rounded into saucers, her fear despoiling her prettiness.

  ‘Don’t hurt him,’ she said weakly. ‘He didn’t mean any harm.’

  ‘Okay,’ Smith said. ‘Let’s go.’

  As they got into a black Ford Anglia parked outside the block of flats, Captain Kenway noticed them, noticed Argyle-Morris’s pallor, and wondered uneasily what was going on. A quarter of an hour later he passed the flats again and this time saw Mary Rose come out, freshly made-up, her walk jaunty, her hips swaying provocatively. Captain Kenway stopped her.

  ‘Mary Rose, is everything all right with Tom?’

  She looked pertly into his flabby face.

  ‘’Course it is, why shouldn’t it be?’ she answered. ‘Excuse me, I haven’t got time to stand here talking to you.’

  Tom Argyle-Morris sat in the back of the Ford Anglia, with Screw Smith; the other man drove along Wapping High Street, past the huge high warehouses with their drab-painted doors, past the Headquarters of the Thames Division Police, tyres grumbling over the cobbles. Soon they were going faster in a more open area; here more people were about, nice-looking girls, some wheeling prams, older women, a few old men with nothing to do, truck drivers, groups of men from the docks, capped and mufflered. Huge lorries lumbered past and towered over them, exhaust fumes, acrid, stifling, seeping into the car.

  ‘Where are we going?’ muttered Tom at last.

  ‘You’ll find out.’

  Ten minutes later they turned into the No. 2 Gate of the West India Docks. A Port of London Authority policeman stopped them, and Tom bit his lips and looked away.

  ‘We’re crew from the Sugar Queen,’ the stranger said.

  ‘Got anything with you?’

  ‘Nothing we didn’t take out.’

  The policeman stared ruminatively, then waved a hand towards Tom.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘He drank too much bad liquor, and he’s paying for it,’ the driver said.

  The policeman let them pass.

  They drove along Poplar Docks, over the bumpy railway lines, past Blackwall Basin. Now and again through gaps in the big sheds they saw sugar freighters and banana boats, now and again they glimpsed the huge new buildings of the Granary and the Flour Company’s mills. There was a lot of traffic, and no one took any notice of them. Cranes were being worked, and there was a constant clatter of noise from pneumatic drills used in the erection of new warehouses and new sheds. They slowed down near a small, green ship and Tom read the name: Sugar Queen.

  Were they really going to take him on board?

  The ship was being unloaded, two gangs were busy by the big open hatches, and the smell of fruit was strong, almost heady. Nearby were two big sheds, one with a hole gaping in the roof, another half-demolished by bulldozers and excavating machines. The noise was ear-shattering. The stranger swung the car into a side road between the two derelict buildings, then pulled in behind the one with the hole in the roof. On this side it seemed to be in fair condition.

  ‘Out,’ Smith ordered.

  Tom climbed out cautiously, still feeling shaky and slightly nauseated. Smith climbed after him, then caught hold of his arm and pushed him across the broken ground where weeds grew tall and grass was the only softness, into a doorway.

  The driver revved his engine and drove off.

  ‘Don’t run,’ Smith ordered.

  He kept his hand firmly on Tom’s arm and led him across the big shed, which stank with rotting fruit which had been tossed there when sacks or crates were accidentally broken. It was nearly dark. Over in one corner was a huge pile of disused hogsheads, once used for bulk sugar, now replaced by metal containers. A gap had been cleared in this pile and Smith gave Tom a shove towards it.

  ‘Keep going,’ he ordered.

  There was hardly any light; only gloom and the stench and the noise. Noise. Tom kept shivering. Noise. Wherever Screw Smith worked there had to be noise to drown the sound of screaming.

  Tom was sweating.

  Then he stepped into an office, hidden by the hogsheads, clean and tidy, the walls lined with hardboard
which kept some of the noise out. There was less stench in here, too, what there was being partially masked by the aroma of cigar smoke. High in an outer wall a closed window let in some of the light from outside. Lower down on the same wall were two strip lights, beneath which sat another man whom Tom Argyle-Morris had never seen before.

  ‘We got him,’ Screw Smith announced with proud satisfaction.

  The other man, big and massive, took a cigar out of his mouth, and spoke with a hard, guttural voice.

  ‘Now all you’ve got to do is make him talk.’

  Tom gasped: ‘I don’t know anything, I swear I don’t!’

