Petrella at 'Q' (15 page)

Sergeant Ambrose accepted this vague assignment calmly. He was a painstaking and methodical person and had no doubt that he could unearth the information without too much difficulty.

The inquest on Nicholls was resumed a fortnight later. Photographs and reports were produced to the jury. Mr. Lampe’s strong protest about the description of the deceased as an alcoholic was duly noted. The Press, who had been alerted to the possibilities of the case, were there in force. The Coroner summed up at length and the jury, after discussion, returned a disappointing verdict; that there was insufficient evidence to show how Bernard Francis Nicholls had come to his death.

Chief Superintendent Watterson, at Division, read the report of the inquest and said to Petrella, “I suppose you’d better keep the file open. Something might turn up.” Which was as good as saying, “Forget about it and get on with your own work. You’ve got plenty of other things to do.”

A week later Nicholls was cremated, the principal mourners being his wife, who seemed to be bearing up reasonably well, and a sister who came down from Lancashire for the occasion. Mr. Lampe made the arrangements and attended the ceremony.

On the following day Petrella heard the good news. Mr. Lloyd had found a flat for him. He went round with his wife to see it and they both liked it. It had three bedrooms and a large cupboard which could, with imagination, be described as a fourth bedroom. Mr. Lloyd said, “Had a bit of luck there. Man who lived in it is working for the Electricity Board. He’s been moved up to Scotland. Got to get out quick. Prepared to take five hundred.”

A week later, Petrella was installed in his new flat and had received the sum of four hundred and twenty-five pounds, in notes, from Mr. Lloyd, this being the difference between the thousand pounds which he had duly got for the gas cooker, two threadbare carpets and the hastily re-fixed pelmets, the five hundred he had paid for an electric water-heater and an old sofa in the new flat, and Mr. Lloyd’s commission on the double deal.

It was on a Monday, a week after the move, that Sergeant Ambrose laid a photograph on Petrella’s desk. He said, “I think this is the man you were enquiring after, sir. Named Thomas Anderson. Five years for fraudulent trading. Twelve other cases taken into consideration. Released after serving three years and four months. Nothing known since.”

They were clear photographs, taken from the front and in both profiles. There was not the least doubt that it was Tom Adams, head cashier at Lloyd and Lloyd.

Petrella gave the matter a lot of thought. On the one hand, he had personal reasons for feeling grateful to Mr. Lloyd. On the other hand, it looked as though Adams had been going straight since he came out of gaol. If he did say anything to Lloyd, and Adams lost his job, would he not be guilty of persecuting an innocent man who had fought his way back from crime to respectability? It was the twelve other cases that made him hesitate. Could a man who had committed such a systematic series of frauds ever really be trusted to look after someone else’s money?

It was while he was thinking about it that the telephone rang. It was Superintendent Watterson. He said, “You’re wanted at District tomorrow at ten o’clock.”

“What on earth for?”

“No idea,” said Watterson. “But you’d better brush your hair and put on a clean collar. It’s the old man who wants to see you.”

The head of C.I.D. in No. 2 District, at that time, was Commander Baylis. He was not popular with his subordinates, although he seemed to satisfy his superiors well enough. He had come to his appointment through the specialised branches at Central, having risen from the Criminal Record Office, via control of the Fraud Squad to a quiet Division on the respectable western fringe of London. Watterson had once described him to Petrella, in an unguarded moment, as an old woman. Petrella’s occasional encounters with him had done nothing to dispel this impression.

When he was shown into the Commander’s office he was surprised to see a third man, whom he recognised from past dealings over pension contributions, as Mr. Rose, an assistant in the office of the secretary.

Baylis said, “Sit down, sit down. I’m sorry to drag you all the way up here, but a point has come up on which I thought I ought to have a word with you personally.”

The words were polite enough, but Petrella felt a faint tremor of disquiet.

“Perhaps you’d be good enough to explain to the Inspector, Mr. Rose.”

Mr. Rose said, “As you know, Inspector, we go to great lengths to monitor the bank accounts of police officers. The commonest form of attack, by people who want to get the police into trouble, is to suggest that illicit payments have been made to them, very often directly into their bank accounts.”

