Policeman's Progress Read online

  Both the detectives knew Stott well, but they had never seen him so bleary and rattled before. At that moment, Bolam became convinced in his earlier suspicion that this was Geordie’s killer. He decided to hammer whilst the iron was so obviously hot.

  ‘Nothing to do with last night … I want to know what happened to Geordie Armstrong.’

  The door flew wide open and hit the wall with a crash. Jackie stormed out. ‘What the flaming hell are you on about!’ he blustered. ‘What the devil do I care about Armstrong? He’s in London, ain’t he? Could be in hell for all I care.’

  Bolam remained impassive. ‘He may well be, Jackie … he certainly isn’t in London.’

  Stott glared from one to the other as he stood blocking the doorway with his solid body.

  Bolam pushed past him into the flat. ‘Let’s have a little talk, shall we – about poor old Geordie Armstrong.’

  Jackie would have been well within his rights to have thrown them out for illegal entry, but he was too worried about the last remark.

  He was confused – as far as he knew up to that point, the body from the river had not been identified. But what about that crack about Geordie being in hell?

  He let them in and slammed the door.

  They all stopped in the middle of the lounge, where Bolam’s first words snuffed out any flicker of hope in Jackie’s mind. ‘We’ve found Geordie … stark naked in the Tyne, bound hand and foot.’

  The snappy, matter-of-fact approach was calculated to see how the ex-boxer reacted. Considering his alcohol level, he rode it very well. He licked his lips a few times, but stayed silent for a full ten seconds whilst the wheels whirred inside his head. Somehow, he felt the shock less than he had feared … all along, he had secretly been resigned to the eventual identification of Geordie’s body.

  ‘I’m sorry – about Geordie I mean … but what’s it got to do with me?’

  The mechanical expression of regret took an upward lilt of aggression and Bolam sighed inwardly. It was obviously going to be a fight to the finish. Any hopes he had of the sudden shock jolting Stott into an admission, died for good.

  ‘We think you did it – or you and Joe Blunt,’ he said almost conversationally.

  Jackie was now himself again and if the shock hadn’t rocked him into a confession, it had certainly sobered him up. His cunning mind was now working as well as usual.

  ‘You can’t damn well say that to me,’ he roared with false indignation. ‘I’ll have you for libel.’

  ‘Slander,’ said Jimmy Grainger automatically. Bolam scowled at him, then back at Jackie.

  ‘I can say it and I will … you and Joe were mixed up in that affair of thumping Geordie Armstrong on Saturday night. And he died on the Sunday.’

  Alec turned the supposition into fact for his own purposes.

  ‘So what? … a kick in the pants is a hell of a long way from murder.’ The clubman buttoned his collar and pushed his tie up as if preparing for battle.

  ‘You had a violent quarrel … Armstrong vanished and a false telegram was sent to his lodging to allay suspicion. I think you sent that telegram, Stott – or you had it sent.’

  From that moment, the familiar ‘Jackie’ became ‘Stott’ when Bolam addressed him – it marked a significant change in the detective’s attitude to his suspect.

  Jackie had his feelings well under control now. He sneered the next words. ‘I don’t know a thing, copper!’

  ‘I want to know your movements on Sunday – all of them.’

  ‘Get stuffed!’

  Bolam sighed again. It was going to be even harder than he thought. ‘I’ll have to take you to Headquarters for questioning, then.’

  The ex-boxer gave a derisory laugh. ‘Ha-bloody-ha! … you won’t, chum! I’ve been in and out of too many courts in my time, not to know my rights. If you’re not going to charge me, I’m staying right here and keeping my trap shut – see?’

  Bolam began to get angry. If everyone knew ‘their rights’ as well as Stott, the police would never get a conviction. Once more he cursed the politicians who fell over backwards to make laws that favoured the villains and obstructed the police.

  ‘Well, let’s have a bit of sense and answer them here.’

  ‘I’m not saying another bleeding word without my solicitor – except to say “get out”!’ roared Jackie.

  ‘None of this is going to help you in the long run, Stott,’ snapped Bolam, ‘And I’m well within my rights in staying on club premises so long as you hold a licence from the magistrates.’

