Tomfoolery

by Graham Ison

  ‘Ah, but —’

  ‘But that’s what you led me to believe, Tommy, isn’t it? That the missing Wilkins was definitely implicated?’ Myers consulted a sheet of paper on his desk. ‘Or have I got it all wrong?’

  ‘Well not exactly, sir, but —’

  ‘That’s good, because Commander Five Area and I have agreed that the Harley enquiry should be taken over by you, Tommy. Would make more sense, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Fox. ‘That’s very kind of the Commander Five Area, sir.’

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate the gesture,’ said Myers, and studied Fox with a pensive expression.

  *

  ‘Jack, remind me to send the Commander Five Area a bloody Christmas card,’ said Fox.

  *

  ‘Oh, Captain, this is Detective Chief Superintendent er —’ Major Carfax paused. ‘I, er …’

  ‘Thomas Fox … of the Flying Squad,’ said Fox, smiling amiably. He shook hands with Charles Fowler.

  ‘Oh, splendid,’ said Fowler, massaging his hand. ‘Will you have a drink?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘Most kind,’ murmured Fox. ‘A large Scotch, if you please.’

  ‘Good, good.’ Fowler turned to the barman and ordered a double whisky and a large gin and tonic. ‘Well,’ he said, after downing a substantial quantity of his gin, ‘always a pleasure to see the boys in blue.’ He put his glass down. ‘Had one of your young fellows here the other day, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘So I believe,’ said Fox, taking a sip of his Scotch. ‘Good health.’

  ‘A sergeant, he was,’ said Fowler. ‘Bit touchy about drinking and driving.’

  ‘Very wise,’ said Fox. ‘Very wise indeed.’

  ‘I s’pose it doesn’t worry you more senior chaps?’

  ‘Good heavens no.’

  ‘No, I thought it wouldn’t. Experience breeds worldliness, as they say.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that,’ said Fox. ‘I’ve got a driver.’ He waved a hand towards the window. ‘Sitting out there waiting for me now.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course,’ said Fowler, relinquishing his hold on his gin and tonic. ‘Well, what can I do for you, Chief Superintendent?’

  ‘Harley. How well do you know him?’

  ‘Ah, that’s what your young chap came about the other day.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Mmm! Gone missing, they tell me.’

  ‘And you told the Press.’

  ‘Well, I, er, thought it might help, you know.’ Fowler looked guilty.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox slowly. ‘Could have been construed as interfering with a police enquiry, of course.’ He put his empty glass on the bar. ‘I’d buy you one,’ he said, ‘but we don’t want to fall foul of the licensing laws, do we?’

  ‘Oh, er, no, of course not.’

  ‘Allow me, Captain,’ said the unctuous Carfax.

  ‘How long has Tom Harley been a member of this club?’ asked Fox, carefully positioning his whisky glass in the centre of the mat on the bar.

  ‘Not sure, as a matter of fact.’ Fowler paused. ‘I daresay that you can tell us from that magic computer of yours, Geoffrey, eh?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Carfax. ‘I’ll pop in and have a look now.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Fowler. ‘Don’t bother coming back, Geoffrey. You can ring it through.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Captain.’ Carfax strode irritably towards his office.

  ‘Mustn’t take up too much of his time,’ said Fowler. ‘Busy man, our secretary.’ He took a very small sip of his gin. ‘Funny business, this Harley affair,’ he continued. ‘Did your young chap tell you that we didn’t even know he had a wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mmm! Very friendly with our Jane Meadows, y’know. Crafty bugger.’ Fowler shot a sideways glance at Fox. ‘Now there is a woman,’ he said.

  ‘So I gather.’

  Fowler was rapidly learning what many others had learned before him, that Fox wasn’t going to give much away. He tried another tack. ‘Bit unusual, a big noise like you from the Yard taking an interest in all this, isn’t it?’

  ‘All depends.’ Fox took a sip of whisky.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Fowler leaned closer and dropped his voice. ‘You don’t think he’s been murdered, do you?’

  ‘Whatever makes you think that?’ asked Fox, an expression of mock amazement on his face.

