John Creasey: Inspector West Alone

“Yes, sir.”

Harris unlocked the handcuffs. Roger rubbed his wrist gently. Both policemen kept close to him, and once they were in the hall, Lister held his arm tightly, just above the elbow. Outside, there was a blaze of light with silver streaks stabbing through it; rain was coming down heavily. The lights came from several cars parked in the lane, most of them facing towards the road and Helsham, but one, a glistening American model, was facing the other direction; this was “Arthur King’s” Chrysler.

He got into the back of a car. Harris sat next to him, Lister took the wheel, and a bulky plain-clothes man, presumably Sergeant Drayton, sat next to the driver. Roger watched the other cars as they passed slowly, and then saw the big white boulder and the newly painted signpost.

He sat back and closed his eyes, feeling Harris’s arm against him. If he made a move, Harris would use that ham of a fist again. There was no point in trying to escape, anyhow, Harris could rest easy. His thoughts flashed from one thing to another. But for that girl’s face and head, this would be laughable; farcical.

They were going cautiously down the steep hill, which Roger had come up, in third. There were several dangerous corners, and none of them was marked, because the road was little used. The headlights shone on the spears of rain and the leafless hedges bent beneath the fierce March wind. Road and banks glistened. Trees stood out like grey spectres, and dropped behind, only to be replaced by others. Roger saw lights, some distance ahead—the lights of Helsham Village, but they would go on to Guildford. Whom did he know at Guildford?

The driver turned a corner and then jammed on his brakes. All of them were jolted forward, Roger before he caught a glimpse of the road block or of the men who darted forward the moment the car stopped.

CHAPTER IV

HOLD-UP

THE glow of the headlights shimmered on the rain, on huge branches of trees which had been flung across the road, and on a man who stood huddled up in a raincoat, with a hat pulled low over his forehead and a gun pointing towards the car. Roger saw other men, one of whom wrenched open the driver’s door and poked a gun inside.

Harris grunted and grabbed Roger’s wrist. Cold steel brushed his hand, and then the handcuffs clicked—he was manacled to Harris.

“Take it easy.” The man who poked the gun into the car had a smooth voice. A scarf, tied round the lower half of his face, served as a mask. “Do as you’re told, and you won’t get hurt.”

“You’re crazy.” That was Sergeant Drayton, in a shrill voice.

“Not so crazy as you’ll be if you try to pull a fast one. We want West.”

“No one named West——” began the driver.

“Okay, forget who it is, we want your prisoner—he’s a pal of ours.” Bright eyes showed in the pale light inside the car. “Get out, pal.” He looked at Roger.

They were remarkable eyes; like silvery fire.

“We’re the police!” howled Drayton.

“We’d still want our boy friend, even if you were the Army, Navy, and Air Force rolled into one.” The gun swivelled towards Roger. “Get out.”

The door by Roger’s side opened; another man with a gun stood there. The rain hissed down until wind caught it and sent it in a wild flurry about the car.

“I can’t——” Roger began.

“You can, pal. And hurry, we haven’t got all night.”

“That’s enough of this,” said Harris heavily. Harris was good—ten times better than Drayton. “You clear off, the lot of you.” He might have been talking to a crowd of gapers gathered about a street accident. “This man’s our prisoner. Clear off.”

“I’m handcuffed to him,” Roger said. It wasn’t easy to make the words sound casual, or to try to sum this up; except to see that it was the next stage in the framing.

Why?

Harris sat back in his seat. It would be no fun trying to get him out of the car by force, he must weigh sixteen stone.

“He’s got a key, hasn’t he?” The man with the strange eyes said harshly.

“I told you to clear out,” Harris growled. “Another car will be along in a minute, and then——”

“We’d make fools of more policemen,” said the spokesman. The rain hissed and spattered, and the wind howled; it was bitterly cold. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll unlock those handcuffs.”

“Oh, will I,” said Harris. He moved his left arm. Something bright glistened in the light, flew across the car and out of the door and into the hedge—the key; it would take hours to find it.

Then the door at Harris’s side opened.

As Harris turned, a man struck at him with the butt of a gun. The heavy blow caught him on the chin. Quickly, the man with the gun tipped Harris’s helmet over his eyes and struck again—not savagely but with cold calculation.

Harris slumped down, and didn’t move.

“Look here, you’re crazy!” gasped Drayton.

“That’s right. You just do what you’re told.”

By then, men were dragging Harris out of the car, shoulders first. Roger slid towards the door. The tug at his wrist was painful, but the man eased Harris out gently. In five minutes Roger crouched over Harris’s huddled figure, still fastened to him by the single handcuff.

The rain pelted down.

“Take it easy,” said the man who had knocked out Harris. Another came forward and held Roger’s arm, so that the steel connecting bar of the handcuffs was visible, and Harris’s hand hung limp from it. The new-comer started to work with a small file, and the rasping sound was added to the night’s wild bluster. Water trickled down Roger’s neck, was bitterly cold on his sore face. His clothes began to get soggy. The two policemen in the front of the car did nothing, for they were still covered by the gun. The man with the file seemed prepared to work all night; but he didn’t, the job took only five or six minutes.

Soon they were moving down the hill.

* * * *

Roger simply let impressions rest on top of his mind.

Take one detective. Lure him to a lonely cottage with a faked message. Kill a helpless girl. Make it appear that he’d killed her. Give him a false name. Capture him from the police, and use his real name so clearly that the police couldn’t mistake it. Then take him away.

“Cigarette?” asked the man by his side. Those fantastic, silver-fire eyes showed.

“Thanks.”

The man lit cigarettes for them both, handed one to Roger and sat back. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but he had pulled down the scarf, and the cigarette glow showed the pointed tip of his nose. They turned off this narrow road to the main road which ran through Helsham and then towards London. The car was powerful, and well sprung.

“Enjoying yourself?” asked the man next to Roger. His voice and manner didn’t go with his eyes.

“So-so.”

“I must say you take it well, policeman. I think we’ll be able to work with you.”

“Sooner or later you’ll be asking yourself whether I’ll work with you,” said Roger, “and that’ll be the question that matters.”

The man laughed, as if he had no thought of failure.

“Another question, just to set my mind at rest,” said Roger, making himself sound casual.

“Let’s hear it.”

“My wife?”

“Expecting you home, probably. Unless she’s telephoned Scotland Yard, to report you missing.”

There was no reason why he should believe the man, but he did. He felt much easier in his mind. Janet had been used as a decoy, and it wasn’t much good blaming Eddie Day for his mistake. They sped on, carving an avenue of light through the blustery darkness. They soon reached the Guildford by-pass and drove along the wide road between rows and rows of small houses. There was little traffic. The car in front, as large and powerful as this, was never more than twenty yards ahead of them, and so made sure that no one cut in. A car with a blue “Police” sign coasted along in the opposite direction, and the man by Roger’s side laid a hand gently on his knee.