1953 - The Things Men Do (19 page)

"You've got to do it!" she cried, clutching hold of my hand. "If you don't, I will!"

"No, Ann."

She stared up at me.

"You're planning to do something, aren't you? There's something about you, Harry, that worries me."

"I'm going to duck out of sight."

"You can't do that! You mustn't! Where would you go? Don't you see, darling, they will think you are as guilty as the rest of them if you run away. You couldn't get far. They'd find you: they always do."

"I'm going to duck out of sight, Ann," I repeated "I've got a job to do. I'm sorry, but it's a job I've got to do alone."

"A job? What do you mean?"

"I'm going to find Dix."

She stared at me blankly.

"But this is ridiculous. The police will find him. You can't do it, Harry. If you run away . . ."

"I want you to pack a few things, Ann, and go to your mother. You'll be safe in Leytonstone. Dix doesn't know where your mother lives. I want you to go right away."

"But, Harry, you can't be serious. You're frightening me. I'm not going to leave you. I'm sure you're going to do something reckless."

"You're wasting time, Ann. Please pack what you want, and please don't argue about it"

"But, Harry, do you realize what you're saying? If you run away we may never see each other again. How can you hope to remain long in hiding? You must go to the police now and tell them the truth."

"It's too late for that, Ann. You must let me handle this my way."

She caught hold of my hand.

"For my sake, darling, face up to it. Don't run away," she cried. "I'll come with you. Oh, Harry, don't break up our life together! Please do what I ask."

I realized now that she wouldn't be put off. Time was running out. I had to take another line of action.

"Give me a few minutes to think about it, Ann," I said, getting to my feet. "I'm going down to the office. I want a little time to get things straightened out in my mind. Give me half an hour, Ann."

She looked searchingly at me.

"Exactly why do you want to find Dix?" she asked.

"I want to have the satisfaction of wrecking his plans. He made a fool out of me; he killed Bill. I'd like to even things up with him before I go to jail, but maybe you're right. Maybe the best thing I can do is to leave him to the police. Give me half an hour to make up my mind, Ann."

She hesitated.

"Very well, Harry. I'll wait here. Please be sensible about this. You must go to the police and tell them the truth. It is the right and only thing to do."

I put my arm round her and kissed her.

"Let me think about it."

I went down the stairs and into the office. As soon as I shut the door I opened the petty cash box and took from it eight pound notes, two ten shilling notes and some silver. I put the money in my pocket. Then I examined my cheque book. I had a balance of £52. I hastily wrote out a cheque in Ann's favour for the full amount, then I took a sheet of notepaper and wrote her a note.

Darling Ann,

This must be good-bye. I haven't time for long explanations. I can't let Dix get away with Bills death. I've got to find him and square the account. Bill and I shared so much of the past that you know nothing about that he became part of me. It was due to my own selfish and uncontrolled act that he is dead. I feel the best part of me died with him. What's left of me isn't important. I spoilt our lives when I broke my promise to you, and it can never be the same. I'm not going to prison for a few years, knowing you are waiting for someone who doesn't exist any longer. This has got to be a clean break. The enclosed cheque clears my account. Sell up here: you should get about two thousand for the equipment and the truck. It's all yours.

Please go at once to your mother and keep under cover.

This gang is dangerous, and if they could get at me through you, they will do so. So for my sake as well as your own, don't let them find you.

Forgive me for doing this to you if you can. It is better for us to break clean now. You will always be in my thoughts. I shall always love you. I have a job to do that must be done, and only I alone can do it.

Good-bye, darling,

Harry.

I read this through quickly, feeling it was quite inadequate; so inadequate that I had to add a note below my name.

I will get in touch with you before long to say a better good-bye. I will write or telephone you at your mother's place.

It would have to do, I thought, as I reached for the envelope. A feeling of urgency occupied my mind. I must get off before she came down or the police arrived. I put the note and cheque in the envelope and put the envelope on the desk where she would find it It was a nuisance having to leave like this. I would have liked to have taken a rain-coat and overnight things, but I couldn't risk going upstairs again. Besides, I told myself, if the police were watching me, a handbag would arouse their suspicions and they might make a quick arrest.

I glanced at my wrist-watch. I had been seven minutes making my preparations. It was time to be off. I walked quietly down the garage, past the Jaguar. For a moment I hesitated beside it wondering if I should take it or not, then decided it would be too easily traced.

I opened one of the garage doors and walked into the bright sunlight.

I pulled the door shut then paused to light a cigarette while I looked out of the corner of my eye at the two policemen outside the sorting-office.

They studiously ignored me, so studiously that I knew at once they had been told to ignore me. That could mean only one thing: Rawson had already decided to have me shadowed, and the shadower was waiting for me somewhere out of sight I walked at a fast pace towards Oxford Street. I didn't look back. My one concern was that Ann might come down to the office and find the note and run after me. I wanted to get as far away from Eagle Street as I could before she discovered the note.

A bus came along Oxford Street as I reached the corner of Eagle Street. I sprinted towards it and swung on board.

I looked back as soon as I sat down on one of the side seats by the conductor's platform. No one ran after me, but after a minute or so when I looked back again, I spotted a police car about fifty yards in the rear, keeping pace with the bus.

It wasn't going to be easy to shake them off, I told myself. If they lost me all they had to do would be to warn a police car in the district by short wave radio and they would be after me. Every policeman on beat or controlling the traffic would be warned to look out for me. No, it wasn't going to be easy but I had been in more difficult spots during the war, and I was confident that I would be able to shake them off.

I bought a ticket to Hyde Park Corner and got off the bus by the underground and went down to the booking office. I was pretty sure a detective, possibly two, had jumped out of the police car as soon as I was out of sight, and was coming after me.

