Chapter Fourteen

Hero O’hara

 

O’hara landed on both feet, but nearly lost his balance. As he weaved about, he saw the front wheel of the borrowed bicycle bang into the side of the motor-scooter, and the pedals scraped along the machine, screeching. The bottle of fruit cordial crashed on the pavement. A pedal caught the ankle of the rider, who reared up with pain. The pillion passenger nearly fell off, but held on. As O’Hara steadied, he saw the man flash his right hand to his trousers pocket.

A flick knife blade spat out, catching the light.

The motor-scooter fell with a crash, pinning the rider’s leg beneath it. Out of the corner of his eyes O’Hara saw the man trying desperately to free himself; he also saw the man with the knife half crouching, ready for him, the narrow pointed blade quite capable of causing death at a single thrust. Two girls turned the corner, and one of them cried out: “Look, Elsie!” The rider was still struggling to get out from under the machine.

O’Hara called: “Drop that knife!”

The man with the knife didn’t speak, just stood crouching for a split second, and the rider pulled himself free. O’Hara snatched out his truncheon, and leapt forward. One of the girls screamed. The man with the knife ducked and came in, to deliver a vicious upwards thrust with his killer weapon, which was exactly what O’Hara had expected. He kicked at the man’s wrist, caught the knife and sent it flying upwards into the air in a shimmering arc. Then he brought his truncheon down on top of the raider’s head. He heard the man grunt as he fell, side-stepped his falling body, and heard the girl scream: “Look out!”

He swung round towards the rider of the scooter, who was coming at him with a knife. O’Hara stood motionless for a moment, until it looked as if the man couldn’t fail to stab him; then he swayed to one side, and swung a powerful blow with the truncheon, catching his second assailant on the side of the head. The timing of the blow was so perfect that it sent the man staggering forward, partly under his own momentum; then he slipped off the kerb and pitched down. As the knife flew from his hand and skidded along the road, O’Hara took three long strides and banged him on the nape of the neck, a comparatively gentle but effective truncheon blow.

He straightened up, made sure that his first victim was still unconscious, tucked his truncheon away, and saw that in addition to the two girls, a woman with a pram, an elderly man and two middle-aged men had gathered and were staring at him as if bewildered.

“Keep an eye on these two, will you?” he asked the crowd in general. “I’d better see if everything’s all right in the shop.”

He entered the shop, and saw the till wide open, money strewn about the floor and on the counter, a frightened middle-aged woman standing in a doorway at the back of the shop, with a broom in her hand, as if ready to fight the raiders if they came back. A scared-looking boy in his early teens stood behind the cheese counter, holding a bottle of orange squash. O’Hara’s first temptation was to grin. Instead, he said: “It’s all right, Mrs. Dixon, nothing more to worry about. Did they take anything?”

“I don’t think he had any time to,” said the woman, breathlessly. “I thought—I thought he was going to kill you, I did really.”

“Take more than a sneak thief to do that,” boomed O’Hara, and then heard a car coming fast along the street. “Stay where you are, and there’ll be nothing to worry about.” He went outside, to see a car from Divisional Headquarters pulling up, and for the first time felt that he could relax. Then he saw something dark sticking out of the pocket of the man he had first knocked out. He bent down, picked it up, and found that it was a triangular piece of plastic, with slits cut out for the eyes; a simple form of mask.

A uniformed sergeant was getting out of the car. “And they told us you needed help,” he scoffed.

 

Roger looked at the two prisoners, small, sallow, bleary-eyed men, one of whom had been unconscious for twenty-five minutes. The bruises on their heads were indications of the power of Constable O’Hara’s blows. Proud O’Hara was next door, making out his report; the two prisoners were in the charge room of the Battersea Divisional Station, and two local C.I.D. men were with Roger. The prisoners had been searched and the contents of their pockets bagged, labelled and set aside. The pillion rider’s sack was there, too, and it was obvious that this was used to carry the loot out of the shop; the carriers of the motor-scooter could hold a lot of cigarettes and small goods.

“Now let’s have it straight,” Roger said. “Who do you work for?”

One of the men said sneering: “We’re self-employed, that’s what we are.”

“If you keep that up you’ll get yourselves into worse trouble than you are now,” Roger said. “Who’s your employer?”

“He’s my employer,” one man said, pointing to the second man.

“He’s mine, mister,” said the second man, pointing to the first.

“What they want is another ten minutes with O’Hara, he’d knock some sense into them,” a local man growled.

“He might,” Roger said. “If they don’t knock some sense into themselves the judge soon will. What’s the maximum sentence for robbery with violence?”

“Ten years,” the local C.I.D. man answered.

“You won’t get us for ten years,” said the smaller of the two.

