‘Times have changed since then,’ Patrick Gleeson, the owner of the company said. He was a ruddy-faced man, barely up to Wendy’s shoulder, although he wore a smile that stretched from ear to ear – it seemed to be a permanent fixture. He had arrived at the premises not long after Larry and Wendy. No black cab for him, but a Mercedes.
‘Business good?’ Larry asked.
‘The minicabs eat into the pie, and then we had those damn Ubers cutting corners, not paying taxes, and the drivers wouldn’t even know where Buck Palace was, even if they were standing on the balcony with Her Majesty.’
Wendy and Bridget had been in Spain for a short break earlier in the year, and the Uber from the airport to their hotel had got lost twice, or maybe he was padding the bill. They were never sure which was correct, but regardless, Wendy had complained vigorously to the man who had pretended not to understand English, not even Spanish when the local police had arrived. Wendy had produced her warrant card – she wasn’t giving up without a fight. The stern faces of the local police, ready to deal with another belligerent English tourist, changed in an instance. The driver hadn’t had a chance, and the police had checked his permit to be in the country, found it to be invalid. In the end, the driver had been hauled off to the police station, and the local police had helped Wendy and Bridget into the hotel with their bags.
‘They’ve been given a temporary licence,’ Larry said.
‘The Ubers? I know, but it won’t last long. They don’t have the discipline nor the drivers. With our company, you can be sure of arriving at your destination. You’ll want a copy of the data, is that it? Young Douglas over there is the guru, not me. I can barely manage an email, and as for typing, I’m woeful.’
A man she could identify with, Wendy thought. Another one-fingered typist.
The three walked across the scrupulously clean room to where young Douglas sat. ‘Young’ was subjective as he was in his forties. He was a thin man with red hair down to his shoulders, he stood up and warmly shook the two police officers’ hands.
Over in another part of the room, two women sat behind computer screens.
‘The blonde is Maisie, the lady with the tattoos, that’s Hannah. They run the place,’ Gleeson said. ‘I wouldn’t know how we’d manage without them.’
‘Their jobs?’ Larry asked. Maisie, he could see, was a woman of advancing years; she wore horn-rimmed glasses, her hair neat and tidy. A pleasant woman, he decided, although they did not go over and talk to her. Hannah was a fright to look at, with tattoos covering both arms, a spiralling design of some description on one side of her neck. She had a ring in her nose and pendulous earrings that drooped down.
‘I’ll introduce you later. Don’t let appearances deceive you. Maisie checks the records, follows up on any payment discrepancies, not that we get many these days, everyone flashes the plastic for payment, very little cash. Hannah, an ace with the payroll, ensures the drivers are paid on time, their insurances are up to date.’
‘You were saying?’ young Douglas reminded Larry and Wendy.
‘We have a time, a date, and a place.’
‘Registration number?’
‘LD08 CYP.’
‘That makes it easy. Time, date, where?’
‘The corner of Praed and Spring Streets, Paddington. 11.46 a.m. on the twenty-third of this month.’
‘The Pride of Paddington on the corner. They serve a decent beer, a good pub lunch.’
‘You know your London,’ Wendy said.
‘I did “the Knowledge”. I drove for a couple of years. After that I found an affinity with technology, and I’ve been in the office ever since. It suits me fine, although Patrick is still nostalgic for the old days,’ Douglas said. ‘We get the occasional person trying to check up on a loved one, or they’ve left a handbag in the taxi.’
‘You help?’
‘The police if they’ve got the right accreditation, the general public with lost articles. We’re not getting involved in domestics, more than our licence is worth.’
Larry and Wendy along with Douglas looked at the computer screen; the manager had moved over to talk to Maisie and Hannah.
‘Here you are,’ Douglas said. ‘The cab was hailed off the street, the corner of Pembridge Villas and Chepstow Crescent, four blocks from Portobello Road. There are some expensive properties around there, out of my price range.’