  The big man said flatly: ‘You stole a packet of industrial diamonds which was floating on the river near Fiddler’s Steps, the night you and your girl ran away from Dave Carter. I want to know what you did with it.’

  Tom almost screamed: ‘It’s a lie! I didn’t know there was anything there! I don’t know anything about any diamonds. You’ve got to believe me!’

  The driver of the Anglia came in, walked straight to Tom, put a lock on his arm, then held the arm out towards Screw Smith.

  In the exercise yard at Brixton Jail, Dave Carter said to Cottingham:

  They’ve just about started on Tom-Tom, now.’

  ‘You fixed him all right,’ congratulated Cottingham. ‘If they think he pinched those sparklers …’

  ‘Think? They know, I made sure of that,’ Carter said, grinning. ‘Better they think he did, than me. If they hadn’t gone down Fiddler’s Steps I wouldn’t even have known there was a racket going on.’

  ‘But you do now,’ Cottingham said. ‘I’ll bet you turn the screw on when you get out of here.’

  ‘Don’t make any mistake, I will,’ Carter asserted.

  A warder drew near, disapprovingly, and they stopped talking.

  Sydney Roswell was the Chief Superintendent of the North-East Division of the Metropolitan Police, the division which covered the land area coinciding with that section of the Thames patrolled by the crews based on Headquarters in Wapping High Street. He was an elderly man, with a deep and exhaustive knowledge of his district, of the people in it, of the crimes which were carried on within its boundaries. He was also a deeply religious man who, when off duty, served a Methodist Church and the clubs associated with it, and also worked with other Christian groups in this rough and often brutal part of London.

  The telephone on his desk rang, about the time that Tom Argyle-Morris was pushed into the secret ‘office’ at Millwall Docks.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Captain Kenway of the Salvation Army is on the line, sir.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him,’ said Roswell at once. ‘Hallo, Percy, I promised to ring you about the inter-denominational meeting, but—’

  ‘I’m not calling about that,’ said Kenway. ‘I’m worried about a youth named Argyle-Morris, Thomas Argyle-Morris. Do you know him?’

  Roswell sat up, startled.

  ‘Yes. What about him?’

  ‘I met him this afternoon and he was obviously badly worried. Frightened, I would say. And he was with Screw Smith. I’m sure you know who I mean, don’t you?’

  ‘I certainly do know whom you mean!’ agreed Roswell grimly. ‘Tell me just what happened, will you, Percy?’

  As he spoke, Roswell opened a folder on his desk, marked: ‘Diamond. Smuggling – C. Supt. Micklewright’, and as the Salvation Army man recited what he knew, Roswell took notes in his own brand of shorthand.

  Gideon had been back in his office for only ten minutes when his telephone rang. He felt pleasantly tired and relaxed, reassured by the thoroughness with which Hellier was working. It had been a smooth and wholly uneventful voyage back, with the sun behind his left shoulder most of the way and shining with striking effect on all the riverside buildings, old and new. He had stepped off by Westminster Bridge, as Big Ben struck five, and walked across to the Yard.

  Now, picking up the receiver, he heard the operator say: ‘Sorry to keep you sir. Mr. Roswell of North-East is calling.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ Gideon said. He was almost glad to have something to take his mind off the memory of Pierce and his wife and the grief which they shared. ‘Hallo, Syd, what’s on?’

  ‘I would have talked to Micklewright but I can’t get hold of him,’ Roswell said apologetically. ‘Remember Argyle-Morris, the youth who …’

  ‘I remember,’ Gideon interrupted.

  ‘Screw Smith seems to be having a session with him,’ announced Roswell.

  Gideon said sharply: ‘Is he b’God! Do you know where?’

  ‘Afraid not,’ said Roswell, as Gideon lifted the other telephone and dialled Information. ‘He was driven off in a black Ford Anglia …” He told Gideon all that he knew.

  Soon, Gideon was saying to Information: ‘Put out a call for Screw Smith and Thomas Argyle-Morris. I want to know where they are and where they’ve been. Send it to Thames Headquarters and the Port of London Police, ask Customs and the City Police to keep an eye open, too. And tell Mr. Micklewright I want a word with him.’ He rang off, made a few notes for Hobbs, then stood up and stared out at the river which was so much part of his life.

  He could picture the beauty near Richmond.

  He could picture the squalor in parts of the East End.

  He could picture the curious way the water had risen, like a molten mound, over the corpse of a dog thought momentarily to be a child.

