by Graham Ison
Fox was delighted, both with the success of his operation to flush out Chester Smart’s address and with the news from Lewisham that Tanner had rented a lock-up garage.
Tanner was taken from Belgravia under strong escort and arrived at the lock-up garage – where he met his solicitor – at about the same time as Fox and Mr Miller who, against his better nature, had been imposed upon to assist the police.
“Is this the man to whom you rented this garage, Mr Miller?” asked Fox.
“Yes, that’s him,” said Miller. “Good morning, Mr Tanner.”
“Who’s he?” asked Tanner. “Another of your stooges is he? Because I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Tanner’s solicitor laid a hand on his client’s arm and told him to be quiet.
Fox ignored this automatic response and turned to DS Hurley. “Take a statement from Mr Miller and then run him home, Bob.” Then, addressing Evans, he asked, “Did you find any keys in the house, Denzil?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Oh well,” said Fox, “It looks as though we’re going to have to break in.” He turned to Tanner. “Unless you want to give me the key…”
“Don’t know anything about any keys and I don’t know anything about this garage either,” said Tanner. “And as for this, well, it’s a diabolical liberty.” And he held up his handcuffed wrists. Again, Tanner’s solicitor told him not to say anything.
“Swann.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fox’s driver, wearing his usual mournful expression.
“Can you open that with the minimum of damage?” Fox waved at the lock-up.
“Piece of cake, guv,” said Swann. “Simplest thing in the world, these up-and-overs.” Within seconds, he had opened the garage door and stood back triumphantly. “Told you, guv,” he said. “Nothing to it.”
“Bloody prima donna,” muttered Fox and stepped into the garage.
Twenty-Two
Apart from a bare table, the garage appeared at first sight to be empty. But then Fox glanced up at the rafters. Across two of them was a wooden box some four feet long and a foot high by a foot wide. Each of the box’s corners was protected by a metal plate, and it was padlocked.
“What’s in that?” asked Fox, gazing at Tanner.
“Dunno,” said Tanner. “Never seen it before. Must belong to that geezer who reckoned he knew me, but who I’ve never seen before.”
“I do strongly advise you to say nothing, Mr Tanner,” said the ex-soldier’s solicitor.
“Oh, put a bloody sock in it, will you,” said Tanner.
A couple of Fox’s team of detectives moved the table and stood on it so that they could reach the box. “Christ, it’s bloody heavy, guv’nor,” said one of them as they maneuvered it down from the rafters and on to the table.
For a moment or two, Fox gazed at the heavy chest. “Well,” he said to Tanner, “are you going to give me the key? Or do we break it open?”
Tanner shrugged. “My briefs told me not to speak to you,” he said.
“Very well.” Fox gestured to a detective who went out of the garage, to return moments later with a case-opener. Placing the tip of the jemmy under the hasp, he levered off the staple and the padlock. Another officer opened the lid.
“Bless my soul,” said Fox, peering into the box. “What do we have here?” Inside was a rifle, carefully wrapped in oilcloth, resting on a bed of upholsterer’s foam, and several boxes of 7.62 millimeter ammunition. There was also a Browning automatic hand-gun and a commando knife.
“Want me to unwrap it, guv?” asked a detective.
“Don’t you dare touch it,” said Fox, “Not until Fingerprint Branch have examined it.” He turned to Evans. “Do the usual, Denzil,” he said. “Exhibits labels, statements. All that.”
“Yes, sir, I do know about that,” said Evans wearily. He wondered whether Fox realized that his DI was on the verge of being made a detective chief inspector.
“Good.” Fox rubbed his hands together. “You can take the good soldier Tanner back to Belgravia,” he said, and watched as Tanner was led back to the police van that had brought him to Lewisham. He turned and offered Tanner’s solicitor a cigarette. “Don’t look so glum,” he said. “There are always other clients.”
The solicitor nodded towards the departing police van. “Between you and me, Mr Fox,” he said, “I should think his best chance is to plead guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the court.”
