'Thirty? Thirty children and some young men and women? In a coach? Christ, this looks like...I don't know what it looks like. But it's definitely the biggest one, this, has to be. I think we've got them this time, lads.'
As a result of this information the Inspector, reporting directly to the Chief Constable, asked if he could make the investigation Top Priority.
Sir Arnold hardly heard him. He was reading a letter from a firm of solicitors informing him that his wife intended to begin proceedings for divorce on grounds that would end his career. His Top Priority now was to stop the bitch. But he agreed, and Inspector Rascombe summoned a meeting of the Serious Crime Squad to outline the second phase of Operation Kiddlywink.
As usual, Sergeant Bruton raised awkward questions. He had been studying the details of the people living at the Middenhall. They were all in their seventies or older. 'That place is full of geriatrics,' he said.
Inspector Rascombe was unimpressed. 'So what?' he said. 'It's old men like that fancy little children. The only way they can get it up, the filthy bastards. We may be on the verge of uncovering the first Senior Citizens Sex Scandal.'
'But half of them are married or widows. There are three unmarried old biddies up there,' the Sergeant objected. 'They can't all be into child abuse.'
The Inspector considered this for a moment and found an answer. 'Maybe not, but it could be they've been threatened and are too frightened to talk. Hard-core perverts with a sadistic streak would frighten the lights out of old ladies.'
Plans for surveillance penetration of the Middenhall went ahead. 'It's a clear night on the weather forecast. So we'll close in around 01.00. I want the two-man surveillance teams in on the ground where they can video the action and install listening equipment which will relay information when to hit the place. One unit will be here in the wood and the other will be behind the house.
You've got rations for forty-eight hours and we should have the case wrapped up by then.' That was Friday.
On Saturday Miss Midden struck. At 8 a.m. she left her boarding house in Clapham and presented herself at Judge Benderby Bright's town house in Brooke Street. The door was opened by a manservant, an ex-Metropolitan policeman who doubled as a bodyguard. Judge Bright's life had been threatened too often to let him feel safe except on the high seas. Even a Force Ten gale was mild compared to the feelings he had aroused among the members of families whose relatives had been sentenced to the maximum terms he could impose. He was not a popular man.
The bodyguard studied Miss Midden critically. 'What do you want?' he asked.
'I have come to see Judge Bright. It is important. And no, I have no appointment.'
'Well, you've come at the wrong time. Judge Bright is still in bed. He rises late on Saturdays but if you will leave your name and address '
Miss Midden interrupted him. 'Go and wake him and say to him, "Auntie Boskie's shares." I shall wait here on the doorstep and he will see me,' she said.' "Auntie Boskie's shares".' She turned her back and the man shut the door.
Inside he hesitated. Miss Midden didn't look like a nutter, but one never knew. On the other hand she had an air of authority about her and an impressive confidence. He picked up the house phone and woke the Judge, and, having apologized profusely, repeated Miss Midden's message and the fact that she wanted to see the Judge. The effect was hardly what he had expected.
'Don't let her get away,' Judge Bright shouted. 'Bring her in the house at once. I'll be down instantly.'
The manservant went back to the door and opened it. 'You're to come in,' he said and prepared to grab her if she tried to run for it.
'I know,' said Miss Midden and stepped past him. She was carrying the hold-all.
'I'm afraid I have to search that, ma'am,' he said.
'You may open it and look inside and you can feel the outside,' said Miss Midden. 'You will take nothing out.'
The man looked inside and understood precisely what she meant. He hadn't seen so many banknotes since an attempted raid on a bank in Putney. He showed Miss Midden into the sitting-room and before he could leave Judge Bright arrived in a dressing-gown. He was, as usual, in a filthy temper and he didn't like being woken with enigmatic messages about Boskie's shares. It had been bad enough late the previous night to be phoned by a demented Ernestine with the news that Bletchley had bungled his suicide attempt and had merely blown most of his teeth away with a very large starting pistol. 'The damned fool must be mad,' he had told her. 'Why didn't he use a shotgun and do the thing properly?'
'I think he tried, but he couldn't get his big toe onto the trigger. It's really too awful. He doesn't look at all well. I don't know what to do.'
'Go and get him a proper revolver,' said the Judge. 'A forty-five should do the trick, even with a skull as thick as his is.'
Now he turned an eye, the same terrible eye that had struck terror into several thousand of the nastiest villains in England, on Miss Midden. He judged her to be a very ordinary woman. He was wrong.
'Do sit down,' said Miss Midden.
'What?' demanded the Judge. It was less a question than an explosion. Outside the door the ex-policeman trembled and wondered whether to rush in or not.
Miss Midden struck again. 'I said "Do sit down",' she said. 'And stop staring at me like that. You'll do yourself a mischief.'
The Judge sat down. In a long and frequently forceful life he had never been told to sit down by an unknown woman in his own house. And she was right about doing himself a mischief. His heart was doing something eccentric, like racing and missing beats.
'Now then,' she went on when he had made himself slightly less uncomfortable, 'I have a question to ask you.'
She stopped. Judge Benderby Bright was making the most peculiar noises. It sounded as if he was choking. His colour wasn't any too good either.
'I want to know whether you want to see your nephew Timothy again.'
The Judge goggled at her. Want to see that infernal little shit again? The woman must be mad. He'd kill the bastard. That's what he'd do if he ever laid eyes on the damnable swine who had stolen all Boskie's shares. See him again?
'I can see that you don't,' said Miss Midden. "That's as plain as the nose on your face.'
The nose on the Judge's face was not plain, not in his opinion at any rate. It was thin and distinguished. It was also white and taut with fury. 'Who the hell are you?' he yelled. 'You come into my house with some infernal nonsense about my sister's shares and '
'Oh, do stop behaving like a fool,' Miss Midden shouted back. 'Just look in that hold-all.'
For a moment, an awful and extended moment, the Judge thought about hitting her. He had never hit a woman before, but there was a time and a place for everything, and the drawing-room at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning, before he'd even had a cup of tea, seemed a suitable time to him. With admirable restraint he controlled himself.
'Go on,' said Miss Midden. 'Don't just sit there looking like a totem pole on heat. Take a dekko.'
Judge Benderby Bright wasn't hearing straight. He couldn't be. Nobody, and he meant nobody, in his entire life had treated him in this appalling manner before. He had been subject to the most disgusting abuse from men and women in the dock. He could deal with that he rather enjoyed sending them down for contempt. But this was a completely new and dreadful experience for him. He did what he was told and peered lividly into the bag. He peered for a long time and then he looked up.
'Where...where the bloody hell did you get...' he began but Miss Midden was on her feet. She had a look on her face he hadn't seen since his mother found him feeling the parlourmaid up in the pantry one late afternoon. It had unnerved him then, and Miss Midden's look unnerved him now.