Gant!

by Laurence Todd

“Okay. Listen very carefully,” I said in a serious tone. I was hoping to scare Simeon. “It’s my belief that whatever’s in that package is being used to blackmail someone in Government and now some very nasty people out there are looking for it. Why do you think Phipps is hiding?”

  “Phipps never said that.”

  “He didn’t know. He thought the pictures and whatever else is there were only worth something to whoever it was who wanted them. He didn’t realise the full extent of what he had, and now he has, he’s gone into hiding. It’s essential to remember who it was he contacted about returning the stuff he took. Did he say who it was he got in touch with?”

  “No. It could be with the rest of the stuff in the package.” “Where’s this package now?”

  Simeon looked me in the eye. If I’d hoped to scare him, from his facial expression, I’d succeeded.

  “Blackmail’s a particularly heinous offence, carries a lot of years in prison. You holding on to whatever it is ties you into the conspiracy. That means serious prison time as well as losing your cushy little number here dealing drugs, sorry, I mean teaching psychology, and with a prison record you’ll never get another teaching job either. You ready for all that, Sim? Does Louis Phipps really mean that much to you that you’ll put your life on hold for him? Would he do that for you? I somehow don’t think he would.” This did the trick.

  “It’s at my place. I’ve put it somewhere safe.”

  That was what I wanted to hear.

  “Okay, get your coat. Guess where we’re going?”

  “Oh, come on, man, I’m doing a tutorial. I ain’t got time for that just now.”

  There was a jacket hanging behind the door. I slid it off the coat hanger and tossed it at Simeon.

  “Make time. You don’t really have a choice. What do you think this is, a democracy?” I smiled.

  With an injudicious usage of the siren we managed to get to Simeon’s house in Brixton in not too many minutes. He looked sullen most of the journey and said nothing, simply looked out the window. Was he dreaming of his nest egg disappearing?

  I parked just along from his house.

  “Let’s go get the package, shall we?” I gestured towards his house.

  He made a noise that sounded something like “Hmmph” and got out the car. I followed. The house still reeked of marijuana. We went through a grubby looking kitchen and into the garden. There was a dilapidated shed at the bottom. He unlocked the shed door and went to a shelf filled with paint tins. Taking a large pot of emulsion down, he opened the tin. It was empty save for a brown padded A4 envelope carefully folded around the inside. He took it out, flattened it down and passed it to me.

  “This is it. This is what Phipps gave me to hold.”

  “Is this all of it?”

  “It’s all he gave me.”

  “Did this come with a briefcase or other bag?”

  “No. Only this.”

  I felt the package. It felt like there were some sheets of paper in there and a few A5 size photographs.

  “I’ll take your word for it, but if I find out you’ve held anything back, that’s an obstruction charge right there. That’s on top of what I said earlier plus whatever charges the Drugs Squad decide to bring, plus a word in the ear of your college principal,” I said plainly.

  I went into the kitchen. It looked and smelled unappetising. I was glad I wasn’t hungry. I’d sooner eat off my kitchen floor as it was cleaner than here.

  “Don’t forget, you never saw me today. It’s important you say nothing about this to anyone.” I held up the envelope. “As I said, some unpleasant people are probably looking for this.”

  “Oh, don’t mention it, Officer. Pleased to be of service.” He was clearly unhappy. “What am I gonna tell Phipps when he turns up with my money and asks for his package?” He sounded worried. I resisted telling him, if Louis Phipps did turn up, it would only be to haunt him.

  “You’re a bright bloke, you’ll think of something.” I left him fuming.

  I got into my car. I didn’t open the package immediately, deciding to wait until I got back to my desk when I could look at it under appropriate conditions.

  It was now eleven forty, according to my watch. Should I call to see if Ms Frost was back at her desk? I thought I’d wait and call her from the office. As I started the car my mobile sounded.

  “Rob, Richard Clements. You wanted some stuff on Debbie Frost,” he said enthusiastically.

  “I did. You found anything?”

  “Oh yeah, have I got news for you.” He sounded excited, as though he was lining up a hot date.

  “That’s good. When can I get it?”

  “Meet me for lunch and it’s yours, mate.” It unnerved me that he called me mate. “Fancy going to The Clarence again?”

  I agreed I did and we arranged to meet in an hour or so. That gave me time to return to New Scotland Yard and park the car. I then went to my desk and inserted the A4 envelope in my drawer.

  The Clarence is at the Trafalgar Square end of Whitehall. It’s a busy pub at lunchtimes, with lots of civil servant types and tourists favouring it. It was here I’d met Clements when, on a previous case, I told him about my frustrated efforts to nail whoever it was killing people, and I’d given him a lead to follow with other, more resourceful journalists, and they’d certainly stirred the pot.

  To this day I still believe my boss, DCI Smitherman, thinks it was me who gave Clements the tip which set the investigative ball rolling. He’d never asked me outright, but there was something about the way he looked at me when he spoke of it that suggested he thought I knew something.

  I arrived ten minutes before Clements. I bought him a beer and a coffee for myself and sat at a table in the corner. He arrived a few minutes later.