“May I quote you on that?” asked Fox as he thumbed his lighter.
“Quote me on what?” asked the solicitor and grinned.
*
The woman who answered the door of Chester Smart’s detached house in Clapham was white. She was wearing a white skin-tight one-piece suit made of stretch polyester, and red ankle boots. When she saw Fox, Evans and Kate Ebdon standing on her doorstep, instead of Chester Smart whose return she was clearly expecting, her face assumed an expression that combined both surprise and disappointment.
“Who are you?” The woman spoke with an Ulster accent.
“Thomas Fox… of Scotland Yard, and I have a warrant to search these premises.”
“What the hell for?” demanded the woman.
“Drugs, among other things,” said Fox. “And who are you?”
At first, it seemed that the woman was not going to answer the question, and Rate Ebdon moved closer to her. “The officer asked who you were,” she said, her Australian accent lending her voice a slight menace.
“Katharine Delaney.”
“Mrs Delaney, is it?” asked Kate.
“If you like. I divorced that bastard years ago.”
Fox pushed past the woman who was obviously reluctant to admit him and the others, and peered around the hallway of the large house before walking into the front room. It was apparent that Chester Smart had spent a great deal of money on the decor and furnishings, but the result was bizarre and gaudy, and definitely did not accord with Fox’s idea of good taste. From the odor that pervaded the whole house, it was clear that both Smart and Mrs Delaney were partial to curry.
Kate Ebdon, as usual, made for the address and telephone books which she found in a drawer of the sideboard. “This is interesting, sir,” she said to Fox. “Smart has Michael Leighton’s office telephone number in this book.”
Apart from that, the search, which had needed to be nowhere near as thorough as the one at Tanner’s house, produced a quantity of drugs, including cocaine.
“This yours?” Fox asked Katharine Delaney.
“It’s for personal use.”
“What, a kilo? You must get through a hell of a lot.”
“What’s this really about?” asked the woman. “You didn’t just drop in to look for drugs, did you? You could have picked any of the houses in this street.”
“It’s about Chester Smart having been arrested on suspicion of murdering Anna Coombs,” said Fox.
“The bastard,” said Katharine Delaney suddenly. “He told me he’d finished with her.”
“I think he probably did,” said Fox drily. “By manual strangulation. Perhaps you’d better tell me more.”
Katharine Delaney sat down quite suddenly on a chaise-longue. She was probably about thirty-five, but looked older, and her auburn hair was dragged back from her face into a wild bunch at the back of her head. Fox thought it looked like out-of-control wire wool. “I told him that unless he finished with her, I was out of here,” she said.
Fox didn’t believe that the Delaney woman would have given up the good life she obviously enjoyed that easily. “You mean he was having an affair with her?”
“What else would I mean?” If anything the woman’s Ulster accent had become more pronounced.
Fox didn’t believe that either. “What exactly is your relationship with Chester Smart?” he asked.
Katharine Delaney shot the detective a disbelieving glance. “A sexual one, of course,” she said brazenly. “What the hell sort of other relationship does a man have wit
h a woman?”
“You do know, I suppose, that Chester Smart controlled a number of prostitutes.”
“Of course I do. I was one of them when he first picked me up.”
“Really?” Fox wondered why Smart, having a coterie of far more attractive women than the one now seated opposite him, should have chosen her. “Where was he on the twentieth of July, Mrs Delaney?”
“How the hell should I know?” said Katharine Delaney truculently. “I never know where he is half the time.”
Fox decided that he was not going to get any helpful information from this woman and stood up. “Arrest her for possession,” he said to Kate Ebdon.
“The drugs were Chester’s,” said the Delaney woman suddenly. “He used to get them from Leighton. Chester supplied him with women for some damned skin-flicks business he was running.”
“A likely story,” said Fox and nodded to Kate Ebdon.
