Petrella at 'Q' (27 page)

“He will be mad,” he said. “Quite mad. That young brother of his, Stanislaus. He was ver’ fond of Stanny.”

“No accounting for tastes,” said Sergeant Blencowe. “I thought he was a nasty little sod.”

Dimitri considered the matter and nodded his head in agreement. “He is a nasty little sod, yes. But not as nasty as Augie.”

It was at the third of these discussions that the proposition finally took shape. Blencowe reported it to Petrella.

“If
we could guarantee to get him out of the country, he’d stand up in court and give us the works. Enough to put Augie and Stanislaus and two or three of the worst of his friends away for a long time. It’s a lovely set-up they’ve got down there in Little Baltic. It’s not just money from honest citizens like Milton. That’s almost a side-line. They collect a regular levy in cash and kind from their compatriots who work down there. Skin money, they call it.”

“Skin money?”

“That’s right. You’ve got a choice. Which would you rather part with? Your money or your skin? Remember that body we pulled out of the river a month ago. There wasn’t enough of him left to identify him. Dimitri says it was a new arrival from Lithuania who refused to pay up. They flayed him alive before they put him in the river.”

Petrella took a deep breath and said, “It’s time we finished them.”

He was in his office late that same afternoon, writing an urgent recommendation to Division to this effect, when his telephone rang. He had two lines. One went through the Station exchange, the second was a direct line. The number was known to a few very private informers who wanted to talk off the record.

“Detective Chief Inspector Petrella?”

“Yes.”

It was a thick, gravelly voice. The laboured enunciation, with equal stress on each syllable, suggested a foreigner who had learned most of his English out of books.

“I have a suggestion to make to you, Inspector. Tomorrow morning, Stanislaus Volk and Dimitri Ossupov will appear before the Magistrate for a further remand. They will be transported in a police tender. There will be a driver and a policeman in front. There will be only one man in the back. This will be thought sufficient, since they will be handcuffed.”

“Any other arrangements you’d care to suggest?”

“The man in the back will be you. Stanislaus will succeed in slipping off his handcuffs. They will have been inefficiently fastened. At a moment when the vehicle is halted by the traffic he will hit you, hard enough to put you off balance and will make his escape. He will be out of the country by that evening.”

“Haven’t you forgotten Dimitri?”

“Dimitri you may keep. I have no further use for him.”

“That’s very generous of you. But if you don’t mind, I think we’ll keep both of them. The general opinion is that Stanislaus will get ten to fourteen years. He shouldn’t have touched that girl.”

The voice at the other end said, in the same deliberate tone, with the words well spaced out, “I think you would be well advised to consult your wife before you finally make up your mind.”

Petrella was aware that someone else had come into the room. He sat, gripping the telephone and staring at it. The voice said, “You understand what I am saying?”

“Where does my wife come into it?”

“She does not come into it. But she might advise you to co-operate. We have taken charge of your son.”

Petrella tried to say something, but no words came.

“If you want him back with his skin on, you will follow out my instructions to the letter. Neither you, nor your wife, will say anything of this to anyone.”

There was a click, as the receiver was replaced and a purring sound on the disconnected line.

Petrella made three attempts to put the receiver back on the hook. He had some difficulty in unclenching his hand. Finally he left the receiver lying on the desk, got to his feet, stared at Sergeant Roughead who was standing beside the desk and left the room without saying a word. Milo heard him running down the passage.

Milo replaced the receiver, took it off again and dialled. A voice said, “Father Amberline here.”

“It’s me, Father. Milo.”

“What can I do for you, my boy?”

“Patrick’s new flat is just round the corner from your Vicarage isn’t it? Could you get round there quickly. There’s been some trouble. I think they’re going to need help. Don’t say I told you. But hurry.”

“I was planning to call on Mrs. Petrella anyway,” said the Reverend Amberline. “I’ll go over right away.”

It took Petrella fifteen minutes of panic and frustration to reach home. First he discovered that both police cars were out on duty. Then he wasted further minutes looking for a taxi. Then he started running.

