John Creasey: Send Superintendent West

The telephone bell rang.

She turned, swift as light, towards the door, but Roger reached it just behind her and gripped her arm. She didn’t try to pull herself free, just walked along the passage, speaking in a whisper.

“David will answer it upstairs. We can listen-in in the dining-room.”

They were at the dining-room door, and she meant to reach the extension telephone first. Roger slipped past her, actually pushing her to one side as he picked up the receiver. A yard away, she stood defiant and resentful. He couldn’t mistake the curiously gruff quality of Shawn’s voice, although Shawn was only giving the number of the house.

A man said: “That David Shawn?”

“Yes,” said Shawn.

“David Shawn,” repeated the caller, as if he were rolling the words round his tongue. He was English, or his voice was English, and Roger had expected an American. “How long have you been awake?”

Shawn said: “Long enough.”

“So you know.”

“I know,” Shawn said.

He didn’t alter his tone, but Roger could picture his face, the burning eyes, the way his jaw clamped and the way his lips moved as if uttering each word caused pain.

“Don’t do anything,” the caller ordered. “Just wait until you’re told what to do. Just wait.”

He rang off.

Roger held the receiver close to his ear, and could hear Shawn’s heavy breathing. Slowly, that receiver went down. Lissa moved away from Roger, and swift brightness of a smile drove away the frost of her resentment.

“Was the conversation worth hearing?”

“He had orders to wait and do nothing.” Roger replaced his receiver. “And you think he’ll obey.”

“I’m afraid he will obey. I think —” Lissa paused, frowned in concentration, and then went on more rapidly, drawing closer in a conspiratorial way. “I guessed a lot, but David told me the truth just now. He and Belle were in danger of breaking up, and only Ricky kept them together. He agreed to have Ricky here in a desperate effort to stave off the collapse. It would be a disaster to him, or he thinks it would. She will blame him, of course. She will say if he had given up his assignment and gone back home, this would never have happened to their son.”

“Would it have happened?”

“Shawn is important, very important, doing work only he can do. This could prey on his mind so much that he would be unable to carry on with it.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to talk freely to me or someone at the Yard,” Roger said. “We can’t blunder about in the dark. Go back and tell Marino that, will you? Tell him we can play hush-hush as well as he can, but if he wants results quickly, we’ve got to know everything. And I don’t care a damn what arrangement the Ambassador and the Assistant Commissioner or the Queen’s High Admiral might come to. Use my car. I’ll wait until the doctor arrives.”

“What’s got into you?” she demanded.

“I ought to be on the telephone, ought to have told the Yard everything an hour ago, to warn all ports and airfields, all railway termini, every kicking-off point from England. The police ought to be on the look-out for the boy, have his description in every police station, in every newspaper. Tell Marino that.”

“And leave you alone with Shawn.”

“That’s right,” Roger said.

“That won’t do you any good,” she said. “David Shawn won’t talk to you about his work or anything that will lead up to it. You have a job to do too, Superintendent You have to convince David that you can find the boy — that he doesn’t have to start doing what the others tell him yet Will you do that?”

“I will try,” Roger promised.

Obviously, he had to try.

He went to the front door with her, and she smiled and waved from his car as she settled down at the wheel. He fought the temptation to watch her until she was out of sight, turned, closed the front door with a snap, and hurried up the stairs. He tapped and went into the bedroom, without ceremony.

Belle Shawn lay in bed, the clothes drawn up to her neck, her face pale, her hair very tidy. Shawn was by the dressing-table, fully dressed, except for his coat and shoes, and was combing his thick, dark hair. He used Roger’s trick, looking at the door in the mirror.

“Lissa said a doctor’s coming,” he declared.

“He should be here,” said Roger. “Did Mrs Meredith tell you that I am —”

“The man from Scotland Yard.” Shawn finished combing his hair, and turned round. His expression was blank, his lips were tightly set, betraying the way his teeth clenched, and his eyes still seemed to burn. He took his coat off the back of a chair, and began to put it on. “The police are out,” he declared flatly. “This is a private matter.”

“Keep it that way,” Roger said.

Shawn stopped moving, in surprise.

“If you don’t care whether you see your son again or not,” Roger went on, “keep it private.”

Shawn finished adjusting his coat, then moved slowly towards Roger. He was like a bear, massively powerful, but there was no clumsiness in his movements. His shoulders were bent, but he was still inches taller than Roger. His features seemed to grow bigger as he drew nearer. He moved his arms slowly, his great hands settled on Roger’s shoulders. His fingers gripped, firmly, then gripped more tightly, as if he could crush the flesh and the bone. It hurt, but Roger didn’t move, didn’t flinch.

“You mean well,” Shawn said with great deliberation. “But don’t get in the way. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what anyone says. This is not official. It isn’t going to be official I sent the boy away, understand. I sent him away.

I know where he is. I drugged his mother and myself, so that she couldn’t prevent me, because I knew the boy was in danger. Understand that, Mr Scotland Yard? No one’s been kidnapped, everything is just fine.”

5

THE OBSERVANT POLICEMAN

BUT for his eyes, Shawn could have been just a piece of sculpture hewn out of dark sandstone. His large features seemed more than life-size, and only his eyes were alive, telling of a man in anguish. The pressure of his fingers biting into Roger’s shoulders grew stronger; like a killer’s grip.

Roger said: “So everything is fine.”

“You heard me.”

“All right,” said Roger. He tensed himself, then wrenched his shoulders free and backed away. Shawn didn’t move after him. It came to his mind that Shawn would squeeze the life out of anyone who got in his way. Now, the man was in the grip of fierce passion roused by deadly hurt and deadlier fears; but he must always have the capacity for passion. “All right,” repeated Roger. “Now make your wife believe what you’ve told me.”

“Keep my wife out of this.”

“I’m not bringing her into it,” Roger retorted. “She’s already in. She wants her son back.”

Shawn raised his right hand, the fist clenched; he wanted to hit and to hurt.

“I’ll look after my wife and my son,” he growled. “You get out.”

The difficulty was for Roger to turn his back on the man, to overcome the fear that Shawn would strike at him when he did so. Roger stared into the stormy eyes, then turned slowly. Shawn didn’t move. Roger reached the door, and for the first time since Shawn had started to speak, thought of other things; he realized for instance that while he had been in the bedroom, a car had drawn up outside. He opened the door.

Lissa Meredith stood at the head of the stairs. Her face was in shadow, but he caught the warning in her eyes; she didn’t want Shawn to know that she was there. Probably she had overheard their conversation, returning quickly, anxious to know what he said to Shawn. Why should she be so anxious? Roger joined her, and they went downstairs together. A youthful-looking man with thin fair hair and a bulgy forehead stood in the hall. In his hand was a pigskin case. Lissa led the way to the dining-room, and they went in. She closed the door.