So Young to Burn, page 14
Youth must be taught what is right. And that is society’s task, not the task of the police.
To help society, this newspaper offers the sum of £1,000 Reward to any individual who gives the police any information which leads to the apprehension of the leaders of those ill-guided men who, by taking the law into their own hands, defeat the course of justice and so DEFEAT THE CAUSE OF YOUTH.
Chapter Seventeen
Night Of Silence
Roger read the leader through twice, smiling grimly. Pengelly had done everything he had promised and very cleverly; even Coppell at his most nervous could not complain. It was after seven, and Roger pushed his chair back, thinking there should soon be word from Moriarty. As he stifled a yawn, there was a tap at the door.
Moriarty came in, perhaps a little diffidently.
‘Sorry I’m so late, sir.’
‘How did things go at Webbs’?’ asked Roger.
‘Not much more to report,’ Moriarty answered. ‘Picked up a couple of dozen prints of size 9 and 9½ shoes, any one of which might be identical with the prints found on the common.’ That was thorough, Roger thought, if not particularly hopeful. ‘I’ll send them down for comparison,’ Moriarty went on, standing at ease. ‘I checked with all the staff on duty, there’s no doubt of Clive Davidson’s reputation as a womaniser or of Albert Young’s outraged-father visit.’
‘So Helena Young isn’t the innocent she seemed.’
‘Apparently not,’ said Moriarty. ‘I think I should talk to her.’
‘So do I.’
‘Will you see Albert Young?’ asked Moriarty.
‘As soon as I know more about him—and we’ve got men on the job.’
‘Expect more trouble on the commons tonight, sir?’
‘I don’t know what to expect,’ Roger said, ‘but before you go I want a special alert to all Divisions for a special watch from an hour before darkness tonight. I want to know how many couples go looking for seclusion, and what effect this is going to have on them.’
‘Most celibate night in the history of London, I’d say!’
‘You could be right.’ Roger shifted his chair back, and paused; the younger man braced himself physically, shoulders square, head high, chin out. Was it in defiance? Or was he simply facing up to the situation? They looked at each other levelly for an appreciable time before Roger went on: ‘Did I make myself clear this afternoon?’
‘Very clear, sir.’
‘Do you want to go on with this job?’
‘Nothing I want more, sir.’
‘Does the fact that we got results from the Identi-kit picture seem to you to justify its release?’
Moriarty hesitated. This was the crucial question and his response to it would really set the pattern for the future. Roger, imagining he could see the fire burning in those Irish eyes, sensing Moriarty’s compulsive urge to act at all costs, had a feeling which he could hardly identify – that there was an exceptional detective in this man, one of very great potential which would develop only if he could control his impetuosity and his high opinion of himself.
At last, Moriarty said: ‘I did when I first heard what had happened, sir, but it was soon apparent that it didn’t really make much difference. We would have been told of the things found in the tank at Webb’s, the Identi-kit picture would have been identified there, and we would have kept faith with Jill Hickersley. True there was no guarantee of it, but it’s almost certain I did more harm than good.’
Roger sat down, more relieved than he cared to admit, and took out a bottle of whisky and two glasses. He placed these carefully on the blotting pad and went on much as if he were talking to his sons.
‘You’re going to make wrong decisions; we all are. Sometimes a wrong decision is going to make us hate ourselves. My experience is that decisions made in a hurry are more likely to be wrong than those made after reasonable consideration. It’s also my experience that one officer, senior or junior, often makes a decision based on what he expects those working with him to do. There’s more to discipline than a brainless toeing the line.’ He paused. ‘Scotch?’
‘I’d like one very much, sir.’
Roger poured, and they drank. He had a feeling that there was something on Moriarty’s mind. The other’s whisky disappeared in three gulps.
‘There’s one other thing, sir.’
‘Yes?’
‘I—I’m an impatient devil.’
‘So I’ve observed,’ Roger said drily.
