Policeman's Progress (11 page)

The fire Section Officer advanced on the fuming club owner. ‘Good work on the part of your men, sir – nothing much left for us to do, except investigate the cause and call the police.'

Jackie stopped short in the middle of his apoplectic tirade. ‘Police! What the hell do we want the police for? … it's just a fire. Keep the coppers out of this!'

The fire officer smiled indulgently. ‘Now, sir, be reasonable. This was no ordinary fire – somebody threw a bomb through your window – the person who rang up with the alarm said so, and the stink of paraffin and that broken window confirms it … here it is, what's left of it.'

A helmeted fireman handed him the broken neck of a brown bottle, a piece of hollow fuse still held in position with putty.

Alec Bolam had padded up behind them. ‘Who wants the police? We're already here – were here even before it happened!'

Jackie Stott almost foamed at the mouth. ‘Bombs! Firemen! … And now damn police walking all over me! Haven't I got enough trouble with all this?'

He swept a hand around the rapidly emptying room but, at that very moment, three uniformed policemen battled their way into the club. One was a sergeant from the local beat, the other two were from a motor patrol that followed the fire tender.

The sergeant advanced on them, picking his way through the overturned chairs. He saw Bolam and touched his blue and white banded cap. ‘What's happened, sir?'

‘Somebody “arson” about, sergeant,' punned Bolam with grim humour. ‘No casualties, thank goodness. You'd better catch some of those clients and try to get a few statements, though half of 'em have shoved off by now. And I can't say I blame them!'

He gave the infuriated Stott a mirthless smile.

‘Better close up, Jackie – you'll do no more business tonight. I'll bet all your mugs upstairs have slung their hook by now – they may be afraid that your wop friends may come back with an H-bomb next time!'

Rage faded to astonishment on the ex-boxer's face.
How the hell did Bolam know about the visit of Papagos and Casella so quickly
?

Bolam turned back to the uniformed sergeant. ‘I'd better run this for the time being – call up the station on your joy-box there and tell them what's happened. Ask them to rout out Jimmy Grainger and get him to phone me here.'

He looked at the two mobile men. ‘Give the sergeant a hand in rounding up some customers and the staff – start taking statements, I suppose. A waste of time, but we've got to go through the motions.'

The sergeant pulled out his small personal radio that was clipped inside his coat, extended the aerial and called up the Central Police Station to relay a message to Information Room.

‘Better tell them to notify Chief Superintendent MacDonald, too,' added Bolam, ‘though I expect he's still busy with that murder.'

Jackie Stott pricked up his ears. The mention of murder struck a sensitive spot.

He had a bigger shock coming.

Bolam, genuinely unaware of Stott's interest, made another of his jibes at the club owner. ‘Better watch yourself, Jackie … this time it was a home-made bomb. Next time, we may be dragging you out of the Tyne with your legs lashed together!'

Jackie went as pale as a corpse himself. His mind whirled as he tried to grasp what Bolam had said. A body from the river – legs tied together!
They must have found Geordie already
!
God, what the hell am I to do
!

He looked around wildly, almost on the point of making a run for it. In a moment the ex-fighter had got control of himself again. Bolam hadn't said it was Geordie Armstrong, though it was unlikely that there were two murdered bodies in the river at the same time.

‘I need a drink,' he muttered. ‘Where's Hansen?'

He stumbled across to the deserted bar, poured himself a triple whisky and threw it down neat.

The uniformed policemen had started to round up the stragglers and had herded them to some tables in the far corner of the room. The firemen had gone, except the section officer and another senior man who had just arrived.

Bolam checked with the sergeant that nothing had been seen of the bomb-throwers from outside, then went over to the long figure of Jackie Stott at the bar.

‘Right, now let's have your version of it, Jackie … I know Papagos and Casella have been in here … and I don't need twenty questions to guess what they wanted!'

The club owner stared fixedly at the glass-backed shelves behind the bar.

‘I got nothing to say, copper,' he muttered.