When he arrived breathless, the front door of his flat was open and he could hear voices from the sitting-room. One was the comfortable base of Father Patrick Amberline. The other he scarcely recognised as that of his wife. She was lying back in a chair and there was a long livid bruise down the side of her face. When she saw Patrick she tried to get up, but the priest put a hand on her shoulder. He said, “Concussion. Nothing worse, I think. I’ve sent for the doctor. She oughtn’t to move about too much until he’s seen her.”

She said, “They took Donald. They came in here and knocked me down and took him. I’d have killed them if I could, but I had nothing to do it with.”

“We’ll have him back,” said Father Amberline. “Never fear. Just rest easy now.”

“Yes,” said Petrella. “We’ll have him back.” He seemed to be thinking. “Would you look after things here, Father? There’s a lot to do.”

“Surely, surely.”

There were a few signs of disorder. A table had been knocked over. The telephone had been torn out of the wall. In the corner was a building estate which Donald, an ambitious four-year-old architect, had been constructing when the men arrived.

Petrella took a last look round the room. There was an expression on his face which Father Amberline, had he been a Spaniard himself, might have recognised. It was the cold composed look of a matador facing a dangerous bull.

Outside it was beginning to get dark. Petrella found a taxi and dismissed it at the end of Archer Street. When Mrs. Sullivan saw who it was, she tried to slam the door. Petrella pushed it open, not rudely but quite firmly and went through into the kitchen.

Mrs. Sullivan pattered after him. She said, “You’ve put away my son, Patrick. Is it me you’re after now, then?”

Petrella ignored this. He sat down in a chair in front of the stove and said, “I want to talk to Michael and Liam.”

There was something in his voice which Mrs. Sullivan evidently found hard to understand. It was not threatening. It was certainly not placatory. It was the flat voice of someone asking for something which was going to happen anyway.

“I might fetch them,” she said, “if you’d tell me what you want with them.”

“I’ll tell you when they get here,” said Petrella.

Mrs. Sullivan looked at him once again. Then she picked up a shawl and started to wrap it round her head.

“Quickly, please,” said Petrella.

Mrs. Sullivan went out, closing the door behind her. Petrella sat quietly staring into the red heart of the fire.

Michael and Liam Sullivan were big men, though not as tall or as broad by a few inches as their brother Patrick. They drifted into the room, treading softly, and stood looking down at Petrella.

Petrella said, in the same flat voice, “Three weeks ago your brother Patrick was charged with theft. The charge arose from the discovery of stolen articles concealed, very cleverly, under the floor of the coal-shed behind this house. We should never have found them, in fact we’d never have suspected they were here, if we hadn’t had a direct tip-off.”

Michael Sullivan said, “Ah”, and sat down on the edge of the kitchen table which creaked under his weight.

Petrella said, “I am assuming that you have no idea who gave us this information.”

Mrs. Sullivan said, sharply, “Careful what you say, now.” She could feel the tension that was building up.

Petrella ignored her. He said, “I’m prepared to sell you that information.”

There was a long silence. Then Liam said, “It’s not normal, if I understand correctly, for members of the police force to say where their information comes to them from.”

“This is not a normal occasion.”

“You mentioned selling. What price exactly had you in mind?”

“In return I want what your brother Patrick once offered me. I want to know where I can find Augie Volk.”

“Augie the Pole is it? You want enough to put him away?”

“No. I want to know where to find him tonight.”

The two big Irishmen looked at each other. Finally Michael nodded and Liam said, “He has a place he and his boys use. It’s not in his name. It’s an old meat packing station. It lies behind the Foundry, in Lower Dock. He should be there tonight.”

Petrella said, “Thank you,” and got up. Michael said, “You were going to tell us—”

“I’ve already told you,” said Petrella.

By eight o’clock he was back at his desk writing a note. It covered two pages in his neat handwriting and was addressed to Superintendent Watterson. He was finishing it when he heard footsteps in the passage. He looked up as Sergeant Roughead came in, followed by Sergeant Blencowe and Detective Lampier.

Petrella said, “What on earth are you doing here? You’re all meant to be off duty.”