  ‘This flat isn’t club premises – it’s my home. Now I’m telling you to clear out of it, see.’ Jackie strode over to the door and yanked it open. ‘Get lost, coppers,’ he snarled.

  The detectives reluctantly moved towards the door. ‘You’d better get that solicitor around here by the morning, Stott,’ warned Bolam, as he went out. ‘You’re only making a rod to beat your own back, acting like this.’

  Jackie spat a foul word at them and slammed the door.

  ‘Bastard!’ said Grainger feelingly.

  ‘He knows the form a damned sight too well,’ grumbled Alec, starting down the stairs. ‘Let’s go and see Joe Blunt … though I’ll bet Jackie is on the blower to him this very minute.’

  He was right. The second the door slammed behind them, Stott had dialled the number of the Mississippi and told his henchman what had happened.

  ‘I know,’ came Joe’s voice. ‘There’s a rozzer here with me now.’

  The club proprietor cursed into the instrument.

  Jimmy Grainger, showing the astuteness that would one day make him a superintendent, had sent one of his detective constables down to the gaming boat with orders to stay there until Bolam arrived.

  Joe Blunt was not in the same class as Stott when it came to defending his legal rights and had stood blinking at the policeman when he had announced that he was going to stay in the office on the boat, all night if needs be. In fact, as Blunt spoke on the phone, the DC was recording every word into his notebook.

  That was until Jackie’s voice exploded down the phone into Joe’s ear. ‘Get him outta there, you stupid git! … divvent say a thing to him, heave him off the boat and keep any others off – d’yer understand me?’

  The line went dead with a thunderous click and Joe was left standing in a haze of bewilderment.

  ‘You gotta clear off,’ he said uncertainly to the detective. ‘You got no right without a warrant or something.’

  He shunted the officer out, against protests. Like Bolam, he knew that he’d no legal right to question Joe if he cared to object – the usual bluff wouldn’t work against people who knew the law.

  At the gangway, he stalled and tried to bamboozle Joe into making a statement, but the piggy-faced bruiser had Stott’s instructions firmly fixed in his mind and he could not be budged from his obstinate silence.

  Just as the detective was giving up in disgust, a white police Zephyr drew up on the quayside and Bolam and Grainger stepped out.

  Joe stood guard on the gangway like Horatio holding the bridge. ‘You’re not to come aboard.’ Jackie had told him not to say who had given him these orders, so he just kept repeating them like a ritual chant.

  Bolam marched straight up to him and looked him hard in the eye. ‘Cut it out, Joe … I know your boss told you to try it on, but it won’t work. As a police officer, I have access to this boat as long as it isn’t a private club – which it isn’t. So get out of the blasted way, will you?’

  Joe was in a quandary but he stood his ground.

  Alec Bolam began to lose his patience. ‘If you want it the hard way, Joe … for the last time, are we coming aboard or not?’

  Joe bared his teeth in a grimace of indecision. ‘No!’ he grated.

  Bolam beckoned up his sergeant and detective constable. ‘Right … I’m arresting you for obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty – visiting licensed premises. Get in the car.’

  Joe was almost
in tears over his dilemma.

  Jimmy Grainger put a hand on his arm. ‘In the car, Joe,’ he said firmly.

  The ex-pug shook the hand off angrily. The other officers closed in. ‘Don’t start anything, Joe,’ pleaded Bolam. ‘We’ll all get hurt for nothing. Just come quietly.’

  As a reply, Joe Blunt gave Grainger a push in the chest that sent him skidding backwards for about six feet. He just managed to keep his balance, then came back to join the other two as they grappled with the defender.

  Bolam and the DC grabbed an arm each and attempted to immobilize Joe, but he flung the constable off and rammed Bolam against the rail with a thump that knocked most of the breath from the chief inspector. Grainger seized the free arm and the makings of a real fight were getting under way when a white Mercedes streaked across the cobbles, banged over the railway lines and squealed to a stop at the foot of the gangway.

  Jackie Stott shot out of the driving seat and yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Joe … for God’s sake, lay off trying to fight the whole damn police force, will yer!’

