Flashpoint (15 page)

“Who told you that? Your grandmother?”

The girl started to laugh, and stopped suddenly. Then Patrick saw the two men. They had come up behind him, walking very quietly. They were not large, but stocky. They were bareheaded. One of them had a round bald patch at the back of his head which Patrick noticed when he turned to address the girl.

He said, “You’d better be getting along home.”

The girl said, “I’m quite happy here,” but she swung her legs down and pushed her feet into her shoes. Her voice was not as confident as her words.

“Stop bullying the girl,” said Patrick. “She’s doing no harm.”

The men ignored him. The second one, who was younger, and had a razor-cut moustache, said, “You oughtn’t to be out as late as this. Just get along home.”

The girl looked uncertain. The men looked at her, and said nothing. As she started to move away she gave Patrick an apologetic look as if to say, “I’m sorry, but you see how it is.”

Patrick had been getting steadily angrier, but the look pulled him up short. It suddenly occurred to him that the men were waiting for the girl to go before they started on their real business. And he had an uncomfortable idea of what that business might be. The street was completely deserted, and his wallet, which had quite a few pounds in it, was burning a hole in his pocket.

As if to confirm his suspicions, bald patch took a step forward.

Patrick dived to one side, avoided a grabbing hand, and started to run. The young man was quicker than he was. He collared Patrick from behind and they went down together, with Patrick underneath. As he hit the pavement he rolled, and brought his head forward. The top of his forehead smacked into his opponent’s face and he heard a gasp of pain. Then hands grabbed him by the hair and jerked him up into a kneeling position. A foot landed in his stomach, driving all the wind out of him.

He was aware that a car had driven up and stopped almost on top of him. The next moment he was in the back seat, wedged between his two opponents. The driver looked back at them as he engaged gear. Patrick saw that he was a uniformed policeman. He was grinning.

“That’s a lovely shiner you’ve got, Sammy,” he said.

“It’s nothing to what he’s going to get,” said the young man. Bald patch said, “Get cracking. We don’t want to be all night about it, do we?”

“My name,” said bald patch, “is Donald McGillivray. I am a detective sergeant attached to ‘J’ Division of the Metropolitan Police for special duties. In connection with those duties, I was making a routine patrol with Detective Roper in the area of Enderby Street at approximately two a.m. yesterday morning.”

“Yesterday, Sergeant?’’

“I am sorry, sir. I mean, of course, this morning. I observed the accused annoying a young girl. She was obviously annoyed and frightened by what he was doing–”

“That’s a lie,” said Patrick.

Mr Gazelee, the Magistrate, turned his head to look at him. Patrick was aware that he was not looking his best. He was unshaven and a wash in cold water with a scrap of yellow soap had spread rather than removed the dirt of the night. His collar had burst and was loosely held together by what was left of his tie. He had been sick twice during the hours he had spent in his cell and on the second occasion had not entirely avoided soiling his clothes.

Mr Gazelee said, “You will have an opportunity of giving the Court your own version at the proper time. If you interrupt again I will have you removed and the case will proceed in your absence. Yes, officer?”

“Well, sir. We thought we ought to intervene. When we did so, the accused became violent, and struck Detective Roper–”

“He will tell us about that.”

“Yes, sir. Then we apprehended him and took him to Gray’s Inn Road Police Station.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“In my opinion, sir, yes. He smelled strongly of drink and I understand that he vomited during the night.”

The Magistrate looked at Mr Billinghay who said, “I have no questions.” Mr Billinghay was the
Watchman
’s
own legal adviser. He knew everything about copyright and defamation and nothing about the criminal law. An urgent telephone call had dragged him away from his breakfast. He looked as unhappy as Patrick.

Detective Roper entered the box and repeated the evidence of his colleague in words so similar that they had the effect of a carbon copy. He had a beautiful black eye.

Mr Billinghay said, “Are you saying that he hit you with his fist?”

“It’s difficult in a scrap to say what you’re being hit with,” said Detective Roper. He had an open and boyish smile. “I certainly thought it was his fist.”