Alec Bolam sighed. ‘No use coming the dumb act, Jackie … you're in real trouble now. For once I give you credit for flinging those London yobs out. Though I'm sure that you didn't do it just to please me!' The sarcastic banter came back into his voice.

Stott was only half-listening to the detective – the bomb incident was submerged in the far greater peril of the finding of Armstrong's body. If only this damn copper would stop jabbering and give him time to think – to work out what to do! He had to find out more about it for his own sake – but he could hardly ask the man standing alongside him.

Bolam, all unsuspecting of Stott's fearful anxiety, pressed him again about the fracas in the club. ‘They did this to you as a gentle warning, Jackie – if that had been petrol instead of paraffin, we'd be out in the street now, watching it all burn down.'

There was no answer.

‘Come on, man – how much did Papagos want? Give us a statement and we'll have them inside before morning. They couldn't hurt you then. We'll have a “demanding with menaces” charge on 'em, if only you'll cough.'

Stott continued to glare at the back of the bar.

Bolam tried wheedling. ‘Jackie, look, you know damn fine what a pair of villains they are – the boys in the Met could have had them half a dozen times if they could have witnesses to testify against them.'

Stott swung round at this.

‘And why couldn't they get witnesses, eh? Because they'd have had their throats cut or their wives maimed before they got halfway to court … be your age, Bolam, I'm going to play this my way.'

Before the detective could begin to argue again, the sergeant came over. ‘Grainger is on the blower for you, sir – over there.' He pointed to a coin box under a soundproof hood that was intended for the use of patrons.

Alec went across and picked up the receiver.

‘That you, Jimmy … things are moving … yes, a bomb through the window … no kidding! Look, try to pick up Papagos and Casella. Just ask them if they'd like to answer a few questions. No, we can't make them, but I'll bet they've blown already, so it won't arise. They'll have an alibi like the Tower of London, but we've got to try. Where? … God knows, halfway back to Soho is my guess by now.' He listened for a moment. ‘Then chase up any rogues who might have done this for Papagos – check stolen car lists after nine o'clock. No point in coming round here – Stott won't cough and we can't do much without a statement or a complaint from him … this will only be the start, I reckon.'

He rang off just as more police and the photography and fingerprint men arrived. For a few minutes he talked with the staff and the few patrons that the uniformed men had managed to detain. No one knew any more than Bolam himself.

The remains of the bomb were carefully collected for the forensic laboratory.

A few minutes later, Joe Blunt blundered up the stairs. One of the croupiers had phoned him with the news of the firebomb and he had come back as fast as a taxi would bring him. Jackie came out of his worried paralysis at the bar and hustled him upstairs to the flat. Laura had disappeared and Thor Hansen was running the liaison with the police, such as it was.

Upstairs, Jackie clutched the old pug's arm as soon as the door of the flat closed behind them. ‘Joe, they've found Geordie's body already. What the hell are we going to do?'

Joe gaped uncomprehendingly. ‘They can't have – we wired half a hundredweight of old iron on to him!'

‘Well, they bloody well have! It's been on the news and the telly, so Herbert Lumley said just now. Half the coppers in Newcastle are on the job – and the other half are downstairs, by the looks of it.' He shakily poured a couple of whiskies and swallowed one at a gulp. ‘Help yourself … the hell of it is, we can't ask outright what's going on. When's the next news on the radio?'

Joe shrugged. ‘Too late now for local news – hev te wait till papers in the morning.'

He had too little imagination to realize what danger he was in. He sheltered mentally behind Jackie and, as long as his boss was around, that was enough to reassure him.

Stott tore open his collar button and pulled the knot of his tie down for comfort.

‘Not knowing anything is what kills me. Can't even ask Thor Hansen on this one. He's the boy for problems, but not when it's a murder.'

Joe blinked his piggy eyes. ‘Reckon he's got a big enough problem of his own downstairs – what's bin happening?'

Jackie looked at the old sparring partner gloomily and poured another drink. ‘Those London mobsters – quick off the mark. But we'll fix them, if we can get round this other business all right … everything bloody well comes at once.'

