Blood on the Line irc-8 Read online

  ‘Inspector Colbeck thinks the day will come when we actually have photographs of villains. Think what a help that would be.’

  ‘It will happen eventually,’ said Peebles, ‘though it may take some time yet. So far nobody has invented the sort of camera that we can use on a regular basis to photograph criminals. It’s a pity. I’d dearly love to see a photograph of Irene Adnam.’

  ‘I want to see one of Jeremy Oxley as well.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait until you meet him in the flesh.’

  ‘He’s the real criminal,’ asserted Leeming. ‘Women are the fairer sex. They don’t usually have the urge to kill in cold blood. Most of them would be too afraid even to hold a gun, let alone fire it. He made her do it. Oxley dragged her down to his own level. If you look at her record, there’s no hint of violence in it. It was Oxley who turned her into a murderer.’

  Peebles picked up two sheets of paper and compared them.

  ‘The wonder is that we have so much information about him,’ he remarked. ‘Many of the crimes didn’t even take place in London. How did they come to our attention?’

  ‘The inspector made sure that they did.’

  ‘He’s been after Oxley for a long time, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Leeming. ‘Every time the name has cropped up, Inspector Colbeck has made a note of it. Sometimes, of course, Oxley takes on a new identity as he befriends a victim before robbing him. The inspector can always spot if he is the culprit because the man works in a particular way. There’s a phrase for it.’

  ‘Modus operandi.’

  ‘Yes – that’s it.’

  ‘When criminals find a method that works, they stick to it.’

  ‘There’s another side to that. It’s a question of superstition. They do everything in exactly the same way because they’re afraid to fail if they don’t. We all have superstitions of one kind or another. I know that I do. My wife teases me about some of them.’

  ‘Coming back to Oxley,’ said Peebles, ‘why has the inspector singled him out for special attention?’

  ‘It’s because of something that happened years ago before he even joined the Metropolitan Police Force. Oxley killed someone who was going to act as a witness against him in court. The crime has preyed on the inspector’s mind ever since,’ said Leeming. ‘He felt that he was in some way to blame. It’s what drives him on to catch Oxley. He wants to avenge the death of a young lady called Helen Millington.’

  Edward Tallis loathed the gentlemen of the press with a passion that never dimmed but Colbeck took a more tolerant view of them. What irked him was that newspapers either praised him to the skies or excoriated him for his mistakes or for what they wrongly perceived as his slowness. There seemed to be no middle ground between applause and condemnation, no recognition of the fact that crimes could not be solved to satisfy the deadlines of editors and that progress was being made on a case even if it was not apparent to the jaundiced eye of reporters. To the superintendent, the handful of men he’d reluctantly invited into his office that day were unprincipled scribblers who’d been put on this earth solely in order to bait him. In Colbeck’s view, by contrast, they were a vital tool in the fight against crime if they were used correctly. The problem was that neither he nor his superior had any control over what they actually wrote.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said Tallis, looking truculently around his guests as if ready to challenge one of them to a fight. ‘I know that you prefer to deal in wild sensation but I must ask you to take a less hysterical approach to an investigation for once.’

  ‘This is a sensational crime, Superintendent,’ argued one of the men. ‘We have a shooting, a daring escape and two policemen sliced to pieces beneath the wheels of a train. You cannot expect us to report that as an everyday event.’

  ‘All I ask is that you report the known facts instead of giving the impression that we are unequal to the task of finding the culprits.’

  The man was blunt. ‘We write what we see.’

  Colbeck winced. Before the press conference was called, he’d urged Tallis to make sure that he did not antagonise them at the very start, yet that was exactly what his superior had just done. The superintendent’s tone became more belligerent and insults from both sides were soon flying around the room like so many angry wasps. Colbeck tried to rise above the fray and let his mind settle on an aspect of the case that was unknown to any of the journalists.

