Ring of Terror (19 page)

‘Right,’ said Luke.

There was a spade in the garden shed. He inserted its thin edge into the side of the kitchen window and levered the whole of the decrepit casement out of its frame. ‘As little damage as possible,’ he said and propped it carefully against the wall. ‘After you.’

Daines climbed through the opening and Luke followed him. They stood for a moment, looking round. The ashes in the stove were grey and cold and the clock on the wall had stopped. The silence was absolute.

‘There’s no one here,’ said Luke, voicing the thought that was in both their minds.

They went out into the hall and inspected the two ground-floor rooms. The windows of these, which opened on to the street, were closed, but not shuttered. Upstairs, the front rooms also were empty. They moved along to the big room at the back which occupied the space over the kitchen.

‘This was where I found the widow trying to burn the papers,’ said Luke.

‘Nothing to burn now,’ said Daines.

The shelves which had held the books and pamphlets were bare, as was the cupboard under them. The desk was still there, but with nothing on it or in it. Not even a sheet of blotting paper.

‘It’s a swindle,’ said Daines. ‘In all the best books the searchers find an odd scrap of blotting paper. Holding it up to a mirror, they read off it the information they’re looking for.’

‘The Russians must have read the books, too,’ said Luke.

‘We’ll have one more look in the kitchen,’ said Daines. ‘They might have left something there.’

But the kitchen had been stripped with the same methodical thoroughness as the study. There was food in the larder and plates and cups on the shelves, but no single scrap of paper.

‘Too easy,’ said Luke. ‘Any paper there was would have gone straight into the stove.’

‘They certainly cleaned up before they left,’ agreed Daines. ‘Judging from the state of the food the old lady has been gone for some time. She must have cleared out soon after you visited her.’

‘And I know why,’ said Luke. ‘She was scared stiff of that creature Weil. She’s gone into hiding somewhere.’

Outside the dusk was closing in. The house was damp and cold. Luke found himself shivering. A door they had overlooked led to the cellar. It opened on to a flight of worn steps. Luke was glad of his torch and went down carefully.

At the foot of the steps he almost tripped over a bundle of rags on the floor. He turned his torch on it. It was the widow Triboff. Her throat had been cut.

‘Found anything?’ said Daines, from the kitchen.

‘Yes,’ said Luke. ‘But I don’t think you should come down.’ He climbed back into the kitchen and said, controlling his voice carefully, ‘Like you said, they cleaned up before they left.’

Early on the following morning the inhabitants of St Matthew’s Row were woken by the sound of an explosion. Peering out nervously they saw that it was the police station in Bethnal Green Road, opposite the end of their street, which had been hit. Smoke was coming from some of its ground-floor windows, but no serious damage seemed to have been done.

PC Miles, who had been on night duty in the charge room and who, though he would have been the last to admit it, had been asleep behind his desk, had been shaken, but not hurt. He had hurried out into the street to reassure and disperse the crowd that was beginning to collect and finding his telephone line unaffected had made a report to Leman Street.

Wensley, looking in on his way to court, had found Miles talking to Joscelyne about it.

“Twasn’t nothing really,’ he was saying. ‘Hardly enough to rattle the tea cups. Damage? Nothing to speak of. We’ll need a bit of repainting and a few new tiles.’

‘Odd affair altogether,’ said Wensley. ‘Intended to distract our attention, do you think?’

‘What from?’ said Joscelyne.

‘If I knew that, I’d know what was going to happen next. Meanwhile there’s something you could do for me.’ He laid on the desk one of the copies he had had made of Luke’s report. ‘Could you have some enquiries made about this soap company? I’d rather they weren’t too official, as I don’t want to alert the men behind the company to the fact that we’re interested in it.’

‘I’ll send young Cartwright. He’s a champion gossip and he looks so stupid that people tell him everything and think nothing of it.’

Wensley thanked him, glanced at his watch and hurried off. There was a clear hour before the proceedings at the Old Bailey kicked off, but Muir would be certain to want a post mortem on the previous day’s hearing.

