by Graham Ison
Campbell handed Fox a scrap of paper. “Do me a favor, Tommy. Drop that in the waste-paper basket, will you?”
Fox glanced briefly at the slip of paper before screwing it up and throwing it away. Later, Campbell retrieved it and put it through the shredder.
*
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Fox when he had listened to Kate Ebdon’s account of her latest interview with Kirsty Newman. “She sounds like one very frightened woman.”
“She point-blank refuses to give evidence against either Webb or Pritchard, sir.”
“Take her down to Gipsy Hill nick, Kate,” Fox had said, “and show her the video. She probably hasn’t seen it and it might just persuade her that her performance was too realistic to be acting. The video’s pretty telling evidence on its own and it might be enough, but I’d rather have her testimony to support the charges.”
Now, seated in a room at the police station, Kate switched on the video-player. Kirsty Newman had been extremely reluctant to accompany the detective, and it was only after a great deal of persuasion on Kate’s part that she had agreed to view the film.
The Newman girl, dressed in black leggings and a shapeless white thigh-length tee-shirt, gripped the arms of her chair as that part of the video showing her being whipped came on to the screen. Tight-lipped and white of face, she forced herself to watch, but when the scene of her own rape came on, she turned her head away and dissolved into hysterical tears.
Kate turned off the machine. “You’re not going to tell me that was play-acting, Kirsty, are you?” she asked in tones more kindly than any she had used to the young prostitute previously.
Kirsty Newman looked at Kate, a hunted expression on her face. “Of course it wasn’t,” she said softly, “but there’s no way I’m giving evidence. It’s all right for you, but you don’t know what these people are like.”
“We’ll protect you, Kirsty,” said Kate.
Kirsty laughed cynically. Young though she was, she was wise in the ways of those who ran the vice trade. “For how long? Until the trial’s over? Then what? They’ve a lot of friends, these people, and they’ll wait. I don’t want my face slashed and that’s what’ll happen. I’ve known girls on the game who’ve opened their mouths in the past and those who’ve lived have lived to regret it.” She stood up. “No way,” she said defiantly. “Forget it.”
*
Despondent, Kate Ebdon had just returned to the Yard when the news came through from Wandsworth. She took the message flimsy from the DC who had taken the call and glanced at it. “Oh Christ!” she said, “That’s all we needed.” She stood up. “I’ll tell the guv’nor,” she added.
Tapping lightly on Fox’s office door, Kate went in without waiting. “Bad news, sir,” she said, proffering the message flimsy.
“What is it?” Carefully, Fox laid his spoon in the saucer and glanced up.
“Anna Coombs has been murdered, sir. Message just come in from Wandsworth.”
“And then there were four,” said Fox phlegmatically and took the message form from Kate.
*
Detective Superintendent Patrick Ringham of the area major investigation pool was a competent detective and he was not best pleased at the arrival of the commander of SO1 Branch at the scene of his latest murder. But he was sufficient of a realist to know that it was inevitable. Anna Coombs’s name, in common with all those who had come to notice during Fox’s investigation into the triple murder off Cyprus, had been fed into the Police National Computer in case they should come to notice. But even Fox had not expected Anna Coombs to come to notice as dramatically as she had done.
“What’s the SP, Pat?” asked Fox, wrinkling his nose at the sour smell which pervaded the prostitute’s last home. He and Ringham were standing in the center of Anna Coombs’ seedy sitting room, while around them scenes-of-crime officers worked steadily at their task of gathering scientific evidence.
“The landlord is a West Indian fellow called William Wilberforce. He says that he had been out to get some cigarettes and when he came back, he heard Anna Coombs’ baby crying. Apparently it went on for some time, so he came up to see if there was anything wrong. He says that the door was unlocked and after knocking, he came in. He found the Coombs girl lying on the floor, dead.”
Fox nodded. “Who’s the pathologist, Pat?”
“John Harris,” said Ringham. “His initial opinion is that she was strangled manually. There were no signs of a break-in and the indication is that the killer was known to the victim.” He shrugged. “But if she habitually left the door unlocked, perhaps it was just an opportunist killer. There’s a lot of them about.”