  The fate of Helen Millington continued to preoccupy him. He felt very sorry for the jeweller who’d been Oxley’s first victim and had never forgotten the man’s bravery in trying to pursue a thief. He’d also been deeply shocked by the recent murders of the two Wolverhampton policemen. The difference between them and Helen was that their occupation exposed them to risk and they had understood that when they put on the uniform. Not that either of them could ever have expected to suffer such a hideous end. Serious injuries were common among all constabularies but killings were thankfully rare.

  Three things set Helen’s untimely death apart from that of the others. First, she was a woman. The daughter of a financier, she was young, beautiful and well educated. Second, she posed no physical threat to Oxley. The jeweller had chased him with the intention of overpowering him and the two policemen had him handcuffed. Even had she’d wished to do so, Helen could not hurt Oxley. Nor was she in any position to defend herself against a violent attack. She was too slight, frail and vulnerable. But it was the third factor that weighed most with the inspector. In the course of the various meetings with Helen Millington, coaxing, advising and supporting her, Colbeck had fallen in love and his feelings had been requited.

  ‘You were summoned here,’ Tallis said, eyeing his visitors with disdain, ‘so that we could demonstrate that we have made progress in this investigation.’

  ‘Have you made any arrests?’ demanded a voice.

  ‘Not as yet, I fear.’

  ‘Then no real progress has been made. For once, it seems, your much-vaunted Inspector Colbeck has come off the rails.’

  The titter of amusement brought Colbeck out of his reverie.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘there has been an arrest. I must correct the superintendent on that point. During our visit to Wolverhampton, we discovered that a Constable Marner had been tricked into giving away information that led to the escape of Jeremy Oxley. He accepted a bribe of five pounds. He is now in custody and, as you may imagine, reviled by his colleagues. One of the murder victims, incidentally, was his brother-in-law.’

  The reporters started to write excitedly in their notebooks. During the brief lull, Colbeck mimed a message to Tallis that he should be less aggressive and hand over the task of talking to them. With obvious reluctance, the older man agreed to the request.

  ‘I will make way now for Inspector Colbeck,’ he said, continuing the laboured metaphor, ‘who – I think you’ll find – has not come off the rails at all but is steaming along the track at full speed.’

  Some muted jeers were hidden away in the polite laughter.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Colbeck with a nod at Tallis. ‘As a result of visits to Manchester, some important new facts have come to light. They relate to the female accomplice who assisted in the escape. The post-mortem on the remains of the two policemen established that one of them had been shot through the skull at close range. The person who fired that shot was a young woman by the name of Irene Adnam.’

  He spelt the name for them and set the pencils off again. Colbeck praised Inspector Zachary Boone for the help given him in Manchester and explained how he had tracked down the woman’s father. He told them that Irene and Oxley would be hiding somewhere together and that their newspapers could be the means of catching them. The large reward on offer would, he hoped, encourage anyone who had spotted them to come forward.

  ‘The description of Irene Adnam that I’m about to give you,’ he said with easy authority, ‘is based on conversations with two people who knew her well – her father and a
former employer. Her criminal career began in Manchester where, as you will hear, she left a number of victims in her wake.’

  Colbeck went on to give details of her age, height, build, weight and hair colouring. He also mentioned that her voice had traces of a Manchester accent. Her father had described her as very lovely, and even the embittered Ambrose Holte had conceded that she had both physical appeal and natural charm. What had fooled the mill owner was her abiding air of innocence. As he offered them additional details of the woman, she began to take shape before him and did so in such clear outline that he was jolted. Colbeck had met her before. If he omitted the list of her crimes and her local accent, he could be talking about someone else entirely. The coincidence was so unexpected that it brought him to a sudden halt.

