Death Has Deep Roots by Michael Gilbert Read Free Book Online

police from year’s end to year’s end.”
    “We can’t all be commandos,” said Mrs. McCann. “I don’t suppose they were invented when he was young.”
    “I don’t suppose they were,” said McCann, “but that isn’t the point. What about Mrs. Roper?”
    “Well, she could hardly have been in the comm—all right,” she added hastily, seeing that McCann was showing signs of nervous instability. “I see what you’re getting at, only please put down those glasses first. You mean that Mrs. Roper, although she mayn’t have a record, may be known to the police in some way.”
    ‘That was rather my idea,” said McCann, “and I think that’s why Hazlerigg had Sergeant Crabbe in attendance. He was giving me a hot tip – the hottest tip he could. If there’s trouble about it, all he’s got to do is to call for the record.”
    “What do you imagine she’d be up to?”
    “I should say, just for guessing, that she’s on their ‘Further Inquiries’ list. That means that she associates with people who have got records, but either she’s managed, so far, to get away with it, or they just don’t think it’s politic to pull her in yet. Here she is – it was taken when she was leaving the police court.”
    “She looks quite respectable.”
    “So did Messalina. If she’s a hanger-on in an organised crowd – which I think is the likeliest thing – then it must be in one of four or five lines. I ought to be able to pick it up.”
    “Are you going out tonight?”
    “I thought I would.” McCann polished off the last of the glasses and removed his apron. “There isn’t much time to spare and there’s a lot of ground to cover. I thought I’d start at Philippino’s at King’s Cross and work back.”
    He outlined his itinerary.
    “I still think you may be imagining the whole thing,” said Mrs. McCann,
    “If you’d heard Hazlerigg,” said McCann, “you wouldn’t think so. It was as deliberate as a dig in the ribs. In my experience, Hazlerigg always thinks before he speaks.”
    “If he’d known you as well as I do,” said Mrs. McCann, “he’d have kept his big mouth shut.”
    After her husband had gone she played with the idea of ringing up Inspector Roberts at the West End Central Police Station and telling him where her husband was going. This would have been quite a reasonable thing to do, because he was an old friend of theirs and would have refrained from asking any awkward questions.
    Her hand was actually on the telephone when the barman came in with a panic about the gin supply and the project got shelved.
    It made no difference, because McCann didn’t keep to his itinerary, anyway.
     
    The Britannia Café stands in one of the uninspiring streets in the Goods Yard area which lies to the north of King’s Cross station. There is a ground-floor room, which contains six marble-topped tables, a tea urn and a specimen case containing withered sandwiches, geological rock cakes and tins of diced potato. There is also a flight of stairs, and at the top of them a frosted glass door. Nothing invites you to go up the stairs. On the other hand nothing forbids you.
    McCann climbed the stairs, opened the door at the top, and went in.
    Except that it had two big coffee percolators and no tea urn it looked exactly like the ground floor. There were half a dozen men and two women in the room. When McCann opened the door they all stopped talking and started looking at him.
    There was a positive quality of hostility in their silence. It was the sort of silence that asks a question. McCann looked quickly round and saw the man he wanted; a middle-sized, thick man wearing a raincoat over blue-dyed battledress trousers. As their eyes met the man got to his feet and came forward. “Hullo, Major, fancy seeing you again.” His mouth was smiling but the rest of his face had a battered permanence that defied any change of expression.
    “Evening, Gunner,” said McCann.
    Conversation had started up again but