  Instantly, the big thug went limp in Bolam’s grip. They all turned to watch the club owner striding towards them. ‘What’s going on – more police victimization?’

  ‘As if you didn’t know,’ panted Bolam. ‘This man of yours physically tried to prevent us entering these premises. I’ve arrested him and I’m taking him back to the Central Police Station.’

  ‘You bloody fool, Joe … you always seem to be scrapping on this flaming gangway.’ He glowered at the policemen. ‘Are you trying to bust into my boat as an inspector of clubs or as a murder investigator?’

  ‘Stop trying to buck the truth, Stott,’ Bolam snapped. ‘Joe here has committed an offence. Other charges – more serious ones – may be held against him later. He’s going into the cells for the night.’

  Jackie pushed past them angrily. ‘OK, OK, take him! I’m going to ring for my solicitor to be there … so Joe, divvent open your flaming mouth until he arrives, d’yer hear … wait for Lupin to show up before you even give these bums the time of day.’

  He marched to the door, leading down to the bowels of the Mississippi.

  Bolam called after him, ‘I’ll be back at the Bigg Market in the morning, Stott. I’ll want some statements, so you’d better have your solicitor there then.’

  ‘And I’ll have a search warrant for this old tub, too,’ he added under his breath.

  Chapter Ten

  Joe Blunt probably owed his life to Alec Bolam, though the detective got no thanks for it. While the punch-drunk caretaker of the Mississippi languished in a bare cell at Newcastle’s Central Police Station, two of Papagos’ thugs broke into the deserted boat with axes and hacked a two-foot hole below the waterline. The old vessel gently subsided on to the mud and at high tide her gaming room and office were filled to the deck head with black Tyne water.

  If Joe had been in his bed, he would probably have been knocked unconscious and left to drown, as the Midland mobsters who did the job had not the faintest idea of tides or water depths.

  Papagos knew what he was doing when he ordered this particular bit of vandalism, which he had kept from Thor Hansen. Hansen’s news about his ‘dead cert’ opportunity of blackmailing Jackie had decided him on this extra outrage. He was not particularly interested in taking over a third-rate gambling joint on the river. By sinking it, he aimed to kill two birds with the one stone – as a potent demonstration to Stott that he really meant business and to add a fair dollop of insurance money to the assets of the Stott empire, which he aimed to take over within a day or two.

  Next morning, Stott was almost apoplectic with rage when the River Police rang him at seven thirty to tell him that his boat was squatting on the bottom with dirty water sloshing from every crack. After going down to the quayside to view the wreck, he tore back to the Bigg Market in a blind fury and rang his solicitor. Within the hour the lawyer was sitting in the lounge. He declined the whisky which Jackie seemed to be using instead of breakfast.

  ‘You’ve got three problems all together here, Mr Stott,’ said Lupin, the lawyer, after Jackie had vitriolically outlined recent events. ‘One, you’ll need to go ahead with an insurance claim on the boat. Two, you need a bail application for Joe Blunt. Three, you need to make a statement over this nonsense about the murder of Armstrong.’

  Abel Lupin was under no illusions about his client. Indeed, his law practice was such that he had few illusions about most of his customers.

  A rare combination of Ulsterman and Hebrew, Lupin had a flourishing and lucrative practice as a criminal lawyer in the North-East. Not for him the mundane work of conveyancing or probate, unless it be the leasehold of a strip joint or the fiddling of inter vivos gifts of some elderly survivor of the ’45 black market. His main work was the defence of professional criminals, great and small, though he did a fair trade in any legal proceedings which had the police as its target. The merest whisper of an illegal arrest or malicious prosecution and Abel was there like a flash. Let a copper put a foot over your threshold without a warrant and Lupin was your man! All club owners, though they might hate each other like poison, had one thing in common – they all had Abel Lupin as their ‘legal eagle’.

  He sat in one of Jackie’s armchairs now, his body flowing over the sides. He was not a big man – he was enormous! His eighteen stone looked like a half-melted wax model, dressed in a black jacket and grey striped trousers.

