Policeman's Progress Page 14

  Her hands trembled over his face and body. ‘He’s dead – you’ve killed him, you great bastard!’ she mumbled incoherently through her sobs.

  Jackie suddenly stopped struggling and stood trembling. Joe let him go and dropped down beside the woman on the carpet.

  ‘Get some bloody clothes on, for God’s sake,’ he muttered, pushing her aside.

  He turned Hansen over onto his back. The manager’s left arm flopped limply to the floor and his jaw dropped, the eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

  Joe stood up slowly. ‘You’ve done it again, Jackie … he’s gone!’

  Laura huddled the counterpane about herself and fell back to the floor, cradling Thor’s bloody face against her bosom.

  ‘Get an ambulance, you swine … get a doctor!’ she moaned.

  Joe pulled at Jackie’s arm. ‘Let’s get outta here, boss. We don’t need no bag of clothes now – you’ve done enough here to get you a life sentence, without worrying about Geordie!’

  Emergency seemed to have stimulated Joe Blunt’s brain, whereas Jackie appeared to be mentally paralyzed for the moment, now that the frenzy had worn off. Joe dragged him to the door and slowly the club owner began to return to normal.

  Laura was still screaming for a doctor when they left the flat and got back to the Mercedes without incident. ‘Back to the club, collect some clobber, then we’ll have to lay low,’ muttered Stott – the first coherent words he had uttered since he had fallen on the unfortunate Dane.

  The drive back to the Bigg Market was made in complete silence, but at the end of it, Jackie seemed outwardly normal.

  He ran up to the flat, threw some clothes into a case and collected all the money he could lay his hands on, amounting to a few hundred pounds.

  ‘What now?’ demanded Joe, subsiding into his habitual doltish bewilderment, now that Jackie had taken over the initiative again.

  Stott started the Mercedes, drove it into his garage behind the club and hustled Joe out again. ‘Now we go find a cab!’ he snapped in his best gangster tones. ‘We collect Abel Lupin in Durham and then go through to Darlington. We got a date with some spot cash!’

  At almost exactly the same time that Thor Hansen’s front door was being smashed down, another less violent illegal entry was taking place in Benwell, in the West End of the city.

  In the early hours of that morning, Alec Bolam had gone storming back to the Bigg Market to look for his daughter, but no one could or would tell him where Freddie Robson lived, so Bolam spent the rest of the night going around the home addresses of the band, the barmaids, and Herbert Lumley, in an attempt to find Freddie’s whereabouts.

  None of them knew and Alec, almost frantic with worry and frustration, got every beat man and motor patrol in the city to keep a lookout for the guitarist and his daughter. He drove around endlessly himself, checked all the night taxi services, but without success.

  At six in the morning, he gave up and went home, to face his wife. At first their mutual distress formed a bond between them but, before breakfast time, Vera had got around to blaming him for the whole affair and by eight o’clock, he had rushed out again.

  With Jimmy Grainger to help him, he stepped up the search and eventually ran the organist to earth. He gave Bolam an address in Westerhope, on the outskirts of the city and a futile hour was wasted in discovering that Robson had left this address six months before.

  Not until noon did they hit on the idea of trying the Electricity Board.

  A phone call confirmed that the Board were willing to help trace a missing ‘witness’ and the two detectives went to dig through the files of the accounts office.

  They ended up with a list of fifteen ‘F. Robsons’ living in areas likely to shelter the guitar player and on the ninth attempt at door-knockers, they struck lucky. At a dull red-brick house in Benwell, they found three bells at the side of the front door, one marked ‘Robson’.

  As Bolam peered at them, the door opened and a stout woman appeared with a shopping basket.

  ‘Who yer lookin’ for, pet?’

  ‘Does a Freddie Robson live here, mum?’

  ‘Aye – upstairs. You from the Assistance?’

  ‘That’s right … is he the fiddler from the Rising Sun?’

  ‘Don’ know where he works, hinny, but I’ve had te stop him playing his guitar over my living room ceiling.’

  Bolam nodded his thanks and plunged up the stairs with Jimmy.