Roger eyed them keenly and thoughtfully, and with the sense of frustration which was with him so much in this job. These men would not give anything away. What they said had been carefully prepared, and probably carefully rehearsed. They knew perfectly well that the police realised that this was one of a series of raids, but could insist that it had been an isolated one, thought up for themselves. They weren’t going to be easy to break down. One was probably of Italian extraction, but both spoke the Cockney of the native East Ender. They were thin-faced, sneeringly insolent, very sure of themselves.

“I want scrapings from their nails, and have them wash their hands in clean, warm water without a detergent,” Roger ordered. “Put the dirty water in a bottle and let me have it with the nail scrapings, will you. Then we’ll have ‘em up with the others in the morning.”

The taller of the two drew in a sharp breath. The Italian began: “What oth—?” and then broke off. Was he really surprised that there were others, or because he thought that the police had made other arrests?

Roger said: “You didn’t think you were the only two to get caught in that raid, did you?”

The taller man said: “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

But he wasn’t so sure of himself, and if the police could put half a dozen of the raiders up in the dock next morning it might make one prisoner break down. Roger didn’t speak again, and the prisoners were taken out and down to the cells. He turned to the Inspector in charge, and said: “Mind if I have a word with O’Hara?”

“Glad if you do,” said the C.I. “He always did love a fight; it must be the Irish in him.” He sent for the constable, who came in briskly: a big man with gingerish hair, clear blue eyes, and massive shoulders.

“O’Hara, this is Chief Superintendent West,” said the C.I.

“It’s a real pleasure to meet such a famous officer,” said O’Hara warmly.

Roger grinned.

“So you kissed the Blarney stone too.” After a pause, while all the others smiled dutifully, he went on: “This makes you quite a hero, O’Hara.”

“Who, me, sir? I was only doing me duty, and when I saw the two varmints I said to meself, I said, it’s ten to one in pints of Guinness that they’re carrying knives, and if they’re carrying knives then it’s up to me to use me truncheon. So use it I did, with a vengeance. But I’m no hero, Mr. West. I could eat a dozen little shrimps of that size and be ready for my breakfast afterwards. Which reminds me, sir,” he went on to the Chief Inspector, “my wife was asking me if I could have half a day off on Saturday, ’tis the birthday of one of me daughters.”

Roger grinned.

“I think we can manage it,” the local Inspector said drily.

“It’s very good of you indeed,” said O’Hara. “I’ve written the whole story in me report, sir.”

“I’ll check it,” Roger said. “What made you suspect them?”

“That I couldn’t rightly say,” declared O’Hara. “It was a combination of circumstances, as you might say. They looked top heavy on the scooter, and they’d got the carrier bags. I glanced round at them and one of them looked round at me, sly like. Then when they’d turned the corner there was a sudden silence, which meant they’d stopped the engine, and I knew there was Mrs. Dixon and her son alone in that shop on the corner. You can say that you caught the two devils yourself, Mr. West. If you hadn’t made all of us policemen so aware of the danger to shopkeepers, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.”

Roger was still chuckling when he left the police station, with the water in which the men had washed, and the scrapings from their finger-nails; but he sobered down as he drove back to the Yard, with the radio on. No more arrests had been made, but detailed reports were coming in from all South West London. There were now thirty-six known robberies; the total proceeds of the haul were in the neighbourhood of eight thousand pounds in cash, and four thousand in cigarettes and tobacco. Reports were all very similar, but a variety of vehicles from motor-scooters to motor-cycles, little cars and stolen cars, had been used; some raids had been carried out by men on bicycles. Each raider had carried a canvas sack, to hold his loot, and the containers on the captured scooter were large enough to hold fifty or more packs of 100 cigarettes, in tens or twenties. Four men and two women had been injured, none of them seriously.

“There’s only one thing common to each raid,” Sergeant Sam Ede told him when he got back to the office.

“What’s that, Sam?”

“They all wore masks.”

“So the radio told me. Same kind of masks?”

“No such luck. Some wore scarves, some wore handkerchiefs, some harlequin masks,” the sergeant reported. “But it makes a big change, doesn’t it? They didn’t intend to be recognised easily. Not like the one who killed Mrs. Stone.”

Roger said: “No. That wasn’t true to form.”

He sent the washing water and nail scrapings to the laboratory for analysis, then took out the articles found in the pockets of the two prisoners. He had arranged for the Yard’s fingerprint experts to check them all, but first wanted to take a good look. The men had refused to give their names, and there might be a clue to their identity.

He noticed a lobster claw.

There was nothing remarkable about it, except that it was an unusual thing to find in a man’s pocket – rather as if, instead of carrying a rabbit’s paw for luck, this man had carried the claw. Roger turned it over with the end of a pencil. There it was, pink and white, with the serrated edge which could give quite a nip. It was polished and apparently had been in the man’s pocket for a long time. It struck a chord in his memory, and he looked up at Sam.

