Naked Flames

by Graham Ison

  Donning a pair of managerial-type spectacles, Trish turned to her computer and entered all the details. ‘There is an item here for four thousand, four hundred and ten pounds, fifty-five pence on the twelfth of May this year.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Flynn. ‘Was the hotel paid?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘What about the cardholder? Did she settle her account?’

  ‘She pays the total sum by direct debit each month. I don’t suppose she even bothers to check her account.’

  And that is exactly what Flynn had suggested might have happened when he’d spoken to DCI Brock.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Trish continued, ‘there are all too many people who don’t bother to check their accounts or even download them. They just pay. It may be that she has a job where most of the transactions are settled by her employers anyway. She just puts in receipts and gets reimbursed, puts the money into her bank account and forgets all about it.’

  ‘Why d’you say unfortunately?’

  ‘When they eventually discover what’s happened, they come bleating to us, but there’s nothing we can do except attempt to investigate it and issue them with a new card. And sometimes we decide to close the account as being too much trouble. Even so, they expect us to reimburse them. Well, I’m afraid they end up being disappointed.’

  ‘Have you ever met this Sabrina Holt, Trish?’

  ‘No, but then we rarely meet our customers. They’re just names on a computer.’

  ‘Then you wouldn’t know whether she was a light-skinned black woman.’

  Trish giggled girlishly. ‘No, I wouldn’t. What makes you ask that?’

  ‘Because that’s how I’d describe the woman who incurred that debt with the hotel. She is an air hostess. If you would let me have the address of this Sabrina Holt, I may have to interview her.’

  Turning once again to her computer, Trish furnished Sabrina Holt’s details.

  ‘Thanks very much. You’ve been very helpful, Trish. But there is one more thing you could help me with …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I passed an Italian restaurant just down the street from here. What’s it like?’ Although on the face of it, it was an innocent enquiry, this was in fact one of Charlie Flynn’s more subtle chat-up lines and usually led to an invitation.

  ‘Very nice. I usually have lunch there myself. I don’t believe in eating sandwiches in front of a computer.’

  ‘Why don’t you join me, then?’

  Trish smiled. ‘What would your wife think about you taking me out to lunch, Charles? May I call you Charles?’

  ‘No, you can call me Charlie, and I don’t have a wife. But what would your partner think?’ Flynn had noticed that Trish was not wearing a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean a thing these days.

  ‘I don’t have a partner, Charlie.’ Trish stood up and grabbed her handbag. ‘Let’s go.’

  Flynn appeared in my office just after three o’clock. First of all, he told me what he had learned about Sabrina Holt’s credit card account.

  ‘Where does this Holt woman live, Charlie?’

  ‘Yuppy territory, guv. She’s got a flat in the Isle of Dogs, down the East End near—’

  ‘I do know where the Isle of Dogs is, Charlie.’

  ‘Sorry, guv. But she must be filthy rich because the price of flats there are calculated in millions rather than thousands. I did an electoral roll check and she is the only one shown as living at the address I got from the credit card company.’

  ‘Or she’s got an illegal immigrant living with her who can’t vote. Get down there and find out what this is all about, Charlie. Now, what about this Geoffrey Sykes who was found sharing a bed with Madison Bailey at the Pretext Club?’

  ‘He lives in Motspur Park, guv. His credit card is paid off on the thirtieth of each month by direct debit, which means the charge on the naturist club won’t have gone through yet.’

  ‘I’d better have a talk with him, to see if he’s got anything useful to say about his fling with Madison Bailey. And then, I suppose I’ll have to speak to Madison Bailey again and find out what she was doing in Sykes’ bed. Apart from the obvious.’

  Geoffrey Sykes lived in one of the quiet roads close to Motspur Park railway station. These days, it seems that many people are in jobs where Friday is treated as if it were a half-day. Nevertheless, I telephoned Sykes before setting out on what might be a wasted journey if by some chance he was out or on holiday. But he answered my call and was naturally curious to learn why two officers from a murder investigation team at Scotland Yard should wish to talk to him. I told him it was not something I wanted to discuss over the phone.

