John Creasey - Send Superintendent West

Marino telephoned to inquire after him, so did Hardy. He expected a message from Lissa, but it didn’t come. Sloan looked in, told him that Shawn had been taken away from “Rest” by two men who arrived from the Embassy; Sloan didn’t know what had happened to Shawn. The blanket of official secrets fell like a dead hand on the case. Roger felt irritated and glum, and put it down to the obvious — that the Yard had been consulted but wasn’t being allowed to work properly. The Yard should have tackled Shawn. The Special Branch or even MI5 might be working on the case with the Americans, of course — but if so, why had the Yard been consulted in the first place?

With time to think without the pressure of events chasing him, Roger thought he understood. In the early stages the Yard had been needed, to deal with the local police, neighbours, everything. If he hadn’t been injured he would probably still be working on it, but by the time he was able to get about again, the case might be over.

That forgotten factor still teased him.

Now and again, resting and even dozing, his body would grow tense. An image of Gissing’s face in the doorway of the dining-room would come, showing all the evil and the dead-liness. As Lissa was beauty, so was Gissing ugliness; corruption. It was thinking extravagantly, but he couldn’t rid himself of the thought Gissing — corruption. In the moment of revelation the man had been stripped of the veneer covering his unholy, deadly self.

In the evening, the boys came home, commiserated, and went off, Scoop to his exhibition, Richard to see a film.

The next day passed, and Roger learned nothing more. Lissa had not inquired. There was nothing new from the newspapers, from Sloan or from Marino, who telephoned again. This time, Roger spoke to him from the bedroom extension, wanted to ask questions, to prompt Marino to talk about the case, about Lissa; but Marino would talk of neither, just told him not to worry and hoped he would soon be on his feet

“Tomorrow,” Roger said grimly.

“You stay in bed,” Marino advised.

Roger put down the receiver, stared at the ceiling and felt as if there were a conspiracy against him. It probably meant the end of the case for him, and if it hadn’t been for that bloody blow over the head, he would have been in it up to his neck. Finding Ricky Shawn was his job; and finding the man who had run down the police officers was also his. He mightn’t be able to do it — oh, to hell with it all! He picked up a newspaper and began to skim through the headlines, then to read “American Letter” in the Telegraph. He was halfway through a hotch potch of political guesses when there was a rat-tat at the front door.

Martin, who was in for once, went to open it.

“A cable,” he said, marvelling. He came striding up the stairs and burst into Roger’s room, calling: “A cablegram, Dad — Western Union.”

Roger slit it open eagerly, heard Janet coming upstairs, wondered without trying to think deeply, and read:

“Get well soon sorry I had to leave without seeing you Lissa Meredith”

The cable was from New York.

Roger stared at it, and the name especially. He didn’t realize that Martin was looking at him in bewilderment, or that Janet had come in. When he did wake up to that and look round, Janet was watching him with a strange intentness, and in an unfamiliar, even voice she said:

Tut a kettle on, Scoop, will you?” When the boy had gone, with obvious reluctance, she closed the door. “What is it, darling?” she asked.

She spoke as if she knew that it was bad news, and Roger realized in that moment that he looked as if it were deadly. He realized, too, that this was because Lissa Meredith was in New York, three thousand miles away. He had to find an explanation for Janet, to stop her from springing to the obvious conclusion. He flung the cable aside, and growled:

“From New York. Mrs Meredith’s gone back, everything’s been transferred there. It means the case is over, as far as I’m concerned, and I wanted to see the end of it.”

Tension faded from Janet’s face. “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said, but couldn’t hide her relief. “Don’t worry about it, darling.” She picked up the cable and read it; and obviously she hadn’t the faintest thought that the name “Lissa” had stabbed him savagely.

13

SPECIAL REQUEST

JANET said: “You’re sure you’re all right?” and Roger laughed as he squeezed her arm and then walked to the car, which she had taken out of the garage. He wore a heavy top-coat and a light-weight felt hat, which hid the plaster on the back of his head and the patches where the hair had been cut away. It was a week since he had been attacked at “Rest”. Except for tenderness round the patch, he felt quite normal as he waved to Janet, and drove off. The first dew of the summer had been heavy, it still glistened white on the rooftops, on the trimmed privet-hedges, and, where the sun hadn’t reached it, on the pavement. The morning was fresh and invigorating, a good one to start work again. In fact, he had been working at home. Papers had been sent to the house, mostly about Yard business, keeping him up to date with cases under way when he had been taken off for the Embassy affair. He had skimmed them, as routine. The report from Hardy about the Shawn case had not been routine. He had read it several times, and knew it almost word for word. The airways tickets which the man he had thought was Gissing had given to Shawn had been bought from an agency, and the buyer had not been traced. The only cause for satisfaction was that Marino had asked that a copy of the report be sent to Roger.