  Age, height, build, weight and hair colouring – it was uncanny. Even the air of purity was an exact match. In every particular, he had just been describing Helen Millington.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Having taken a train to Euston, they hired two cabs to convey them to Trafalgar Square. It was carpeted by pigeons whose strutting boldness amazed Irene. Instead of taking to the air as she approached, they simply dodged her feet and continued to hunt for food on the paved slabs. One even perched on the knee of a beggar as he lay propped in a stupor up against a wall. Younger and his wife had visited the square too often to be overwhelmed by its scale and magnificence. Oxley, too, had seen it many times and was once again assessing the opportunities afforded to pickpockets by people gazing fixedly up at Horatio Nelson and therefore off guard. To Irene, however, the whole area was a thing of wonder and she was mesmerised by the fluted Corinthian column of Devonshire granite. She stared up at the statue of the nation’s great naval hero.

  ‘How on earth did they get it up there?’ she asked.

  ‘Very slowly, I should imagine,’ said Younger.

  ‘It’s so high.’

  ‘They built a wooden scaffold to help them erect the column, then they must have winched up the statue.’ He pointed to the bronze bas-reliefs at the base of the column. ‘Those were cast from cannon taken from enemy ships captured by Nelson in battle.’

  ‘Gordon can even tell you which battles they represent,’ said Susanna, fondly. ‘He loves that kind of detail about the past.’

  ‘History has always been my passion,’ he agreed.

  ‘Well, I always look to the future instead of the past,’ said Oxley. ‘I want to know what tomorrow holds for me and not what a one-eyed admiral did all those years ago at sea.’

  ‘Jerry!’ chided Irene. ‘You should show some respect.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Nelson was one of the greatest sailors of all time,’ Younger reminded him. ‘He defeated the French at Trafalgar even though his fleet was outnumbered. Unfortunately, he died during the action.’ He tossed a glance upward. ‘If anyone deserves to be honoured, it’s Nelson.’

  Oxley was no longer listening. His attention had shifted to an urchin who’d been mingling with the crowd and who was in the act of removing a wallet from an unsuspecting sightseer. Oxley had no desire to warn the victim. He sided instinctively with the criminal. He wanted to step forward and advise the boy to take more time. Sudden movement would alert the man. The urchin was too hasty. His final snatch of the wallet made his victim turn round and clap a hand to his pocket. The boy darted off into the throng. Yelling in outrage, the man went after him, but Oxley came to the lad’s aid. Stepping sharply to the left, he deliberately collided with the victim to slow him down then showered him with apologies. By the time the man continued his pursuit, it was too late. The boy had vanished. Oxley smiled at what he considered to be a good deed. Irene was puzzled.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Oxley, innocently.

  ‘Someone just robbed that man,’ said Younger.

  ‘No wonder he seemed so angry.’

  ‘He ran straight into you.’

  Irene was sympathetic. ‘Were you hurt, Jerry?’

  ‘No,’ said Oxley, holding his lapels to straighten his frock coat. ‘I hardly felt a thing. The truth of it is that he came off far worse than me because I’m bigger and stronger. Come on,’ he added, ‘let’s walk down Whitehall to see Scotland Yard. That’s far more interesting to me than Nelson’s column.’

  He led the way through the crowd, wondering how long it would be before the irate man into whom he’d just bumped realised that, in the process of doing so, Oxley had deftly relieved him of his gold watch.

  Colbeck had been impressed by Ian Peebles. To begin with, the new recruit was unfailingly polite. It was not always the case with those whose formative years had been spent in the army. Edward Tallis, for instance, had no truck with politeness. It was a foreign concept to him and foreigners were, by definition, creatures to be shunned. The habit of command had deprived him of conversational niceties. He issued orders with the splenetic zeal of one who expected them to be obeyed without question. Unlike the superintendent, Peebles had not been an officer but he had risen to the rank of army sergeant and was thus used to drilling those under his authority. Beneath his youthful exterior, there was palpably a core of steel. Even in his short time in the department, he’d shown flashes of inspiration. Colbeck believed that he would turn out to be a formidable detective.