Fox indicated Kate Ebdon whom he had brought with him to Wandsworth. “Kate reckoned that the Coombs girl was in fear from her former pimp, a West Indian called Chester Smart,” he said. “Might be worth having a chat with him.”
“I’ll have him pulled in, sir,” said Ringham.
Fox grinned. “No,” he said enthusiastically, “you can leave that to me. He might have other information regarding my Cyprus job.”
“I’m not too happy about Wilberforce, sir,” said Ringham. “The landlord.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“I don’t think he’s telling the truth, guv. I think he may have been here all the time. He was as nervous as hell when I was talking to him.”
“Not surprising,” said Fox. “Probably the first time he’s found a dead body.”
“As soon as I’ve got time, I’ll get back to him,” said Ringham.
“Want me to have a word with him?”
“By all means,” said Ringham flatly. He knew that once Tommy Fox had taken it into his head to interrogate a witness, even in someone else’s enquiry, nothing would stop him interfering.
“Where is he?”
“Downstairs in his room.”
Fox, with Kate Ebdon trailing after him, went downstairs and tapped on the landlord’s door. “You’ll be Mr William Wilberforce, no doubt?” he asked jovially when the West Indian opened the door.
“Yes, sir, that is I,” said Wilberforce.
“Splendid,” said Fox. “Thomas Fox… of Scotland Yard.”
“A great honor to meet you, sir,” said Wilberforce, opening the door wide. “Please step into my humble dwelling.”
“How kind,” murmured Fox and entered the small sitting room, similar in size and shape to the one above it where Anna Coombs’ body had been found. “Now, my detective superintendent tells me that you went down the road for some cigarettes.”
“Absolutely correct, sir,” said Wilberforce, avoiding Fox’s gaze.
“Perhaps you’d tell me what happened after that.”
“When I came back, sir, I heard Anna’s baby crying. She was a good little girl and I didn’t hear her very often, but she kept on. Thinking that something was amiss, I went up and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I tried the door and it was open. So I went in.”
Wilberforce’s eyes rolled. “And there was poor Anna on the floor, sir.”
“And she was dead,” said Fox.
“Very, sir. I have not seen anyone more dead.”
“Oh? You’ve seen other people dead, have you?” asked Fox.
“Only on the TV, sir,” said Wilberforce. “But you can tell, even from that. Her tongue was sticking out and her eyes were open. And there was blood coming from her nose.”
“So what did you do then?”
“I called the police, sir, nine-nine-nine, and they came very promptly.”
“Well, I’m pleased to hear that,” said Fox. “Now then, where is it that you get your cigarettes?”
“Only down the road, sir. The shop on the corner of the street.”
“So how long were you out of the house?”
Wilberforce looked thoughtful. “Perhaps half an hour, sir.”
Fox raised an eyebrow. “Half an hour to go to the corner shop and buy some cigarettes?”
Wilberforce shrugged and tip
ped his head to one side. “It is a Pakistani gentleman who keeps the shop, sir, and he’s a very chatty person. It is sometimes difficult to get away.”
“And this morning was one of his chatty days, was it?”
Wilberforce smiled nervously. “Every day is one of those days, sir.”
“What did you talk about today?” Fox sounded uninterested and looked at a picture of the Queen that occupied a place of honor over Wilberforce’s fireplace.
“Oh, this and that. The weather, and the test match. Extremely keen about cricket is Mr Patel. Not that his lot are very good at it.” Wilberforce smiled and shook his head. “They will never beat the West Indies,” he added.
“Perhaps so,” said Fox, who didn’t know the first thing about cricket. “So if I go down the road and talk to Mr Patel, he’ll remember this conversation, will he?”
For the first time since the interview began, Wilberforce looked disconcerted. “Perhaps not, sir. He was very busy this morning. There were many customers.”
