Murder of a Silent Man

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Not in itself. Caroline, the daughter, received a five million pound one-off payment.’

  ‘Enough?’

  ‘Not if you expected a great deal more. Greed, yet again. Caroline Dickson and her family are stable people. No reason to suspect them at this present time.’

  ‘Money corrupts, you know it,’ Goddard said. ‘I suggest you don’t leave anyone out of your investigation.’

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘An early arrest?’

  ‘Not looking good,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I was hopeful. You’ve got my confidence but be careful. If the son is involved with dangerous people, who knows where it will end up.’

  With Goddard leaving, Isaac turned to Wendy. ‘Ralph Lawrence’s son, any updates?’

  ‘I’ve got one,’ Bridget said. ‘I did some searching on the internet.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s moved on from being a layabout squatting somewhere or other. He’s now an anarchist, committed to the overthrow of capitalism, and the redistribution of wealth to the needy.’

  ‘With him being one of the needy. Where do we find him?’

  ‘Idiots Incorporated,’ Bridget said.

  ‘Apart from that, do they have a title?’

  ‘Anarchist Revolutionaries of England. Their address belies the fancy title. You’ll find them in a lockup garage down in Putney. Wendy’s got the address.’

  ‘Violent?’ Isaac said.

  ‘Their website states that they are committed to the overthrow of the current government. By any means, according to them.’

  ‘It’s either rent-a-crowd who do little except philosophise or people who believe that murder is acceptable.’

  ‘And Ralph Lawrence’s son had a grandfather who represented the worst excess of what they abhor.’

  ***

  There was one thing that concerned Isaac, the sanity of Gilbert Lawrence.

  Isaac phoned Jill Dundas, made an appointment to meet with her later that day. Meanwhile, Larry Hill and Wendy Gladstone were getting acquainted with London’s very own anarchists. Not that Wendy, a committed socialist, had any problems with people who wanted a better deal for themselves, but violence and extremism did not sit well with her. Larry had formed his opinion the moment they drew up alongside the ramshackle lockup garage, pre-war by the look of it, with its two wooden doors literally falling off their hinges. Outside on the street, four men stood. One was tall, and academic in appearance. ‘All he needs is a soapbox and a spot down at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park,’ Larry said.

  Wendy switched off the car engine and looked to where Larry had been pointing. She could see what he was talking about. The academic, judging by his corduroy jacket and his faded jeans, had the other three assembled around him. He was making a speech.

  ‘The workers need us, and they need us now. For too long they have been downtrodden and made to feel the boots of the capitalist overlords on their backsides. That will change when we take control. When we ensure the distribution of the wealth amongst the people. I live for that day, and so must you.’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Wendy said, although she wasn’t concerned if they were upset. A check on the Anarchist Revolutionaries of England website had identified the academic as Professor Giles Helmsley, faculty member of the London School of Economics until he staged a demonstration inside the main building complaining about the disparity in salaries between the teaching faculty and those working in administration. Once evicted from the LSE – Bridget had done the research – he had drifted from organisation to organisation, demonstration to demonstration, until he had founded the ARE.

  ‘A smart man, once,’ Larry said.

  ‘Disturbed,’ Wendy said.

  Helmsley had taken no notice of her the first time. ‘Mr Helmsley, a moment of your time,’ Wendy shouted again.

  Helmsley, temporarily interrupted, looked Wendy straight in the eye. ‘The filth, I suppose,’ he said to his audience of three.

  ‘If, by that, you mean a police officer charged with protecting you and every other ratbag from themselves and others, then I am. Sergeant Wendy Gladstone. A few minutes of your time, if you please.’

  ‘We do not recognise your right to be here. We have dispensed with the need for the capitalist lackeys.’

  ‘No doubt you haven’t dispensed with their fortnightly handouts of money for the unemployed, the vacuous, and the just plain stupid. And a public footpath is open to all people, even the police.’

  ‘Is that an insult? If it is, I will be forced to take action.’

  ‘What? Sue me? Threaten me with violence?’

  ‘I will defend my rights as a citizen of this country. Neither you nor anyone else has a right to criticise me or take action against me.’

  ‘Freedom of the masses, is that it?’

  ‘If you understood our manifesto, you would agree.’

  Helmsley, realising that he had met his match, turned away from the three converts and came over to where Wendy and Larry stood.

  ‘What do you want? I’ve not broken any law,’ Helmsley said.

  ‘We’re not saying you have,’ Wendy said. ‘We need to find Michael Lawrence.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘He’s on your website. Five feet eight inches, dark hair, spikey. He’s got a tattoo on his arm of an eagle.’

  ‘I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Larry said as he took out his phone. ‘16 Grantly Street, Putney. A lockup garage, currently occupied by the Anarchist Revolutionaries of England. Check it for class A and B drugs, weapons, subversive literature, incitement to riot. You know the drill.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Helmsley said.

  ‘Do you want me to cancel it? It’s up to you.’

  ‘Okay, I know him. One of our most fervent.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Larry reached for his phone again.

  ‘Very well. 246 Hazelmere Road. It’s a five-minute walk from here. He shares with some of the other comrades.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘Not me. I’ve got a place not far from here.’