  ‘I don’t know, really, but one hears such terrible things these days, doesn’t one?’

  ‘One does indeed,’ said Fox.

  ‘Secretary for you, sir,’ said the barman, holding up the handset of the telephone.

  ‘Thank you, Dennis.’ After a brief conversation Fowler returned to his place next to Fox. ‘About four years, it would seem,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That Tom Harley’s been a member here.’

  Fox nodded, as though this information was of great significance. ‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Tell me, Mr Fowler, what did he do for a living?’

  Fowler’s brow creased with what, in his case, passed for concentration. ‘D’you know, I’m not awfully sure. Something in the City, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, but what?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know, old boy. Some sort of brokerage, I believe.’ Fowler shrugged. ‘Futures market, perhaps.’

  ‘Strange,’ said Fox.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I always thought that golf clubs were the places where a lot of business got done.’

  Fowler laughed. ‘Well, sometimes.’

  ‘This Jane Meadows. About thirty, blonde and good looking, I think you told the sergeant.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely. A dashed attractive girl.’

  ‘And she always came with Harley, did she? Didn’t come on her own, at all? In her own car, for instance?’

  ‘Used to come on her own quite often at first.’

  ‘At first?’

  ‘Yes, she’s been a member here probably for about five or six years. Some time before Tom joined us, in fact.’

  ‘But recently they’ve spent quite a lot of time in each other’s company, is that right?’

  ‘Yes …’ Fowler looked unhappy. ‘Thought they might get married, to be honest. Bit of a bad show, that. Didn’t know that Tom’d already got a wife.’

  ‘Or that Jane Meadows had got a husband?’

  Fowler’s jaw dropped. ‘Really? I never knew that. Well I’ll be damned.’ He shook his head. ‘She never mentioned him. Perhaps they’re divorced.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Fox.

  Fowler laughed, nervously. ‘Of course, if we’d known there was going to be some funny business we’d have paid more attention.’

  ‘Funny business?’

  ‘Yes, you chaps getting involved, I mean. That sort of thing. Look, I’m awfully sorry about that photograph in the paper. I really thought it might help.’

  ‘Oh, it did,’ said Fox. ‘Immeasurably.’

  *

  ‘Well, guv’nor?’ asked Gilroy.

  ‘Blow-out,’ said Fox. ‘That man Fowler’s a complete prat.’

  ‘Didn’t have much to say, then?’

  ‘Didn’t know much,’ said Fox. ‘You don’t learn a lot looking at the world through the bottom of a gin glass.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘I really don’t know why the police have to keep bothering me,’ said Susan Harley. ‘I should have thought that you’d be better employed looking for my husband rather than badgering me.’ She was beginning to realise that there was more to reporting a missing husband than just ringing the police station. She had imagined that they would make a few notes and leave it at that. After all, the first policeman who had called had said that hundreds of people went missing every year. But now this man from Scotland Yard had turned up and she knew enough about the ways of the police to know that senior detectives didn’t investigate missing persons, not unless they believed them to be an integral part of a motorway bridge somewhere. She shuddere
d inwardly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox sympathetically. ‘It’s quite understandable for you to think that, but we can’t just send officers out willy-nilly, looking for people.’ He smiled benignly. ‘Firstly, we have to satisfy ourselves that they really are missing.’

  ‘Well of course he’s missing. He’s not here, is he?’ Susan Harley tossed her head impatiently.

  ‘The fact that he’s not here doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s missing,’ said Fox. ‘He might just have decided to leave the marital home.’ And I wouldn’t blame him, he thought.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Had you considered the possibility that he might have gone off with another woman.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Susan Harley tried to inject outrage into her voice, but it was unconvincing. ‘Why on earth should he do a thing like that?’

  ‘I don’t think it, necessarily,’ said Fox. ‘But such questions need to be asked before we start looking for someone whose absence may have a perfectly logical explanation.’ He had decided that there was something insincere about Mrs Harley, and he didn’t mind applying a little pressure. She was certainly hostile, a strange attitude for a woman whose husband had gone missing, and it appeared that she was not being entirely open. ‘Did your husband ever have any extra-marital relationships?’ Fox beamed at her.