Petrella said, “Yes.” He was aware of the system. Like all police officers of a certain seniority he had signed an authority to his own bank opening his account to inspection.

“We made one of our periodical checks on your own account yesterday. You had paid in a rather large sum, in notes. Four hundred and twenty-five pounds.”

Petrella said, the relief in his voice evident to the two men, “That’s quite all right. It was a balance which was due to me when I changed flats, apparently two bedroom ones are more saleable than three bedroom ones. You can check it all up with Lloyd and Lloyd.”

Mr. Rose looked at Commander Baylis who said, “Yes, yes. I see. That explains how the money came into your hands. It doesn’t explain why thirty of the ten-pound notes were part of the proceeds of a recent wage snatch.”

A Lively Night at Basildon Mansions

When he had got his breath back, Petrella said, “Which particular wage snatch was that, sir?”

“At Corinth Car Parts. Last November.”

“Two months ago.”

“Fourteen months ago.”

Petrella nearly said, “I should hardly describe that as recent.” It was the sort of thing he would have said to Watterson without a second thought. Something told him that Baylis might not take it well. Mr. Rose, obedient to a slight inclination of the head, had slid out of the room.

Baylis said, “You may be excused for not knowing much about it, Inspector. For better or worse, it was handed over to the Serious Crimes Squad. And we all know the secrecy with which the S.C.S. like to wrap up
their
operations.”

Petrella did know it. He was also beginning to understand the acrimony in Baylis’s voice.

Since their formation two years before, the Serious Crimes Squad had done a lot of good work. They had also upset the regular hierarchy of the C.I.D.; a hierarchy which linked the Detective on the job, the Detective Inspector in charge of the Station, the Detective Superintendent or Chief Superintendent at Division and the Commander at District in an orderly and well-understood chain of command. The S.C.S. by-passed all of these and was answerable only to the Assistant Commissioner at Central. Districts and Divisions were given periodical reports of their operations, but had no executive control over them.

Petrella said, “How much did they get?”

“Ninety thousand pounds. Corinth is a big outfit, but it wouldn’t have been anything like that if it hadn’t been the last week in November, when they hand out the Christmas bonus.”

“We had another big one in April,” said Petrella. “G.E.X. Engineering in Deptford.”

“There have been two since then. G.E.X. was in April. Costa-Cans in September. That adds up to three major unsolved wage snatches in my District. In my opinion—”

What indiscretion Baylis was on the point of committing was not to be revealed. Mr. Rose had sidled back into the room. He nodded his head.

Petrella knew what he had been doing. He had been telephoning Lloyd and Lloyd and checking up on his story. He took no umbrage. He would have done the same in Baylis’s place.

“Although we aren’t allowed to interfere in an S.C.S. operation,” said Baylis, “I hardly think the powers that be could object to your following up an obvious lead of this sort, do you?”

The atmosphere had become noticeably more friendly.

“I certainly think I ought to follow it up, sir. After all, we don’t know that it had anything to do with the Corinth job. The money may have passed through half a dozen hands. It’s simply a case of a firm being found in possession of stolen property. A routine enquiry.”

“Exactly,” said Baylis. “They can’t expect
all
detective work in the District to come to a grinding halt just because the S.C.S. has been engaged – and not too successfully engaged if I might say so – in investigations in our manor, can they?”

“I’ve got the reports here, if you’d like to look at them,” said Watterson. “Most of the banknotes taken in the Corinth job were ordinary, small-denomination stuff, used notes, impossible to trace. It was just that the directors thought it would be a nice idea to give each of their senior employees a ten-pound note in their bonus packet. They were the new Florence Nightingale issue. So they drew this packet of two hundred tenners and the bank kept a note of the serial numbers, which were in sequence. It’s thirty of those notes that have ended up in your pocket. It doesn’t prove anything against Lloyds of course. Most of their transactions are on a cash basis. Sale of small businesses and stock-in-trade, as well as flats and houses.”

“I imagine the Inspector of Taxes would like a sight of their books.”

“They don’t keep books. They keep a bank account. The money goes in one end and out at the other. All the same, Mr. Lloyd might be able to help. It can’t be every day that he gets paid in new ten-pound notes. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I’d do just that,” said Petrella. “But I’m not sure that he could tell us.”

“Oh?”

