Chapter 20
In the interview room at Battersea Bridge Police Station, Arthur Gable stood over the transparent sheets of the identikit. Stevenson stood next to him, while Whittaker leant on the opposite side of the table, his long arms supporting the rest of his lanky frame. ‘Mr Stevenson, we’ll start with the facial outline for the gunman. What sort of shape, do you think he had?’
Stevenson perused the different options. ‘Well, the light wasn’t brilliant, that time of the morning, but I would say, his face shape was a bit like this.’ He reached over and picking up a picture showing an elliptical facial shape, handed it to Whittaker, who placed it down on the white card on the table. He lit a cigarette and offered them around. Stevenson took one and nodded appreciatively. Whittaker, then blew out some smoke and waved it from his face. ‘Now, let’s look at the hairline. You said, that he had short cropped hair.’
‘That’s right.’ Stevenson looked over the options, then picked one up. ‘I would say, this looks the closest to it.’
This was then put into position, and Whittaker studied it. ‘Now, we’ll go for the eyes. You said, that you were about fifty feet away from the shore, when you saw these men.’
‘That’s right I was.’
‘So, I don’t suppose, that you could really see their eyes very much from that distance, especially not in the early dawn light?’
‘That’s right Inspector, but I did notice, that the big man had bushy eyebrows, which were close together.’
Whittaker jostled through the transparent face parts, picking out a pair, best matching this, and placing them on to their face outline. ‘Anything like that?’
Stevenson studied the profile. ‘Do you know chaps? That is not too far off the bloke that I saw. I can remember now, that he also had quite a wide mouth, as well.’
Whittaker selected a possible match for Stevenson’s statement, then placed the piece in situ. He also added a nose, he thought would fit the profile, then stood back, allowing Stevenson to view the completed item. The tugboat owner paused, taking a few steps back from the table.
From the short distance, he stared at the assembled profile, then nodded. ‘Good God! That’s him gents. That’s the bloke, who raised his gun at me.’
Gable was pleased. ‘That’s great, Eddie,’ said Gable.
Whittaker was also pleased. ‘Right, Mr Stevenson, shall we now try and fit the other one?’
Later that afternoon, Alex Swan was leaning on the end of the desk, reading a page of Heinz Gruber’s personnel file, when the telephone rang He listened with delight, as Gable informed him, of managing to get a match of the two suspects, using the identikit. ‘That’s splendid,’ Swan praised. ‘We have also had a breakthrough here. We’ve found the murder weapon, and I think, we also have a suspect. We are about to bring him into the office for some more questioning.’ Swan looked out of the window at Gantry 2. ‘However, there’s a small issue, as they are about to do another Black Arrow test firing, and what I am seeing, is that everyone looks quite busy with getting it ready. Our suspect is among them, so it looks as though, we’ve got to play a bit of a waiting game. The test is due for an hour’s time, so we will just sit here, until it’s over. If we decide to arrest our man, I can leave it all in the capable hands of Inspector Dugdale, and his team of officers up in the guardroom, who are having a well-earned cup of tea. Why don’t you call it a day, Arthur? Go home, and I will most probably see you in the office sometime tomorrow. We can then work on tracing these two hoodlums, and maybe try and if what we suspect, get a lead on their employer.’
Gable agreed. ‘Well Fred, I guess I’ll be off now.’ The two men shook hands. ‘I’ll be in touch in a few days. You’ll keep me posted, if anything crops up though, won’t you?’
Whittaker smiled. ‘No problem Arthur, see you soon. A real pleasure working with you.’
Gable climbed into the Cambridge, started the engine and looked at his watch. Realising that he was in time for the three o’clock news, he switched on the car’s radio. After the news, he carefully listened to a London traffic report, and afterwards decided it was best for him to take the route across Westminster Bridge, and then down along the Victoria Embankment and the underpass, leading into Ludgate Circus.
A short while later, having crossed the bridge, he found himself stuck in traffic along the embankment. As he sat behind the wheel, looking at the queue of vehicles ahead of him. He was going nowhere for a while, so taking the next left turn, before the gold albatross of the RAF Memorial, headed into Wellesley Mews. Rather than sitting in this, he thought, he could be having a cup of tea in a nice quiet office with a newspaper.
Twenty minutes later, at Highdown, everything was ready for the next test firing. There was a knock on the office door, and Hallett peered in. ‘Excuse me chaps, we’re about to start the test. I’m afraid for safety reasons, you understand, I must ask you to head underground to the Control Block.’
Swan acknowledged, and looked at Dugdale sitting at the desk.
‘Righto, Lionel, let’s go and see this thing for ourselves, shall we?’
They rose from their chairs and made their way down the hill.
At Gantry 2, last minute checks were taking place, with white suited technicians scaling the ladders adjacent to the rocket, carefully checking the connections of the hoses.
A few minutes later, after receiving the positive hand signals from his team members, Paul Baxter, now assigned as acting Deputy Chief Engineer, signed off everything listed on his clipboard, and walked over to the phone box. ‘Gantry 2 to Firing Control, Everything A-OK.’ He had a distaste for the Americanism which now had to be used for giving the all clear. He replaced the receiver, giving a visual sign to his team to clear the area and make their way to the blockhouse. As he did this, the first of the ten-minute warning sirens, for imminent test firing, sounded around the complex.
In the Control Block, Swan and Dugdale sat on orange plastic chairs, out of the way of the personnel manning the consoles. For this test, Hallett himself, was acting as firing officer. ‘You may commence the countdown, Mr Stewart,’ he ordered, walking with his hands behind his back along the line of desks.
Stewart pressed a button on his console, which started an automatic clock countdown, and the mechanical dials displaying the digits, started to move backwards. On the wall above him, the red hand on the special clock moved clockwise.
At the far end of the room, Hallett stood next to a viewing scope, preparing himself for the ignition. The final siren sounded, indicating a thirty second warning. Out on Gantry 2, the Black Arrow rocket, stood abandoned, in its ready for launch situation.
Hallett looked at the clock. ‘Ten seconds… Five, Four, Three, two, one… ignition and engines start.’
Swan looked at Dugdale in surprise, as a sudden rumble vibrated through the floor and pounded the walls of the Control Block. Hallett leant on the viewing scope, pushing his eye into the lens to observe a white plume of steam, flushing out of the side of the gantry tower, towards the sea; a protruding flame also appeared at the base of the rocket.
Back in the Control Block, the men sat fully alert, monitoring the dials on the desks. So far, there seemed to be no problems; the securing clamp having been re-adjusted, to hold the rocket firmly in its cradle.
Hallett then invited Swan and Dugdale over to the scope. ‘Please feel free to have a look through the scope, gents.’