John Creasey: Send Superintendent West

“Are the Shawns wealthy?” he asked suddenly.

“Very.”

“Why a suburban house and just a daily maid?”

“They’ve only been there since Ricky arrived, and I imagine Belle Shawn is having fun playing at housework. Lissa doesn’t think she will for long.”

Lissa, Roger pondered; how soon would he learn more about Lissa?

The telephone bell rang, one of three on the desk.

“The middle one,” Marino said.

“The Assistant Commissioner is on the line,” said a girl, and after a moment a man with a rather hard voice asked:

“Is that you, West? What are you doing there?”

“They want us to look into a job which was pulled during the night,” Roger said. “They’re in a hurry, but they don’t want to talk over the telephone.”

“All right, see what you can make of it,” Hardy said. “Don’t let them high-pressure you, though.”

Roger pushed the telephone away, and asked:

“Who will take me to the house ?”

“Lissa Meredith will,” Marino answered. He lifted the telephone, and went on: “Ask Lissa to come right away, Herb.” Replacing the receiver, he continued: “You’ll get along with Lissa, but then I guess you get along with most people.”

“I try to,” Roger said. “As this is hush-hush to begin with, why not start the right way? I won’t leave the Embassy with Miss Meredith —”

“Mrs Meredith.”

“Oh! I’ll have a word with her here, and pick her up somewhere on the way — on the Bayswater Road just beyond the park gates, say. I may be recognized, and if I’m seen leaving with David Shawn’s secretary, a lot of people will put two and two together.” He waited.

“We are certainly going to get along,” Marino said, and looked up as the door opened and Lissa Meredith came in.

3

LISSA

LISSA Meredith had beautiful red hair and a smile of the kind that, a few hundred years ago, would have set armies marching and empires tumbling. It wasn’t so much that she was a beauty, but that she seemed aflame with vitality. It glowed in the rich tints of her hair and the light in her honey-brown eyes and the rippling quicksilver of her movements. She wore a plain greeny-grey linen suit, with dark green piping, and a white blouse with a bow of the same piping at the neck. “Hi, Tony,” she said, and smiled at Roger. He had to remind himself that a child had been kidnapped and the case needed all his attention.

“Hi. Lissa, this is Superintendent Roger West of Scotland Yard. He’s going out with you to Shawn’s place. You’re to wait for him at the Hyde Park Gate in Bayswater Road. Do you know it?”

“Who doesn’t?” she asked. “How soon?”

“As soon as you can get there.”

“Not quite so soon as that,” Roger said. “I’d like to know more about the affair before we leave. The address of the house, what you found there, everything that isn’t on the Secret List.”

“I could tell you on the way,” Lissa said.

“You can fill in the details on the way.”

Lissa glanced at Marino, obviously for approval, and he waved her to a chair. She didn’t take it, but leaned against his desk, ankles crossed, nylon-sheathed legs slim, exciting.

“I want to find Ricky as soon as we can,” she said. “I want to find him before Belle comes round, because any danger to him will drive her mad. She’s crazy about that boy. So is David, but David’s tougher. A broken Belle might break David, and we can’t risk that. You just have to find the child, Superintendent.” Her voice had the warmth of fire. Roger wasn’t particularly familiar with American accents, but he placed this as faintly Southern. “The house is thirty-one Wavertree Road, Ealing, one of a thousand houses that all look the same. I left there last evening at twenty after five, and everything was normal. Ricky walked to the end of the street with me. I arrived there this morning at ten minutes after eight, and the first thing that seemed wrong was the silence. Belle often sleeps late but David is usually up early, and so is Ricky. I went upstairs, and found David and Belle so deep asleep that they wouldn’t wake up.”

Roger said: “Asleep?”

“Breathing,” she corrected. “Under drugs, you can be sure of that. I couldn’t get across to Ricky’s room quickly enough. His bed had been slept in, but it was empty. His clothes were gone, and so was a suitcase — one I unpacked for him when he arrived, three weeks ago. Belle just couldn’t live without him.”

Roger sensed criticism of Belle Shawn. Disapproval or just impatience? he wondered.

“Toothbrush and things gone?” he asked.

“Yes.” Lissa stood upright. “That was a relief, they wouldn’t take his toothbrush if they didn’t mean to look after him.” She probably meant “If they meant to kill him.”

“I suppose not,” Roger said.

She said sharply: “Don’t you agree?”

“Supposing we don’t take anything for granted? They would take his toothbrush if they wanted us to think that they were going to take good care of him, wouldn’t they?”

She stared down at him; and now her honey-coloured eyes weren’t smiling, they were nearly threatening.

“If you say that to Belle or to David,” she said, “I won’t forgive you.”

She was a new experience for Roger; working with her would be as invigorating as a walk in the teeth of a high wind.

“Did you look round the rest of the house?” he asked.

“Surely. The back door was open.”

She had been thorough, she had a mind for detail, and she had kept her head. Added to everything he had seen about her was an underlying factor which might be a truer indication of her nature; coolness in emergency.

Marino put an elbow on the polished desk, and said with a hint of impatience:

“Lissa knows the Shawns better than anyone in England. She can tell you about them on the way.”

“All right, I’m nearly ready to go,” Roger said. “You’ll have to send a doctor, quickly. The Shawns may need one. Shall I fix it with Division, or —”

“I’ll fix the doctor.”

“And I’d like to call the Yard again.”

Marino gave instructions to Herb, and the others watched him as he picked up the telephone, were intent on every word he said.

He spoke to Bill Sloan, who already knew a little, and would be as discreet as anyone.

“Bill, contact the Ealing Station,” he said. “Have them find out who was patrolling Wavertree Road last night, the late day-duty man and the night-duty man. I want to see both officers at the Divisional station at” — he glanced at a small clock on the desk; it was a little after ten o’clock — “noon on the dot.”

“I’ll see to it,” promised Sloan.

Thanks.” Roger put down the receiver and stood up. “You go ahead, Mrs Meredith, in a taxi. I’ll pick you up at the gate two or three minutes later. Is that all right?”

“Surely.”

Her eyes glowed approval before she turned away, waved from the door, and went out. Roger supposed that he would get used to her; that if he tried hard enough, he could become proof against her disturbing vitality.

Marino was smiling as if guessing that his thoughts were on the woman at least as much as on the case.

“One other thing, Mr West. Before you report to your superiors, you will come and see me, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

Once again Marino didn’t get up, simply put out a hand.

Going towards the lift, with Herb as guide, Roger realized how little Marino had said and how much he had implied; and he warned himself that he must not worry about the reasons for secrecy, this was a single problem, the finding of a kidnapped child. But the emotional factor couldn’t be disregarded for long; if the boy was not back by the time his mother came round, there would probably be a lot of complications.