  “That for me?” He nodded at the pint. I agreed it was. He drained half the glass in one go.

  He was still impeccably unkempt, wearing a white T-shirt advertising a sci-fi film I was vaguely aware of under his leather jacket and a pair of dark blue jeans. His sartorial elegance was almost certainly a source of irritation to his impeccably attired father-in-law, DCI Smitherman.

  “So, Ms Frost. What have you got?”

  “A ton of stuff, man. I asked a couple of friends who work for national dailies what they knew about her. They asked people who knew people who knew her, usual kind of incestuous circles politicos move in,” he began. “She’s well thought of and highly regarded at work, very competent and all that. Said to have more attitude than a sunstruck Armadillo. Gets good reports and tipped for the top. She’s well to the right of the Tory Party, you aware of that? At work she’s one of that clique of economic libertarians who regard Thatcher as a dangerous Liberal. But even that couldn’t get her into Bullingdon because of her gender. That really wound her up.”

  “Huh? That a college?”

  “No, the Bullingdon Society, an exclusive club at Oxford for the sons of the rich, as is Oxford generally, whose members delight in their bad behaviour; smashing up restaurants after expensive dinner parties, that sort of thing, and in flaunting their wealth. Most of them go on to achieve political office, almost always in the Tory Party. The current political elite have at least three ex-Bullingdon Society in its ranks.”

  “What did she do at Oxford? Who did she associate with?”

  “The usual Hooray Henry types people like her get drawn to. But, most of those she mixed with weren’t just out for a good time; they were deeply political, very right wing. She was in a group called White Britain at Oxford, a kind of modern version of bodies like the old League of Empire Loyalists, real Rule Britannia stuff. They advocated things like all non-whites repatriated back to their homeland. If the BNP had a collective brain, it would be like this lot.”

  If she’d been vetted for her current post, this must be on record. I made a note to look it up when I got back to the office. Would this have been put down and excused as the inevitable excesses of gilded youth or noted as something more sinister?
>
  “There were some real nasty types in her little crowd, a few of them Nazi sympathisers. They weren’t Final Solution types but they definitely supported the social agenda of the Fascist Right; you know, no inter-marriage between black and white, banning all homosexuality, the weak and feckless not being allowed to reproduce, stuff like that. The far right’s full of people who still believe those things. You should hear some of the fucking lunatics who go to the fringe meetings at their annual conferences. There’s no evidence she ever held those kinds of views but she certainly mixed with people who did, and probably still do.”

  “And you say Debbie’s been unable to get a safe seat to fight because she’s an extremist?”

  “Something like that. She’s been close to being selected on two occasions but never made it to the final shortlist. Since leaving, sorry, coming down from Oxford,” he scoffed, “she’s worked in the City but is now working for the Tory Party. Something quite near the top of the totem pole, I’m told by someone who knows her.”

  “Yes, she is. Works in policy research, I believe. What about the boyfriend?”

  “Darren. Some chinless yuppie City type, wouldn’t know an honest day’s work if it pissed on his shoes. He’s in the Mergers and Acquisitions section of Karris and Millers, an American investment group. They buy and sell companies all over the place. Makes a fucking fortune doing it.”

  “He’s Oxford as well, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, went there as a mature student straight from the army.”

  “The army? He’s a soldier?” This surprised me.

  “Used to be. Served a few years and then ‘went up to Oxford’.” He used his index fingers to make quotation marks. “He’s been in corporate finance ever since.”

  “What did he do in the army?”

  “That I don’t know. He served in the South African army before he relocated to this country but I don’t know what he did. I do know his family is quite well off and still believes in apartheid.”

  “He’s South African? I thought apartheid was dead and buried now Mandela’s president of the new Republic.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” he stated with certainty. “It still exists in some far-flung right-wing corners of the universe. You know how many Tories still mourn the loss of Empire? Did you know that, when India was granted independence in 1948, Enoch Powell refused to speak to Churchill for the next five years? Her guy, Darren, comes from a family that still has black servants and will only employ blacks as they believe they’re socially and racially inferior to whites.”

  Could these be the circles where Richard Rhodes had come into contact with Debbie Frost? But, if so, how did this make Gant somehow part of this cosy little arrangement?

  “Anything else about her?”

  “Yeah, here’s the real juicy bit.” He drained his beer. “Did you know she had an affair with a leading Tory about a year or so back?”

  “An affair?”

  “Yup, with quite a high profile figure as well, my sources tell me. It all got quite nasty; threats and recriminations all over the place.”

  “Why?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know Court gossip but I listened anyway.

  “Usual thing; he was much older than her, married, kids, promised to leave his wife and set up home with her. He reneges on the arrangement and she threatens to go public about her and him, go to the press and spill her guts, but it all got worked out and peace and harmony reigns in the Kingdom of Heaven again. There were even rumours the party leadership had to get involved to keep the peace between the warring tribes and that’s how it got settled, and this stopped it getting into the press. But she was mightily pissed about it for a while.”

  “What about the boyfriend?”

  “He moved out when it came to light but it’s all lovey-dovey again now, or so it would seem.”