“But he still had time to have a conversation with you about cricket that must have lasted, what…?” Fox looked thoughtful, pretending to calculate the time it would take to walk to the corner and back and deducting that figure from the half hour that Wilberforce said he had been away. “Shall we say twenty minutes, William, old fruit?”
“Ah!” said Wilberforce and relapsed into silence.
“Shall we start again, William?” said Fox, sitting down in one of the landlord’s armchairs and crossing his legs. He took out his cigarette case and offered it to Wilberforce who took one and immediately produced his lighter. “Allow me, sir,” he said, applying the flame to the end of Fox’s cigarette.
“Well?” Fox smiled. “You were here all the time, weren’t you, William?”
Wilberforce looked quite frightened. “Sir, I promise you that I had nothing to do with this terrible crime.”
“I didn’t think for a moment you had, William,” said Fox comfortingly, “but I would rather like to know who did.”
“I think this man is very dangerous, sir.”
“I don’t think there’s much doubt about that,” said Fox, “and the sooner we lock him up, the safer it will be for everyone, you included.” He glanced at the picture of the Queen. “I’m sure Her Majesty would expect a loyal subject to assist the police, William, don’t you?”
Wilberforce shot the picture a reverent glance. “I suppose so, sir,” he said, but clearly was still reticent.
“It would be a great inconvenience for me to have to start prosecuting people who told me lies.” Fox gazed around the room, a distracted expression on his face.
Wilberforce sighed heavily and sat down. “I am very sorry, sir, but I was frightened, you see…”
Fox nodded understandingly. “And what happened?”
“I heard the outer door bang. It’s left open during the day, but it’s locked at night.”
“Very wise,” said Fox.
“I heard someone going upstairs and then I heard some argument. A man’s voice. Then I heard this bang on the floor and someone running downstairs again. So I opened my door just that much…” Wilberforce held finger and thumb a fraction apart and contrived to look conspiratorial. “And I saw this black man going past and out of the front door.”
“There you are, William, that didn’t hurt at all, did it?” Fox turned to Kate. “Take a full statement from our friend here,” he said, “with as complete a description as possible.” And facing Wilberforce once more, he asked, “Would you know this man again?”
“I think so, sir,” said Wilberforce cautiously. He knew very well that he could identify the man he had seen running down the stairs; it was the advisability of doing so that worried him.
Nineteen
Detective Sergeant Robert Hurley was feeling very pleased with himself. “I’ve tracked down Lee Watson, sir,” he said. “Lives in Epsom. Everything tallies. She’s on the electoral roll and on the council tax register. And I’ve made a couple of sightings, so I now know what she looks like.”
“Good work, Bob,” said Fox, “but she’ll have to wait.” Interviewing Bernie Watson’s first wife had suddenly been pushed way down his list of priorities. “We’ve got a murder at Wandsworth and we’re mounting a hunt for John Tanner.” He looked thoughtful. “You’re not busy at the moment, are you, Bob?”
Hurley was not quick enough to come up with an excuse. “Well, no, sir…”
“Good. You can join Mr Evans’s surveillance team, keeping watch on a cash machine in Victoria for this Tanner fellow. At least it’s not far to walk.” Fox beamed at the DS. “Just down the road in fact.”
*
It had been Denzil Evans’s inevitable misfortune to be selected by Fox to oversee the observation on the cash machine. Apart from the descriptions obtained from Andrea Nemitsas, the Cypriot prostitute, and the two soldiers who claimed to have had a conversation with “Jock”, the police had no real idea what Tanner looked like. A search of Passport Office records had proved inconclusive; although several men called John Tanner had been issued with passports over the preceding ten years, the chance of identifying anyone from his passport photograph is somewhat remote, and the police placed no great reliability on this source of information.
Once the observation on the cash machine had begun, the police discovered that it was used almost continuously during working hours, and they realized just how many men fitted the description they had of the man believed to be Tanner. Evans had deputed twenty officers to maintain the surveillance and they were now deployed in positions where they could watch people using the machine without, they hoped, being too obvious. But, if as seemed likely, Tanner was a professional “hit man”, he was probably also an expert in counter-surveillance techniques, and that promised to make the watchers’ task even more difficult.