  He was careful not to ask Jackie whether he had in fact killed Geordie Armstrong. If he had said ‘yes’, even Lupin’s elastic ethics would have been a little overstretched. Instead, he carried on with the tacit assumption that his job was to steer Stott clear of as much trouble as possible.

  ‘They’re bringing Joe up before the beaks this morning,’ growled Jackie. ‘Obstructing the police or some such bullshine.’

  Abel nodded sagely. ‘If he laid a hand on them, he’ll be remanded until he’s committed to the next Quarter Sessions. Sounds like a nasty, vindictive charge because they couldn’t bluff their way aboard … we’ll get bail all right on those grounds, Joe will be back here by lunchtime. Sounds as if you might need a strong right arm for tonight, if Papagos keeps up the pressure. Those London men can survive a lot of fighting, you know. They’ve got nothing to lose but a little time, but you’ve got the whole of your business to forfeit … by the time you’ve given up scrapping with them, you’ll find that you’ve lost all your custom.’

  Jackie glowered at him. ‘If we let the swine get away with it, they’ll overrun the whole North-East.’

  Abel looked at him with one of his chiding, sidelong smiles. ‘Are you going to be the martyr – or sucker – for all your old rivals like Eddie Freeman? All you’ll prove is that you were the first to get cut down to size.’

  Stott’s temper began to smoulder. ‘What’s the game? Have they bought you up as well?’

  Abel looked offended. ‘They have not! I’m trying to make you see sense. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’

  ‘Pay their bloody protection! … I’ll see them dead first.’

  ‘The boot may be on the other foot, old fellow … no, I thought you might think of selling out. Let someone else carry the can, if there’s going to be trouble. Make a payment or two to quieten things down, then flog the whole business – you’re on the top of the wave now, you can only go down from here, as things are.’

  ‘What d’yer mean – “down”?’ snapped Jackie.

  ‘Rising prices, unemployment … luxuries like strippers and gaming go to the wall first. You could clean up a nice price as it stands.’

  Jackie said nothing, his anger evaporating. Thor had advised the same thing and he had a great respect for the Dane’s opinion – as much as he had for the lawyer’s. Now both of them said the same thing, but nevertheless, his pride overruled the idea. ‘Nobody’s going to push me out until I want to go, see!’

  Abel Lupin grimaced a smile once more. ‘But maybe you should want to go no
w?’

  The cross talk went on for some time, leaving Jackie unconvinced but somewhat shaken in his determination to fight Papagos to the finish. Lupin eventually left, with a promise to be at the Central Police Station at ten, before Joe Blunt was due to face the justices in the adjacent Magistrates’ Court. He saw Joe when the time came and firmly told him to keep his mouth clamped shut.

  The preliminary remand proceedings only took a few minutes, with Lupin giving a masterly performance which made the police sound a lot of malicious, scheming rogues intent on persecuting baby-faced innocents like Joe Blunt. This resulted in the magistrates releasing him on Jackie’s surety of two hundred pounds. Outside the court, Abel buttonholed Alec Bolam.

  ‘Mr Stott is ready to make a statement about that matter you raised yesterday,’ he said. ‘Where and when do you want to take it?’

  Alec looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to be at the coroner’s court at ten thirty, but that’ll only take a few minutes – I’ll see you in my office at Headquarters at eleven.’

  Lupin agreed and, as he walked back towards Stott, Bolam called after him. ‘I should tell you that I’ve got search warrants for both the Rising Sun and the Mississippi,’ he added ruefully, having been told only minutes before that any evidence that might have been on the boat was now swilling around below the surface of the Tyne.

  Lupin, who had already gathered from Jackie that there was nothing to be feared from any search of his premises, agreed condescendingly and vanished with his client, who had kept sullenly in the background during these exchanges.

  Bolam went down to the Coroner’s Court, where the senior Coroner’s Officer was dealing with the case of Geordie Armstrong.

  Bolam arrived just as the Coroner, a nervous young man new to the office, was taking his seat at the top table in the bare upper room. Only two other witnesses were present, but there was an assortment of press reporters there, and the Coroner, a thin bespectacled figure, nervously rustled papers about whilst his officer swore in a desiccated-looking man of about fifty.