  I decided to take Kate Ebdon with me rather than Dave, because she lives in a part of New Malden which is very close to Motspur Park. My idea was that after we’d spoken to Sykes, Kate could drop me at my place in Surbiton and then go home, keeping the car with her until the following morning.

  The overall impression of the Sykes residence was one of neatness. The garden was neat, the front of the house was neat and appeared to have been recently repainted. The green front door had a polished brass lion’s-head knocker that was probably for decoration as there was also a bell-push on the door frame.

  The man who answered the door was also neat. Wearing a collar and tie – unusual these days, except for detectives – he had neatly trimmed hair, a pencil moustache and wore rimless spectacles.

  ‘Mr Sykes?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no move to admit us. Yet.

  ‘I phoned earlier, Mr Sykes. Detective Chief Inspector Harry Brock and this is Detective Inspector Kate Ebdon.’

  Sykes raised his eyebrows a fraction, presumably having difficulty in accepting the idea that a detective inspector was wearing jeans and a white shirt and was a woman. But women are now an essential part of the police in general and the CID in particular. All those I’d met were as good at the job as the men and some were a damned sight better, Kate Ebdon being a good example.

  ‘Please come in, Inspector.’

  ‘It’s chief inspector, sir.’ I blame the television scriptwriters who seem to think that it’s acceptable to demote an officer when speaking to him. But a chief inspector is of a higher rank than an inspector and the difference can be as much as ten thousand pounds a year.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Sykes led the way into the sitting room at the front of the house. ‘This is the wife,’ he said, indicating a grey-haired, dumpy little woman who was sitting in an armchair. ‘This is the lady and gentleman from Scotland Yard, dear,’ he added, by way of introduction.

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ Mrs Sykes afforded us a syrupy smile, closed the book she’d been reading and paid attention.

  ‘Do sit down,’ said Sykes, indicating a couple of armchairs, ‘and tell me why you would want to talk to me about a murder.’ I thought I detected a slight north-country accent that had not been eradicated by the years I imagine he’d spent in the south.

  This interview could develop into a delicate situation. I could hardly ask to speak to Sykes alone, but if he was engaging in nudism without the knowledge of his wife, it would probably cause a row, depending, of course, on her view of such matters. Not that it would be our fault. However, the question about intimate relations with a sexy young black girl called Madison Bailey was undoubtedly guaranteed to blow their comfortable little existence sky high. The last thing I needed was to become involved in divorce proceedings between Mr and Mrs Sykes. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police takes a very poor view of officers who are careless enough to be subpoenaed to give evidence in the divorce court.

  ‘It concerns the Pretext Club near Harrow, Mr Sykes.’ I tried to picture Sykes cavorting in the pool and making love to Madison; it was not an edifying vision. Less believable even than that was Madison wanting to share a bed with a man who had the appearance of a middle-aged pedantic clerk with adenoidal problems.

  ‘I’ve never heard of it.’ Sykes looked genuinely baffled
. ‘What is it, a nightclub of some sort? The wife and I never go to nightclubs. Anyway, Harrow’s miles away.’

  ‘It’s a naturist club, a nudist colony,’ said Kate, who tended not to pussyfoot around.

  ‘Good grief!’ exclaimed Sykes. ‘What would I be doing in a nudist colony?’

  His wife laughed, as if to confirm the stupidity of it.

  ‘But why should you ask?’ continued Sykes. ‘I mean, what led you to my front door?’

  ‘Because a man claiming to be Geoffrey Sykes and using a credit card in that name stayed there between the fifteenth and twentieth of this month. And on the twentieth, a man was murdered there,’ I said.

  Sykes’ face expressed utter bewilderment at this revelation. ‘There must be other men named Geoffrey Sykes, surely,’ he said. ‘It’s not exactly unique.’

  ‘The credit card company gave us this address as being that of the cardholder, Mr Sykes,’ said Kate.