  ‘No doubt you share it with your fellow revolutionaries.’

  ‘I do my bit.’

  ‘And what bit is that? The bit where you incite them to violence? The bit where you take a share of their benefits? Mr Helmsley, you’ve never been arrested, other than for causing a minor affray. Fifty pound fine, is that the limit of your anarchy?’

  ‘You don’t understand what we are trying to achieve. Some of us need to remain at a distance, to provide leadership and guidance.’

  ‘And have a good time,’ Wendy said. ‘Is Michael Lawrence having a good time?’

  ‘He’s into heroin, a hopeless drug addict.’

  ‘Do you know of his family?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Did you kill his grandfather? You must have hated what he represents.’

  ‘One of the elites. I am glad that he is dead, but no, I did not kill him, nor did any of our members.’

  ‘And what’s going to happen when you succeed?’ Larry said. ‘Tumbrels taking the capitalists to the guillotine? The women sitting there knitting, the men cheering?’

  ‘It won’t be like that. The people will welcome us, even those who oppose us now.’

  ‘Mr Helmsley, you’re full of hot air. If we don’t find Michael Lawrence, we’ll be back, and this time, not only to your headquarters but also the house you own. You’re no different from Lenin driving around in a Rolls Royce: just a hypocrite. We’ll meet again, Mr Helmsley, and soon.’

  Chapter 8

  Ralph Lawrence, free of Challis Street Police Station, realised there were imponderables for which he had no solution. He made two phone calls. The first was to a psychiatrist whom he had known from his school days, an eminent man in his field now. The second was to a man who would either assist him or would see that he never w
alked again. Ralph plotted his course very carefully.

  If, as he suspected, his father with only a corpse to keep him company, had been irrational and eccentric, then the man’s sanity could be disputed. But even if the will was invalidated, how much of his father’s wealth would come to him, and how much would remain hidden? After all, Leonard Dundas and his daughter had had a long time to distort the truth and to hide the whereabouts of swathes of property and legal documents.

  The first call revealed that a case could be made to dispute Gilbert Lawrence’s sanity, although it would be costly and prolonged. If Dundas had been controlling his father for many years, then his father had been merely a shell, rubber-stamping Dundas’s instructions. He knew that he needed the truth, he needed allies.

  ‘Caroline, we need to talk,’ Ralph said as he stood at the door of his sister’s house. He had in his pockets the sum of one thousand five hundred and fifty-two pounds. Not much to show for a lifetime of playing the game, he knew, but he had hoped for a fortune.

  ‘Come in, if you must,’ Caroline said.

  Once inside the elegantly decorated terrace house of Caroline and Desmond Dickson, Ralph quickly found a radiator and sat down close to it, removing his suit jacket. He had to admit that his sister had done well for herself, but then, she was the more sensible of the two. She had always looked for stability in her life, whereas he had searched for adventure.

  ‘Life’s taken a turn for the worse for you,’ Caroline said. They had been close when they were young, and seeing him down and out, a body blow straight in the chest after the reading of their father’s last will and testament, she could only feel compassion.

  Before Desmond had come along, the most important man in her life had been her brother, even if he had not been the best influence or the most honest.

  ‘Our father was not sane, you know that,’ Ralph said as he slowly warmed in the heat.

  ‘I know it, but what can we do?’

  ‘Leonard Dundas controlled our father for years.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Desmond about it. We will accept the money offered, and I’ll take up the offer that Dundas made at our father’s request.’

  ‘That’s a smoke screen. You’re to be given voting rights. Voting on what? The truth? Will you be given full visibility?’

  ‘It will give us five million pounds, our children one million pounds each, and more importantly, it will give us time.’

  ‘Time for what?’

  ‘Time to find out the truth.’

  ‘I’ve received nothing, not unless I agree to conditions that cannot be met.’

  ‘We can only sympathise with your predicament.’

  ‘Sympathy will not help,’ Ralph said. He moved away from the radiator and sat in an armchair near to his sister. ‘I need money, and I need it now. Holding down a steady job is not going to work, and as for Michael, he’s barking mad.’

  ‘What do you know about him? Where is he? What is he doing?’

  ‘The last I heard he was into heroin. He was looking for money from me.’

  ‘Did you give him some?’

  ‘I sent him ten thousand pounds. What else could I do?’

  ‘He is your son. His mother?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Did you come here for money, or just to complain about how your life has turned out?’

  ‘I’m desperate. What we were working on in Spain hasn’t worked out. The police down there are tough. They’ve seized our assets.’

  ‘Assets?’

  ‘Okay, just a rented office, a couple of cars, and our laptops.’

  ‘The money you had managed to part from the gullible?’

  ‘That as well. It was a sound business proposal. They would have had secured tenure.’

  ‘Ralph, save the advertising for others. You’ve lost your money, probably borrowed plenty. And now you’re looking for a handout, and support to take on our father, is that it?’

  ‘That’s what I said before.’

  ‘We will take no further action at this time until we have more knowledge of the intricacies of what our father and Dundas have been doing for the last three decades. We have time on our side, you do not. What do you intend to do?’