*
Even though Chester Smart had already been charged with carrying an offensive weapon and living on immoral earnings, Fox had successfully obtained a magistrate’s order to extend the pimp’s detention in police custody. But nothing had been said to him regarding the murder of Anna Coombs apart from a question as to his whereabouts at the relevant time, a question he had avoided answering. He had been kept in custody because he had refused to tell police where he lived, but they now knew his address and time would be running out very soon. Unless they could charge him with murder. The finding of Michael Leighton’s telephone number at Smart’s house was an interesting discovery, but Fox was absolutely certain that Smart was not responsible for the three Cyprus murders. At least, not directly.
“We’ve arrested Katharine Delaney,” said Fox.
That did not seem to worry Smart who continued to sprawl in his chair in the interview room at West End Central Police Station. “What d’you want me to do about it?” he asked.
“For possession of a quantity of a controlled substance, almost certainly cocaine.”
Smart grinned. “I told her that would get her into big trouble one day,” he said. The fact that police had discovered where he lived evinced no surprise, and it was clear that he did not intend to take any responsibility for the drugs found at his house.
“We also found the telephone number of Michael Leighton in a book in your house,” said Fox.
“One of her fancy men, probably,” said Smart.
“She denies knowing him,” said Fox. “And she said the book was yours. And the drugs.”
“Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she.”
“Leighton was one of three people murdered off the Cyprus coast on the thirtieth of June. The other two were Patricia Tilley and Karen Nash.”
“Why you telling me all this, man? I never killed them and I never been to Cyprus in my life. In fact, I don’t even know where it is.”
Fox sighed. It was obvious that he could sit and talk to Smart forever and would get nowhere. “I propose to put you on an identification parade, Chester,” he said.
“What for?”
“We have a witness who claims to be able to identify the man who murdered Anna Coombs on the twentieth of July.”
Smart laughed. “I hope he’s got life insurance,” he said.
*
When Sam Marland, a senior fingerprint officer at the Yard, had finished with the rifle found in the garage at Lewisham, he handed it over to Hugh Donovan, the chief ballistics officer.
Now they were both in Fox’s office.
“Good news?” asked Fox hopefully.
“Yes, indeed,” said Marland. “Tanner’s fingermarks are all over the weapon. Enough points to win the football pools.” He grinned and laid a copy of his formal report on Fox’s desk.
“Excellent, oh, excellent,” said Fox and glanced at Donovan.
“Hugh?”
“The weapon is a Finnish M62 assault rifle, Tommy,” said Donovan.
“Not an AK 47 then.”
Donovan shrugged. “Easy to confuse the two when you’ve only got spent rounds,” he said. “Each is of 7.62 millimeter caliber and each has a four-groove right-hand rifling. And incidentally, each has a magazine holding 30 rounds.”
“Wonderful,” said Fox. “Now you’ve done the commercial, is it the weapon?”
Donovan grinned. “Yes,” he said. “There’s no doubt.”
*
“John Tanner, you are charged in that you did murder Michael Leighton, against the peace. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be given in evidence.”
“My client has no reply to make to the charge,” said Tanner’s solicitor.
The custody sergeant recited the sonorous prose twice more, substituting the names of Patricia Tilley and Karen Nash. And twice more, Tanner’s solicitor said that his client had nothing to say.
“I shall make formal application for legal aid—” began the solicitor unnecessarily.
Tanner suddenly turned on him. “You’ve done bugger-all so far, sunshine,” he said, “So you can piss off. You’re fired.”
As Tanner was taken back to the cells, his erstwhile solicitor shrugged and shook hands with Fox. “Some you win, some you lose,” he said. “Ungrateful bastard.”
“It’s the stress, you know,” said Fox. “But you’d have lost this one for sure.”
“A battle’s not lost until the final shot’s been fired,” said the solicitor pointlessly.
“Unfortunate analogy,” murmured Fox.
Probably breaking half a dozen of the rules imposed upon him by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Fox visited Tanner in his cell shortly after he had been charged. “Who did you do this job for?” he asked.
