Naked Flames

by Graham Ison

  ‘I had a team searching all around the outside of the club’s premises,’ said Kate, ‘and they didn’t find any sort of container that could have held petrol. Just the usual trash, like coke tins and those polystyrene boxes that fast food comes in.’

  ‘Marty told me that nothing was found. Did you examine the CCTV footage of the outside at the back of the pool, Kate?’

  ‘Yes, but it came up negative. We also conducted a search of the grounds of the club but there was nothing to be found that could’ve contained petrol. So, how the hell did the murderer get the accelerant into the club and, more to the point, into Sharp’s chalet?’

  ‘I think Marty has answered that question, Kate. Among the debris beneath the bed, she found traces of at least two plastic bottles, the sort that are sold by supermarkets containing spring water.’

  ‘There’s one other unanswered question, guv,’ said Dave. ‘Sharp wouldn’t have lain there while the killer incinerated him. He must have been rendered unconscious at some stage, although it’s more likely, I’d have thought, that he was murdered prior to the fire and the chalet set on fire to cover up the crime.’

  ‘With any luck, Dave, we’ll find out tomorrow morning. Henry’s conducting the post-mortem at nine o’clock. And while I think of it, would you get Colin Wilberforce to do a search at the General Register Office? Madison Bailey said that Robert Sharp claimed to be divorced, but I don’t believe that or Holly Sharp would have told me.’

  Whenever Henry Mortlock gives me the time he intends to conduct a post-mortem, I arrive at the appointed hour only to find that he’s finished his disembowelling. Perhaps he prefers not to have an audience. And so it was this morning. Dave and I got there just as Mortlock was throwing his gloves into the medical rubbish bin. There was an occasion when I tried to catch him out and arrived an hour before he’d scheduled the post-mortem. He’d looked at me and told me that I’d arrived an hour too early. One of the things I’d learned about Henry Mortlock is that it’s almost impossible to wrong-foot him.

  ‘Well, Henry, what news?’

  ‘For a start, Harry, God bless the London Fire Brigade. They arrived on the scene promptly enough to prevent the total destruction of your Mr Sharp. As a result, I was able to find this.’ He picked up a stainless-steel kidney-shaped bowl and whipped off the covering cloth with all the deftness of a stage magician. In the centre of the bowl rested a point-two-two round of ammunition. ‘Another half an hour and that would have been unrecognizable, but fortunately you can still see the striations.’ He handed me the bowl. ‘However, Harry, that is your department. I have enough to do without straying into the realm of ballistics.’

  ‘Where did you find it, Doctor?’ asked Dave.

  Mortlock stared at Dave for a few minutes. ‘In his body, Sergeant Poole. Where else would it have been?’

  ‘Yes, I gathered that, Doctor.’ Dave grinned. It was all a part of the game that he and Mortlock played. ‘But whereabouts in the body?’

  ‘In the heart, Sergeant Poole, where its arrival would have tended to be fatal. Put in layman’s terms for your benefit, it buggers up the ticker and that stops the works.’

  I returned to Belgravia and, now that I had something substantial to impart, I assembled the team in the incident room. When I’d finished the briefing, I started to allocate actions to be undertaken.

  ‘From Marty Dawson’s report, coupled with Dr Mortlock’s findings and the time the fire brigade received the call, we can estimate, with reasonable accuracy, that the fire started at about three thirty on Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘That’s the time we were told that a member of staff noticed the fire, guv,’ said Dave.

  ‘Is there any chance of identifying the weapon that was used to kill Sharp, guv’nor?’ asked DI Brad Naylor.

  ‘The round that Dr Mortlock found has gone to ballistics, Brad, and it would be a real stroke of luck if the weapon’s on record as having been used before, but we’ll just have to hope. Unfortunately, I suspect it’ll be a case of waiting until we find the weapon itself. The killer must’ve got up close to be sure of a kill-shot with a two-two.’