  ‘If he had, he wouldn’t have remained here. I can assure you of that.’ Susan Harley sounded so adamant that for a moment Fox believed her.

  But Fox had spent a lifetime interviewing witnesses, and knew that many of them told lies. And he could tell when they were telling lies. He also knew that any suggestion of a husband’s infidelity might be seen by the deserted wife as a criticism of her own qualities. On the other hand, he wondered if she knew about the jewellery heist, or had even taken part in it. After all, a blonde wig would fit very neatly over Susan Harley’s short brown hair. But the linkman’s description of the female thief tallied with Jane Meadows. And Harley was almost certainly Wilkins. And Harley and Meadows were known to be close friends … at the very least. ‘Just a thought,’ he said.

  ‘Ours was a perfect marriage,’ said Susan Harley, but just a little too quickly and a little too emphatically to be credible. ‘I really don’t understand it.’

  Fox made a pretence of referring to his pocket book. ‘Have you ever visited your husband’s golf club?’ he asked suddenly.

  Susan Harley’s reply was immediate. ‘No. I have no interest in golf. Why d’you ask?’

  ‘No particular reason.’ Fox determined to apply a little more pressure. ‘Mrs Harley,’ he said, leaning forward earnestly. ‘I have no wish to upset you, but for all I know your husband may have been murdered. And if that is the case, I would not wish to have my investigation obstructed. By anyone.’ Fox didn’t think for one moment that it was a murder enquiry, and judging by Susan Harley’s lack of reaction neither did she. Like DCI Barker at Kingston police station, Fox was pretty certain that right now, somewhere, Tom Harley was enjoying the delights of a nubile blonde called Jane Meadows. Looking at Mrs Harley, he wouldn’t be at all surprised. And he didn’t think that Mrs Harley would be too surprised either.

  *

  Police Constable Walter Crabtree of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary had been the officer responsible for the three villages of Cray Magna, Dibley and West Ponding for about three years. During that time he had got to know all their local residents very well. And their handful of minor local villains. But the caller at his house-cum-police station this morning was not a villain. He was the vicar of Cray Magna and its surrounding hamlets. A youngish-looking forty years of age, the vicar was broad-shouldered and athletic.

  ‘Good morning, Wally.’

  ‘Good morning, Vicar. What can I do for you? If it’s a squash match, I’m tied up for the rest of the week.’ Crabtree and the vicar were long-standing squash partners.

  The vicar laughed. ‘Not sure you’re still in my league, Wally, not after the thrashing I gave you last time. No, it’s this.’ He spread out a newspaper on the counter.

  Crabtree raised his eyebrows. ‘Now I wouldn’t have thought that you read that sort of paper, Vicar.’

  ‘I don’t normally, Wally, but my verger showed it to me this morning. It’s yesterday’s paper, as a matter of fact.’ The vicar pointed to a photograph on one of the inside pages. ‘It’s this,’ he said. ‘This man Thomas Harley, who’s missing from home.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I buried a man of that name about a month ago.’

  *

  ‘Mr Fox?’ The voice on the telephone was bronchial.

  ‘Yes, Spider.’

  ‘I think I’ve tracked him down, Mr Fox.’

  ‘Who? Murchison?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Fox.’

  Fox sighed. ‘Have you just rung me to tell me that, or are you actually going to tell me where he is?’

  ‘Well, I was just wondering if you could see your way clear to, well, like …’

  ‘If I thought you were trying to negotiate with me, Spider, I’d reach down this telephone and squeeze your scrawny neck until you squealed … in more ways than one.’

  ‘No, nothing like that, Mr Fox. Honest.’

  ‘Don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of, Spider,’ cautioned Fox. ‘Now where is Murchison?’

  Walsh whispered the address.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Fox and jotted it down on a pad on his desk.

  ‘That’s got to be worth something, Mr Fox,’ said Walsh hopefully.

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry, Spider. I’ll remember you. Come Christmas.’

  ‘Blimey, Mr Fox, that’s months away.’

  ‘Something to look forward to, then. But don’t hold your breath.’

