A little while before the getaway car reached the alley, another black Ford saloon, which had been waiting along the route, started up and followed it. When the first car turned aside and stopped, the second one kept going along the street. With only one man in it, the car fled southward at a high speed. It had a long way to go before it reached open country,
At Police Headquarters, the alarm had resulted in a broadcast message to twenty Area Patrol cars which were prowling about within the city boundary. Two car crews were instructed to go at once to Underdown’s, and the remainder were alerted. A second, more informative 999 call led to a message about a black Ford saloon, number not yet known. The mobile cordon began to operate.
The occupants of AP 18, going to Underdown’s as ordered, noticed a black Ford traveling fast in the opposite direction. They were able to inform HQ of the position, direction, estimated speed, model and number of the car. HQ was also interested to hear that the occupant of the car was Edward Hooker, a man with a criminal record as long as a horse’s leg.
A token representing Eddie Hooker in the Ford car was given a place of honor on the big table map at HQ, and it was obvious that he was going to be the prey of either AP 4 or AP 27, both of whom were waiting for him. Two more cars were directed to cut across town and give additional cover, on the typical Headquarters principle that if you tell enough people to do something, it can’t be your fault if it isn’t done.
The fact that there was only one man in the car led to a strong suspicion that it was the wrong car, but that did not result in any alteration of plans. Eddie Hooker was worth turning up anytime.
The crew of AP 4 were unlucky. They saw Hooker, and he saw them, but their intention of quickly overtaking him was balked by an elderly lady in an elderly car. She pulled them up sharp by blithely signaling her intention to turn across their path, then she stalled her engine in front of them.
Hooker sped away from them, but two minutes later AP 27 came surging up behind him. He had known that he would be caught by the police-he was there, more or less, on the understanding that he would be caught-but so much police attention was too much for his nerves. He panicked, and pushed the accelerator down to the floorboard.
At sixty miles an hour he tried to go over a crossing against the light. A big lorry loaded with carboys rumbled into the moving picture on the other side of his windscreen. Like other people, he always expected carboys to contain corrosive acid. Acid! He swerved blindly to avoid the lorry. The Ford jumped the curb and ran head-on into the solid stone façade of the National Provincial Bank. No car ever built could have taken that impact. The Ford was a write-off.
Eddie Hooker was a shattered man, but he was still conscious when they extricated him from the wreck. Dazedly he remembered that he had a tale to tell. The two uniformed officers from AP 27 tried to make him comfortable while he waited for the ambulance. He looked at them expectantly, but they were traffic men with an accident on their hands, and for a while they were too busy to question him.
Martineau, D.I. of A Division, had been hurriedly recalled from the races. On his way to Castle Street, he heard about the accident on the radio of his C.I.D. car.
“One man. It sounds like a fiddle,” he said to Devery, who was at that time a newcomer in the detective department. “Turn off here. We’ll see if Hooker has anything to say.”
Devery took the first turning as instructed, and drove to the scene of the accident. He got there before the ambulance. Martineau knelt beside the broken man and said in a friendly tone: “Hello, Eddie. Now what have you been doing?”
Hooker recognized Martineau. Here was a man who would most certainly ask questions. Well, there was a story all ready for him. The dying man was so anxious to tell it that he did not wait for the smash-and-grab raid to be mentioned.
“Nowt to do wi’ me,” he whispered painfully. “I were just waiting for a judy. Lucky Lusk. I can prove it. While I were waiting I heard the winder go. Wi’ my record I thought I’d better scarper before I got dragged into trouble.”
“Where did you get your car?”
“Hired it for the day.”
Martineau looked into glazed eyes which still could watch him cunningly, and he smiled. “Come off it,” he said, with good humor. “Who were you stooging for?”
Eddie Hooker closed his eyes reproachfully, and at that moment the dark angel took him by surprise. Martineau waited some little time before he realized that the eyes would never open again.
That was one suspect who could never he cross-examined. And he had focused police attention on the wrong car. There were several alternative methods of escape for his accomplices. Martineau considered them all.
2
At first the police made rapid progress with the Underdown job. The wounded sergeant, when he could speak, stated positively that the man who shot him was Don Starling. Also, the impulsive little woman who had pulled down Starling’s mask could identify him from photographs.
The arrest and interrogation of Starling followed a familiar pattern. He was arrested at the home of his married sister, with whom he resided. He had no unusual amount of money, no jewelry, no gun, and no lead pipe; and he answered no questions.
Martineau had been put in charge of the case, and the negative interview took place in his office. The big policeman faced the less tall but almost equally formidable criminal. They were both about thirty-five years of age, they had known each other from boyhood, and they were sworn personal enemies. Neither was afraid of the other. Starling’s brown eyes did not flinch from the searching gray ones.
The brown eyes burned in a not unintelligent face. The coarse dark hair was plentiful, brushed back from a low hairline. The man was virile and arrogant: he strutted. He could speak good English with a northern accent, and he was well dressed according to the style he favored. He had been roughly reared in poor circumstances and yet spoiled. Lack of moral training and militant selfishness had resulted in criminal actions, and society’s vigorous reprisals had produced in him a pitiless steely intransigence. Some women thought him handsome, and those who were prepared to take him at his own value were impressed by him. He cared not a fig for any woman; women were prey. But he observed a point of honor with male associates. He would swindle an unwary accomplice, but he would never betray him.
As boys, at the same council school, in the nearby town of Boyton, Starling and Martineau had fought many a time. Martineau had been the bigger and the better fighter, but Starling had been tough, fearless and vengeful, and they had been not unevenly matched. Then Martineau had moved up to a grammar school, and Starling had moved down to a reformatory. After school, the big city had attracted them both. Martineau had gone into a bank, and Starling had gone into a drapery establishment-after it had been closed for the day. That exploit earned Starling three years in a reform school, and it looked as if the two youths would not meet again. But at the age of twenty Martineau chose a more active life by joining the Granchester police. Soon afterward Starling was released. So, when they met, the two young men were enemies as naturally as wolf and wolfhound.
In the fifteen years of Martineau’s police service they met a number of times. The pattern of their encounters remained basically the same: Starling was usually, but not always, the loser. He grew to hate Martineau with a corrosive intensity. It was a truly murderous hatred.