‘I mean—rather more than that, sir. I do try to restrain myself. Impatience has been my problem for as long as I can remember. Other people sometimes seem so—so slow.’
‘You mean you haven’t learned to suffer those you consider to be fools, gladly,’ Roger said. ‘Another whisky?’
‘Er—no, thanks. I’ll soon be driving.’
Moriarty and Hilary Reed had that kind of conscience.
‘I can tell you this,’ said Roger. ‘Your future at the Yard will depend on how well you succeed in mastering your impulses. I’ve seen a lot of top flight men finish no higher than Inspectors, disgruntled and serving out time for their pensions, because they acted on impulse or hunch. Came precious close to it myself, once. Now!’ He finished his drink and put his glass down. ‘Send that special instruction out, then get off home. Let me know at Chelsea if you think anything’s worth reporting.’
‘Right, sir!’ Moriarty was brisk, yet he hesitated. ‘Have you seen the Evening Globe?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were behind that reward story, weren’t you?’ Something like admiration showed in the younger man’s eyes.
‘I knew it was on the way,’ Roger said.
‘Do you mind telling me what you expect from it?’ Moriarty sounded almost humble.
‘I don’t expect anything,’ Roger answered. ‘I hope for a tip when the next raid is coming off, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a quiet night tonight and for several nights; we ought to have a chance to deal with the backlog of work.’
Moriarty said: ‘I see, sir,’ obviously not convinced, and went out.
Outside in the passage, Moriarty smiled sourly as he thought: Well, I’ve calmed him down over that one, but he still thinks he knows the lot. He’ll soon find out he’s wrong.
Arriving home, Roger found Martin and Richard working in the garden with Janet, who looked hot and happy.
‘Impeccably virtuous, though not entirely by choice, that’s us,’ Martin intoned with a grin.
‘We’ve discovered that if you want to make a girl cool off you, the surest way at the moment is to invite her for a walk in the park,’ Richard added.
‘These boys are impossible!’ protested Janet.
‘You see, Dad, there was no such thing as sex in Mother’s day,’ Martin observed earnestly. ‘Wasn’t it clever of today’s young people to discover it all by themselves?’
Over the commons and the parks, the open spaces and the secluded stretches of the Thames, there was a strange and unfamiliar quiet. The police, in uniform and plain clothes, were out in strength, and without exception they reported the same thing; very few couples were about. As dusk fell, all those who normally sought seclusion now appeared to avoid it. Here and there, a silent little drift of clinging couples still strolled on, until lost to sight; but most of them stayed within the radius of light. The pubs and cafes were full, as ribald jokes and lewd ones passed to and fro, bus and taxi drivers chatted unusually to their passengers, and wags demanded:
‘Any advance on one thousand quid?’
The police, as alert as they had ever been, began to feel edgy by the time full darkness had fallen, listening for the screams and shouts which had broken the quiet on the previous night.
But none came. The night was still. And when pubs and cafes closed, the voices stilled and London slept.
Roger slept—
By half past seven he was up and making tea; by half past eight, fully refreshed and forgetful of his once painful shoulder, he was at the Yard. At once he became aware of an air of lightheartedness, even conviviality, blowing through the building. Seeking Moriarty, he found him with his jacket off, the sleeves of his shirt conspicuously white, filing the reports.
‘Not a single attack!’ he crowed.
‘Hardly a single victim to attack,’ a youthful, fresh-faced sergeant remarked. ‘Talk about cleaning up London. Might be something in that idea after all, sir.’
‘Just spray sulphuric acid and control the birth-rate,’ chimed in another.
Roger said coldly: ‘Teach them—don’t make them.’
A man said irrepressibly: ‘This’ll larn ’em!’
They laughed lightheartedly, as they would have laughed at almost anything. Roger turned to the questionnaires, which were beginning to flood in. During the previous day, forty-seven young people had been charged with larceny – including shop-lifting, bag-snatching, pocket-picking; eleven had been charged with breaking and entering; seventeen with burglary; eleven with sexual offences including one multiple rape; nineteen with drunkenness; seventeen with causing malicious damage; a hundred and seven with some kind of car theft or driving offence.