It was past five o’clock before he got back to Leman Street, after a day of frustration in which the prosecution witnesses, despite careful coaching, had contradicted each other relentlessly. Abinger had left the court much happier than Muir, who was only comforted by the thought that Wensley’s evidence was yet to come and that he, at least, was too crafty and too experienced to be shaken by cross-examination.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ said Joscelyne. ‘I don’t know it’ll help. That soap company. It’s been in existence for ten years or more and it’s entirely run by Russian and Lettish
émigrés.
It’s believed to produce a reasonable profit. The raw material for their soap-making is coconut oil, which produces marine soap — that is, soap that can be used in saltwater.’

‘Popular on ship-board, I presume.’

‘No doubt. And at the wash-houses in the docks. The raw material goes down to Barking Creek once a week, normally on a Tuesday. It goes in a coal-fired scow, which rejoices in the name of the
Red Dragon,
but is known locally as the
Black Stinker
and is reckoned to be the dirtiest boat on the river. On its return trip it brings back the soap, which is dealt with by the SLSC office at the head of the quay.’

‘Sounds like a genuine concern,’ said Wensley, who had lit his first after-court pipe and was puffing at it. ‘Anything else?’

‘Not about the factory, but about those cottages. It seems they were occupied about thirty years ago by two brothers, Sam and Ben Gascoyne. They described themselves as fishermen, but had been suspected for a long time of being a link in a very profitable smuggling line. In the end, the Revenue caught up with them and there was a fight. Sam was shot dead and Ben and his eldest son were wounded, after which their families abandoned the cottages and came back to Stepney. No one fancied using the cottages and they’ve stood empty ever since.’

Wensley puffed away and thought about it. It was interesting, but it didn’t explain the bathroom. He was about to say so when Joscelyne’s telephone rang. He had given orders that he was not to be interrupted and guessed that it must be something important.

Joscelyne listened impassively to the excited voice of his informant and said, ‘The DDI’s here. When I’ve had a word with him, I’ll ring you back.’

Nahum Lockett & Son was the largest and most prestigious jewellery shop in the East End. Its double frontage occupied a commanding position in the Mile End Road. Nahum now played little part in the running of the business, which had been handed over to Abram, the son mentioned in the shop’s title. Abram was helped by his wife, Deborah, who presided over the accounts at the cash desk. The shop was large enough to employ three full-time assistants, all of whom had departed promptly when business ceased at six o’clock that Thursday, but Deborah was still at work. A cluster of gaslights above the desk had been left on for her benefit. The rest of the room was in darkness.

Abram, who lived over his shop, as his father and his grandfather had done before him, had moved across to bolt and bar the street door when the two men walked in. As they came through the door, they were pulling on masks of knitted fabric, which covered their hair and the top half of their faces, with slits for the eyes, but left the bottom half exposed. As soon as the masks were in place both men pulled guns out from holsters inside their jackets.

Speaking in the rough, largely monosyllabic English which marked him as a recent arrival, the shorter of the two men said, ‘Be silent. Both of you. No words.’

Abram was no coward, but he was handicapped by the presence of his wife. She came out from behind the desk, marched up to the men and said, ‘What do you want? The shop’s shut. Get out.’

The taller man transferred his gun to his left hand and, with a scything blow of his right arm, knocked the woman to the floor. The other man’s gun pointed unwaveringly at Abram.

‘One move, one bullet,’ he said. ‘Through the stomach, perhaps, where you keep all the lovely food you eat every day, yes?’

By this time Deborah was back on her feet, clinging to the cash desk for support, the blood pouring down her face. The short man said, ‘You ask what we want. We want many things. First, your daughter.’

‘No,’ said Deborah. ‘No, no and no.’

The Locketts had been married for ten years before Mysie, who was asleep upstairs, had arrived. She was the light of their life and the centre of their existence.

The short man ignored Deborah and addressed himself to Abram. He said, ‘You will come with me and we will fetch your daughter. If you do not, my friend will shoot your wife. Not to kill. But in places that will hurt her, badly.’

Abram hesitated. The man said, with a terrible smile which showed a row of jagged teeth, ‘You wish to see your wife squirming on the floor? No. Of course not. Come with me. If you do what you are told we shall not hurt the child. Nor you. Come, then. Show me her room. Sooner done, sooner over.’