  ‘Yeah, probably.’ Brad Naylor emitted an exaggerated sigh. ‘But wouldn’t it be nice to have an easy murder once in a while,’ he said, which brought a laugh from the team.

  ‘Amen to that,’ said DS Charlie Flynn.

  ‘The important task now is to interview those members who left the club between ten o’clock Saturday morning and four o’clock that afternoon. Obviously, anyone who left nearer to the time the fire broke out will be of greater interest to us. One of them could be the killer.’

  ‘Isn’t there a chance that the killer might still be there, guv?’ asked Kate. ‘He or she might be cocky enough to brazen it out.’

  ‘Your team spoke to them all, Kate. If there are any you think worth interviewing again then do so. Brad, I’ll put you in charge of interviews with those who left on the day. There were six men and five women, including three married couples. Pick your own team. In the meantime, Dave Poole and I will go to Brighton to see one of Sharp’s marks.’

  ‘Don’t forget to take your bucket and spade, guv’nor,’ said Sheila Armitage, which raised another laugh.

  Colin Wilberforce gave me the name of the detective constable at Brighton who’d dealt with the fraud perpetrated on Sadie Brooks. I phoned him and told him that Robert Sharp was dead.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that, sir,’ replied the DC cheerfully. ‘That’s one more crime on the computer I can write off as cleared up.’ There was a pause before he asked, ‘Did you want me to come with you, sir, when you go to see Sadie Brooks?’ The formal request sounded reluctant, even over the phone.

  ‘That won’t be necessary unless you particularly want to.’ I felt that the woman we were going to see might talk more freely without the local law being present. But I’m ever the optimist.

  ‘No, that’s fine by me, sir.’ The DC sounded relieved at not having to stick around while a Metropolitan DCI made a few enquiries that were really nothing to do with the Brighton police.

  ‘If I learn anything that might help you, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. It’s possible she might know of other scams she hasn’t told us about but will tell you.’

  We drove to Brighton, Dave having convinced me that to use the car for the seventy-mile journey was both cheaper and quicker than travelling by train. He always manages to put forward a compelling argument for not wasting valuable police time by waiting for trains that might not turn up.

  The Lanes in Brighton is a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways full of shops large and small where it would appear one could buy almost anything. It was somewhere in this commercial maze that Sadie Brooks had her antiques business.

  It was another beautiful day, and the area was thronged with tourists. The majority were traipsers who did little more than stare in shop windows but moved on the moment the proprietor came out in an attempt to entice them inside. There were Japanese visitors everywhere whose sole pastime seemed to be photographing everything. I often wonder what they do with all those images. Do they ever look at them? Do they bore their friends to death with the video recordings of their holidays? Perhaps they were so busy taking photographs that they didn’t have time to look at them.

  We came across Sadie Brooks’ establishment by accident and I stopped. I’d only spent a few seconds gazing in the window when a woman appeared in the doorway of the shop. She was probably in her late forties or early fifties, had short bottle-blonde hair and was wearing white cropped chinos and a bardot crop top. Curvaceous and brassy, with an assortment of bling adorning her neck, she wore a charm bracelet on her right wrist and a gold chain around her left ankle.

  ‘There’s a much better selection inside, love.’ The woman spoke with an unmistakeable, coarse London accent and sounded as though she’d be more at home running a stall in the Portobello Road. ‘What are you looking for? Anything in particular?’ The question
was posed in a tired tone of voice that implied we were just wasting her time.

  ‘I’m looking for Sadie Brooks,’ I said.

  ‘I’m Sadie Brooks.’ Suddenly, with that sixth sense that those living on the fringe of the law have for detecting the Old Bill, Ms Brooks realized who we were. ‘Oh Gawd, you’re coppers!’ It was a statement made in such a tone of voice that I wondered how much bent gear there was in the shop behind her.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you about Robert Sharp, Ms Brooks.’

  ‘That sleazebag. Who’s he been seeing off with one of his fiddles this time? You’ll never catch him, you know. He’s as artful as a wagonload of monkeys.’

