John Creasey - Send Superintendent West

“Where do you think this is going to get you?”

“Just where I want to go,” said Gissing, and laughed comfortably. The contrast between his manner and his looks was still startling. Had Roger been blindfolded, he would have got the impression of a mild-mannered, friendly man who amused himself with nothing more deadly than playing hit songs from popular and rather dated musicals. “The boy hasn’t been hurt, West He was chained to the bed and plastered just to impress you. Not with what we’ve done, but with what we can do. I don’t want to hurt the kid. He’s done nothing.”

“So you’re a humanitarian, too,” Roger said. “It’ll take years to repair the damage you’ve done to his mind.”

“Quite the psychiatrist,” Gissing said sarcastically. “I didn’t bring you here to talk about him, though. Why did you come to New York, West?”

“On an assignment.”

“To identify me?”

“I can’t stop you guessing.”

“No,” Gissing said softly. “You can’t stop me from guessing. You can’t prevent yourself from talking, either.” He shifted his position a little, but still relaxed, legs stretched out and hands resting on the arms of his chair. He wasn’t drinking or smoking. “You can have it the easy way, or you can have it the hard way. You’re on special assignment, to find me. You’re working with Marino, which makes you a man of importance. You’re going to tell me how much Marino knows. Nothing will help you, if you don’t. I want to know how long Marino has been watching me, who else he knows in my setup, everything. Take it the easy way, West. If you talk, you won’t get hurt I’m leaving soon, you won’t know where to look for me — no one will. You won’t be able to do me any harm, and I’ve nothing against you. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I want to hurt the boy. Don’t be difficult, just tell me everything you know about the Shawn case — just how much Marino has told you.”

Roger didn’t answer.

Gissing said without raising his voice: “I’m not a patient man, and it won’t trouble me if they hurt you. It wouldn’t worry me to hear you screaming, and if I saw your fingers bent and broken and your mouth a mash of blood where they’d pulled your teeth with pinchers, it wouldn’t lose me any sleep. It would be a waste of a good policeman, and I don’t like waste if it can be avoided Just talk.” He smiled, sat up, and raised a hand.

The stocky man in the doorway moved forward. Roger felt tension rising, the stealthy movement did more to work upon his fears than loud-voiced threats. He didn’t move or look round, but expected a blow; instead, Mac came in front of him with another whisky and soda. He put it down next to Roger’s half-empty glass and went away.

“You can have as much as you like of whatever you like,” Gissing said. “You’ll be comfortable and well fed. We’ll have to hold you for a few weeks, but that’s all. McMahon and Jaybird will take care of you.”

But these two men had been in London.

“Just tell me what you know,” Gissing added.

Roger took the first glass, sipped, looked over the top of it into the face which seemed as if it were naked, and said:

“Shawn is doing valuable work which he can only do in England, but I know no details. Marino believes that someone is very anxious to get him back here. Kidnapping the boy and bringing him over here would do that. Marino didn’t know that you were involved. The Yard got on to you by tracing the car, then getting the Paris police to see Mrs Norwood. The Paris police connected her with you, because of the recent suspected smuggling.”

“Goon.”

“We found out that Scammel worked for you, so did a man named Jaybird. We found Scammel’s body less than twelve hours after the kidnapping. That’s the job you’ll pay for.”

Gissing waved his hand, as if it wasn’t worth a thought.

“You don’t have to tell me how good you are at the Yard, I’ll take it as read. Marino went to the Yard, and you were assigned to help him. And Marino told you the story.”

Roger was glad of the whisky; his mouth kept going dry.

“Marino told me that we had to get the boy back, and try to keep Shawn in England.”

Gissing didn’t speak, just looked; and his eyes narrowed, the faint lines of the smile faded.

“He wanted the whole business kept secret, and I said we hadn’t a chance of getting results if it were. He lost too much time before releasing the story.”

“Or I was too quick,” Gissing said, mildly. “If the story had been released twelve hours earlier, it wouldn’t have made any difference. We had the boy here, and we’ve got Shawn back in the country. He’s going to stay. Get on with it, West. I’m not interested in the mechanics of the investigation. I want to know what Marino told you about — whoever is anxious to get Shawn back. How much does he know?”

“If he knows anything, he didn’t tell me.”

“So he didn’t,” Gissing said softly. His face lost every hint of amiability, became vicious. “You’ve got a bad memory.”