As he went Deborah made a move, as though to restrain him by force, but Abram shook his head. It was no time for heroics. He led the way, through a door at the back of the shop.

Whilst they were out of the room the tall man, without taking his eyes off Deborah for a moment, proceeded to bolt the front door, top bolt only, and to close the iron shutters which hung behind the door. Then he turned his attention to the shop windows. These were plate glass, guarded by thin steel bars. They had roller blinds, which could be closed, but observation over many nights had told him that it would be a mistake to draw them. The police patrol, which came past every three hours, liked to be able to see into the shop. Meanwhile, if they kept to the back of the dimly lighted shop, he reckoned they had more than two hours in which they could work in safety.

When Abram came back, carrying the child, who was half asleep but not alarmed, he was given his instructions. The presence of the tiny hostage meant that they were obeyed to the letter.

First he had to produce the key to the great safe which was built into the old chimney at the back of the shop. This contained the considerable reserves of the partnership, in the form of bullion, sovereigns and gold. Then he had to open the show cases, where the pick of their jewellery was displayed: necklaces, pendants, rings and bracelets, precious metals and precious stones. These went with the gold into the knapsacks the men had brought with them.

Mysie was beginning to be frightened by the appearance of the strange men with black things on their faces, and by the evident alarm of her father and mother.

She started to cry, a low whimpering.

The tall man said, ‘Nearly finished. You have been good. Don’t spoil it. We would not wish to wring the neck of such a sweet chicken.’

Deborah, who was holding the child, said, ‘Hush, baby. Don’t cry. It’s all a game.’

Mysie looked doubtful, but stopped crying. The men had packed everything up. They slung the knapsacks over their shoulders and were ready to go. The tall man said, ‘One last word. No doubt you will speak to the police. They will ask what we looked like. Be careful that your account is not too exact. You understand me? If any harm comes to us through you, our friends will not be as kind as we have been.’

They unbolted and opened the door and, as they turned away, pulled their masks off and stuffed them into their pockets.

Either their timing was at fault, or the police routine had been altered, because they stepped out into the arms of a two-man police patrol.

For a moment the men stared at each other. Then, as the policemen stepped forward, the robbers raised their guns and fired.

In the excitement of the moment both of them shot at the same man. The two heavy bullets, hitting him in the chest, knocked PC Bellwood backwards on to the ground. Not waiting to mark the effect of their fire the two men doubled away, down one of the alleys that led from the Mile End Road towards the river.

PC Martin hesitated for a moment then, instead of running after them or calling out, knelt down by Bellwood and opened his blood-stained jacket.

It was two passing sailors who took up the chase, running to the mouth of the alley and shouting. A shot which whistled over their heads stopped them for a moment, but they ran valiantly on. The brief pause had given their quarry time to slip into one of the tunnels of darkness at the side of the alley. The two sailors plunged past continuing to shout. When, rounding a turn, they saw that the alley ahead of them was empty, they turned round and came back. Martin was still kneeling beside the body. ‘Nothing to be done for him,’ he said. ‘He’s gone.’

Ten minutes later a furious Abram Lockett burst into Joscelyne’s office past two protesting policemen. He had brought the sailors with him. He said, ‘In case the news hasn’t reached you, Superintendent, my shop has been raided, my wife has been assaulted and I have been threatened.’

Joscelyne, who had just put down the telephone, said, ‘Yes. We heard.’

His calmness seemed to enrage Abram even further. He said, spluttering so that the words came out in gouts, like water from a partly blocked tap, ‘And have you heard? Two of your men were there. One did his duty. The other made no attempt either to stop or chase the murderers. The only people who did anything were these two men. They did start a hue and cry. If more had joined in—’

Wensley raised his hand. It was such a magisterial gesture that Abram cut short what he had been going to say.

Wensley said, ‘Superintendent Joscelyne has given orders for the pursuit to be taken up. It may not be immediately effective. If the robbers, as I suspect, were anarchists, they are slippery people, with many holes to hide in. What we have to concentrate on is to see that they don’t get out of the country. And you could help us by giving us the most detailed description of the men that you can.’