The Shawns were back in their Connecticut home, fifty miles out of New York. Ricky Shawn had not been returned to them, although they had flown with Gissing’s tickets. These were the cold facts of the situation, but Roger could read between the lines, and guess that Marino and others had tried to dissuade Shawn from returning to America but had decided to use no compulsion. Did it matter as much as Marino had said?

Would Marino have exaggerated?

Only Lissa Meredith had gone from the Embassy with the Shawns; and she was still with them, officially Shawn’s secretary, actually to keep close watch on him, of course. It was hardly a woman’s job, but there would be men at hand, Marino wouldn’t be careless. There was no clear indication about the real part which Lissa played, except that she was Shawn’s shadow.

There was the detailed report on the Yard investigation, which showed little in the way of results. The driver of the killer car hadn’t been traced, and this was somehow worse because the second plain-clothes man had died. Soon afterwards, Shawn had admitted being told by telephone, before his line had been tapped, when to go to the house at Barnes. Sloan had theorized that Shawn had been followed by one of Gissing’s men who had realized that Yard officers were near by and acted swiftly and ruthlessly. There was evidence that Ed Scammel had been thrown into the river from a jetty near Barnes Bridge, some distance from “Rest”. The man named Jaybird had not been found, although he was now known to have been an associate of Scammel; he might be the man in the raincoat, might also be the killer driver.

The closely packed factual account made dry reading, as Roger searched in vain for anything to give an indication of Gissing’s present whereabouts; and those of the missing boy.

Mrs Clarice Norwood was still in Paris. She had been interrogated by a Yard man sent to see her, but all she had said was that Gissing had sent her to Paris, for a “holiday”. Gissing kept her, and the house was his under a covenant. She was worth watching, but it was by no means certain that she knew anything of Gissing’s criminal activities.

There were a number of trifles, among them, that Ed Scammel had had a car of his own, an old Vauxhall, which he had kept in a lock-up garage, and which had been found with a broken axle.

Roger got out of his car at the Yard, waved and smiled mechanically to the dozen men of the uniformed branch who greeted him; maintained a chorus of “Fine, thank you’s” to those who asked him how he was, reached his own office and rang for Sloan, who came at once, obviously glad to see Roger back. He was massive and clean-cut, with a deceptive cloak of cherubic innocence that fooled a lot of people.

“You’re seeing Hardy at eleven, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Roger. “I don’t know what he wants, probably to tell me I’m lucky I’m not under the turf.” It was a quarter to eleven. “Bill, that car of Scammel’s.”

Sloan said: “You beat me, you really do. You’ve seen what it means, I suppose.”

“I’ve wondered about it. What’s the story?”

“The axle was all right on the morning of the kidnapping,” Sloan said. “I mean, the morning before. Scammel went out from his lodgings in the early evening, came back, and was heard telephoning someone, saying that he couldn’t use his car. It’s pretty clear that the Austin was used because of that, isn’t it?”

“It looks like it. Their one slip — Scammel’s car couldn’t have been picked up so easily as a new one. They used two, of course, the Austin at Ealing and the Buick at the airport — they didn’t risk using the same car at both places. Anything else?”

“I was able to check with Mrs Meredith — my, what a woman!” Sloan was almost shrill. The only thing all three Shawns drank or ate that night was the milk. Except for that, the boy had different food altogether. His cup and everything he used had been washed up earlier. Everything you brought away was tested, and no drug found. The only luck we had was with the car.”

“Luck?” growled Roger. “It didn’t get us far. Any idea where Gissing is?”

Sloan didn’t know, but was ready to guess.

“If you ask me, he’s put a few thousand miles between himself and England. It’s nearly eleven, you’d better not keep the old man waiting.”

Hardy was in his office, which was plain and nondescript, a little like Hardy, who had come up from the ranks and somehow gave an impression, at times, of being insecure because of it. A big man, usually dressed in clerical grey, now looking ill at ease in a black coat that didn’t quite meet at the waist and striped trousers that were hoisted a few inches too high. He had a sallow face, grey hair with a bald spot, and lines at his pale grey eyes.