“If he knows anything, he didn’t tell me.”

“He just sent you here for a pleasant little vacation?”

“You know the answer to that one,” Roger said. “He hoped that they’d trace you over here, and I could identify you.”

Gissing laughed, and this time his laugh did nothing to give Roger an easy mind. It was hot, so hot that Gissing took off his gloves. He leaned further back in his chair.

“I know about that. You’re the only man here who could point a finger and say “That is the man who talked to David Shawn.” Now he can’t find you, and so he can’t identify me. You didn’t find a fingerprint or anything that would help at “Rest” — I hadn’t been there for weeks. Clarice won’t talk, and no one else can — no one would rat on me. That puts you on a hook, but you can climb off it. You can have a long vacation, up in these hills, and when it’s all over and I’ve gone, you can go back to your wife and family. You’re like Shawn, quite the family man. But first, you have to tell me what Marino told you.”

“I’ve told you all he told me.”

Gissing’s right hand strayed to the table by his side. Absently — or was it absently? — he picked up a paper-knife; all that betrayed his tension beneath the cloak of calm. He had put prints on that knife and it became a vital thing. He nursed the knife. His dark eyes held no expression. His lips were set tightly. Slowly he began to smile.

“You do understand, don’t you, West? I’m going to get that story. If you have to be smashed up before you’ll talk, it is not going to worry me. But sooner or later you are going to talk.”

“There isn’t a thing more I can tell you,” Roger declared flatly.

Insisting on that was a waste of time. Everything was a waste of time. They would set to work on him and they would know their job, it was going to be hell. He hadn’t even reached the stage of thinking about escape. He simply felt fear creeping into him, driving away the warm glow from the whisky. Then he had a wild idea — “escape” came to him as a word; escape and the desire to hurt Gissing. The man wouldn’t expect —

Gissing had hurtled Shawn away from him, without effort Gissing would never be unprepared, and two silent, powerful men were a few feet away. The only hope he had was to use persuasion, trying to make Gissing believe what he didn’t want to believe. He wouldn’t succeed by raising his voice, if there were a chance it would come by holding himself steady, behaving as Gissing behaved.

He shrugged.

“Now let’s have the story, West.”

“There isn’t a story,” Roger said. “You’ll only waste your time. I can’t get away so I can’t identify you, you’ve drawn my teeth already.” He actually managed a smile. “You’re good at kidnapping, you might be luckier next time.”

Gissing’s eyes narrowed, he weighed the paper-knife in his hands; pale hands, well shaped, well tended; the nails were filmed with colourless varnish.

“I’m lucky this time,” he said.

“You just think you’re lucky.”

Gissing put the knife down and stood up, slowly. He drew nearer. He was close enough for Roger to reach with his foot One kick, and he would stagger away, but — two pairs of eyes were watching.

Gissing looked down; from this angle his expression was vicious.

“West, I am the man who kidnapped the boy, and had Scammel killed. Jaybird, just behind you, followed Shawn to Barnes to make sure he wasn’t leading the police there. He saw those detectives who took too much notice of Shawn, and he ran them down. The other man behind you brought the boy here. That is how tough we are.”

“I still can’t tell you anything more.”

“If you don’t know, who does?” Gissing asked, and kept his voice casual

Roger shrugged.

“Who does?” repeated Gissing, and he spoke as if Roger wasn’t in the room, seemed to have lost interest. “I have to find out what Marino knows, now. Who can tell me? Lissa Meredith?”

The name came questioningly and was an obvious guess. Roger, half prepared for it, showed no reaction, but his heart leapt; could she be in the kind of danger he was in now?

“I don’t think so,” he answered. “She said Marino kept her in the dark. She just has to try to calm Shawn down.”

“Would she tell you what she knew?” Gissing asked flatly. It was almost as if he were convinced that Roger had told the truth. Could he be? No, it was too easy, he was fooling, he would switch back to threat and menace in a moment. “Maybe not. What about Carl Fischer?”

“Who?”

“Doctor Fischer.”

“Oh,” said Roger. “I don’t know much about him. He’s a friend of Shawn’s as well as a doctor attached to the Embassy.”

“Attached nothing, he’s over here with Shawn now. Carl Fischer and the Meredith girl are trying to smooth him down, hoping to get him back to England. They haven’t a chance. Do you think they have a chance?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Roger wished the man would move, wished the stare from those dark eyes wasn’t so intense. He wanted to get up. Gissing crowded him, now. He was inviting an assault. It would be easy. A toecap cracking against his knee, a spring, a savage blow over the head, but — two men standing in the doorway.