  It was detection of another kind that prompted Peebles. When he found himself alone with Colbeck in the latter’s office, he asked the question he’d be saving up for such a moment.

  ‘Is it true that you’re about to get married, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Have you set a date for the wedding?’

  ‘It’s … under discussion,’ said Colbeck.

  ‘Catherine and I have already started to make arrangements. It will be a quiet affair as neither of us has a large family. That’s all to the good in my mind. I hate fuss of any kind. I simply want to be with the woman I adore.’

  Colbeck thought about Madeleine. ‘We have that ambition in common.’

  ‘Where will you get married?’

  ‘The parish church in Camden. Madeleine has worshipped there since she was a small child. As in your case, we anticipate a very quiet wedding.’

  ‘Are you going to invite the superintendent?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Colbeck, laughing. ‘He will certainly not be invited and, even if he were, he would certainly refuse to attend. I don’t wish to put him in a position where he has to turn down the invitation.’

  ‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ mused Peebles. ‘I’m talking about the way that your life can turn full circle as a result of a chance meeting. To be honest with you, I never thought that I’d ever get married. I had few opportunities to spend time in mixed company and fewer still to meet eligible young women. Besides,’ he said with a self-effacing smile, ‘I never considered that I had much to offer. I’m not the sort of person who courts the mirror or who has a large income to dangle in front of a prospective wife. I was prepared to stay married to the army instead. Then I met Catherine …’

  ‘And she rearranged your priorities for you, I daresay.’

  ‘It was rather frightening how quickly it all happened. I had no control whatsoever over it. Was it the same for you, Inspector?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Colbeck, unwilling to confide too much about his own situation. ‘The demands of my work tended to slow everything down. But,’ he went on, changing the subject, ‘we shouldn’t be revelling in our own good fortune. The relationship on which we should concentrate is that between Jeremy Oxley and Irene Adnam. Though it falls well short of marriage, it’s just as binding in their minds. They are conjoined by murder. That makes them especially dangerous and I speak for her as well as for him. People who kill once will have few qualms about doing so again. We must beware.’

  ‘I faced death many times in the army.’

  ‘Yes, Constable, but you had a weapon with which to defend yourself. The rules of engagement are different now.
We have neither rifles nor any other firearm. Our weapons are intelligence, swiftness of reaction and surprise. We must deploy all three. At the moment, of course, Oxley and Adnam think themselves supremely safe. That will change dramatically.’

  ‘Why is that, Inspector?’

  ‘We’ve tried to harness the power of the press. Until today, everyone was wondering about the identity of Oxley’s mysterious female accomplice. Her name will be voiced abroad tomorrow.’

  ‘What effect do you think that will have?’

  ‘I’m hoping that it will be twofold,’ said Colbeck. ‘With luck, it will prompt members of the general public to come forward with details of sightings of the couple. Somebody must have seen them and nothing jogs the memory as much as the promise of a large reward. The other consequence is obvious.’

  ‘It will put the wind up the pair of them.’

  Colbeck nodded. ‘I think they’ll panic and, when people do that, they usually act on impulse. Oxley and Adnam will know that time is running out for them. They may well bolt from their hiding place.’

  Madeleine made breakfast that morning with a sense of duty tinged with sadness. It was only a matter of weeks before her father could stay in bed for as long as he liked. Retirement would revolutionise their lives. It was an unsettling thought. Routine had been the salvation of Caleb Andrews. When his wife had died, he’d been inconsolable and his daughter had had to bear the crushing weight of his grief as well as her own sorrow. She’d rescued him from complete collapse by adhering to a strict routine, waking him for breakfast in the morning and having supper ready for him when he returned in the evening. On the occasions when he had time off, she insisted on taking him for a walk or invited friends and relatives to visit them. Madeleine never let her father be on his own for any length of time when he might surrender to his anguish. On Sundays she first went to church then visited her mother’s grave with him.