I paused to buy a newspaper at a kiosk, then bought a ticket to Knightsbridge and went down to the trains.

There were only three or four people on the platform, and I walked to the far end and sat down on the wooden bench against the wall.

I looked up the platform, but no one came to join those already waiting. I guessed the detectives were waiting just out of sight. The time to spot them would be when the train came in.

I opened my newspaper, my eyes going to the Stop Press.

MAIL ROBBERY

Early this morning, a mail van was ambushed in Wood Lane, and three masked men got away with £300,000 worth of industrial diamonds en route from the Eagle Street Sorting-Office to Northolt Airfield. A Post Office Guard, attempting to foil this biggest mail grab of all time, was ruthlessly shot to death. Scotland Yard anticipates an early arrest.

£300,000!

The size of the sum stunned me for a moment.

No wonder Dix had taken such elaborate precautions.

No wonder he hadn't hesitated to commit murder. For a man in the know, industrial diamonds were as good as ready cash.

It would be to his advantage to get the diamonds out of the country where they would be worth considerably more than their face value in the black market of foreign currency.

I wondered if he planned to leave the country. For all I knew he might already have left in a chartered plane and was at this minute somewhere in Europe. If he had gone, then he was lost to me.

What was my first move to be?

Before I could go after him I had to shake off the police.

When I had succeeded in shaking them off I realized the hunt for me would be immediately intensified. Rawson wouldn't give me a second chance to slip through his fingers. If they caught up with me a second time, they would arrest me.

I had to get hold of a change of clothing. I had to alter my appearance so I wouldn't be easily recognized. I thought of Berry's flat: 3a Queen's Avenue. By now Berry would have gone into hiding with the rest of the gang. The chances were he had left some clothes in the flat. He was about my build. If I could get to his flat without being seen I was sure I could fit myself out well enough to avoid detection.

I folded the newspaper and got to my feet. I could hear the train approaching. I walked slowly along the platform and joined the four other people who were waiting.

As the train banged and clattered out of the tunnel and swept along the platform, I saw a tall, heavily-built man move out from the archway leading to the emergency stairs.

I looked closely at him, making an attempt to disguise my scrutiny. I wanted to be sure I should recognise him again.

He was wearing a brown suit and slouch hat, and I knew by the way he held himself and by his studied casualness as he moved over to the train that he was a police officer.

He got into a compartment next to mine.

I had to play my hand carefully, I told myself. There was no question of making a bolt for it when I reached the station. I had to lose the detective in such a way that he couldn't be sure whether I had deliberately given him the slip or whether he had lost me by his own carelessness. If he suspected I was trying to get away, he would probably arrest me.

I got out of the train at Knightsbridge and walked quickly along the platform to the escalator. I rode up on it, and as I was nearing the top I glanced back.

The detective was halfway up the escalator, about ten yards behind me. He was leaning against the moving rail, looking at a newspaper.

Knightsbridge was almost deserted. I realized I had picked a bad time to play cops and robbers. Sunday morning, with its deserted streets and shut shops, wasn't like a week day.

I decided to wait until I got close to Queen's Avenue before I made my first move. I walked briskly towards Brompton Road, turned up Exhibition Road that stretched long and deserted to Hyde Park.

I was now within a few minutes’ walk of Queen's Avenue.

I could hear the detective following me, but I resisted the temptation to look back. I could tell by the sound of his footfalls that he must be at least fifty yards behind me.

I crossed the road, slowing down my pace a trifle. At the corner of Imperial Institute Road I stopped and took out a packet of cigarettes.

The footfalls ceased abruptly.

I lit a cigarette, put the packet way, and then moving even more slowly I turned the corner.

I guessed I would be out of the detective's sight for about six seconds. The moment I turned the comer, I threw away the cigarette, and sprang forward in a mad, tearing run, my crepe-soled shoes making no sound on the pavement as I rushed across the road to the Imperial Institute. I darted up the steps and into the shadow of the big porch leading into the main building.

I pulled up, panting a little, and flattened myself against the wall. I waited a moment or two, then I peered cautiously into the street.

The detective appeared round the corner. He wasn't hurrying, and by his attitude he seemed quite confident that he would see me strolling ahead of him, but when he saw the deserted street and no sign of me, he came to an abrupt stop.

I stepped back into the shadows of the porch and waited.

I heard him coming down the street. He suddenly broke into a run, and moving fast, he reached the far end of the street and looked up and down Queen's Avenue.

I remained where I was, watching him.

He stood hesitating, then he turned and began to walk back towards me.

There was a public telephone booth just inside the porch, and moving over to it I opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door behind me.

I still had a good view of the street through the glass panel of the door, and I watched the detective pass. He looked up at the porch, hesitated, then came up the steps at a quick run.

I ducked down below the level of the glass panel, and waited, my heart banging against my ribs. I heard him reach the top of the steps and I could almost feel his eyes probing the shadows.

I expected any second he would pull open the booth door, and I got set to hit him if he did, but after a moment or so I heard him run down the steps and back to the street again.

I stood up, wiping the sweat from my face, and watched him as he paused at the foot of the steps to look up and down the street.

His heavy face was red and angry, and I guessed he was cursing himself for taking his job too lightly. After some hesitation, he set off towards Queen's Avenue, turning the corner and disappeared from my view.

I settled down to wait. I waited twenty minutes. The hands of my wrist-watch seemed scarcely to move, but I had to make certain the detective was sure in his mind that he had lost me. He wouldn't be in too great a hurry to make a report, but when he did, two or even three patrol cars would sew up the district, and then my task of avoiding capture would be much more difficult.

At the end of twenty minutes, I went to the top of the steps and looked to right and left. There was no one in sight, and without hurrying I walked down the steps and along the street toward Queen's Avenue.