Maurice Procter - Two men in twenty

'I wish she'd come,' P.W. Dale replied.

'So do I,' was the dry retort. 'I'm beginning to wonder if you dreamed it all.'

'I tell you I saw her.'

'Then we've played it wrong. One of us should have gone to the back of those shops. I think I'll go across and have a look. You stay here, and turn your back on her if she comes out.'

Seymour crossed the street and entered the shop. There were no customers. She asked: 'Have you had a woman in here with a fawn coat and a red-and-white shopping basket?'

The butcher came to a wrong conclusion about Seymour. 'Eeh, I couldn't say,' he replied. 'I never notice things like that.'

Seymour showed her warrant card. 'Happen you did notice,' she said.

The butcher's eyebrows rose. 'Is she a wrong 'un?'

'She may be. Where is she?'

'She said she wanted to dodge a woman who'd keep her talking. I let her out of the back door.'

'How long ago?'

'Five or six minutes.'

'Is she a regular customer?'

'She's been regular for the last month or two. Before that, I didn't know her at all.'

Seymour sighed, and turned away. Then she checked. 'What did she buy?'

The butcher told her, accurately.

'Did she always buy her meat by the shipload?'

'She always bought plenty,' the butcher answered. 'She always paid on the nail, an' all.'

'She must have a big family,' Seymour said, and went to look at the back door. She left the shop then, and carried the bad news to Dale. 'We muffed it,' she said tersely.

'What do we do? Ring it in?'

'If we do, it won't do us any good, will it?'

'No,' said Dale.

Seymour looked at her, and decided that she could not trust her to be silent. Sooner or later she would blurt it out to somebody.

Seymour said: 'Anyway, it goes to show that the woman does live around here. I suppose we ought to ring it in.'

So they went to the nearest telephone.

The message from the two policewomen made Martineau quite certain now that the XXC mob were living in Mossbank, in the part around Grange Gardens and Arlington Street. He poured men into that area. And as soon as he could get away from Headquarters he went to see the inspector in charge of sub-divisional police station in Mossbank. He interviewed the man in the presence of the detective sergeant of the sub-division.

'It might be a good idea if I knew everything that's been going on around here,' he said. 'I'll have a look at your call book for a start.'

He looked at the call book, the occurrence book, and the complaint book. He examined charge sheets. Then he began to examine the station personnel, as the men were called in and presented to him.

'Just think,' he began with each man. 'A young woman, a very bonny young woman by all accounts. She's living somewhere around here among all the foreigners. She has a grown up family of men who aren't all relations of hers.'

After two hours of this he found a motor patrol officer called Hartley who thought so hard that he remembered something, a very bonny young woman.

'Number nine or number eleven Grange Gardens,' he said. 'When I was going from house to house in plain clothes I met such a woman. English, southern accent but not awfully high class. She said she didn't take lodgers.'

'Grange Gardens,' said Martineau. 'They're not little houses, are they? Four or five bedrooms, I should think.'

Hartley's mate spoke up. 'At odd times when I've been going on there to check on the O'Smiths, I've seen a few different blokes going in and out of number eleven. I'd just started to wonder if somebody was running a brothel.'

Martineau never neglected detail. 'Who are the O'Smiths?' he demanded.

'The Irish gypsies in Grange Gardens, sir. The name is Smith, but everybody calls them O'Smith. They're, er, troublesome sir.'

'I see. We can forget about the O'Smiths, then. But it looks as if number eleven might be worth considering. Thank you, men. You might have been very helpful.'

When the men had gone, Martineau discussed possible action with Harvey, the local inspector. He had no evidence to justify the use of a warrant to enter and search No. 11 Grange Gardens. He could only make use of a subterfuge.

'We'll stake the place out for a start, back and front,' he said. 'Have you any ideas about how we could get in?'

'Dress somebody up as an electricity man, come to read the meter?'

'Last resort. They'd be as suspicious as hell. I'll tell you what. For a start we'll team up one of our youngsters with a P. W. of suitable age and appearance. They'll carry suitcases, and they'll call there looking for lodgings. They'll see who comes to the door. We'll have Policewoman Dale along the street in a car. She might be able to do an identification for us. If that doesn't work, we'll have to think of something else.'

That procedure was adopted. When the house in Grange Gardens had been under observations for an hour, word came back to Martineau that there had been no face seen at any window, and indeed there had been no movement at all. By that time the young couple were ready with their suitcases, and P.W. Dale was ready to move up in a car.

Suitcase in hand, the young man rang the doorbell. He waited. He rang again. He knocked. He tried the door. It was locked. He rang again, and waited. Then he said something to his companion, and they moved to the house next door. There, they spoke to a coloured woman. From his observation point, also inside a car, Martineau could see that the woman told them something definite. She seemed to answer a number of questions, without reluctance. Eventually, smiling, they left her, and she also was smiling as she closed her door.

Martineau started his car and drove along the street. He stopped as he drew alongside the couple. 'Come on, get in,' he said. 'You needn't tell me. They've skipped, haven't they?'

'I'm afraid so, sir,' the man answered. 'One man and one of the women went off with a car load of luggage. The others must have gone on foot. They weren't seen to go.'

'Mmmm. How many women in the house?'

'Two women, the neighbour thinks. And at least four men, maybe five. All white people.'

'Could she tell you anything about the car?'

'Only that it was dark blue, moderate size.'

'I see. Wait here. I'll go and have a word with her.'

Martineau walked back to No. 9 Grange Gardens, and pressed the bell button. He heard no bell, so he knocked. The coloured woman came to the door again. He introduced himself, but as pleasantly as he could. The woman's ready smile answered his. She was not afraid of policemen.

'I understand that the people next door have packed up and gone,' he said.

'Yaissah.' He had heard the accent before. He thought it was the strangest English ever spoken. Her smile widened as she added: 'Mebbe rent man come.'

'Maybe,' he agreed. 'Would you know any of them if you saw them again?'

'Mebbe.'

He took his poster from his pocket and unfolded it. 'Do you recognize any of these men?'

It was then that the woman realized that she might be getting involved in something important. Her face clouded.

'You have nothing to be afraid of,' she was told. 'You won't be called as a witness, and these people will never come back here.'

Reassured, she studied the twenty photographs. Deliberately, but without hesitation, she put a brown forefinger on one of them.

Martineau nodded, and with his pencil he marked the picture of Howard Cain. 'Any more?'

She nodded, and touched another picture. There was no name beneath it, but Martineau knew the name. Edward James France, alias Jimmy the Gent. He marked the picture. 'That's the one? Any more?'

She shook her head. He asked further questions, and obtained descriptions of Doreen, Flo, Coggan, Husker, and Jolly, reflecting as he did so that he had been fortunate in meeting a woman in this street who had at least noticed her neighbours. He walked away then, not dissatisfied and not elated by the inquiry. It had been a half-success. The birds had flown, frightened away by an accurate premonition that the police were closing in on them. They would now be on the London road, heading back towards familiar haunts. He would not see them again until he went to interview them in some London police station.