Chapter 14
In the morning Hartnell was taken to court for a matter of a few minutes and committed to the next Quarter Sessions. It was in the courtroom, before the public that he first began to feel the seriousness of his position.
Somebody had to take the blame for that officer's death and he was the only one in the running. And, for a policeman to be crushed to death under the wheels of a lorry in such circumstances was not an act likely to endear him to any jury with its inevitable predispositions.
He was becoming more and more worried, too, about Gracie - almost to the point of giving information and risking her ruination rather than her fate at the hands of the gang.
They took him back to the cells of the local police station. The Scotland Yard men had gone, he was told. He would be transferred to prison to await the Quarter Sessions later in the day.
He sat on the narrow, wooden bench filled with remorse and regrets. Regrets from the beginning. He should have stayed in the RAF. Regrets that he hadn't cleared out after the first operation when he'd found out what the gang was dealing in. Regrets that he and Gracie hadn't got away while there had still been time. Regrets finally that this last operation - it was, for him, to have been the last - had ended so disastrously.
He remembered Francie's words, yelled in the lorry - "Somebody's spilt." Who could have spilt? It was probably just as well for him that they had. Although a knife in his back or a bullet in his chest wouldn't be any worse than a rope around his neck. There were bits of the fantastic events of the last hours which left him bewildered.
Through the rest of the morning he sat on the bench thinking, wondering what he should do, assailed by doubts.
Once he got up to stretch his legs and he was still standing when the duty officer arrived at lunchtime with a plate of food and a cup of tea. Hartnell found himself wondering what these men thought about the criminal who had, apparently, killed one of their number. They all regarded him without expression. He could have been any one-day-in drunk.
The officer placed the tray on the bench, stood a moment as if he was trying to think of something and then went out as if he was still puzzling some problem. He closed the door behind him.
Hartnell looked at the tray. He didn't feel hungry. He waited for the turning of the key in the lock, heard the footsteps going away and up the stone steps.
He sat rigid, listening. After a few seconds he went to the door and pushed it gently. His heart beat fast; he held his breath. The man hadn't locked it.
Hartnell stood undecided. He could hardly believe in this incredibly elementary oversight. One of his first thoughts was that it was some kind of trick, but realizing immediately the absurdity of that, his mind began to race.
If he could get away he could find Gracie, no matter where she was, make sure she was all right. And then he'd get Francie. He didn't want a murder charge hanging over his head for the rest of his life - and Francie was the only one who could clear him.
He fought down his fear, his desire not to do anything, fought down his lethargy, his feeling that escape was ridiculous and impossible. The longer he waited the less chance he had.
He pushed the door. It creaked frighteningly as it opened.
Quietly he slipped out into the corridor and crept quickly round the first corner to the steps which led up. They mounted into a small office at the side of the building. From there he remembered, there was an exit leading out into the road.
He listened, almost certain that someone would come down the steps at any moment and catch him red-handed. That would be one more charge to his debit.
He began, stealthily, to climb the steps. The hair was prickling on the back of his neck.
Halfway up he heard a door close and stopped, petrified, unable even to turn and scramble down again. But there was no further sound and he resumed his climb.
At the top was a wooden parapet. He peered carefully over it. There was nobody in the office! Up to this point he'd hardly thought of escape as a real possibility, but now he began to feel he could do it. It sent a chill up his spine.
There was a door with a frosted glass top leading off from the office and he could hear voices inside. He had only seconds before someone would come back to the office.
Taking a deep breath he stepped out into the open, feeling crazily big and vulnerable and crossed the office. He reached the outer doorway - the door was latched back to the wall outside - and glanced out.
With another gulp of air he slipped into the passage at the side of the building. Inside he was a tangled jumble of raw nerve ends.
There was nobody there at all. He glanced quickly out into the street, aware in passing of the blue lamp outside the front and then he moved round the edge of the wall and began to walk hurriedly in the opposite direction, mingling with the lunchtime workers on their way home. His eyes glanced covertly from side to side. His back felt like an enormous target on which somebody was drawing a bead from the police station behind. He wanted to break into a run but was terrified of attracting attention. The people around him seemed unreal, so many cardboard figures. He still couldn't believe what had happened. But he knew that in a short time every policeman in the metropolis would be watching for him. He had to find Gracie quickly and then get Francie.
In an office on the first floor of the same police station a message buzzed up to Superintendent Wilson. He listened and then moved quickly to the window. Chief Inspector Baker was already there.
"He's just moved out," the Superintendent said.
They both stared discreetly out. From a doorway opposite a man in plain clothes moved sharply into the crowd and began to walk away. Farther up the road another detached himself from a shop window and began to amble along looking in others.
"There goes Jones - and there's Turner," the Superintendent said softly. "You've got the others ready?"
"Everything as you ordered, sir."
Superintendent Wilson gave a little prayer to the Almighty for this gamble which might cost him his career.
"The sprat is now being set to catch the mackerel," he murmured.