A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [187]
He continued with his usual daily early-evening round of the businesses, collecting takings, putting them in the night safe at the bank, but his mind was working on two different levels. The higher level admired Dan Reynolds for having the balls to take on Jack Trueman and he hoped that by now Fifi and the Frenchwoman had been rescued. He even hoped Trueman was so badly injured he’d either die or have to retire.
But on the lower level he knew this meant he was going to be in serious trouble. Fifi could identify him and Del.
He met up with Del at nine at Cindy’s, the stripclub in Greek Street. Del told him that he’d just heard a news bulletin on the radio. The women had been found out at Bexley. One had been taken to hospital, but the other woman was dead. It was also said a man was being held in custody.
Martin had to tell him what he knew then.
Del lost all his bluff and bluster. He looked very scared.
‘I don’t fuckin’ well know what to do,’ he exclaimed. ‘I mean, do we carry on with the job? Or do we piss off out of here?’
‘We won’t get paid if Jack’s in the nick,’ Martin said. He meant that they might as well disappear now while they could.
‘Yeah, but if we piss off and he gets out…’ Del didn’t finish what he was going to say. There was no need, they both knew what Jack would do to them.
‘Well, I’m not hanging around here to wait till we’re picked up,’ Martin shrugged. ‘I’m going home to me gran’s. Until we know the score.’
‘What’s put the smile back on your face, sir?’ Sergeant Mike Wallis asked as he came into the office and found his superior looking extraordinarily happy.
It was mid-morning on Thursday and Roper had been like a bear with a sore head all the previous day.
‘I’ve just had Bow Street on the blower,’ Roper grinned. ‘Seems one of Trueman’s gofers has been spilling his guts. I usually go along with the saying “There’s no honour amongst thieves”, but it seems this one doesn’t like to see children or fair damsels being hurt.’
‘You don’t say!’ Sergeant Wallis grinned. ‘More like he knows it’s going to come on top of him and he’s trying to save his skin.’
‘I don’t give a toss what his reasons are, the result is all that matters. And you and I are off to Brixton to see Alfie Muckle.’
Almost as soon as the police got to St Anne’s Court in answer to Dan Reynolds’ call on Tuesday afternoon, a search warrant was issued for Trueman’s house in Essex. But by the time the police got there, just a few hours later, the filing cabinet was empty, the safe was too, and the door was hanging open. Someone had beaten the police to the house and removed any incriminating evidence.
When John Bolton was found dead before Roper could question him about the man he was seen in Dale Street with, it had briefly crossed his mind that there might be a leak at the station, but he’d shrugged it off as being mere coincidence. Even when Dan Reynolds said that he hadn’t gone to the police because he couldn’t risk Trueman being forewarned, he only thought Reynolds was a trifle paranoid, which was to be expected under the circumstances.
Yet less than an hour later, as he looked at that empty safe, he had to concede Reynolds was right. Fewer than ten people knew that Trueman’s house was going to be raided, and all of them were policemen. If the raid had been left to the following day he might have believed one of Trueman’s stooges had just used his initiative on hearing he had been arrested. But the speed at which it happened told him otherwise, and Roper felt as if he’d been kicked in the belly.
On Wednesday morning he’d spent the morning at the Middlesex Hospital trying to get something out of Trueman. The man was handcuffed to the bed and an officer was posted outside the door, but Roper was still on tenterhooks expecting that Trueman’s men would attempt to spring him. The man refused to speak, he just lay there like something out of a horror film, acting as if he was deaf and dumb. Roper had been tempted to continue