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Harry Brock from the Murder Investigation Team at New Scotland Yard, Ms Brooks, and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’

  ‘Christ! Don’t tell me he’s murdered someone now.’

  ‘On the contrary, Ms Brooks, someone’s murdered him.’

  ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake call me Sadie unless you’re going all formal on me while you think up something you can nick me for.’

  ‘We weren’t thinking of nicking you, Sadie,’ said Dave.

  ‘Blimey! He talks.’ Sadie laughed openly at Dave, probably from relief. ‘So, Bob Sharp’s dead. Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘we’re sure.’

  For a second or two, Sadie savoured the information. ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,’ she said eventually. ‘Here, you’d better come inside.’ She glanced at a couple of pensioners who seemed to be taking an inordinate interest in our conversation. ‘We’re shut,’ she told them. ‘Come back tomorrow.’

  Sadie Brooks was right when she said there was a much better selection of antiques inside her shop. The shelves were laden with small items such as clocks, candlesticks and vases, figurines of nineteenth-century women with unbelievable bodies, and pottery depictions of dirty street urchins with ugly faces. In groups on the walls, there were several paintings of bucolic scenes and a framed print of Terence Cuneo’s painting of Waterloo Station and one or two prints of Jack Vettriano’s work. The floorspace, what little there was of it, was almost filled by a mid-Victorian mahogany clerk’s desk.

  ‘I don’t know how I managed to get stuck with that,’ said Sadie, as I edged around it. ‘Not much good to you when all you’ve got is a laptop computer, is it? And as for those …’ She pointed at three mahogany wheel barometers. ‘Who uses them these days when you can get an app to find out if it’s going to piss down?’ She crossed to the door, locked it and pulled down the blind. ‘No point in staying open any longer,’ she said. ‘You’re practically the only people I’ve had in here all day and you ain’t going to buy nothing. But at least you’ve brought good news. How did he die?’

  ‘He was burnt to death at a naturist club just outside London.’

  For a moment or two Sadie stared at me, almost in disbelief, but then she burst out laughing. ‘D’you mean he was still trying his luck at nudist colonies?’

  ‘Well, yes, but the sort of people who go there aren’t too keen on it being called that. From what you say, I take it he made a habit of going to naturist clubs.’

  ‘He certainly did. As a matter of fact, it was at one of those places I met Bob. I’ve put on a bit of weight since then,’ said Sadie, running her hands down her body. ‘What was he doing there this time? The usual con trick, I suppose.’

  ‘What exactly d’you mean by that, Sadie?’ asked Dave, deciding not to mention Madison Bailey.

  ‘Oh, do work it out, love. It’s his favourite gambit: join a nudist colony and then pick up some unsuspecting gorgeous-looking bird. Ten to one on, he was shafting her within hours, just before he nicked her credit cards and conned her into parting with her PIN.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Well, that’s what he bloody well did to me, innit? Nicked me credit cards just after he’d flogged me a bleedin’ vase that he reckoned was Ming but turned out to be pure Brummagem. I thought I could judge men, particularly after the trouble I’d had with my ex, Jim Brooks, the bastard. I thought I could judge Ming vases, an’ all,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s Brooks now?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea, love.’ Sadie gave an expressive shrug. ‘That marriage lasted three months and then I found out he wasn’t a professional tennis player on the American circuit after all, and he buggered off with my life’s savings, he did. Turned out he’d been a dustman in Liverpool before he got the boot. Then the smarmy Bob Sharp turned up with all the old sweet-talking madam you can imagine, and I really thought he was the genuine article. Oh, we had a rave of a time. Done all the nightclubs in Brighton, but it turned out that it all finished up on my bloody credit card because I always got pissed and didn’t remember what I’d been doing. And just before the bastard buggered off, he put me in the family way. I even had to pay for the bloody abortion. I tell you this, Mr Policeman, I’d have topped him meself if I’d had the chance.’