‘Out of ours,’ Larry said.
‘How many passengers?’ Wendy asked.
‘Two.’
‘Would the driver know who they were, recognise them?’
‘Not unless they were regulars, or they were getting friendly on the back seat.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Not at midday. Late night after a few drinks, maybe. Not that the drivers complain as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.’
‘Let’s assume no hanky-panky,’ Larry said. ‘What else do you have?’
‘He dropped them off outside Harrods in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge. That won’t help you, will it?’
‘Unless they were shopping, used a credit card.’
‘The taxi was paid with a card. I’ve got the details.’
‘Can you email it to this address,’ Wendy said as she handed over Bridget’s details.
‘The name on the credit card?’ Larry asked.
‘Matilda Montgomery.’
‘Our man likes to live dangerously. The chances of being seen were too easy. You’d think if he were playing the field, he’d keep his women separated by more than a few miles,’ Wendy said.
‘It could be innocent,’ Larry said.
‘Not with Colin Young.’
‘Did you get what you wanted?’ the manager asked as Larry and Wendy said goodbye.
‘Young Douglas is worth more money,’ Wendy said.
‘He tells me often enough to become irritating. I let him marry my youngest daughter. I reckon that’s got to be worth something,’ the man said with a smile, looking over at Douglas and the two women in the far corner, all three enjoying the joke.
Chapter 10
Bridget was excited as Larry and Wendy walked back into Homicide. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said. Isaac was not in the office; he was upstairs with Chief Superintendent Goddard.
‘Got what?’ Wendy asked. She knew that her friend was excitable, especially when she had hitherto unknown information, the result of her computer skills.
‘An address.’
‘Matilda Montgomery’s?’
‘Yes. The woman exists, and the credit card’s valid. I pulled in a few favours, and the bank helped out.’
‘Near where the taxi picked them up?’
‘55 Pembridge Mews. Parking’s difficult there, so you’d better park nearby and walk down.’
‘DCI Cook?’ Larry asked.
‘I’ve messaged him. He’ll be down here soon enough.’
‘Have you phoned the woman?’
‘I’ve not got a mobile number for her, and there’s no phone registered at the house.’
‘Not many are these days,’ Larry said.
Wendy grabbed a biscuit out of a packet in the small kitchen area on the way out, Larry did not.
Larry was driving, and there were roadworks on Challis Street which took ten minutes to clear. He turned into Bayswater Road, tempted to push through the traffic, but he did not. It was not an emergency, just a visit to a potential witness, a person who could help them with their enquiries. At Marble Arch, the nineteenth-century white marble-faced triumphal arch, he followed the one-way system around it. Which triumph the structure celebrated, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t important, not now – getting to Pembridge Mews was.
They travelled down Bayswater Road, passing Buckhill Lodge, the first of the two entrances into Hyde Park that Colin Young could have used, the second being Lancaster Gate. That was passed quickly enough, then Kensington Church Street, the next intersection of interest, the road down to the Churchill Arms.
Two intersections la
ter, Larry turned right into Pembridge Road, taking the right turn after four hundred yards into Pembridge Villas. Two more intersections and Pembridge Mews was on the left. Larry parked close to the entrance, this time placing a sign on the car dashboard that it was parked on police business and exempted from the thirty-minute time restriction.
The mews houses, formerly stables, usually with carriage houses below and living quarters above, had served the large city houses in front of them. But now, two hundred years later, there were no horses, no servants, only very exclusive residential dwellings. Visually, they looked the same as they had in the past; inside, most had been gutted and rebuilt to the highest standards. Wendy thought that Matilda Montgomery’s house was the prettiest in the street.
Larry knocked on the door, Wendy standing back to see if there was any movement inside. She then peered through a window, to see that no lights were on. Larry knocked on the door again, this time louder than before.
A woman came out of a door on the other side of the mews. The street was narrow and not suitable for cars, although a motorbike was outside one house, a couple of cycles propped up against another, a strong lock around them. ‘Matilda’s not been there for a few days,’ the woman said. She was neither friendly nor dismissive.
‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone,’ Wendy said as she opened her warrant card.
‘Matilda? What would the police want with her?’
‘Routine enquiries.’
‘She lives alone. I hope she’s not been in an accident.’
‘You know her well?’
‘For the last two years. She comes over to my house, I go over to hers.’
‘We need to find her,’ Larry said, having decided that the door had been knocked on enough.
‘She never said anything the last time I saw her. Sometimes, she goes away, but most times she lets me know. Although I’ve been away myself.’
The woman was elegantly dressed, she was also tall and slender, statuesque, a model perhaps.
‘Your name?’ Wendy said.
‘Amelia Bentham, the Honourable.’
‘Your father?’
‘Lord Bentham. He doesn’t use his title, nor do I mention it normally.’
‘You told us.’
‘You’re the police. Mind you, it comes in handy when I’m booking a good table at a restaurant. A title still opens doors in this city.’
Wendy did not comment that she thought very little of the class structure and those who hung onto it. The whole system should have been abolished a long time ago, around the time that Pembridge Mews had stopped being a place for the horses and the downtrodden servants of those in the big houses.
‘We need to check her house,’ Wendy said.
‘I’ve got a key.’
‘If you walk around with us, otherwise we’ll need a court order.’
Larry phoned Isaac, now back in Homicide and keen to find out about Matilda Montgomery, Bridget having detailed what had been messaged to him in a précised form on his mobile.
‘Make sure Amelia Bentham is with you at all times. I don’t want any comeback on this.’
‘There won’t be. I’ll stay outside, just let the two women go in. Supposedly, Matilda Montgomery and Amelia Bentham have an agreement to look after each other’s properties, feed the cat, the fish, whatever.’
‘Is there a cat?’
‘I’m speaking figuratively. So far, we don’t know much about Miss Montgomery.’
‘Miss?’
‘According to Amelia Bentham. Her brother comes to stay occasionally.’
‘Is it him?’
‘It’s probable. We’ve not shown a photo to the young woman yet.’
‘Her age?’
‘Amelia Bentham’s in her twenties. She speaks posh, which should upset Wendy, but the two women are getting on like a house on fire.’
‘Matilda Montgomery’s age?’
‘Miss Bentham, how old is Miss Montgomery?’ Larry shouted over to the two women. Up the street, a couple of curtains moved, and an old man, bent over and with a walking stick, listened, adjusting the volume on his hearing aid. A dog barked from inside a house further down.
‘Damn nuisance,’ Amelia said. ‘A neurotic Chihuahua, but then, aren’t they all?’
‘Matilda Montgomery’s age?’ Larry repeated the question.
‘Twenty-nine last week. We went to the local Starbucks, shared a cake to celebrate.’
‘Not to the pub?’
‘Neither of us drink, not much anyway. Her brother likes to occasionally, but he’s not been around for a while.’
‘How long since he’s been here?’
‘I’m not sure. I saw him three weeks ago, and I’ve been away for ten days. I returned three days ago.’
‘Photo shoot?’ Wendy said, hazarding a guess.
‘Yes, a photo shoot. I’m a model. You’ve not been buying any magazines lately?’
‘That’s why you’re familiar.’
‘Six weeks ago, although it’s only just been published. This time it was next winter’s fashion range for one of the top labels. Norway, and it was cold. I can show you the proofs if you’re interested.’
‘You got all that?’ Larry said to Isaac.
‘Check the house, and then show a photo to Matilda’s friend. It looks as though we’re on to something,’ Isaac said.
***
Larry walked back to his vehicle. A parking enforcement officer – the term traffic warden no longer favoured – was looking at it suspiciously. The man’s attitude changed after Larry showed his warrant card.
‘You can never be too sure,’ the officer, a man in his forties, said. Judging by his accent, he was from Africa. Probably only in the country for a year or two, he had drawn the short straw in the job market. There wasn’t any profession that people disliked more than a traffic warden.