“But he could have done it accidentally with his head.”

“I can only say it didn’t seem accidental to me.”

“Well, Mr Billinghay?”

“I should like my client to give the Court his own story.”

“Very well. He can make a statement from the dock. Or he can make it under oath from the witness box. In which case he will be subject to cross-examination.”

“From the witness box,” said Patrick firmly.

He was aware that he presented a ludicrous sight, that the Court would be totally disinclined to believe him, and that the course of wisdom would have been to say as little as possible. But his anger had cleared his head and he had got his voice back.

He said, “I was walking home from a darts match. I had had a certain amount to drink, but I was not drunk. This girl stopped me, by asking me for a cigarette. We had a few minutes talk. There was no question of me propositioning her or annoying her in any way. Then these two men came up. They told the girl to clear off. I think she was frightened of them. I certainly was. There was nothing to show they were policemen. They didn’t say they were, or produce warrant cards or anything like that. As soon as they had got rid of the girl they closed in on me.”

“Are you telling the Court,” said Mr Gazelee, “that they assaulted you?”

“They didn’t have a chance. I took to my heels. One of them caught me from behind and collared me. In the mix-up I think my head hit his. I’ve certainly got a very sore place on my forehead.”

“Can you suggest any reason why these two officers should have assaulted you?”

There were a number of possible answers to this, and almost all of them would have been dangerous. Patrick had his wits about him by now. He said, “I have no idea, sir.”

Mr Gazelee thought about it, running a finger down the side of his face. Then he said, “Yes, Inspector?”

The uniformed police inspector who was conducting the prosecution said, “I have no questions, sir.”

“Has any effort been made to trace this girl?”

“An effort has been made, sir. But in the time available it was not successful.”

Mr Gazelee thought about it again. He had very little doubt about what had happened. The unpleasant young oaf had got tight, had annoyed a girl and assaulted a policeman. Since it was a first offence, the short sharp sentence of imprisonment which he would like to have given him would not do. It would have to be a fine. Quite a heavy fine. However, it would do him good to have a few days to wonder about it.

He said, “I think that a further effort should be made to obtain her testimony. I shall remand the case for this day week.”

“I take it there will be no objection to bail. I have the authority of my employers to offer any necessary sum–”

“There’s no need to make an issue of it, Mr Billinghay. He will be released on his own recognizances.”

“I will
not
conduct a crusade on your behalf,” said John Charles.

“No, sir,” said Patrick.

“If you’ve any sense, you’ll turn up next week, dressed in a decent blue suit, with a short back-and-sides and a regimental tie and say that you have decided, on reflection, to change your plea to guilty.”

“Guilty?” said Patrick, outraged.

“Certainly.”

“But the whole thing was a put-up job.”

“What difference does that make?”

“What difference–?”

“If you were framed, you were neatly and effectively framed. You are going to be found guilty, whatever you say or do. The only way you can make it any worse is by making a fuss about it, and attracting a great deal of publicity, most of it unfavourable.”

“If we could find that girl–”

“How do you suggest we set about it? Advertise for her? Or make it a front page story, ‘The Missing Witness’? My dear Patrick, you’d be playing straight into their hands.”

“Then you do think there was something fishy about it?”

“I didn’t say so. But if it was and the girl was in it, she’ll be very unlikely to turn up, don’t you think.”

“She can’t have been in it,” said Patrick slowly. “It’s quite impossible. I was drifting home at random. First right, first left. No one could possibly have predicted which way I was going to take.”

“Then how do you suggest they did it?”

“One thing I noticed at the time was how quietly they moved. Thick crêpe rubber soles, I imagine. I think they’d been following me ever since I left that club. Even earlier, maybe. They’d only got to keep one turning behind me. When I stopped to talk to that girl, it gave them just the chance they wanted.”

“And if you hadn’t stopped?”

“All they had to do was catch up and make a pass at me. I’d naturally assume they were a couple of muggers. I could only run or fight back. Either way I was for it. It was too damned easy.”