  At the top of the stairs, the sounds of Radio One came through a door. Without hesitation, Alec pushed open the door and walked in.

  He faced an astounded Freddie and his own daughter across a small room. They were sitting at a table cluttered with dirty cups, empty milk bottles and the remains of a sliced loaf wrapped in paper. Betty was wearing a man’s dressing gown tightly belted around her waist. Her bare feet stuck out under the table and her hair was tangled about her face. The thin, freckled musician had on only a vest and tight black jeans.

  In the background was a tumbled single bed.

  Bolam took all this in with a single glance. His face was like granite. ‘Come on, Betty, your mother wants a word with you.’ She sat transfixed, her button-like mouth slightly agape. ‘Sergeant Grainger, take this man into custody – charge him with abduction and obstructing the police. That’ll do for a start.’

  A grim wink passed between the two police officers. Jimmy, with an unconcealed grin of pleasure, grabbed Robson’s arm. ‘Get your togs on, laddie–– we’re off on a “trip” … my sort, this time!’

  As he touched Freddie, the girl was galvanized into action. She leapt up and gave Jimmy a resounding smack in the face. ‘Leave him alone, you great bully,’ she yelled.

  Then, to Alec’s surprise, she ran around the table to her father and buried her head against his chest and began sobbing her heart out.

  Jimmy, ruefully rubbing his cheek, propelled Freddie across the room, grabbed his shirt and jacket from a chair and stood over him while the guitarist struggled into them.

  ‘I’ll take him down to the police box on the corner and ring for a car,’ said Grainger, with another wink, ‘I’ll leave you in peace to be getting along home.’

  He jerked the cowed Freddie into motion and vanished down the stairs.

  ‘Bolam awkwardly massaged the back of Betty’s neck. ‘Come on, now, pet, get your things … we’ll get home, it’ll be all right.’

  ‘Don’t tell Mum,’ she blubbered into his waistcoat.

  ‘Don’t fret … it’ll be our secret – that part of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry I hit Jimmy like that,’ she sniffed.

  Women are bloody queer, thought Bolam.

  Half an hour later, his explanations to Vera were interrupted by the telephone.

  ‘Jimmy here, sir – they’ve been looking all over for us. Jackie Stott’s done it again – put the boot into Thor Hansen; they doubt if he’ll live!’

  Bolam felt as if the world was going a bit too fast for him. ‘Where is he … what happened?’ he spluttered.

  ‘The singer from the Rising Sun sprung it – she rang nine-nine-nine for an ambulance. The crew rang the police when they got to the flat in Jesmond. He was alive, but only just and the doctors don’t think he’s going to last. They’re all up at the General Hospital now.’

  ‘I’m on my way – where are you?’

  ‘At the West End station. I’ll see you in the Admission Room.’

  Bolam beat all records back to the West End of the city. He found Jimmy sitting in the Casualty Department, talking to Laura Levine. She wore no make-up and her face was pale and hard-looking.

  ‘I can’t say it all again,’ she said huskily. Bolam beckoned Grainger away to hear the gist of her statement.

  ‘She was in bed with Hansen at his flat, about two o’clock … Joe Blunt and Jackie bust the door open, then Jackie came into the bedroom, hauled Hansen out of bed and started to kick the hell out of him. Then they scarpered – simple as that.’

  Bolam
looked dubious.

  ‘Something fishy about this. Jackie wouldn’t go there in the middle of the day, and take Joe with him, just to play gooseberry on a woman. She say any more?’

  Jimmy shook his head.

  They went back to Laura.

  ‘It seems touch and go for him, Miss Levine. I’m sorry to have to insist at a time like this, but I must have the whole story. Jackie Stott has got to be found – have you any idea where he might be?’

  The girl shook her head listlessly. ‘In hell, I hope … no, I don’t know where he is.’

  Grainger had already sent a patrol car to the Bigg Market; they had radioed back that the Rising Sun was deserted, but that the white Mercedes was still in the garage there. A general call was out for Stott and Joe Blunt, but no reports had yet come in. Bolam stared at Laura and hardened his attitude. After all, the woman was not a relative of the victim, only a bedfellow, by all accounts.