Added to that was Fox’s injunction that Tanner was not to be challenged, but was to be “housed” so that police could discover where he lived. If he was arrested near the cash machine and denied any involvement in the Cyprus murders, they would be hard pressed to make a case on the evidence they had available to them so far. And if he was as cunning as Fox shrewdly assumed he was, Tanner would be carrying no evidence of identity other than the cash-card which, rather than admit to murder, he would probably quite cheerfully claim to have stolen. And to have forced the identification number out of the loser. Unbelievable though such a story might be, it would be very difficult to disprove. The only chance of linking Tanner with the murders was to find out where he lived and hope that there was some evidence there. But even that possibility was recognized as being slim.
*
Having undertaken to lay hands on Chester Smart, the late Anna Coombs’ pimp and possibly her murderer, Fox now found that he was running short of men. But he did not anticipate that the operation to arrest Smart would be a protracted one. A pimp was disinclined to leave his charges for too long in case another predator moved in on his territory.
As the commander of SO8 Branch as well as SO1, Fox had no qualms about imposing on Detective Superintendent Gavin Brace, his successor as operational head of the Flying Squad, to provide the additional men he needed.
“Morning, Gavin.” Fox breezed into Brace’s office. “How’s Fiona?”
“She’s fine, thank you, sir.” Brace looked askance at Fox who rarely enquired after the health of his subordinates’ wives. “You want something, don’t you, sir?” he asked with a grin.
Fox smiled. “I need to borrow a team from you, Gavin.” He dropped into one of Brace’s chairs and offered him a cigarette. Then he explained about the urgent need to arrest Chester Smart whose address was unknown to police.
Brace nodded. As a one-time detective chief inspector at West End Central Police Station, he knew that a Soho pimp like Smart would almost certainly be found in the area sooner or later. Probably sooner. “You’ve still got Evans and Ebdon, sir,” he said, plaintively fighting a rearguard action.
&nbs
p; “I know, I know,” said Fox cheerfully. “But this damned enquiry is more complex than I thought it would be.”
Brace sighed. Fox was his commander after all, and there was no way he could refuse an order, particularly when the apprehension of a suspected murderer was involved. “Any team in particular, sir?”
“No, Gavin. You know what you’ve got running. I’ll leave it to you,” said Fox.
Brace glanced down at the list that was rendered to him daily, and which showed the dispositions and availability of the Flying Squad. “I can spare Jack Gilroy and his team, at a pinch, sir.”
“Excellent,” said Fox. “I just don’t have the men on SO1, what with this obo we’re keeping on this damned cash machine for Tanner. But as far as Smart’s concerned, I reckon one night, possibly two, and we’ll have him.”
“I think Jack Gilroy will enjoy that, sir,” said Brace, yielding to the inevitable.
*
It was on the morning of the second day of the observation that the attention of Evans’s team was drawn to a man approaching the cash machine. Drawn by the suspect’s own furtiveness. Dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, the six-feet-tall man was some way away when the watching police first noticed him, glancing about as he walked towards the bank. Casually – too casually – he strolled past the machine, but ten or twelve yards further on, he turned and retraced his steps. Searching the area once more with his eyes, he thrust a card hurriedly into the machine and pressed a number of the buttons. Quickly pocketing his money, he strode swiftly away towards Parliament Square.
The air was suddenly alive as radio transmissions kept each of the observers informed of what was happening. Disregarding the strange looks they were getting from members of the public, fascinated by grown men and women talking up their sleeves, the police conjectured on the likelihood of the man being Tanner.
Eventually, Evans made a decision. “Right, give it a run,” he said, “but if he gets at all sussy, break it off. There’s always another day.”
The first trio of detectives, well-practised in the art of following, fanned out into the standard ABC pattern of foot-surveillance: one officer ahead, the other two behind, constantly changing places so that if the suspect glanced behind him – and few people did – it would not be obvious to their quarry that he was of interest.