  It was a fascinating story, but it was obvious that, try though she might to prove she was streetwise, Sadie Brooks was a sucker when it came to men. I felt sorry for her; so many women have been conned by the silver-tongued fortune hunters of this world and she, it appeared, was an easy mark.

  ‘D’you know of any other women he might’ve conned, Sadie?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Bloody hundreds, I should think, but I don’t know any names. I’ll wager it’ll have something to do with a nudist colony, though.’

  ‘Where were you last Saturday, Sadie?’

  ‘Is that when he got his comeuppance?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was in bed with my fella. All day. And if you want to check my alibi, you’ll have to find the bastard first. He’d had what he came for and pissed off on Sunday morning. I’ll bet he’s got a wife somewhere an’ all.’

  ‘Did Sharp tell you he was married?’ I asked.

  ‘No, he never. Well, well, what a bleedin’ surprise, I don’t think,’ said Sadie sarcastically. ‘What is it about me and married men?’

  ‘Well, he was and he had at least one child, and there’s another on the way.’

  ‘Poor little bitch. And I suppose the silly cow stood by him through thick and thin. I could’ve told her a thing or two, but it’s too late now. For both of us.’

  It seemed that Sadie Brooks was the type of woman who never learned from her mistakes and, despite her blasé approach to life, was probably as soft as butter on the inside.

  FIVE

  ‘What d’you reckon, Dave?’ I asked, during our drive back to London.

  ‘In bed with a bloke who’s now done a runner?’ scoffed Dave. ‘Very useful sort of alibi, that is. Anyway, guv, that would mean she’d shut her shop all day on a Saturday at the height of the tourist season. I don’t think so, not if she relies on the business as her only source of income.’

  ‘She might’ve thought it worth losing money to close for the day in order to get her own back on Sharp by tracking him down and setting fire to him, Dave.’

  ‘What you might call fulfilling a burning ambition,’ commented Dave quietly.

  ‘I wonder if she’s got a website with her photograph on it.’ I ignored Dave’s witty remark; to have commented on it would merely have encouraged him. ‘If she has, we could download it and show it around the naturist camp to see if anyone saw her there last Saturday.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Dave shot me a sideways glance. ‘Did I hear that correctly, guv’nor?’

  I laughed. ‘You did, Dave. I’m fed up with you guys talking computer language all the time and me not understanding it. I bought myself a book called Computers for Seniors for Dummies to find out all about it.’

  ‘Very suitable, sir,’ said Dave in a voice entirely without intonation.

  ‘And Lydia’s very switched on, and she’s giving me lessons.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re very worthwhile, sir.’

  ‘Watch it, Poole.’ I was familiar with Dave’s occasional
switch to the formal honorific. It usually meant that I’d made a stupid comment or stated the blindingly obvious or, as in this case, he’d read a double meaning into what I’d said.

  I decided that we’d go back to our office in Belgravia via Chelsea to check on this story that Robert Sharp had told Madison Bailey, that he had an antiques business in the King’s Road. I didn’t believe for one moment that there was any truth in it, but thoroughness in a murder investigation is paramount.

  Sharp had gone to the trouble of having cards printed with the address of a London club and a mobile phone number but neither a private nor a business address. Experienced fraudsters, such as he was proving to be, go to great lengths to convince victims of their credibility but rarely include information that would enable the police to track them down. I was surprised that he had so often used his own name. That was pretty naive, but paradoxically, it might make him more difficult to trace. He had, after all, managed to get away with numerous crimes so far.

  There is, however, always a risk for confidence tricksters of Robert Sharp’s sort. If the mark decides to check before parting with his or her money or, worse still, reports the matter to the police who then make enquiries, the best course of action for the con man is to disappear as quickly as possible.

  It came as no surprise that Robert Sharp’s antiques business, which he had told Madison Bailey was in the King’s Road, Chelsea, was not going to be easy to find. In fact, I’d already decided that it didn’t exist, but I would have to say in any report I submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service that I’d looked for it, otherwise they would want to know why I hadn’t. Unfortunately, there are no detectives on the staff of the CPS.