  ‘This is all most extraordinary,’ said Sykes, shaking his head. ‘I’m retired, you see, Chief Inspector, and we were here for the whole of that week including the weekend,’ he protested, genuinely appearing to have difficulty in following this turn of events. ‘We were supposed to be going to Greylake nature sanctuary in Somerset, being keen ornithologists, but our car was stolen.’

  ‘Where was it stolen from, Mr Sykes?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Arundel. From one of the town-centre car parks.’

  ‘If you were going to a nature reserve in Somerset, what were you doing in Arundel in West Sussex?’ asked Kate, who seemed to be having as much difficulty as Sykes in making sense of this whole narrative.

  ‘Ah, no, you see that was …’

  ‘What my husband is trying to say,’ said Mrs Sykes, finally joining in, ‘is that we were in Arundel on the Saturday before the weekend when we intended going to Somerset. That was …’ She reached for her handbag, took out a small diary and thumbed through its pages. ‘Yes, here we are. We went to Arundel on Saturday the thirteenth of July. We stopped there for lunch before going to the wildlife and wetlands reserve in Mill Road. Well, that was our intention, but when we returned to the car park our car had gone. Which meant that we couldn’t go to the wildlife sanctuary. And it meant we couldn’t go to Somerset the following weekend either.’ She consulted her diary again. ‘Saturday the twentieth of July was when we should have been going to Somerset.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, having finally grasped what had happened. ‘So, you were here all that weekend?’

  ‘Yes, but fortunately there was one of David Attenborough’s wonderful programmes on television, so it wasn’t a totally wasted weekend.’ The Sykeses were obviously keen nature lovers, but not, it was becoming clear, the sort to be found in naturist clubs.

  ‘The police in Arundel were very good about it,’ said Geoffrey Sykes. ‘They took all the particulars and said they were sure it would be found.’

  ‘Didn’t your insurance company cover the cost of hiring a car, Mr Sykes?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, would they do that?’

  ‘How d’you explain your credit card being used on the twentieth of July, Mr Sykes?’ asked Kate, saving me from getting into a discussion about car insurance.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Sykes. ‘I’ve got three cards altogether, but I usually use the one that gives me cashback every so often.’ He walked across to a small table and took his wallet from one of its drawers. ‘Oh, Lord!’ he exclaimed. ‘One of the cards is missing.’

  ‘Would it be this one?’ asked Kate, opening her pocketbook to display where she had written the number of Sykes’ account.

  ‘Just a minute.’ Sykes returned to the open drawer and took out a bundle of accounts held together by a bulldog clip. ‘Yes, it is. But how on earth did this person get hold of it?’

  ‘Did you by any chance leave it in the car, Mr Sykes, or perhaps it fell out of your wallet when you were looking for something else?’ persisted Kate, trying to establish precisely the circumstances under which this nature lover’s card had finished up in the hands of whoever had used it at the Pretext Club.

  ‘I suppose I must’ve done,’ said Sykes. ‘How very silly of me.’

  ‘The credit card company have probably suspended it as a result of our visit, but you should report its loss as well, Mr Sykes,’ I suggested. ‘Unfortunately, I think you’ll have to pay for any transactions that were incurred by this individual at the Pretext Club.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Sykes. ‘It’s all a mystery.’

  It was a mystery to me, too.

  NINE

  I was concerned that someone like Sadie Brooks might talk to the media and that it would result in inaccurate reporting or, worse still, reveal the extent of the enquiries we were making. In an attempt to prevent this, and perhaps secure some useful information, I decided on Thursday to release the information that Sharp had been murdered.

  This morning, Saturday, one week after the murder, two calls were received on the dedicated telephone line that had been installed for that very purpose. Each was from a woman and each claimed to have known Robert Sharp. One of the women, a Janice Greene, lived on the outskirts of Guildford, and the other, Gina Page, resided at Dorking. Interestingly, no crimes that bore Sharp’s style had been reported in the Surrey Police area. I decided that I would speak to the two women, sooner rather than later, in the hope that they might have some vital information that would solve the case for me. But I have been disappointed before. Many times.