  In a way, it was his river – all the romance, all the commerce and all the crime that its tides carried, were part of him. It held many secrets, secrets which it would seldom yield up to him as it did to such a man as Singleton. Old Man River Singleton. Gideon smiled a little grimly. Singleton would be badly missed when he retired, but other men were slowly acquiring his knowledge of the river, men who already had a love for it. That was something Gideon had almost forgotten: the Thames Division men loved the river and were dedicated to keeping it as clear from crime as they possibly could.

  This diamond smuggling might stretch them to the limit of their resources.

  There was no way of telling himself why he suspected that, but suspect it he did. He hoped they would soon find Thomas Argyle-Morris. And the Pierce child. He wondered where Hobbs was, and when he would be back. And then, by some trick of memory, he remembered promising to let the insurance broker, Morris have a detective on his staff, and he made a note.

  Chapter Nine

  FLOATING CASINO

  ‘Alec, darling,’ Esmeralda Pilkington said. ‘I’ve a nasty feeling that you are going to be a policeman again. It isn’t that I don’t like policemen, but I can never get used to the fact that you’re one. Jeremy hasn’t done anything very criminal, has he?’

  She was an attractive woman, in her middle thirties, with ash-blonde hair and a fair but slightly sun-bronzed face which made her eyes seem a very bright grey. Alec Hobbs had known her when she was in pigtails and a gym tunic and he had been at Eton with her brother and Pilkington. She still had the figure of a girl, slim, thin-hipped, with shapely arms and legs. On this warm summer afternoon she looked fresh and elegant.

  ‘He hasn’t done anything criminal yet,’ said Hobbs, ‘he’s just been his usual slap-happy self. Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Yes, poor dear. He had to stay in Paris for another night. Some difficulty, I understand, with the Paris models. He told me to give you every facility, Alec, and I’ve told Hugh St. John that he must, too.’

  ‘That’s something,’ Hobbs said. ‘Where is St. John?’

  ‘He’s somewhere in London, I haven’t any idea where, but he’ll be back this evening. Why don’t you come to dinner? You can talk it over then.’

  Hobbs was tempted.

  There would be no harm in it, either; there was nothing in police regulations to say that he could not dine with an old f
riend and discuss business at the same time. But he came at last to the conclusion that with Esmeralda and Jeremy it would not be wise.

  ‘I should love to,’ he said, almost too casually, ‘but I shall be working late.’

  Esmeralda stretched out and touched his hand.

  ‘Still grieving, Alec?’ When he didn’t answer, she went on in a soft voice: ‘You shouldn’t, you know. Helen would want you to be happy.’

  Had Gideon, had anyone else, said that or anything like it, Hobbs would have stiffened with an aloofness not far removed from resentment. In a way, Esmeralda was very like a sister, and whatever motive she might have had in asking him to dinner, he knew she was now thinking, in genuine concern, only of him.

  He smiled, quite freely.

  ‘Yes, I grieve much of the time,’ he said. ‘But it isn’t an obsession any longer, and it isn’t why I work late so often. Believe it or not, the Yard is seriously understaffed.’

  ‘I thought that only applied to policemen in uniform.’

  ‘They’re worse off than we are, certainly,’ Hobbs agreed, ‘but there’s a great deal of work waiting to be done, all the time. What I would like to do,’ he added before she could interrupt, ‘is go over the boat.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Preferably now, yes.’

  ‘But Hugh isn’t here …’ she began, and then laughed and stood up; she moved with a deliberate slowness but was very graceful. ‘I suppose there’s no reason why I shouldn’t take you. That’s if you don’t mind me coming along.’

  ‘Esmeralda, dear,’ Hobbs said, ‘don’t fish.’

  He got to his feet, and Esmeralda, slipping her arm through his, led him towards the garage.

  Ten minutes later she was at the wheel of a grey Bentley, driving with nonchalant ease through the traffic in Park Lane, round the whirlpool of cars at Hyde Park Corner, then along Grosvenor Place towards Chelsea and the river. Hobbs glanced at her from time to time but she was never looking at him, was always on the alert for other cars, and obviously revelling in being at the wheel. Soon she was in Chelsea Bridge Road; she paused at the traffic lights, which turned from red to green almost at once, then turned on to the Embankment. It was very wide where she stopped, and comparatively quiet. She pulled in not far from the bridge, and they got out and walked towards the steps which led down to the landing stages and pier.