‘What about the coppers … how they taking this?'

‘They know the score about Papagos – God knows how. They'd like to see him played off against me, so that we'd both go down. But they're going to be unlucky. I'll handle this myself!'

Some of the old bravado began to return as the alcohol seeped through his system.

There was a silence as Joe slowly digested the facts.

‘What we going to do about it all, then?' he asked eventually.

‘Where Geordie is concerned – sit tight. As far as I can see, they don't know who he is yet, or they'd have been round here as fast as their little feet could carry them.' He brightened up a little more. ‘Maybe they'll never find out – perhaps the fish have eaten his face off or something.'

Even Joe couldn't take that one. ‘Hell, boss, he's only bin in the bleeding river a coupla days … I seen stiffs pulled out of the water after three weeks and they were still in canny shape, especially in cold weather like this.'

Jackie scowled. ‘Fine comfort you are! So why haven't the police been round to see his employers – that's us?' He threw himself down on to the settee. ‘Better get downstairs and keep an eye on what's happening. See if you can pick anything up about Geordie. And keep yer flaming mouth shut, right!'

Joe trundled off, looking sour. As he got to the door, Jackie stopped him. ‘If I know these protection bastards, they'll try to stir up more trouble pretty soon. So get hold of a few heavy lads – fellers like Paddy Flynn and Bert Howard. Tell them there's a fiver a night and free booze if they hang around and be ready for a punch-up … OK?'

Joe grinned, his good humour restored. A free fight was something that he
did
understand. He loped off, rubbing his hands, not caring about the possible life sentence that hung over him and Jackie.

Chapter Eight

Next afternoon, Alec Bolam sat in his room waiting for a call to MacDonald's room.

His sergeant waited, too. Jimmy was sprawled in his favourite position near the window, where he could look across at the office girls in the Civic Centre opposite.

There was silence as Jimmy watched the girls and Alec studied that morning's newspaper.

‘
The Journal
's done a good spread on the Bigg Market affair,' he said suddenly. ‘They've never had it so good, a murder
and
a clubland feud all in the same issue.'

‘Poor old Mac must be doing his nut,' cackled Grainger, irreverently. ‘He was paddling about the Tyne till God knows what time, then he gets our little lot thrown at him!'

Alec nodded and folded up the paper. ‘What goes on with this killing, I wonder? Had any news from your low friends in Photography?'

‘Stumped, so I hear. The dredger took half his head off, so they haven't a clue who he is. Young bloke, apparently – beaten to death. No missing persons to tally with him.'

‘Maybe a protection job from Bradford or Leeds – or perhaps Papagos and Casella brought him up with them from the Smoke!' said Bolam facetiously.

Neither of them knew how near to the truth they were when they jokingly coupled the murder with the clubs, but Geordie Armstrong was miles from their thoughts, especially since the previous night's trouble at the club had monopolized their attention.

‘What happened to those characters, anyway?' asked Bolam.

‘Left on the ten fifteen for King's Cross … quite openly.'

Alec smiled cynically. ‘I'll bet they were more than open. They'd have taken bloody good care to have been noticed by as many people as possible, knowing that their boys were going to lob a bomb through Jackie's window an hour after the train left!'

‘What d'you think the next move will be?' asked Jimmy Grainger.

‘Jackie won't squeal to us, that's for sure. And he's too stubborn to pay up protection money without a fight, so it looks like a war, unless the Greek and his pal decide to try an easier victim.'

The sergeant rose from his window ledge and stretched. ‘Are we going to keep tabs on the Bigg Market all the time now?'

Bolam frowned. ‘Difficult … there's only thee and me, unless Uncle Mac decides to give us some more men on attachment. We'll have to try and keep a watch on the Rising Sun at least once a night between us.'

The phone rang to call them to MacDonald's office.

As they walked along the corridor, Alec passed on a bit more news. ‘I've heard from the Interpol Office at The Yard … the Danish police have got nothing on Hansen – Jackie's manager.'

‘Is it his real name?' asked Grainger.