‘It’s a police vehicle, the sign in the car’s clear enough.’
‘Sometimes they forge the signs. I picked up an obvious forgery with a disabled driver. I was giving the vehicle a ticket. The driver, fifty yards away, stood up from where he had been slouching and made a dash for me, Olympic pace.’
‘Tough job.’
‘So’s yours. Can you make sure that you move the vehicle before 3 p.m.? We’d have to move it then, police or no police.’
‘I’ll remember. If not, I’m in the mews.’
‘I knock off in a couple of hours, so it won’t be me. I’ve made enough for the council.’
‘Not to deter the wrongdoers?’
‘What do you think? It’s for generating revenue, not that they pay me much. Back in Nigeria, I was a schoolteacher, a lot of respect.’
‘Why did you leave?’
‘Less money back there. I’m better off doing this, copping the abuse, and taking night classes to upgrade my qualifications for England.’
‘Best of luck,’ Larry said as he took three pairs of overshoes and gloves from the boot of the car.
‘Here, put these on,’ he said to Wendy and Amelia on his return.
Amelia turned the key in the lock of the front door of Matilda Montgomery’s mews house. Inside, Larry could see that the place was neat and modern. Whoever the woman was, she wasn’t poor. Larry stayed outside. The old man from further up the mews came over.
‘A good-looking woman,’ he said.
‘You know her?’
‘We speak from time to time. Very polite. If I’d been younger, she would have been my sort.’
‘You’re not that old.’
‘Eighty-three next month. My days of chasing pretty girls are over.’
‘For me, too,’ Larry said.
***
Inside the two-storey house, Wendy led the way, giving explicit instructions to Amelia to keep her hands in her pockets as much as possible, and not to deviate from the route she took through the house. It was clear that the house had been extensively renovated.
‘Was Matilda here when the renovations were done?’ W
endy said.
‘Some of the time. These buildings are old, they need constant work. She has good taste.’
The ground floor was open plan, and the kitchen, a skylight above it to let in natural light, could be seen from the front door. Where the garage door was at the front on the left, there was no room for a car, but there was a bedroom with an en suite instead. There was nothing out of place, and the cleanliness did the woman credit.
Upstairs, two more bedrooms and a roof terrace. Wendy checked the first bedroom, neat and tidy, everything in its place, a picture of a sea view on the wall, a flat-screen television secured by brackets. In the wardrobe, the woman’s clothes, some with plastic covers over them, the rest neatly pressed.
A scream came from the other room. Wendy, looking around, realised that Amelia Bentham, though under strict instructions not to wander off, had done so.
‘Oh my God,’ Amelia said as she staggered back, Wendy grabbing hold of her. She moved the woman to one side, a chair conveniently to hand for her to sit on.
Wendy rang Larry. ‘It’s a crime scene. Let DCI Cook know.’
‘I heard the scream. Is it…?’
‘She’s hanging from a beam.’
Wendy turned around, found Amelia blankly staring into space. She was muttering to herself.
‘Amelia saw the body. I’m leaving here and going over to her house.’
‘I’ll be up to have a look,’ Larry said.
‘No point, not unless you’re fully kitted up. I’ll backtrack with Amelia, try to keep the traces of our presence minimal.’
‘Suicide?’
‘There’s no sign of a struggle.’
Chapter 11
‘It’s not going to become a habit, is it? Two bodies in a week?’ Gordon Windsor, the senior crime scene investigator, said. It wasn’t the first murder investigation that he and Isaac had worked together, and the flippancy reflected the two men’s respect for each other.
Isaac looked up at the dead woman, considered what had driven her to such despair. She’d been dead for twelve to fourteen hours, Windsor had said, even though it wasn’t his responsibility to offer an opinion, knowing full well that the DCI would be anxious to follow up on the woman’s death.
DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2 Page 73