  ‘Why did Stott break in to Hansen’s place? Surely he didn’t know you were there?’

  Laura sighed. ‘If Thor dies, Jackie will be charged with murder, that right?’

  Bolam nodded. The singer seemed to be trying to make her mind up about something.

  ‘Well, it won’t make any difference, because Jackie is already a killer.’

  Bolam’s chin came up with a jerk. This sounded like the break to end all breaks. ‘You mean Geordie Armstrong?’

  She nodded, then the whole story came out. Once her tongue was loosened, there was a flood of words, which Bolam made no attempt to check … it could be edited later.

  Everything that Thor Hansen had told her about Jackie mistaking Geordie as her lover, about his deal with Papagos and Casella, and the really juicy bit about finding Geordie’s clothes in the river – it all tumbled out.

  Alec Bolam began to hear birds singing in his brain and felt as if he had won the pools.

  ‘Could Jackie have been looking for the bag of clothes, I wonder?’ broke in the astute Jimmy Grainger.

  Laura nodded. ‘Possibly – they were locked in the boot of his car. It’s being serviced in a garage in Osborne Road.’

  Bolam was exultant, but there were urgent things to do.

  ‘We’ll want you to repeat all this in the form of a statement, but we’ll get you over to the West End Station for that.’

  Leaving her to wait for news of Hansen’s condition, they sped back to Headquarters.

  ‘We’ve got the whole damned crowd … Jackie, Joe, and the yobs from London … this evidence will shop the Greek and his pal for conspiracy at the very least.’

  Jimmy Grainger was exuberant, but Bolam was more cautious.

  ‘Let’s hope that Hansen lives, then … he’s the star witness; all her stuff is hearsay.’

  ‘Not the bit about the clothes in the boot of his car?’

  ‘That’s your first job,’ snapped Alec, swinging the car into the Headquarters’ yard. ‘Get a set of keys and go out to Jesmond to open the boot of that Rover.’

  Jimmy shot off while Alec hurried to MacDonald’s office to report on the dramatic turn of events. The chief had already heard an outline of the affair in Jesmond and was impatiently waiting for more details.

  Bolam told the full story that he’d had from Laura Levine.

  ‘It sounds as if Stott and Blunt actually think that the Dane is already dead,’ said MacDonald thoughtfully. ‘Both Joe and the girl said that he was dead before the ambulance arrived. Anyway, get a general call out to all forces. Watch ports and airports, that sort of thing.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘He’s been gone over an hour now, not a sign of him. Wonder where he’ll make for?’

  At that moment, Jackie, Joe and Abel Lupin, who knew nothing of the afternoon’s events, were walking into the railway station at Durham City. The two men from Newcastle had arrived in a hire car at his office, and dragged Lupin off with them to do the legal business with the Greek and Sicilian down in Darlington. Lupin wondered why there was all the urgency, but Jackie managed to fob him off with excuses. By half past four, they were safely hidden in the hotel in Darlington, away from the increasingly watchful eyes of the Durham Constabulary.

  A few moments after Bolam had made his escape from the chief superintendent’s room, a jubilant Jimmy Grainger arrived back at Headquarters.

  He carried a large polythene bag stuffed with slightly mouldy clothing. After it had been photographed and fingerprinted, they turned it out on a table in Alec’s room and found a complete set of underclothes, shirt, suit and shoes.

  The shirt was torn over the left side of the chest and it and the vest were stained with watery blood.

  ‘Here’s his wallet – no cash in it,’ said Jimmy.

  They went through the pockets carefully and laid everything out ready for dispatch to the forensic laboratory. At the bottom of the bag was a rusty piece of angle iron; the outside of the plastic was streaked with dried mud.

  MacDonald came along to see it. ‘Problem number one … find Joe and Jackie. Have we checked the bus stations and railway?’

  They had been contacted, but no sign of the two fugitives had been found. The idea of questioning all the taxi men frankly had not occurred to the detectives, as they assumed that the two men would want to put a long distance between themselves and Newcastle, and a cab seemed an unlikely way of doing it.