  I took Kate Ebdon with me as it was possible that the women might be more forthcoming if it got to the point that they would rather speak to her than me.

  We found Janice Greene in a flat close to the University of Surrey.

  ‘Ms Janice Greene?’

  ‘That’s me.’ The woman who opened the door was tall, probably in her mid-twenties, and had long blonde hair and an engaging smile.

  ‘We’re police officers, Ms Greene, from the investigation team dealing with the murder of Robert Sharp. You telephoned our hotline this morning.’

  ‘Gosh, that was quick. I didn’t expect anyone so soon.’

  ‘How did you meet Robert Sharp, Ms Greene?’ I asked, once we’d introduced ourselves and were settled in the flat’s comfortable sitting room.

  ‘Oh, please call me Janice,’ she began. ‘I met Bob at a naturist club on the south coast about nine months ago. I’d gone there with a number of friends, just for a bit of a lark really.’ She spoke as though going to a naturist club was an everyday occurrence. Perhaps it was for her and her group of friends and really no different from going to a nightclub. ‘Anyway, as I said, I met Bob Sharp and we got talking. He asked me out and …’ She faltered and glanced at Kate.

  ‘You had an affair?’ suggested Kate.

  ‘Yes, but that wasn’t the real reason I got in touch with you.’

  ‘What was the reason, then?’ Kate asked, but we both knew what she was going to say.

  ‘I really wanted to know if there was any chance that I’ll get my money back now he’s dead?’ Janice blurted out the question as though glad that she’d finally admitted that Sharp had swindled her.

  ‘I think you’d better tell us about it.’ I sensed that was the start of what was now becoming a familiar pattern.

  ‘We were together for about three months and we got on really well. So well, in fact, that when he proposed to me, I accepted.’

  ‘Were you in a relationship with someone else when you met Sharp, Janice?’

  ‘Yes. I was going out with one of the guys who worked at the uni.’

  ‘What was his name, Janice?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Stephen. Stephen Hall.’

  ‘What did he think about you breaking off your relationship with him? I presume that’s what happened.’

  ‘He was furious. We had a blazing row and he said he couldn’t understand what I saw in Bob Sharp. Anyway, he packed in his job at the uni and moved away to Swindon. I think it was Swindon. I never saw him or heard from him aga
in apart from him telling me where he’d gone. Not that I know why he did that.’

  ‘It’d be helpful to us if you wrote down his present address, Janice.’ Kate handed the woman her pocketbook. ‘And where he’s working now. If you know, that is.’

  ‘I’m sorry I ever split up with my boyfriend. All things considered, it was a stupid thing to do,’ said Janice, as she returned Kate’s pocketbook, ‘but I was really in love with Bob – or thought I was. He was absolutely charming and thoughtful, unlike any man I’d met in the past. On reflection, I suppose I was besotted with him – infatuated is the word my ex used. He was suave and courteous to a fault.’ She stared momentarily into the middle distance, a dreamy expression on her face. ‘Anyway, we sat down in this very room to plan the wedding. He told me he was in a good way of business and showed me a photograph on his smartphone of a place he owned in the Caribbean. He said that we’d spend our honeymoon there. Either there or in the south of France where he had many contacts.’

  ‘You mentioned money just now, Janice,’ said Kate. ‘How did that come about? You did lend him some, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, I did. He said that he’d spotted a house not far from here that he thought would be ideal once we were married. I was pleased about that because it meant I could carry on working at the university.’

  ‘What d’you do there, Janice?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m an assistant librarian. Anyway, Bob took me to see this house and it was ideal, really lovely. He told me that it was necessary to put down a deposit straight away otherwise someone else would snap it up.’

  ‘Didn’t he have sufficient cash, then?’ But Kate knew exactly what was coming next.

  ‘He did, yes, but he told me it was all tied up in stocks and shares and other investments and it would take a little while to release it. He was afraid we’d lose the house if we didn’t act quickly.’

  ‘Did he tell you what he did for a living, Janice?’ I asked.