“Seen anything like that before, Sam?”

“Don’t like shellfish myself, but my old woman’s daft on lobster. Likes it served with a cheese sauce, too—she says it’s lovely.”

“Get the records on Gantry and Endicott, will you?” said Roger. “I want to know what they had in their pockets.” He was looking at the contents of the pockets of the second prisoner, and frowning.

Among these was a very small, fan-shaped shell; he wasn’t sure what shellfish it came from. It was yellowish in colour, very delicate, and about the size of a shilling. It was the kind of thing one might pick up at the sea-shore and put in one’s pocket as a souvenir; the boys had been very fond of doing that when they were young. Sam had gone out, and Roger was alone for ten minutes, trying to remember what had been in the pockets of the two murdered men, wondering why these shells rang a bell in his mind.

Sam came in with the list.

“Funny thing here, Mr. West.”

“What’s that, Sam?”

“Endicott didn’t have anything like it on him, but Gantry did—he carried a winkle shell. A plain ordinary winkle, like you pick up in thousands at Southend when the tide’s out, but—what’s that one, sir?”

“Just another shell,” Roger said. “We might be on to something here, if it isn’t just coincidence. Sam, I’m going to make a round of the four Divisions where they had trouble. Tell the night man to contact me at them, will you?”

“Going shell collecting?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Roger said. “What about those laboratory reports?”

“Just came in,” Sam said. “One man’s been handling a lot of bacon, lately. The other had vegetable dirt on his hands and fingers—as if he worked in a greengrocer’s shop.”

“Well, well,” said Roger. “Don’t they sell vegetables at these big supermarkets?”

“They sell everything that’s eatable,” declared Sam. “Talking of supermarkets, Mr. West, I did a bit of checking on Cockell Shops, as you asked me. It’s a big board now, with nine directors. Used to be a one-man concern. The original Cockell built it up from one general shop. But he had a bit of family trouble. Son kicked over the traces, married beneath him, and the old man disowned him. That’s nine years ago. Two years next November old Cockell died, and his widow brought a lot of new blood into the business. The managing director is a chap named Slessor, but he’s only a guinea-pig, really.”

“Make me an appointment with Slessor, and Mrs. Cockell,” Roger said.

Mrs. Cockell was out of England, he was told, but Slessor seemed glad to see him. He was a tall, rather indeterminate man, obviously worried by the robberies, probably worried by a lot of things. He knew that some dubious characters were employed at the Cockell Shops, in spite of all efforts to prevent it, but no one with a known criminal record was employed. And should one condemn a man, untried?

“But I hope you will give our shops all possible protection, Mr. West. I really do. The matter will be raised at next week’s directors’ meeting, of course. May I assure the Board that you have the matter well in hand?”

Roger said: “You can warn the Board that if the branches employ dubious characters, these dubious characters might work with raiders, and that you’d be wise to check all your staff.”

“Staff is such a problem,” Slessor remarked, unhappily.

“Heavy losses through theft could be a bigger one,” Roger said, drily. He left, and started on the round of the Divisions. As he drove about London he seemed to see grocery “little man” shops, Cockell Shops and Food Fairs everywhere.

By the time he had been to each of the Divisional Stations, checked all the reports and all the results of the investigations, it was nearly midnight.

He had had some fish and chips at Battersea and was more thirsty than hungry when he started back for Chelsea and home. The cleverness of the organisation and all its implications worried him, and the possible significance of the shells seemed to fade. He did not intend to go back to the Yard, and would probably be home before Janet went to bed, after all; it often happened like that. He listened to the confusion of sounds on the radio, the normal network of requests, news flashes, reports of crimes, reports of arrests, instructions to police cars, all in the background. Then he had a flash: “Calling Superintendent West … Calling Superintendent West … Over.”

Roger flicked on his microphone.

“Superintendent West is hearing you … over.”

The man said: “Message for you from Superintendent Baker of Whitechapel, sir … A man named Orde, who has been spending some time with Mrs. Endicott, of Brasher’s Row, has gone into her house tonight, been there for the last two hours. Superintendent Baker thought you would like to know.”

Roger said: “Yes. Thanks.” He flicked off the radio, and drove silently and frowningly for several minutes along the Embankment towards his home. Baker of Whitechapel knew that “Orde” was actually Cyril Owen, of course, and Baker obviously thought it wise that he, Roger, should know what was happening tonight. This probably meant that Baker was worried.

So would Roger be, if Owen spent the night with Ruth Endicott.

Or did Owen think there was no limit to what he should do for the sake of his job?