The Progress of a Crime Read online

  “Were your friends at this dance hall?” Twicker asked.

  Garney looked at him, and hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”

  “All of them?”

  “Don’t know what you mean by that.”

  “There are five of you in the Peter Street lot, aren’t there?”

  “Six,” Garney said, and then looked as though he had bitten his tongue.

  “Thank you for the information.” Twicker smiled himself, not pleasantly. “And were they all at the Rotor?”

  “I don’t know. There was a pretty fair crowd.”

  “Which of them were there?”

  “Ernie Bogan, Taffy Edwards, Les Gardner.”

  “Who are the others?”

  Langton was looking puzzled. “What’s it matter who they were?” Garney burst out. “This bloke at Far Wether got done before seven, didn’t he? What’s it matter where we were at eight or nine?”

  “Who are the others?” Twicker repeated.

  “Rocky Jones. And Charkoff, we call him the Pole.”

  “They weren’t at the Rotor?”

  “I told you. It was crowded.”

  “Did you see them there?”

  “I’m not saying. Ask them yourself. I’m not answering any more questions.”

  Twicker passed a note to Langton. It read: Time for a change. Langton said to the note-taker, “Look after him.”

  “What are you keeping me here for?” Garney said. “I want to go home.”

  “What was the point of those questions about the dance hall?” Langton asked when they were outside. “They rattled him all right, but why?”

  “For one thing, Garney had primed the others on the rest of it, so they’ll have their stories ready, but he hadn’t bothered much about the dance hall because it was outside the time of the killing, so he’s afraid they may get confused. But there’s another thing. After something like this there are always one or two who lose their stomachs for it, get frightened, want to run away or confess. Those will be the ones who didn’t go to the dance hall, stayed at home and cried their eyes out or told their mothers or got drunk. Jones and the Pole, they’re the ones we put pressure on. They’re the ones who’re going to crack.”

  In a room farther down the corridor Norman was shouting at a thin, sallow boy of seventeen. The boy’s English was not perfect, and sometimes he did not seem to understand the questions. This was the Pole, Charkoff. They listened to a few questions and then called Norman out of the room.

  “What’s his story?”

  “Says he came home from work, had tea, went round to Ernie Bogan’s house, watched television. Can’t remember any of the programmes though he watched for an hour and a half. Then Ernie said he was going to a dance hall, but our boy felt sick, went home.” Norman’s broad mouth curled with distaste. “These bloody foreigners. Why don’t they send ’em back where they came from?”

  “That’s a line.” Norman looked surprised. Twicker said, “Take over Garney for a bit, will you? We’ve got nothing out of him. Make him tell his story all over again. We’ll be back.”

  Norman walked away, and they went in to the Pole.

  Twicker talked to him. His voice was quiet. “When did you come over from Poland?”

  “Ten years ago. My mother and father, they escaped.”

  “You like it here?” There was alarm in Charkoff’s eyes. “If you don’t tell the truth we might send you to prison. Or back to Poland.” Charkoff began to tremble. “The one who killed the man at Far Wether will go to prison.”

  “Not me. I didn’t do it.”

  “You helped.”

  “No, no. I never helped. You must believe me. Please.”

  Now Charkoff was on his knees. Twicker felt no pity for his misery, as he had felt no admiration for Garney’s self-assurance. “You were there. You took part.”

  “But I did nothing. Oh please, please.”

  “Then the best thing you can do is to make a statement, and tell us what did happen. Get up. Now, would you like to make a statement?”

  “And then you will let me go?”

  Twicker’s eyes met Langton’s. “And then we shall let you go.”

  Charkoff dictated his statement, haltingly. Garney, he said, was the boss of the Peter Street lot, and it was he who had suggested going out to Far Wether and finding Corby. He said, “We will have fun with him,” Charkoff said, turning his agonised eyes from one to the other of them. He had not taken a knife himself, but some of the others had taken knives.

  “Just to have a bit of fun,” said Langton, heavily ironical. Twicker frowned at him.

  “Which of them took knives?”

  “I don’t know. I am not sure. Oh, please.”

  “Come on, now. Did Garney have a knife?”

  “I think so, yes. King always carries a knife.”

  “But did you see him with it? You saw King with a knife, didn’t you? He took it out and showed it to you?”

  “No. I don’t know. Oh, please do not ask me.”

  They spent half an hour on the knife question. In the end Charkoff thought that Garney, Edwards, Bogan and Gardner all had knives, but he was not sure. They had all thrown fireworks at Corby, he said, he had done so himself. But he had been away from the scrimmage that surrounded Corby, had not seen what happened, and had run for his motor-bike only when somebody shouted, “Let’s go.” When they got back to the city Garney said they should all go along to the Rotor later on, and that if questions were asked they should provide alibis for each other during the earlier part of the evening. He had felt sick, and so he had not gone to the Rotor.

  At the end of it, with the statement signed, Charkoff said, “That is all. Truly, that is all. May I go home now, please?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “But you told me I could go home.”

  “When you tell us the truth, perhaps you will. You’ve got a bad memory about the knives.”

  “I have told you the truth. All I know I have told you.”