Then a bell rang, blasting the quiet. It was no ordinary bell, but a harsh, strident warning. It made Gissing back away and swing round, it made the two men exclaim, it gave Roger a chance he wasn’t likely to get again. The bell wrenched their thoughts away from him, put alarm into them.

McMahon and Jaybird leapt out of sight.

17

DARK NIGHT

IT was only a lightning flash of time. Gissing stared at the doorway, the bell clanging, the men scrambling towards another door — then he moved back, his right hand dropped to his pocket, he actually started to say:

“Don’t mo —”

Roger slid forward in his chair, hooked the man’s feet from under him, sent him crashing. Gissing’s hand came from his pocket, the side that lay uppermost. Farther away, footsteps sounded like a stampede. Gissing lashed out with his foot, his hand went back to his pocket. Roger snatched at the ankle as the foot swung past him, caught hold, heaved Gissing’s leg backwards. The man gasped with pain. Roger let him go, bent down and knocked the hand away from his pocket. Gissing hadn’t any fight left.

Roger’s fingers touched cold steel. He drew out the gun. He saw Gissing’s face twisted, heard only the man’s harsh breathing, but knew the other threat might return. He turned the gun in his hand, struck Gissing on the base of the skull, heard the soughing breath as unconsciousness came. He turned the gun again, looked towards the doorway, and saw the drapes move.

He fired.

The bullet tore through the drapes, a man grunted and pitched forward into sight.

Throughout all this the bell was still clanging.

The falling man had a gun in his right hand but no control over it. Roger went forward. The gun fell at his feet, and he kicked it away. The man hit the floor with a heavy thud, and didn’t move. He wouldn’t move again by himself, Roger knew. He must have been crouching, and the bullet had hit him in the temple. It was a small, clean hole, and the blood hadn’t started to ooze out

Gissing unconscious, a dead man, and the helpless boy downstairs.

Suddenly the bell stopped. It was as if agonizing pressure had been eased from Roger’s ears.

If he could get that boy —

He heard a shot, and thought it came from outside. Footsteps thudded, their sound dulled by the closed windows; then more footsteps, nearer now and coming from the rooms through which Roger had been brought. Two men at least were approaching, and luck couldn’t last. He opened a door at the far end of the room. Another, just a gauze-filled wooden frame, was immediately beyond it The footsteps drew nearer inside the house, farther away outside. Roger unhooked the catch of the outer door, and found himself on a wide verandah lit only by the light from the room.

He heard a shout: “Get him!” A shot barked from behind him, and he heard the bullet bite into the door-frame. He swung right, jumped down the verandah steps and rushed towards the beckoning darkness. More shots barked as he raced blindly over the grass, but he wasn’t hit Against the grey sky he could see the dark outline of the spiked tops of trees. Some way off these trees offered shelter. His footsteps seemed to thump out a call. “Here I am, here I am: He could hear the others running, and looked up at the tops of the trees and wondered how far away they were, and whether he could reach them. He was breathing hard, but didn’t feel panic, just unnatural calm. Then he heard two more shots, farther away, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the flashes. He was running at right angles to that spot.

Brushing against a bush, he felt a branch hard against his shoulder, and ducked; another branch plucked at his hair. So he had reached the trees. He sensed rather than saw the straight trunks and the low branches. The men behind him were blundering through the undergrowth. They hadn’t gathered their wits yet, but soon they would use flashlights. He stopped running and walked on swiftly. A murmur of voices came from behind him, and then there was a shout from a long way off — where the last shooting had been. A shout of triumph?

He could see a little now, stopped and turned round. The light from the house, two hundred yards away at least, showed up the trees in silhouettes, and he saw he was in a small thicket. Between him and the house there were rows of young firs, then trees with taller, thicker trunks. Against the glow he saw a man appear from the house, running towards the thicket, light coming from his flashlight. With a powerful light they had a chance of finding him; and they knew where they were, what the ground was like. Roger moved cautiously, wondering whether caution would help him. He walked parallel with the edge of the turf and the first line of young trees, until the man with the flashlight was within a hundred yards. Then he turned towards the grass — the old gambit, doubling back; nothing else could help him.