The morning dress meant an occasion.

“Just on time,” he said. “I was going to send a warrant for you. We’re due to see Marino.” He took his hat off a steel hat-stand, and looked Roger up and down. “You seem all right. Been swinging the lead?”

The trouble with Hardy was that although he meant that as a joke, he sounded as if he were serious.

“It’s one way to get a day or two off,” Roger said.

Hardy led the way to the lift, and was saluted by everyone they passed beneath the rank of Detective Inspector. His big black car was parked outside, and his chauffeur was at the ready. When they had settled in and the car moved off, Hardy asked: “Seen the report on the Shawn case?”

“Yes, and I’ve talked to Sloan.”

“Then you know as much as I do,” said Hardy. “If you ask me, Shawn would be easy to handle if it weren’t for his wife.”

“Wives like seeing husbands occasionally,” Roger said slyly.

Hardy decided not to bite.

“The thing Marino worried about most was the possibility that the case has an espionage angle — that the aim of the kidnappers might be to stop Shawn working. Think there’s anything in that?”

“I haven’t a clue, and Marino admitted that he hadn’t—”

“No one has, it just has the smell of it,” Hardy said. “Another thing came in this morning, and Marino called me about it.”

Roger knew that this wasn’t a cue for questions.

“You’ve got yourself in a fix,” Hardy went on. “You seem to be the only reliable witness.”

“Of what?”

“Of Gissing’s face,” Hardy answered, and shot Roger a sidelong look. “Shawn won’t or can’t describe him, won’t or can’t try to identify him.”

Roger felt a sudden swift beat of excitement, and he damped down a wild hope.

“There is this Clarice Norwood woman, but we can’t call her reliable,” Hardy went on. “Notice from the report how few people seem to have seen Gissing? Everyone gives a different description. People have glimpsed him going to and from that riverside place of his, but only snatches of him, in the car. And one of our sergeants saw him during that Paris inquiry, but that’s all. I hope your memory’s good.”

“Where Gissing’s concerned, it’s photographic,” Roger said softly. “What does Marino want?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Hardy bluffly.

But he knew, and it wasn’t simply that Marino wanted a detailed description of Gissing.

“Is Gissing still in the country?” Roger made himself ask.

“If he were he’d be behind bars. Or I’d sack half the staff.”

They turned into Grosvenor Square, and in spite of heavy clouds blowing up, the usual photographers were shooting at the Roosevelt statue. The huge American cars, dwarfing all but a few Rolls-Royces and Hardy’s black Daimler, seemed to gather for shelter beneath the waving flag of the Stars and Stripes.

Hardy had obviously been here before, he was recognized and taken in hand, and they were whisked up to Marino’s office, where Herb, forewarned by telephone, was opening the door for them. He looked absurdly young.

“Come in, gentlemen, Mr Marino’s free right now.” He opened Marino’s door.

Marino didn’t get up, even for the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard. He stretched out his right hand, gripped Roger’s firmly, searched his face and seemed relieved by what he saw. They sat down beneath the portraits of the august dead.

“I would offer you a drink,” Marino said, “but I guess you’ll say it’s too early.”

“Think it’s too early, West?” Hardy asked.

“Not if I’m off duty!”

Hardy grinned, Marino pressed a bell, Herb came in and produced an assortment of bottles. Marino poured out, making a formality of asking Hardy what it would be before he poured a whisky and soda. Herb went away.

“Well, now,” said Marino, “you’re very good to come over at such short notice, Mr Hardy. I surely appreciate that. You’ve been a great help from the beginning. I’m hoping you will be able to help even more.” Roger was glad of the drink, to help him cover his rising excitement “The way it’s turned out, you’re almost the only man we know who could recognize Gissing, Roger. And we want Gissing very badly.” He sipped his drink. “And we think he’s in the United States.”

“So that lets us out,” Roger said.

Marino’s smile showed amiable disagreement. He leaned forward, with one of his rare body movements.

“And we think we can put a finger on him.”

Roger sat up, abruptly. “Think?”

“We can’t be sure, because we haven’t a photograph, fingerprints or anything else to go by,” Marino said. “And we want him identified so that there can’t be any doubt. We can’t pick the suspect up until we’ve identification — unless he tries to take another powder, we would hold him then. I’m told you’re often assigned to cases overseas, and in this case we certainly need your help, and you want Gissing as much as we do. Can you spare the Superintendent for a week or so, Assistant Commissioner?”