‘Average day,’ Moriarty remarked.
‘Yes,’ agreed Roger. ‘An average day. Now what I want to know is what crimes were committed between eight o’clock and midnight last night.’
‘Any special reason, sir?’
‘I’d like to know,’ Roger said evasively. By noon the figures were in; there had been fewer than usual crimes committed by young people during that period.
‘All behaving themselves,’ said Moriarty. ‘Any news about Albert Young?’
‘He stayed home. Alone. His wife stayed with relatives. What about his daughter?’
‘She wasn’t really well enough to talk, I couldn’t get anything worthwhile out of her,’ Moriarty said. ‘Mind if I make a suggestion, sir?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Will you see her?’
‘Yes,’ Roger said, after a moment’s deliberation. ‘This morning, I think. I’m going over to Putney, anyhow.’
The report on Albert Young was not particularly informative. He had for years been a leading social worker in a local church, but lately something not known had soured him. His daughter’s reputation was neither better nor worse than average. She had had several boy-friends, and the night of the attack certainly hadn’t been her first time out alone with one. ‘Seems to know how to take care of herself,’ one report read. Roger went from there to the house on Putney Hill, where Moriarty lived. It was a large, Victorian edifice, recently painted and fairly affluent looking, with trim lawns and well-kept shrubs. A maid answered the door, and soon he was in a downstairs room with a younger than middle-aged woman, well-preserved, attractive in a faintly antiseptic way; it would not have been surprising to find her as a matron in a hospital.
‘Mr Moriarty telephoned to say you might be calling,’ she said, ‘and Helena is up—she will be here in a few minutes. Will you forgive me for asking you to treat her as gently as you can, Superintendent?’
‘It really wouldn’t occur to me to do otherwise.’
‘You’re very kind,’ the woman said formally.
A few minutes later, the girl came in. Her head was still bandaged, and she was paler than normal, but her eyes were clear and quite beautiful. The woman left them, and Roger found himself comparing this girl with little heart-faced Jill Hickersley. They had something in common – frankness of expression perhaps.
‘The most important question I want to ask you is whether you ever knew a man named Clive Davidson,’ Roger said, handing the girl a print taken from the photograph which Menzies had given him the previous night.
She glanced down, flushed, and said, ‘Yes, I did.’
‘Did you know him well?’
‘We—we went out together quite a lot.’
‘Why did the association cease?’ Roger asked.
‘My father disapproved. He frightened Clive off.’
‘Frightened a young man like that? Do you know how he did it?’
‘No, only—Clive stopped coming to see me.’
‘Did your father frighten off any other of your admirers, Helena?’
She looked at him, troubled but quite frank.
‘Yes.’
‘Many?’
‘Three. Three or four. Or maybe five.’
‘Including Tony Wainwright?’
‘He would have done, had he heard of it, but I hadn’t known Tony for very long. Tony—Tony was going to marry me.’
Her father doubtless knew better than that, Roger reflected. Studying the girl, he believed that he could see the truth about her. She was what men like Wainwright – still in hospital and unable to lie on his back – would call a pushover. She was the kind from whom, when things went wrong, prostitutes were made. Even now in her eyes a seductive, ‘bedroom’ look glowed. She was exactly the type of girl he would not want his sons to bring home.
No doubt her father knew that, too.
‘Helena,’ Roger said, ‘do you think your father capable of arranging an attack like the one on you?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Do you?’ he insisted.
She said with sudden fire: ‘In some moods he would do anything! It’s always been the same, he hates it if my mother has a friend, a man friend. That’s why he stopped going to church and doing the church work. Everyone liked Mummy but no one liked him. He couldn’t bear it, so he stopped going and made her stop. He’s horrible!’
‘Has he ever used physical violence on you?’
‘Often! Once he—’ She caught her breath.