“The man who looks after the cash is a Mr. Adams.”

“Then ask him.”

“That might be counter-productive,” said Petrella. He told Watterson about Mr. Adams, alias Anderson. Watterson scratched his pointed chin and said, “I see. Yes. This begins to have an interesting sort of smell about it. If Adams
is
bent, do you think someone might be using him to dispose of some of their hot money?”

“It seemed possible. The only thing is, if it’s right, ought we to tackle it ourselves?”

Watterson said, in almost exactly the same tones as Baylis, “The S.C.S. can’t expect us to suspend all work in the Division just because they’ve got interested in two or three jobs round here.”

“Actually,” said Petrella, “couldn’t we have handled those jobs just as well as the S.C.S.?”

‘Tm not sure,” said Watterson. “I don’t get as uptight about it as Fred Baylis. Those three snatches were real professional efforts. It wasn’t so much the snatch itself. That was a case of using plenty of muscle. Hitting hard and running fast. All very tightly planned no doubt, but there’ve been plenty of others as good. It was the intelligence work that was outstanding. They’ve always struck when there was a maximum of money available. In the G.E.X. case in April they were actually paying out a three weeks’ supplement, all in one go, on the settlement of a round of wage bargaining. In the Costa-Cans case, the company knew that it was a heavy pay-out that week and took special precautions. The security team went to the bank in their usual van and collected a dummy pay-roll. Satchels full of old newspapers, actually. The real money went out of the back door of the bank in a private car.
That
was the car they hit. You can see what I mean by organisation. It’s all in the reports. Take them away and read them.”

As Petrella was going he said, “Who was that expensive-looking lady in the expensive-looking car that I saw waiting outside District Headquarters?”

“That,” said Watterson, “would be Mrs. Baylis. A second reason for Fred’s ulcers.”

Petrella said, “We’ve got a job on, and it’s going to need very careful handling, because there are a lot of toes that haven’t got to be trodden on.”

His audience consisted of Detective Sergeant Blencowe, large and impassive; Detective Sergeant Milo Roughead, tall and dressed in a manner nicely calculated to compromise between a country house upbringing and life in the ranks of the C.I.D., Detective Sergeant Ambrose (looking his normal, neat and efficient self) and probationary Detective Lampier, recently promoted to the plain-clothes branch and looking, if it were possible, even more untidy out of uniform than he had looked in it.

“Another thing,” said Petrella, “this is something outside the ordinary day-by-day stuff. We can’t have routine entirely disrupted by it. It’ll have to be tackled as and when we can manage it. Along with all our other stuff.”

His audience tried to look enthusiastic. Only Detective Lampier succeeded convincingly. He was new to the job.

“What we want to find out is whether there’s any connection between Lloyd and Lloyd and the villains who pulled these three snatches. You can be certain that if there
is
any connection, it’s carefully organised. These aren’t the sort of people who leave letters lying around or make incautious telephone calls. The way I propose to tackle it, we’ll make a two-pronged attack. I’ve no real reason to think that Lloyd himself is involved, but Blencowe can chat him up and see if he can get anything useful. He knows you used to play for London Welsh and he used to play for Aberavon years ago. It’ll make a point of contact.”

“I’m not sure that it’ll be tactful to remind him,” said Blencowe. “When we played Aberavon last year one of their forwards got his ear bitten – mind you, it was his fault, he should have kept his ears to himself.”

“Why not bite Lloyd in the ear,” said Petrella. “It should break the ice beautifully. The rest of you concentrate on Adams. He’s the real lead. We’ve got a friend with an upstairs room we can use. Lloyds shut at half past five and I imagine Adams is away fairly promptly. You can take it in turns, one evening each. Just follow him. Don’t breathe down his neck. All I want to know is, if he goes anywhere except straight home.”

When Petrella spoke of a “friend” he meant someone who, without being an informer, was prepared to help the police in small ways, reckoning to have it counted in his favour next time he happened to run into trouble. Mr. Grandlund, who lived over his wireless shop opposite the offices of Lloyd and Lloyd, was a friend; and it was in his front room, comfortably seated in a chair opposite the window, with the net curtains drawn, that Sergeant Ambrose spent Tuesday evening and Detective Lampier Wednesday evening.