Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

‘That’s it,’ muttered Gently, ‘they carted him down there. How far would you say we were above the Front?’

Copping did some calculations. ‘Two miles, about… might be a trifle less.’

‘It just about tallies… I was reckoning on two miles. They dumped him in down there in the ebb, expecting the current to pick him up and carry him right down south. It was just rank bad luck that he finished up on their doorstep again…’

‘You’re positive it was done in the house?’

‘Quite positive… I can see the whole picture now.’

‘There weren’t any signs of it — no blood-stains or anything.’

Gently smiled grimly. ‘Professionals, Copping. He wasn’t hacked about. Didn’t you notice how little blood there was on the clothes?’

‘And if they’d used violence it wouldn’t have shown much, not in an empty house.’

‘But they didn’t use any… they didn’t have to. He was delivered right into their hands, unarmed and unsuspecting. My guess is that the first thing he knew about it was an automatic dug into his ribs… you don’t argue with a thing like that in the first instance. By the time he’d weighed the situation up his hands were tied and he hadn’t any option. It’s a classic case, Copping. Only our Delilahs come a bit coarser these days.’

‘Delilahs!’ Copping gave a laugh. ‘He must have wanted his brains tested to take up with a mare like Frenchy.’

There was a sound of two cars pulling up and they returned to the front of the house. To their surprise it was the super who came stalking up the crazy-paving. The great man had a taut look, as though primed with high enterprise, and having stalked to the end of the crazy-paving he halted smartly, straddled his legs and quizzed Gently with a sideways look in which were blended both jealousy and admiration.

‘All right!’ he rapped, ‘you’re a happy man, Gently. You know your job, and I’m just a blasted ex-infantry officer who’s got shoved into a rural police force!’

Gently bowed modestly, as though disclaiming praise from such high places. The super snorted and directed his gaze at a ‘Windy Tops’ chimney.

‘So they got him!’ he jerked from the corner of his mouth, ‘laid for him on information — Special and the Limehouse lot — picked him up going aboard a Polish tramp. Nearly shot two men and laid out a third. They’re bringing him up now and a big-shot from Special along with them.’

There was a gratifying silence.

‘You mean… Streifer?’ gasped Copping.

The super withered him with an acetylene flicker of his eye. ‘We’re not after Malenkov — nor Senator McCarthy! And just to temper the general glee I may as well add that Special are not the teeniest weeniest bit interested in our lousy little homicide. They couldn’t care less. What they’re coming for is the whole TSK Party handed to them on a platter and if we can’t produce it then they aim to make life irksome in these parts — you understand?’

Gently nodded his mandarin nod. ‘I’ve worked with Special…’

‘Then you know what’s coming — and it’ll be here just after tea! So get your facts marshalled, Gently. There’s a top-level conference staring you in the face. Amongst other things I’ve had to pull the CC off a theatre party he’s had planned for the last six weeks… that’s one nasty-minded person who’s going to be there, for a start!’

Assuredly there was was an array of formidable talent lined up in the super’s office on that grey August evening. It required the impression of seating accommodation from several other departments and it was sad to see so many men of such lustre crammed together like constables at a compulsory lecture. As far as sheer superiority of rank was concerned, the home team had a clear advantage. They were led by the Chief Constable of Northshire, Sir Daynes Broke, CBE, ably supported by his Assistant CC, Colonel Shotover Grout, DSO, MC, with the redoubtable flanks of Superintendent Symms and Inspector Copping. But rank, of course, wasn’t everything. There was a matter of quality also, and in this respect, to judge from their attitude, the visiting team felt themselves to have the edge. They were four in number, a sort of Special commando unit. Their ranks comprised Detective Sergeants Drill and Nickman, as dour a pair of bloodhounds as ever signed reports; their lieutenant was Chief Inspector Lasher, a man who had earned the hearty dislike of a select list of international organizations. But it was their No. 1 who really set the seal on the outfit. You could feel his presence through six-inch armour plate. He was a comparatively small man with a large squarish head and blue eyes that glowed hypnotically, as though lit by the perpetual and unfaltering generation of his brain. His name was Chief Superintendent Gish and the date of his retirement had been set aside by the entire world of espionage as one for public holiday and heartfelt rejoicing.

Between these two mighty factions Gently, the lonely representative of the Central Office, felt somewhat in the character of a light skirmisher. He’d got a nuisance value, they would probably concede him that, but otherwise he was merely there as a point of reference. So he squeezed himself into a seat behind Detective Sergeant Nickman, and contented himself with issuing entirely unauthorized smoke-rings.

Chief Superintendent Gish said: ‘I want to impress on everybody concerned the urgency and importance of our mission down here. We have sent you a certain amount of information already to assist you in the homicide investigation… we’ve got your man for you and I take it you have prepared a case against him. If you haven’t, it doesn’t matter because we can put him away ourselves on a certain charge of sabotage. The importance and urgency of this business lies elsewhere and it’s that I want to talk about.’

He paused, not so much for comment as to drive home his conviction that comment was superfluous. Gently puffed a sly ring over Detective Sergeant Nickman’s right ear. There was a general silence on all fronts.

‘Very well, gentlemen,’ continued Superintendent Gish, his floor confirmed. ‘Now it must certainly have occurred to you, though possibly you have been unable to trace it, that Streifer has received assistance in what he did here. The circumstances of the crime as they are known to me leave no doubt about that. They are typical of the organized killing, the sort that we of the Special Branch are all too familiar with. Now that in itself is an important and urgent matter, but it becomes doubly so in the light of what I am about to tell you.

‘The TSK Party came into existence shortly after the war. Officially it has no connection with the authorities on the other side of the Curtain, but I don’t have to tell you that it wouldn’t have thrived so long as it has done without connivance, and probably assistance, from the gentlemen over the way. It contains a strong Trotskyite element, which no doubt accounts for the nomenclature, but it pursues its aims not by assassination — though it isn’t above it — but by extraordinarily well-executed sabotage.

‘We first came across it in Yugoslavia. Later on it turned up in Czechoslovakia, Western Germany, France and the Suez Canal Zone. Three years ago the FBI were considerably shaken up to find it active and flourishing in the States — not just one or two agents but a complete organization, with some very dangerous contacts inside two atomic research stations. Fortunately they got on to them in time and pretty well stamped them out, though if this little affair is anything to go by the TSK still have a foot-hold over there. In the suitcase Streifer was carrying there were $1,000,000 in counterfeit bills.