Policeman's Progress (15 page)

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 now?'

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.

Bolam, seated at the back of the court, could hardly hear a word the man said, but he managed to gather that this was Geordie's father. His evidence was entirely negative. His son had not set foot across the family threshold in Jarrow for three years, having been ‘a right disappointment' as he had done time in prison.

Dr Ellison puffed up the stairs at the last moment, in time to gabble the oath and tell the coroner that the cause of death was multiple injuries including a broken neck and fractured ribs. The deceased had been dead between three days and a week.

The reporters wrote frenziedly at this, but this was all they were going to get from the doctor, who scribbled his signature on the deposition and vanished as quickly as he had come.

Bolam was the only other witness. He took the oath in a hard, even voice.

‘You are Alec Heath Bolam, Detective Chief Inspector in the Tyneside Constabulary?'

‘I am, sir.'

‘And you can identify the body as that of George William Armstrong?'

‘Not directly, sir, though I knew him during life and the body shows no features inconsistent with that identity, though it has suffered severe post-mortem injuries. However, I am in possession of a report from the North-East Criminal Records Office which establishes beyond doubt that the deceased was in fact George Armstrong.'

Bolam handed over the flimsy message form for the coroner to study.

He handed it back. ‘Er – that seems good enough. I understand that certain investigations are taking place?'

‘Yes, sir – no one has yet been charged.'

There was a slight emphasis on the ‘yet' which sent the reporters' pens skidding across their notebooks.

‘In that case, I shall adjourn the inquest for six weeks under Section Twenty of the Coroner's Amendment Act. If I hear from another court that proceedings are being taken, this enquiry will, of course, not be resumed.'

The business was over and a few minutes later Alec Bolam was back in Headquarters. In the afternoon, MacDonald called another conference.

‘Are we sure we've got nothing to pull Stott down with?' he began. His wrinkled, long face radiated annoyance over the group of detectives.

Bolam rocked his head slowly from side to side. ‘Not a thing – that statement he made this morning was a complete farce. Denied setting eyes on Geordie after the Saturday night – denied sending any telegram – in fact it was a waste of ten minutes, that interview – Abel Lupin put Jackie up to it – sat there and blocked half my questions, damn him!'

MacDonald scowled. ‘And no hope of a voluntary statement from Joe Blunt, either?'

Bolam shook his head. ‘Lupin's told him to keep his face shut too. If we could prove even one of our suspicions, it would be a start, but at present the DPP
²
would laugh at us if we sent him a file on it – and Lupin would jump on us for malicious prosecution and unlawful arrest.'

MacDonald nodded wearily. ‘I know, you're right. But we know the bugger did it – how are we going to nail him!'

Potts, the expert police lawyer, chipped in. ‘What about the lab? With all this circumstantial stuff, we need some real physical evidence from somewhere if we're to get this one off the ground.'

Alec grimaced. ‘We've been over the Rising Sun with a toothcomb today – not a thing. Jackie was grinning all over his mug – he knows there's nothing there to find.'

‘And the
Mississippi
is under the bloody river,' moaned MacDonald. ‘No chance
they
did it to destroy any evidence, I suppose?'

Bolam threw up his hands. ‘God knows … I doubt it; Jackie's the wrong sort to destroy his own property. In spite of being a fly bastard, he's got a streak of arrogance that might pay off for us in the end – thinks he's God's right-hand man. I can't see him scuttling his own boat.'

‘Papagos and company are behind that, no doubt,' observed Potts. ‘So that line's dead – we'll never get a smell of whoever did it. But what about Armstrong's movements that Sunday night?' he demanded.

Jimmy Grainger spoke up. ‘We traced him finally to the Berwick Arms on the Quayside. He was in the bar there about ten o'clock – no one saw him after that.'

‘The Berwick … not far from the boat,' mused MacDonald.

‘But useless as evidence,' reminded Bolam. ‘We can't tie in Jackie or Joe Blunt with the boat that night.'

‘Where do they say they were?' demanded the Chief Superintendent.

‘They don't – not a word from either of 'em since Lupin shut them up,' snapped Bolam.

MacDonald scratched his thin grey hair.

‘Where do we go from here?'

There was a heavy silence for a moment.

‘What about that telegram?' he asked again.