  “Who did she have the affair with?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. My source either doesn’t know or, if he does, isn’t spilling the beans, so I can’t tell you.”

  “Was it with someone at work?”

  “All I know is that it was with a leading right-wing figure in the party. I don’t know any names but I’d love to know. I’d run it in the Focus.” He laughed. “Why should Private Eye get all the good scoops?”

  “This have any impact at work? Any knock-on effects?” “Don’t know of any. She’s still in the same department and, from what I hear, tipped for great things after the next election.”

  I mused over what I’d heard.

  “Why do you need to know so much about this chick, anyway?” He grinned. “She sounds like an unpalatable right- wing bitch to me. I wouldn’t touch her with a foot-long pole.”

  “She just seemed an unlikely person to be involved with what I’m looking into. Her file seemed pretty anodyne but, after speaking to her, I just got this sense something didn’t fit, so I wanted to know more about her. Just as I said yesterday, this is off the record.”

  “Anything I’ve said of any use?”

  “Don’t know yet.” I drained my lukewarm coffee, thanked him and left.

  I was walking back to the office along Whitehall. At the traffic lights by Parliament Square I remembered Debbie Frost worked only a couple of hundred yards away along Millbank. I decided to pay her a visit.

  At reception I identified myself and asked to speak with Debbie Frost. The woman behind the desk phoned her office and I was told to take the lift to the fourth floor. I did. I was met by Ms Frost’s PA who took me to her office.

  Debbie Frost didn’t seem overly keen to see me from the look in her eyes. She kept typing for a few seconds and then stood.

  “DS McGraw. To what do I owe this pleasure? Didn’t I answer all your questions yesterday?” It sounded almost like a challenge.

  She rose and walked to the window where a pair of small armchairs were neatly arranged opposite each other, with a glass top coffee table between them and copies of newspapers conspicuously displayed. She was elegantly dressed, wearing a pale green blouse with a necklace prominent over the neckline. She was also wearing a pair of tight dark trousers that suggested she had great legs. I tried not to stare too hard. She sat down and invited me to do so. I did.

  “So, why do you need to see me again?”

  On the way to her office I’d hummed and hawed as to how to approach this. In the end I went straight for it.

  “I don’t think you were completely honest with me when we spoke yesterday.”

  “Oh really,” she sounded surprised. “I thought I was very specific with you.”

  “I thought that as well. But I’ve spoken to a couple of people who’ve told me things that seem to contradict what you’ve said. So, I’d like to ask you once again. What exactly did you lose when your car was stolen?”

  Her eyes narrowed and she looked out the window briefly. She had a look that suggested she’d sooner be having intense period pains than answering my questions.

  “Look, I told you what it was. It was just a bag full of old papers that were due to be dumped. I lost nothing of any consequence and I’m surprised you can’t accept that, I really am.” She sounded almost exasperated, like a parent telling off a recalcitrant child for the umpteenth time.

  “That’s interesting because I have reason to doubt that, and I’ll tell you why. Yesterday I spoke to two people who flatly contradict what you’ve said. They maintain that the person who took the bags from your car came across something that he was looking to cash in on, and it’s my belief it’s this that got the man concerned killed. I’ve had this from two separate sources, people who don’t know each other and who have no reason to bullshit me, excuse my Latin. So, does that give you any indication why I’m sceptical about your story?”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, but my story remains the same.” She was adamant. “All I lost was a bag full of old briefing documents and miscellaneous papers that were going to be shredded. If this person thought they were worth anything, he’s sadly mista
ken but good luck if he wants to try.”

  “Wanted to try, past tense now,” I replied. “What exactly were these papers?”

  “Just minutes from meetings, random notes, a few ideas for various things, some briefing notes for MPs who might be speaking in the House on a particular issue in response to what other parties might be saying. Basically, party documents we didn’t want any longer. I can’t reveal exact contents because the contents are a confidential party matter, I’m sure you understand.”

  “I’m not bothered about party matters. I’m interested in why someone would say what he found was valuable if you’re certain it wasn’t?”

  “I can’t answer that. I don’t know.” She looked out the window as she spoke.

  “The person I’m talking about is someone who was, frankly, as stupid as they come. A petty crook destined for a life inside, yet this person maintains he made contact with you and you rebuffed him when he offered you your stuff back.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “No one contacted me. What is it this person’s supposed to have stolen from me that I’d want back so much?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to discover. The person concerned wasn’t forthcoming about it and the people he told don’t know either, which is why I’m asking you.”

  “I can only repeat what I said earlier. I didn’t lose anything of any consequence.”

  “You said yesterday your office was unconcerned about the loss of the bags.”

  “That’s right, they were. They assured me there was nothing valuable there so I wasn’t to worry unduly about the theft.”

  “I see.” I nodded. “And, to confirm what you also told me, nobody contacted you offering the chance to get back what was taken for a price.”

  “That’s the situation.”

  She sounded plausible and I almost believed her. But there was something I couldn’t put my finger on that was bothering me. It was time to raise the stakes.

  “Ms Frost, I ought to tell you this isn’t just some routine inquiry into stolen property, this is a murder investigation.”