“I see,” said John Charles. “And the object of the exercise?”

Patrick shifted uncomfortably. He said, “It did occur to me that my article may have upset – someone.”

“Yes?”

“If I do a follow-up on it, people are going to say, ‘That’s just that stupid young bugger who picked up the tart and sloshed a policeman.’”

“And who do you suggest is the ‘someone’ you’ve annoyed?”

“I don’t exactly know. The Government, perhaps.”

John Charles smiled for the first time that morning. He said, “I think you overrate the effectiveness of your literary efforts, Patrick. And anyway, suppose we’re right. Aren’t you making things a hundred times worse if you fight? I understand there was only one man in Court. He was from the
Evening Banner.
We can see that he forgets about it.”

Patrick nodded. The
Banner
was a subsidiary of the
Watchman.

“Plead guilty next week, and that kills the story dead.”

“All right,” said Patrick unhappily.

Mutt told me all about it that evening.

“It was a plot,” she said. “A nasty sneaky put-up job. It’s all very well for Charlie-boy to order Patrick to plead guilty. Suppose Dreyfus had pleaded guilty.”

“I don’t think the two cases are really comparable.”

“All injustices are comparable,” said my wife inexorably.

We were lying in bed. It was where we had our serious conversations.

“It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone that those two coppers may simply have been filling up their books.”

“Meaning what?”

“It’s said to be helpful to your prospects of promotion if you have a fair number of arrests to your credit.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Mutt.

An owl echoed her incredulity from the garden.

“Anyway,” I said sleepily, “if you’re right, and it was a put-up job in order to smear Patrick publicly and take the sting out of anything he meant to write, it didn’t come off.”

“What do you mean?”

“No publicity.”

But that was before we saw
The
Independent
on Wednesday morning.

‘The Missing Witness’, said the front page headline, exactly as John Charles had predicted. And underneath, ‘Find this Girl’.

Patrick read it on his way to work and was not surprised when he was intercepted in the foyer by Charles’ private secretary. She said, “Go straight up, for God’s sake. Don’t bother about your things. I’ll look after them. The old man’s behaving like a caged lion.”

Charles was not actually pacing the floor. He rarely gave visible evidence of his feelings; but it was clear that he was very angry. He said, “Sit down. We’ve got to think about this. I’ve had a word with our chap on the
Banner
and he’s certain there were none of the regulars in Court. These chaps all know each other. That means they had an unknown reporter there, probably in the public section. And that means that it
was
a put-up job. If they think I’m going to sit down under it, they can think again.”

Patrick was not clear whether Charles was angry that a story which was his by rights had been snatched from under his nose, or that one of his own staff had been put on the spot, or that his judgement had been proved at fault. He made a neutral, but encouraging, noise.

“Of course, it would be
The
Independent.
We all know what
their
politics are. Party lapdogs.”

“Suppose they actually find the girl,” said Patrick. “Won’t that upset the apple-cart?”

“They’ve made damned certain she won’t turn up. You said she was a well-spoken sort of girl.”

“Middle class. Possibly upper-middle.”

“And now
The
Independent
is suggesting that either you propositioned her, or she propositioned you. In other words that she was a tart. Or you mistook her for one. Do you think she’s going to step forward voluntarily into that sort of muck?”

“They might trace her.”

“How? No one’s got a description that wouldn’t fit two million other girls.”

“Enquiries in the neighbourhood.”

“She didn’t live in the neighbourhood.”

“How do you know?”

“If she’d been anywhere near home, she wouldn’t have sat down and taken her shoes off to rest her feet.”

“I suppose not.”

“Forget the girl. We shall have to slug this out in Court. If they want a splash, by God we’ll give them a splash. We’ll get you Marcus Hoyle.”

For the first time that morning Patrick really did look shaken. He said, “Are you sure–”

“Just the man for the job. He’s upset more judges than anyone else at the Bar. ‘The mouth of a bell and the heart of Hell and the head of a gallows-tree.’”