  *

  Jack Gilroy knew villains, and he knew that the sort of villain who specialised in walk-in thefts from classy West End hotels was unlikely to carry a firearm. But in recent years the specialist categories of the villainry have tended to overlap and policemen have been shot at by villains they didn’t think would carry firearms. Consequently, the commander’s authority was obtained for Gilroy to arm his team.

  According to Spider Walsh, and confirmed by what the police call quiet enquiry, Murchison was staying with a lady of ill repute at her small terraced house in one of the numerous back streets in the Honor Oak Park area of London, not far from Brockley Rise. The paintwork of the house was peeling, the windows dirty, and the garden overgrown. But for the fact that the police had satisfied themselves to the contrary, they could have been forgiven for thinking that the house was unoccupied, or at best used as a squat.

  At five o’clock in the morning, armed with Smith and Wesson police specials, a search warrant and a seven-pound sledgehammer, Gilroy’s team of Flying Squad officers drove in from opposite ends of the silent street and stopped a few yards either side of the target house. They approached the front door stealthily, having waited for a radio call from other officers in a third car now in the next street, just in case Murchison decided to do a runner over the back gardens.

  ‘Try ’loiding it, Ron,’ said Gilroy to DS Crozier. ‘Makes less noise.’

  Crozier produced a credit card and slid it between the edge of the front door and the frame, gently teasing it up and down until he succeeded in pushing back the tongue of the rim-latch. Then he pushed the door open. ‘There you go, guv,’ he said, looking gloomily at his mutilated credit card.

  ‘Well done, Ron.’

  ‘Well, it is an Access card, guv,’ said Crozier, ‘but they’re getting a bit fed up with me always trading it in. Probably think I’m a burglar or something.’

  Gilroy grinned and led the way into the house, leaving a disappointed DC on the doorstep leaning on his sledgehammer.

  Quickly and quietly the detectives moved through the ground floor, but found no one. Then they climbed the stairs and gently pushed open the door of the front bedroom. A man and a woman were engaging in the oldest pleasurable pastime in the worl
d to the discordant accompaniment of protesting bed springs.

  Gilroy surveyed this activity for a moment or two. ‘James Murchison?’ he enquired loudly.

  The woman screamed as her partner rolled off her, although whether it was from terror or delight was not immediately apparent, and hurriedly grabbed at the bedclothes in an attempt to cover her nakedness.

  ‘What the bloody hell —?’ said the man.

  ‘Are you James Murchison?’ asked Gilroy again.

  ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

  ‘Flying Squad.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Murchison.

  ‘Bastards,’ said the woman.

  ‘Get up and get dressed,’ said Gilroy. ‘Both of you. You’re nicked.’

  ‘You needn’t think I’m putting on a free show for an audience of coppers,’ said the woman, a brassy redhead.

  ‘Well, we’re not paying,’ said Gilroy with a grin. ‘You can come as you are if you like.’

  The woman threw back the bedclothes defiantly and stood up. Placing her hands on her hips and pushing one knee forward in what she thought was a classic pose, she glared at the policemen. ‘Satisfied, are you?’ she shouted.

  Crozier gazed at her pale body and at the red hair tumbling around her shoulders. ‘Don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ he said. ‘You’re no oil painting. But,’ he added, ‘at least you’re a genuine redhead.’

  *

  ‘How many times have I got to say it? I don’t know nothing about no jewellery, and that’s straight.’ Murchison sat on a hard wooden chair in the interview room at Lewisham police station, a truculent expression on his face.

  Tommy Fox appeared not to have heard, and continued to walk around the room, smoking a cigarette. It was an unsatisfactory form of interview from Murchison’s standpoint because it meant that he had to keep turning his head. His criminal instincts told him that it was unwise to let this rather nasty detective out of his sight.

  ‘So you can get stuffed,’ continued Murchison. ‘You’ve got nothing on me, copper, and anyhow I want a brief. I know my rights.’

  Fox paused momentarily in front of the table and smiled at Murchison but still said nothing.

  ‘And another thing. Your bloody hoods broke in my drum this morning and woke me up —’