  By late afternoon, every policeman in Number Two Police District from the Scottish border down to mid-Yorkshire was on the lookout for Stott and Joe Blunt.

  Copies of their prison photographs were hastily being printed for circulation and all other police forces were notified of the search. The Metropolitan Police were contacted with a view to watching any trains or long-distance buses arriving at the London termini from the North.

  By early evening, Thor Hansen had had several holes drilled in his skull by the surgeons and a large blood clot removed. As he was still deeply unconscious, the doctors remained non-committal about his chances of survival.

  Laura Levine had been taken to the West End Divisional Station and questioned more minutely by Alec Bolam. Significantly, he began by cautioning her with the classic old formula ‘anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence’.

  This did not seem to affect her in any way … she was in a state of dull apathy, her mind on the shaven-headed patient who lay inert in the hospital across the road. In an almost inaudible monotone, she gave an even more detailed account of the affair than before.

  ‘Have you any idea at all where Stott may have run to?’ persisted Bolam.

  She shook her head wearily. ‘Possibly London. He had a few contacts there, mainly old pals from his fighting days.’

  Alec took down some addresses she gave him to add to the list to be checked. ‘Anywhere else?’

  The singer thought for a moment. ‘He used to go to Ireland a lot … holidays and that. Maybe he fancies running there.’

  ‘How much money would he be likely to have on him?’

  Alec was thinking of sea or air fares for the two men.

  ‘Quite a packet. He always carried a roll of notes, just to impress people when he flashed them. Then there would be a big cash float in the club, for the croupiers every night. That would be kept in the safe in his flat at the Rising Sun.’

  ‘About how much?’

  ‘At least a couple of hundred quid.’

  Bolam sighed. The safe in the Bigg Market club had been found open, with nothing inside but ledgers.

  ‘Has he got a gun?’ was the next question.

  She shook her head decisively. ‘He wasn’t that sort. Always boasted that he could do more damage with his fists.’

  ‘Or his feet,’ added Bolam grimly.

  The girl’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and she nodded jerkily.

  ‘These protection boys – Papagos and Casella – did you see them at any time?’

  ‘Only when they came to the club – Jackie threw them out.’

  ‘But you say Hansen went to see the
m yesterday in Darlington, to fix this blackmail of Stott over the bag of clothes?’

  She bit her lip and for the first time began to see that she and her boyfriend – if he lived – were not going to get out of this scot-free.

  ‘Do you know where they were staying?’

  ‘No – Thor dropped me to look at the shops for half an hour. Must have been near the town centre, he wasn’t gone long.’

  She seemed to have no more to tell him and he left her to make another pilgrimage to the hospital.

  ‘What are we going to do about Papagos and Casella?’ asked Jimmy with curiosity.

  Bolam scratched his head. ‘Leave that to Uncle Mac and the DPP. They’re a tricky bunch of monkeys. We should have the drop on them this time, but let’s see if Hansen is going to be able to speak first.’

  They drove away from the station, wondering where the devil to start looking for Jackie Stott and Joe Blunt.

  At six o’clock that evening, the two men in question walked warily out of the hotel in Darlington and made their way to a small car hire firm in a back street.

  Abel Lupin had left them some time earlier, to catch a train back to Durham; he little suspected that he had been sitting with two wanted men these past few hours.

  While Joe Blunt went into the car rental depot, Jackie waited in the yard and thought about the transaction he had just made with the Soho crime kings. The Greek had unflinchingly stuck to his price of thirty thousand pounds. Jackie fumed and raved for a time, but Papagos was unmoving as the Rock of Gibraltar. If only he had known that several thousand police were outside looking for Jackie, his price – if any at all –would have been far lower. Stott was only too well aware of this to be in a bargaining position and eventually he had to capitulate.

  Abel Lupin protested loud and long about the skimped legal formalities, but had to agree with Papagos that the draft agreement he produced was perfectly binding for all its brevity.

  In essence, it transferred all the stock, equipment, staff contracts and goodwill of Jackie’s business interests to Papagos for the cash sum of thirty thousand pounds.