  “We’ll let him cool off,” Langton said. “I’ll take one of the others.”

  Twicker nodded, left him, paid a visit to the local sergeant, Sterling, who had got nothing out of Gardner, and went back to Garney. He raised his eyebrows at Norman, who shook his head.

  “All right, Garney,” Twicker said. “Charkoff’s told us the whole story. Here’s what he said. The six of you went out to Far Wether. Four had knives, including you. You all threw fireworks, then you and Bogan fought with Corby. He saw you both stab him. Anything to say?”

  “Yes. The Pole’s a bloody liar. Or you are.”

  Twicker struck him sharply across the face. Garney gripped the seat of the chair.

  “The super’s funny,” Norman said. “He doesn’t like being called a bloody liar. Here, have a fag.”

  Garney accepted the cigarette distrustfully.

  “The point is this,” the sergeant went on. “You’ve got a case, too. You’ve got a story to tell. Before the super got this squeal from Charkoff, I had another from Gardner. His story didn’t fit with Charkoff’s, not in every detail. You could put us straight on some of this, and it wouldn’t do you any harm.”

  Garney puffed at the cigarette. “Go to hell.”

  “Did Bogan knife him? He was carrying a knife, that’s right, isn’t it? Was it Bogan who knifed him?”

  “Let’s go back to the beginning,” Twicker said. “You went out to Far Wether that night intending to have a bit of fun with Corby.”

  Norman took it up. “Yes, can we agree on that? The six of you went out on your bikes to have a bit of fun.”

  “I’ve told you. I came home, had tea, hung about, went to the Rotor. I never went out to Far Wether.”

  They kept at it for another quarter of an hour without success. “That’s it, then, I suppose,” T
wicker said.

  He got up. Norman got up, stretched. Garney stood up too. They stared at him.

  “Can I go now?”

  “He may feel more talkative in the morning,” Norman said.

  “What’s that stuff about the morning?” The boy, head lowered, looked from one to the other. “You going to charge me?”

  Twicker stared at him from deep-set eyes. “Who said anything about charging you?”

  “You can’t keep me here all night without charging me. I know my rights.”

  “Listen to me.” Twicker’s voice was low, intense. “I don’t like you, Garney. You’re scum. For me, scum have got no rights. You understand?”

  Garney began to shout. “I want my rights. I’ve been here for hours and nothing to eat. I want to go home.”

  Norman stared, astonished. “You want to go home. You really mean that?”

  “You’ve got no right to keep me.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Garney, did you notice the corridor outside?” Garney looked at Norman uneasily. “It’s slippery, like a regular skating rink, you know what I mean? Somebody could slip on that and do himself an injury. I wouldn’t like that to happen to you, Garney. And then it’s treacherous weather. I said to the super as we came up the steps to the station, ‘Those steps are dangerous,’ I said. ‘If somebody fell on them he might break a leg.’ It wouldn’t be safe for you to go home. You might hurt yourself.” Norman sat down again. “Now, there are just a few questions we want you to answer, son, and then we might be able to find you a nice cup of tea. But mind, we want the right answers.”

  This also was routine, something that had been done and said ten thousand times in a hundred police stations, and Twicker, as he looked at Norman’s fleshy face set in its mask of good humour, and at Garney’s, in which fear was beginning to replace arrogance, felt nothing at all. Lies and tricks, threats and promises, these were the methods that brought results. Twicker did not doubt that they were much gentler than the methods used in almost every other country. Perhaps they were too gentle, for they got nothing out of Garney.

  They got little out of the others, either, until they talked to Rocky Jones. Confronted by the admissions of Charkoff, Ernie Bogan, Taffy Edwards, and Leslie Gardner all agreed that they had gone out to Far Wether, but all said that they had done nothing more than throw fireworks. All of them denied carrying knives. None of them had any idea who stabbed Corby.

  It was nearly midnight when Sterling, the sergeant who had been questioning Rocky Jones, put his head round the door of the room in which Twicker was questioning Edwards. In the corridor Sterling said, “This one’s ready to give.”

  “Has he said anything about the knives?”

  “Not yet, sir. But he will. Would you like to take him?”

  Jones was a small sand-coloured, weaselly figure. He shifted beneath the stare of Twicker’s sunken eyes, and started like a jack-in-a-box at his first words. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Old enough to hang for murder.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” More rabbit now than weasel, Jones stared at Twicker.

  “After what the others told us, that’s what you’ll get.”

  “Who—what did they tell you?”

  Twicker looked at a sheet of paper. “Charkoff, Edwards, Gardner, they’ve all made statements.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Enough.” Twicker’s mouth bit off the word. “We’ve got nothing to ask you.”

  “Nothing to ask me,” Jones floundered, as though he had longed for nothing more than the chance of answering questions.

  “Take him away.”

  “No, no. Please. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “It’s of no interest.” Twicker was brusque.

  “But it is. If they say I stabbed him it’s not true. It was King.”

  Langton breathed a sigh. Twicker said, “All right. You can make a statement.”

