John Creasey - Gideon’s Sport

God above, it was his fault! If he had been more aware, if he had learned earlier, he would have made Kate see a doctor, gone with her, if necessary. He was the only one who could have made her.

The telephone rang, and he snatched it up. Kate?

“Superintendent Henry would like a word with you,” said the operator.

“Who? — oh.” His voice flattened. “Yes. Put him through.”

Henry, he thought. The Second Test Match, the young Jamaican woman — Conception. The risk of a mass demonstration at the Mecca of cricket. The Action Committee. Danger for the girl. All of these things were conscious thoughts, deliberately, painfully, plucked from his memory; normally, they would simply be part of instantaneous and comprehensive knowledge of each case. At least there was a little delay on the line: time for these separate thoughts to fall into place.

“Commander?” Henry said, at last.

“Yes.”

“Commander!” Henry repeated, and his voice sounded thick, as if he were having difficulty in articulating. Normally, Gideon would have waited, knowing there must be some thing badly wrong; now, he asked sharply: “Well, what is it?”

“I’m — I’m afraid something’s happened to — to Detective-Constable Conception.” Each word sounded hoarser than the last: “She — she’s been missing for eight hours. She should report in every four hours — I’ve never known her miss, before. But she — she hasn’t called since last night. She should have reported at eight o’clock and twelve noon. I’ve checked at her apartment and she didn’t get in, last night. She reported at eight o’clock last night that there was an emergency meeting and she’d been asked to attend. And I thought — well, sir, if we question the members of the Action Committee, we may not get the truth.”

There was a pause, before Henry went on; “I — ah — I would like your guidance, Commander. I’ve come to the conclusion that you were right — she is in physical danger.”

“I will call you back in fifteen minutes,” Gideon said, very deliberately. “Presumably you’ve checked her recent movements closely?”

“As far as I can, sir.”

“Fifteen minutes,” repeated Gideon, and rang off.

Juanita Conception, bound with cord and gagged with adhesive-plaster, lay in a darkened room. She was alone, but the sharpness of fear had gone and now she half-dozed. The effort of thinking seemed to make her drowsy, as if her mind refused to cope any more: found it simpler to accept the inevitable. Faces swam in her consciousness, from time to time. The faces of the young men she had betrayed. Gideon’s face, when he had asked her with a kind of approving roughness whether she too would go to the stake for what she believed in.

She was ‘going to the stake’ now.

She didn’t seriously expect to leave this room alive.

It was two o’clock on that second Monday in June; the tenth of June.

Barnaby Rudge felt very, very confident; yet there was something inside him, burning like a fuse. He knew that he had never been so fit in his life. He knew he could defeat his opponent without using his service once. But that service, now that he was walking on to the court, seemed like something alive, inside him: something imprisoned, straining to get out.

He could still hardly credit that he was there. Although it was surprising how ‘ordinary’ everything was, on the surface. This court itself-here, at Wimbledon! — might have been any court in the world. There was a small crowd, no more than a hundred or so, wandering about in the bright sunlight. Even the Centre and No. 1 Courts, he knew, were half-empty. Only the ice-cream vendors were busy, but no one else.

He put his sweater over a hanger, shook hands with the umpire, shook hands with his young, fair-haired opponent, and went to the court. Every muscle in his body seemed to sing.

Aunty Martha was very pleased with her new pupils; she had had them watched with great care, and they had all behaved very well. Little Kitty Strangeways was slightly nervous: she needed more practice with crowds. And Cyril Jackson had enjoyed it too much. He almost took chances, to prove how good he was. Cyril was a great one for dares, and would do anything. He might even try to cheat her, for the fun of it.

If he did, of course, he would very swiftly learn that there was never any fun in cheating Aunty Martha. She simply dared not allow it, no matter how ruthless she had to be.

At the Jockey Club’s Headquarters at Newmarket, in Suffolk, there was an unofficial meeting of the stewards; quite normal at this time of the year. The main interest, of course, centred on the Derby, an interest as great today as ever it had been since the first race, nearly two hundred years ago. And there was a great deal of discussion, for no horse had been scratched and there was so far no clear favourite: at least six horses were equally favoured in the betting, to date.

Of course, it was a long time, yet, before the off-nearly three weeks. Horses could fall out, get hurt on the hard courses, or reach and pass the peak of fitness. But every owner and every trainer with whom the Club was in touch reported a clean bill of health and seemed to be in high hopes. If this went on, there would be over thirty runners, not far off a record.

The general consensus of opinion was voiced by Lord Burnaby, the Chairman.

“It should be a very fine race, one of the best and closest -provided only,” and he cast his gaze towards the heavens, “the weather holds!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cross-roads

Gideon put down the receiver after talking to Henry, and knew that he himself stood at the cross-roads of decision. He had never faced such an anxiety; not even when — years ago — there had seemed a real danger of separation between him and Kate. Nor, much later, when their oldest daughter had been near to death, her first child stillborn.

Now, he was conscious of a strange and compelling pressure; yet despite it he had his job to do. Slowly, other thoughts filtered into his mind; he was returning to normal in one way, at least.

Lemaitre was due to telephone from New York in less than half-an-hour, he remembered. And there was the Madderton bank job to review: when the financial big-wigs were upset it always caused trouble, and he wanted to be completely au fait with the case before he was called on to report.

Hobbs asked: “What can I do, sir?”

“That was Henry,” Gideon told him. “The Jamaican girl’s missing. He wants to know whether to question the people she was working with, or let it go for a while. If we question them, they’ll know we’re after them and they’ll be quite sure she’s on the Force. If we don’t —” He broke off, and picked up the receiver. “Get me Mr. Henry, of AB Division.” He looked hard at Hobbs. “No question about it, of course, we’ve got to find the girl. Might put the fear of God into the young hotheads, while we’re at it.”

“Or the fear of Gideon,” Hobbs murmured.

“How anyone could be afraid of telling me the truth — !”‘ Gideon snorted, then broke off abruptly. “Alec, you mean to tell me—?” He drew the mouthpiece closer: “Hallo-Chas? Yes — didn’t need the fifteen minutes, after all. Do you know the names and addresses of this Action Committee? And the Central Committee . . . Good . . . Round them all up -every mother’s son of ‘em! Put several cars on the job,

then use a Black Maria and pick ‘em up where the cars have found them . . . Yes, tell the Press about the round-up — but better not say it’s a Lords demonstration. Eh? . . . Yes, that’ll do . . . Get ‘em all together in one room — if you can . . . The canteen’ll do fine! Right.” He put down the receiver and gave a grim smile. “He’s satisfied, anyhow — that’s what he wanted to do.”