  ‘I’ll fight.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Whatever I’ve got.’

  ‘You’re playing with fire, not for the first time, but fire nonetheless. You’re going to get burnt, not by Desmond and me, but by others. Did you kill our father? You’d be capable.’

  ‘Not me. I was incarcerated in Spain, you know that.’

  ‘What about Michael? He was in England.’

  ‘Not him. He’s barely capable of looking after himself.’

  Ralph knew his sister would not help him, and he did not intend to plead. His situation was precarious, and he had been in tight jams before. He would get himself out of this one.

  ***

  The young anarchist Michael Lawrence was found at the address given by Giles Helmsley. In keeping with the beliefs of the organisation, or because they were just bone-lazy, the house that three of the anarchists occupied was only fit for keeping animals.

  ‘Mr Lawrence, we’ve a few questions,’ Wendy said. She stood back more than ten paces on account of the mess. The man who wanted to right the wrongs of the capitalist state was lying on a mattress on the floor. It looked neither clean nor hygienic. To one side, there was a syringe and a bottle of beer.

  ‘If you’re the filth?’

  ‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone and Detective Inspector Larry Hill,’ Wendy said as the two officers showed their warrant cards.

  ‘I’ve nothing to say.’

  ‘That’s fine. We can continue our discussion down at the police station.’

  ‘You can’t come in here and tell us what to do,’ one of the others said.

  Larry moved over close to the man who was dressed in a tee-shirt with the words ‘Down with the Capitalist State’ emblazoned across the front of it. ‘Now, look here, my anarchist friend,’ Larry said, enunciating his words, ‘if you want to be arrested and charged for having heroin in here, a firearm on the shelf behind you, then I suggest you shut up and leave us to deal with your friend.’

  ‘There are no guns here,’ the would-be tough man said. Wendy could see that Larry was ready to give him a swift kick in the stomach and a slap across the face.

  The other anarchist remained curled up, fast asleep. On the arm of a chair next to where he slept, an empty bottle of whisky.

  ‘Not much revolution today from that one,’ Larry said, looking over at the man.

  Wendy returned to Michael Lawrence. ‘What is it? Here or down at the police station?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ Wendy could see the similarities between him and his father. She imagined that the young man could even be handsome underneath the tattoos and all the rings, some in his ears, one in his nose, another in his left eyebrow. If he was an indication of what the end of capitalism was to bring, then she was glad it was not going to happen anytime soon. One of her two sons had come home with a tattoo once. She remembered hitting the roof, not that he had taken too much notice as he had been drunk, but the next day, he felt her tongue. After that, she had to put up with the occasional tattoo, liking some, not liking others.

  Then she and Bridget on holiday in Italy had dared each other, and both had had a small butterfly tattooed on their left ankle. It had been down to too much of the local vino, and Wendy’s sons had given her hell when she got back to England.

  ‘Okay, here, if you must,’ Michael said, attempting to sit up and to lean against the wall.

  ‘We’ve spoken to your father,’ Larry said.

  ‘Him? What for?’

  ‘What do you know of your grandfather, Gilbert?’

  ‘Not much. I’ve never met the man.’

  ‘What else do you know?’

  ‘According to my father, my grandfather is rich.’

  ‘He’s one of those that you’re against
.’

  ‘It won’t be long before you and your masters will be gone. Plenty for everyone.’

  ‘Someone will need to work. Will it be you?’ Larry said.

  ‘Not me. Giles says the revolution will need soldiers.’

  ‘I thought it was to occur when the people of England embraced the cause. There’d be no need for you then. Mr Lawrence, you’re just a layabout, spouting nonsense as long as you are able to doss here. Helmsley told us where you were. He’s done a con trick on you and the others, but that’s not why we’re here.’

  ‘My grandfather. What about him?’

  ‘Do you know where he lives.’

  ‘No. Should I?’

  ‘Your grandfather was killed.’

  ‘Should I be sorry? Shed a tear? Is that what you want?’

  ‘Mr Lawrence, did you kill him?’ Wendy said.

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘Did you know anything about him?’

  ‘Giles wanted me to find out more. He asked lots of questions.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I knew where he lived, that’s all. I never went to the house or spoke to anyone.’

  ‘Your father’s sister?’

  ‘I left home at fourteen. I’ve been on the street ever since. I may have met her when I was a child.’

  ‘What would you do for some of your grandfather’s money?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Including detoxing from drugs, finding a job?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Mr Lawrence, your grandfather has offered you one million pounds if you are willing to enter into a private drug rehabilitation clinic to sort yourself out. After that a job. Will you do it?’

  ‘Yes, for a million pounds.’

  ‘Very well. Make a phone call to this number,’ Wendy said as she handed Michael Lawrence the number written on a piece of paper.

  Outside on the street, the figure of Giles Helmsley. ‘Not willing to go in, is that it?’ Larry said.

  ‘I’m here to ensure that the comrades are not subjected to police brutality.’

  ‘What would you do if they were? Wise up, Helmsley. You’re a charlatan preying on vulnerable people who neither understand nor care about what you’re talking about, as long as they have their drugs and a place to sleep.’