Tanner was sprawled on his cot and didn’t look up. “Don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“Look, you didn’t know Leighton, or either of the women. So you must have had a reason to kill them.”
“I didn’t,” said Tanner. “I keep telling you, you’ve got the wrong man.”
“So you’re going to have this on your own are you?”
“Guess that’s the way of it,” said Tanner.
*
Under the rules imposed upon criminal investigation by Her Majesty’s Government, presumably in an attempt to reduce the prison population, a villain may cheat all he likes, but the police may not. Consequently, a uniformed inspector oversaw the identification parade held to determine if the man whom William Wilberforce had seen leaving Anna Coombs’s flat was Chester Smart. If Fox, or any of his team, had been involved, defence counsel would have suggested that they may have influenced the witness in some way.
Wilberforce entered the room nervously, as well he might; he had very firm views about identifying wrongdoers. In his experience, they tended to seek revenge. The uniformed inspector explained the procedure, having previously allowed Smart to stand anywhere he chose, and then invited the witness to walk along the line.
Summoning up unknown reserves of courage, the small black man slowly examined each of the men on the parade. And then, unhesitatingly, he placed a hand on Chester Smart’s chest. “This is the man I saw, sir,” he said to the inspector.
“You’re absolutely sure?” queried the inspector.
“Absolutely, sir,” said Wilberforce. “There is no doubt.”
“Well, that’s good enough for me,” said Fox when he was told that Smart had been identified, “but whether it’s good enough for that weary bunch of lawyers called the Crown Prosecution Service is another matter altogether.” He glanced at Evans. “Where’s Webb locked up, Denzil?” he asked.
“Brixton, sir.”
“Splendid,” said Fox, “I think we’ll pay him a visit.”
*
When Raymond Webb shuffled into the interview room at Brixton Prison, he appeared to have aged ten years. Although he was still allowed to wear his own clothes, he was now stooped and had developed a pallor that resulted from being kept in solitary confinement for his own protectio
n. Sex-offenders, even on remand, were not very popular with the other inmates.
Fox sat down opposite the accountant. “Last time we spoke, Webb, you told me that Leighton supplied a black man with drugs in exchange for the women he used for his pornographic videos.”
“What about it?” asked Webb.
“A man called Chester Smart has been arrested and will very likely be charged with the murder of Anna Coombs.” Fox sat back and waited to see what effect that crumb of information would have on Webb.
“Should that interest me?” asked Webb listlessly.
“Perhaps not,” said Fox, “but it interests me. And don’t tell me you know nothing about it. Leighton’s telephone number – your office number – was found in Smart’s house shortly after we arrested him.”
Webb sighed deeply. “Smart was the one who used to supply Leighton with girls,” he said. “Whenever Leighton wanted some new talent for his videos, he’d get in touch with Smart. He said once that it was an ideal set-up.”
But that was at odds with what Fox had heard from other witnesses. “At least two of the girls we’ve spoken to claim that they were picked up in the West End by Leighton himself,” he said.
Webb sneered. “Rubbish,” he said. “Mike would never go out picking up whores. He was a bastard when he’d got them captive, but going out and picking them up. No way. I told you, it was an arrangement with Smart.”
“Why should these girls spin me a fanny about being recruited by Leighton then?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” said Webb. “They were terrified of Smart. If they’d shopped him to you, he’d have dealt with them. And they knew it.” He lapsed into silence for a moment or two. “I suppose he found out that Anna had been talking to you and that’s why he killed her.”
“If he killed her,” said Fox mildly, ever-mindful of the maxim that a man was innocent until proved guilty. Nonetheless, he was very satisfied with that gratuitous piece of information.
*
“I’m told you supplied women for Michael Leighton’s porn movies,” said Fox.
“Is that a fact?” said Smart.
“And he supplied you with drugs in exchange.”
Smart laughed insolently. “No way, man,” he said.