‘Go on, Helena, please.’
‘Once—once he threatened me with disfigurement; he said I was too pretty, that the only way to make a woman decent was to make her unattractive. Oh, I hate saying these things about my own father, but they’re true, they really are. And he said he would kill any man who touched me or Mummy, and he meant it. He’s a religious maniac, and absolutely crazy on the subject of sex! And now—now look what’s happened! Who’ll want to take me out when they realise the kind of things he’ll do?’
‘So you are afraid he attacked you and Tony,’ Roger said flatly.
‘Yes, I am!’ she said. ‘And his brother’s just as bad.’
‘His brother?’
‘His half-brother really, his name’s Delafield—Dick Delafield. They’re both crazy and capable of anything. Daddy—Daddy terrifies men, and Uncle Dick tries to put them off women at that awful clinic. That’s the truth—they’re abnormal, they’re mad.’
Chapter Eighteen
Night Of Deception
‘She is lying,’ Albert Young stated flatly.
‘She is frightened, Mr Young.’
‘She is frightened of her own wickedness.’
‘Your wife did attempt suicide, sir.’
‘My wife and my daughter share the same weakness of the flesh. My wife is—’ Young hesitated, and then his face softened momentarily and he added less harshly: ‘She is not able to control her weakness.’
He had nearly said: ‘My wife is a whore.’ There was suffering in this man’s face, anguish in his eyes as he stood in the doorway of his shed. Behind him were the coils of rope, the chains, the anchors, the canvas, the drums of oil, the canned foods, the equipment for a ship’s galley, everything a ship’s chandler would stock; and the smell of oil, heavy on the air, reminded Roger vividly of Webb, Son, and King’s factory. In this shop were weed-killers, garden tools, everything for the amateur gardener; and on a shelf only two yards away from Roger were two Amo spray guns.
‘Mr Young,’ Roger said, ‘you have been known to utter threats against a number of men.’
‘I have threatened them with the wrath of God!’
‘You threatened to mutilate your daughter.’
‘I have told you—that is a lie.’
‘Why should she lie about you?’
‘Because I prevented her from enjoying the fruits of her wickedness.’
Roger moved towards the oil store and the first thing to shock him was a carboy, parked in a straw-lined crate, with a label reading: concentrated sulphuric acid. For Commercial Use. Manufactured by Webb, Son, and King.
‘What is your opinion of the attacks being made on young couples, Mr Young? Do you see those as the wrath of God?’
Young said slowly: ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways.’
‘Do you consider this to be one of the ways?’
‘I am not fit to answer such a question. I can only pray for guidance and for a visitation upon the wicked.’
‘Such as this acid-spraying?’
‘Is it worse than the plague which strikes down evil-doers?’
‘And strikes down the innocent, too,’ retorted Roger.
Young almost spat out his next words. ‘There are no innocents among these people! They are all wicked, as wicked as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.’
Roger stared at him without expression for a long time. In a level voice, he asked: ‘What do you use concentrated sulphuric acid for, Mr Young?’
Young said harshly: ‘To burn away rusted metal, to rot hulls which cannot otherwise be destroyed. It is a cleansing as well as a burning agent. Did you not know that?’ Young’s eyes glistened with an anger he could not control. ‘But I do not visit the wrath of the Lord on these sinners, I am not his chosen vessel. I bought that carboy of sulphuric acid for lawful purposes and it was brought to me by the man Davidson, who took advantage of my daughter’s weakness of the flesh.’
‘Did you murder him, Mr Young?’
Young looked astounded. ‘Murder? Is the man dead?’
‘He is missing, believed dead.’
‘If he is dead it is the Lord’s will,’ said Young righteously. ‘I know nothing of his death, but I do know there was no goodness in his life.’
Roger asked: ‘When did you last go to Webb, Son, and King’s factory?’
‘I went there once, no more than that. The coward ran away.’
‘So you frightened him, too, Mr Young.’
