Read Online The Toff and the Stolen Tresses by John Creasey - Free Book Online Page A

sure he had locked the car. Had a car thief forced the lock?
    He reached the Rolls-Bentley.
    He stopped short, as if someone had hit him.
    The upholstery had been ripped time and time again, with long, sharp knives. The leather was a criss cross of deep cuts, and in places the foam rubber seating showed through. The insides of the door panels had been broken, and lay on the floor, sticking in an oozy, snow-white lake; obviously a tin of paint had been turned upside down; it was impossible to put a foot on the floor near the steering wheel without stepping on to the tacky mess.
    Rollison stared towards the street corner.
    He would not be able to recognise those boys again, and doubted whether anyone else would. They had been paid for this, of course, and given the tools and the paint. This was of a piece with the raid on Jimmy Jones’s home and the destruction done at the other places: this had the mark of beasts upon it, the mark of Tiny Wallis and Mick Clay.
    He closed the car doors quietly, went back to the telephone, called Jolly, and told him all about it.
    â€˜I’m very sorry indeed to hear of this vandalism, sir,’ Jolly said. ‘I will arrange for a garage to come and tow the car away. You may lock it up again, sir, I will give the men the spare key, and I’ll send a hired car for you.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ said Rollison. ‘An oldish one with a hotted up engine, and send one of my toy pistols with the driver.’
    â€˜Very good, sir.’ Jolly was not at all surprised. ‘Is there anything else?’
    â€˜Please,’ said Rollison. ‘Don’t ask the Yard or anyone official, but get in touch with one of the newspapers. Wilson of the Globe is probably the best for this. We want to know if there have been many cases of hair fetishism in the past few weeks.’
    â€˜Young woman whose hair has been cut off, sir?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I read of such a case only yesterday, I believe that it was at Croydon,’ said Jolly. ‘And I think—but I will check, and have a report ready as soon as possible.’
    â€˜Good. And check the value of human hair for wigs and things, will you?’
    â€˜I will indeed. What time do you think you will be back, sir?’
    â€˜With luck, for dinner.’
    â€˜Very good, sir,’ said Jolly. ‘I shall expect you.’
    When Rollison stepped out of the kiosk the crowd round the shop had thinned. He saw a Jaguar moving off, and making a U turn. Donny was at the wheel, still wearing his white smock, with his young daughter beside him. Leah Sampson, aged about eighteen, with her lovely, glossy, raven black hair shorn off.
    Had that been done to coincide with his, Rollison’s, visit to Donny?
    If so, why?
    It would be easy to imagine a reason for sheer coincidence.
    Rollison passed the Rolls-Bentley again; no one was near it. Inside and outside the hairdressers’ things seemed quite normal, and he was sure that he wasn’t being followed. He recalled the address of Tiny Wallis and Mick Clay, which was quite near here.
    He waited at a corner for fifteen minutes, and then the car which Jolly had laid on drew up, and a driver from the garage jumped out.
    â€˜This the job you want sir?’
    The job was a five years old Austin.
    â€˜Acceleration all right?’ asked Rollison.
    â€˜Like a jet, sir. Care to try it out?’
    â€˜I’ll take your word for it, thanks,’ said Rollison. ‘You’ll wait for the breakdown van for my car, won’t you?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. Oh, and here’s something Mr. Jolly asked me to give you.’
    â€˜Fine,’ said Rollison gravely, and took a small cardboard box from the man: the ‘toy’ pistol.
    He got into the car, turned the corner at once, and then tried out the car’s acceleration; it was all that he could ask if he should need to get away in a hurry. He drove at normal speed towards the Mile End Road, and eventually