Jimmy spoke up once more. ‘No luck, sir. The Met chaps showed pictures of Joe and Jackie from Records to the Post Office staff, but no one recognized them. Not surprising, I suppose.'

‘So that line is dead,' grunted the detective chief.

Alec cleared his throat. ‘We had a word or two with the “Creeper” – this Archie Lee that Geordie was hanging around with. He was as scared as hell – I couldn't gather who he was frightened of; it wasn't us, though.'

‘I thought he'd vanished,' said Potts.

‘He did – as far as Blaydon … went to ground in his sister's place.

‘Get anything out of him?' asked MacDonald.

‘Only that he and Geordie were working some little fiddle at Jackie's expense. He was playing the tables with Armstrong as croupier, and Armstrong slipped him a few extra chips or moved him on to a winning square when nobody was looking.'

‘So that's why Jackie gave him the push!' summarized MacDonald.

‘And probably why Joe was giving him a belting on Saturday night – but I can't see him getting killed for it,' objected Bolam.

The chief superintendent pursed his lips. ‘Never can tell. Though it does seem a bit drastic. And why belt him on Saturday and then wait until Sunday to kill him?'

There was another heavy silence.

‘And the lab have turned up nothing?' persisted Potts.

Bolam took a deep breath. ‘Very little. There was a small amount of alcohol in the body, no more than from a steady night's boozing. The wire around the legs was a common type of galvanized fencing wire. Made in Britain, according to the lab people. They're comparing it with a few samples from different manufacturers, but they need a lot more time before they could have a chance to pin it down to one factory. Even if they do, there's a hell of a lot of fencing wire used all over the North, so I don't see that bringing it much nearer Jackie Stott.'

‘The dredger didn't fetch up anything more?' asked MacDonald.

‘No – they scratched around for half a day, but no joy.' This time it was Potts doing the answering. ‘I asked about the possibility of using police frogmen, but they say there's ten feet of mud on the bottom, it would be a waste of time.'

MacDonald succumbed to temptation and hauled his old pipe from his pocket.

‘Nothing in Jackie's place or in the back of his car?'

‘Not a speck of anything to help us – the car looked too clean to be true, but that's neither here nor there.'

‘Any tie-up with this other business – Papagos and crew – I wonder?'

Bolam sighed. ‘God knows, sir … I can't see how. Geordie was dead long before the Greek turned up in Newcastle.'

After a few more minutes of fruitless talk, they broke up. MacDonald had agreed to allot more men to the routine drag of asking around all the public houses and places on the Quayside, to see if they could pin Geordie's movements down more accurately. They were also very interested in the whereabouts of the two men from the Rising Sun on that Sunday night and the enquiries ‘on the knocker' were designed to try to get a lead on that aspect as well. All motor patrols were to be questioned in case Stott's conspicuous Mercedes had been seen anywhere that night – in fact, all the tedious routine of a murder investigation began to roll.

Back in his office, Bolam kicked his waste-paper basket in disgust. ‘Looks as if Jackie will be able to sit back and laugh at us, blast him,' he snarled.

‘He won't have much time for sitting back, with the Greek on his tail,' countered Jimmy. ‘Which fox are we going to chase – Jackie or the Papagos mob?'

Bolam settled for the latter – the killing seemed to be stagnant until they got some sort of break.

‘We'll stake out the Rising Sun for a few hours tonight – sit outside in a car … that old Austin won't be noticed at one of the meters in the Bigg Market.'

‘All night?' queried Jimmy in dismay.

‘From about eleven till two – that's the peak customer time. If the London yobs are going to try anything on, it'll be in that period.'

‘And if nothing happens?'

‘We try again tomorrow – and the next night. Get one of the younger lads from downstairs – a newish fellow, that won't be recognized in the club. Tell him to go in and wait – give us the tip if anything starts.'

Jimmy looked unsettled. ‘What about the murder angle? Are we just going to let it ride?'

Bolam shrugged. ‘Uncle Mac is running that – he'll have you on the pub routine unless you stick to my bandwagon, chum! Wearing out their boots on doorsteps seems to be the menu for most of the CID for the next week. Never know, something might come of it, too … hard graft usually brings in more rewards than flashes of inspiration in this game.'