  Jones’s statement confirmed much of what Charkoff had said. He denied carrying a knife himself, but said that he had seen Garney’s knife, and that Bogan and Gardner had been carrying them. Gardner was a particular friend of Garney’s, and would do what Garney told him. When they left the city Garney had made imaginary cuts and slashes with his knife in the air, and had said, “This may come in handy.” When the fireworks were thrown he had been close to Corby, together with Garney, Bogan and Gardner. Corby had been about to hit Bogan when Garney drew his knife. Somebody else had drawn a knife—he thought it was Gardner. Somebody—again he thought it was Gardner—had said, “Get him, King.” Jones had seen a knife flash, and had heard Corby cry out. Then there had been a shout of “Let’s go,” and they had gone.

  It took them three-quarters of an hour to get Jones’s statement written down coherently. He was given a cup of tea and a sandwich and left quietly snivelling. Then Twicker, Langton, Norman and Sterling held a conference.

  “What next?” Langton looked at Twicker. “We could certainly hold Garney now on what Jones says. One or two of the others as well, maybe.”

  “We want them all.” Twicker’s voice was deep in his throat.

  “Let’s hold them all as being concerned in the murder, sir,” Norman said. “We’ve ample grounds for that. We can sort it out in the morning.”

  “And have the relatives learn they’re under arrest, and destroy any evidence that’s lying around? We want to get them in their homes. We’ll do that to-morrow.”

  “Let them all go, you mean?” Langton said. “Garney too?”

  “Garney too. We’ll get them to-morrow, have a look round without a warrant.”

  “We want Garney inside. If he finds out that Jones has been singing I wouldn’t like to be in Jones’s shoes.”

  “If Jones has any sense he won’t talk.” Twicker’s fingers were lacing and unlacing themselves. Norman saw with surprise that the superintendent was agitated. “And give them a little more rope. They’ll use it the right way. Let them think they’ve fooled us.”

  “It’s your decision,” Langton said.

  “That’s right.” Twicker stared at him.

  They let the six boys go. It was one o’clock in the morning when Twicker and Norman returned to their hotel. “What a session,” the sergeant said. “I’m out on my feet.”

  Twicker said nothing, but the last sound Norman heard before falling asleep was the scratch of pen on paper in the adjoining room. In the morning he was wakened by an insistent wasp-like buzz, and identified it as an electric razor operating in Twicker’s bedroom. He looked at his watch. The time was six-fifteen.

  10

  On Friday Hugh Bennett did his follow-up stories for the nationals, stories which were designed to maintain interest in the murder and to earn some more linage. He was able to talk to his best police contact, P.C. Pickering, who had told him of the rumour that the C.C. was calling in Scotland Yard. On his last visit to the station he learned that some boys had been picked up for questioning, and also that the rumour about Scotland Yard had become a fact. There was too much routine work for him to get out to Far Wether as he would have liked to do, and he felt irritable and frustrated as he opened the door of the Pile Street flat, and walked up past the smell of cabbages. There were voices in the living-room.

  Michael was sitting on the sofa with broken springs, and a girl sat deep in the room’s one comfortable chair. “Hugh, this is Jill Gardner,” Michael said. “We’ve been waiting for you. What’s the news on Guy Fawkes?”

  This was the poppet. She did not get out of the chair, and he had no more than an impression, at this first glance, of blue eyes set wide apart, a snub nose, slim legs.

  “We’re drinking beer,” Michael said. “The poor man’s substitute for a genuine intoxicant. Jill’s brother seems to be mixed up in this Guy Fawkes business.”

  “Your bro
ther?” He paused with the glass at his mouth.

  “They’ve taken him in for questioning. Have you heard about it?” Michael’s tone seemed deliberately light. The girl, after that first look at him, stared at the worn Indian carpet.

  “They’ve got half a dozen boys in. I don’t know their names.”

  “My brother Leslie is one of them. He goes about with a boy named Jack Garney and some others. They call themselves the Peter Street lot.” There was a breathlessness about her voice that he found attractive.

  “Is one of them named King?”

  “They call Jack Garney ‘King.’”

  “He’s their leader?”

  “I suppose so. They’re like children, playing games. What’s going to happen to Leslie, Mr. Bennett?”

  “They’ll ask him questions. Was he there, did he see anything, that sort of thing.”

  “A sort of third degree.”

  He said with a confidence he did not feel, “There’s no third degree here. But one of the boys was called King, I heard another one use the name. So your brother may have been there.” There was a question in his voice, which she ignored. “Has your brother been in trouble with the police?”

  “He and another boy called Bogan took a car for a joyride eighteen months ago. They were bound over. We live in Peter Street and it’s fairly rough down there. I don’t suppose you know it.”

  “You can call him Hugh,” Michael said.

  “But Leslie would never have anything to do with violence. He’s rather timid really.”

  “Does he carry a knife?”

  “I told you. He’s not a violent boy.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s the sort of question the police will ask if they believe he was there.”

  “I suppose so. Ever since mother died five years ago I’ve tried to keep Leslie away from—I don’t know what I can call it but bad influences. They don’t like me much in Peter Street. I’m a schoolteacher, and that isn’t approved of, and they don’t like me trying to look after Leslie either.” She smiled briefly, and he was aware of a core of resolution. Inside the poppet was a character.