Milo said, “It did just occur to us that you might be needing some help.”

“What put that idea into your head?”

“Something Father Amberline said to me.”

“I see.”

“Then we heard from Sergeant Cove that you’d drawn a gun from the Armoury. So we put two and two together and came along.”

Petrella put the two sheets of paper into an envelope and sealed it. He said, “I don’t know what answer you got when you put two and two together. But whatever it was, it was wrong. I’m going out tonight to do a job. If I’d needed any help, be sure I’d have asked for it.”

He put the envelope on the mantelpiece, walked to the door and held it open. The three men trooped out ahead of him.

Downstairs they found Station Sergeant Cove looking unusually wide awake. Petrella said, “Let me have the keys of the smaller car, Harry. I’ll be back in about an hour. Thanks.”

He went out, leaving the four men staring after him.

The night was clear, but the moon was not yet up. Petrella drove carefully, using the smaller roads, keeping north of the Causeway and heading down towards the river. The light reflected up from the dashboard showed his face composed and passive. When his instinct told him that he had gone far enough he stopped, backed the car into a gateway, switched off the engine and lights and got out. He could hear cars passing along the main road but everything round him was silent. He locked the car and started to walk, padding along quietly over pavements damp with the mist which came up from the river every evening.

When he turned the corner and found that he was in Lampe Lane, he had his bearings. Lampe Lane led to Stable Dock, so called because it had once been used to land pit ponies brought down from Yorkshire for the Kent mines. Both the dock and the light railway which served it were now unused, but they formed a back-stop which would prevent him from overrunning his objective.

The first turning off Lampe Lane was Colinbrook Street which ran along the frontage of the foundry. The next must be Palance Street. The meat packing station would be the last of the three gaunt buildings on the river side of the street. He remembered that a passage had been marked on the map running down west of the packing station and leading to the wharfside.

He approached with caution. The first two buildings were derelict. The third was occupied. There was a glimmer of light filtering out through the clouded glass and grime of one of the ground-floor windows. Something else, too. The sound of men’s voices from the lit room.

On one side of the main door a notice, barely decipherable, said
Henders Bros. Canning and Packing. Deliveries at Rear.

Petrella thought about it. The rear would be deserted. It was a lot to hope that it would offer any point of entry. But it was the best chance. He slipped and skidded down the passage, which was an inch deep in filth, and came out into the open space behind.

The main part of the packing station was joined at one end to an extension, which was one storey higher and carried two chimneys. Outlined against the night sky, paling with the coming of the moon, it looked like the hulk of a ship, its bridge and funnels cocked up at one end; a ship run ashore and left to rot.

The ground-floor windows and the windows of the first floor were heavily barred. The double doors, presumably designed for deliveries, looked as though they had not been used for years.

It was whilst he was studying them that Petrella heard footsteps coming down the passage. More than one person. There was no easy way out. On one side a spike-topped wall marked the edge of the old wharf and to the right an equally high wall blanked off the railway line. He squeezed himself back into the doorway, cursing as he did so. If he had to use his gun all surprise would be lost. What had started as difficult would become starkly impossible.

There were three men. It was not until they were quite close to him that Petrella recognised them.

“We thought we’d find you round here somewhere,” said Sergeant Roughead.

Petrella said, in a voice to which relief had added almost as much venom as the fright which had preceded it, “I told you not to come.”

“That’s right,” said Milo cheerfully. “You told us not to come, but we decided to come anyway. In the army it’s called mutiny.”

Petrella struggled to find something to say. Before he could start Sergeant Blencowe said, moderating his normal bellow to a hoarse whisper, “We brought Len along. If anyone can get into this place he can.”

Milo said, “Do you think you can do it, Len?”

Detective Lampier examined the back of the building, which was becoming clearer each minute as the moon edged up.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

He tested the drainpipe which ran up the far corner of the building. Then he started to climb. He might have been going up a staircase. When he got level with the first of the unbarred windows at second-storey level he held the pipe in one hand and swung himself across to the sill. There was a soft tinkle of broken glass, a moment’s pause and Detective Lampier’s slender body disappeared through the window.