Corrupted: Murder and cover-up at the heart of government (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 4)

by Simon Michael

  Silence.

  Charles decides to change tack. ‘I understand you’ve met with Dr Felix, Teddy. I’m told she’s very nice.’ Teddy lifts his eyes and looks at Charles briefly before looking away again. ‘Did you like her?’

  Teddy shrugs. ‘She was all right,’ he mumbles.

  ‘I think you’re seeing her again, aren’t you? Tomorrow?’

  Teddy shakes his head. ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve got her letter here —’ starts Max.

  ‘I don’t want to see her again. I just want to get out.’

  ‘I understand,’ says Charles gently, ‘and that’s exactly what we want too. But to get you out we have to prove you’re fit to plead. That means you know what’s going on, that you understand the process and the charge against you, and that you can instruct us properly. Dr Felix was asked to advise us about that. If the court decides you’re mentally unfit to stand trial, you’ll simply be sent to a psychiatric hospital. Indefinitely. Until you do talk and persuade them you’re in your right mind. And believe me, once you’re in one of those places, it’s much, much harder to persuade the authorities you’re sane, so as to get released.’

  At that Teddy flicks a frightened glance towards Charles and holds his gaze for a moment.

  ‘So we need you to do two things. Firstly, you need to sign your statement, if it’s still the truth, and confirm we can continue to act for you. Secondly, we need you to continue seeing Dr Felix.’

  Teddy nods his head minutely.

  ‘Are your instructions still the same as you told us when we saw you in hospital?’ asks Max.

  ‘Teddy: do you still say you can’t remember anything that happened after the party?’ clarifies Charles. Another tiny nod. ‘So will you sign the statement that you gave us, saying that?’ A final tiny nod.

  Charles indicates to Max to get the draft statement out of his briefcase. Max places it on the table and slides it under Teddy’s downcast head. Charles reaches into his pocket, unscrews the top of his fountain pen and offers the pen to Teddy. He holds it out for ten seconds, twenty, almost thirty, and then Teddy’s hand rises slowly from his lap and he takes it. He places the pen on the paper where Max points, and writes slowly in an immature scrawl: Edward Smith.

  ‘OK. That’s a start,’ says Charles. ‘Now: please will you continue to see Dr Felix?’

  ‘OK.’

  Teddy looks for a third time at the clock and stands slowly. He drags his feet to the door. The interview is apparently over. He bangs on the door twice and waits by it, looking away from the two men at the table. Charles plays a hunch.

  ‘Would you like a chocolate bar?’ he asks, reaching into his briefcase. ‘Keep you going ’til lunch?’

  For the first time since he entered the room Teddy shows some signs of animation and he turns towards Charles. His eyes are riveted to Charles’s hand as it is withdrawn from the battered leather briefcase holding a Picnic bar. A chocolate bar is part of Charles’s standard visiting equipment for remand homes, in the same way as cigarettes, tissues and blank paper. Teddy starts, as if about to launch himself across the room, but just manages to check himself. Charles imagines he can see the boy’s mouth filling with anticipatory saliva. He’s starving! thinks Charles.

  ‘Didn’t you have breakfast?’ he asks.

  ‘Bacon batch, yesterday lunch,’ mumbles Teddy.

  ‘And since then?’

  Teddy shrugs. Charles walks towards the boy, hand outstretched, and at the same moment footsteps approach down the corridor. Teddy’s hand swoops and the bar disappears into his trouser pocket. A man, not the one who escorted Teddy earlier, opens the door. Just as Teddy is shuffling out, Charles calls out quickly.

  ‘Were you a choirboy, Teddy?’

  Teddy pauses, his battered face screwing up in puzzlement. He shakes his head. ‘Never,’ he replies through half-closed lips.

  He sidles out of the room and shuffles down the corridor in his baggy trousers.

  Max and Charles pack up their papers. ‘You know more about this than me, Charles. What’s going on? And what on earth produced that question?’

  ‘As to what’s going on, it’s simple: he’s a new boy, immature, pretty and possibly homosexual. He’s being bullied, and his meals are probably being taken by someone higher up the food chain.’

  ‘Can we do anything?’

  ‘Without Teddy’s co-operation there’s not much they can do, short of keeping him in isolation. This sort of violence is endemic in the system, I’m afraid. We’ll just get the case heard as soon as possible and see if we can get him released.’

  ‘And your question about singing?’

  Charles answers the question with another. ‘Did you hear what he said he’d last eaten?’

  ‘A bacon sandwich?’

  ‘He didn’t say sandwich. He said batch.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s a very specific word. I’ve only heard it used once before, by a stable boy in the village where I used to live. It means a small, round loaf.’ Charles smiles at Max’s puzzlement. ‘The point is, it’s a dialect word that originated in the Coventry area; more specifically, Bedworth.’

  ‘And you think he comes from there?’

  ‘When I saw his seized clothes and property at Greenwich police station I noticed a medallion with something engraved on the back: “To my little Singer, 1955.” At the time I assumed it had something to do with him being a choirboy. But when I heard him talk about a bacon batch I wondered how he came across such a particular word of dialect. Then it clicked: the old nickname for Coventry City Football Club was Singers FC. After the company that founded it and made Singer bikes. Which is about five miles from…’

  Max laughs. ‘Bedworth?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I was aware you knew everything about West Ham Football Club; I didn’t know your arcane knowledge ran to other clubs too.’

  ‘I’m a bit of a magpie; I pick up odd facts, especially about my passions.’

  ‘So, you want me to make enquiries in the Bedworth area about our Mr Edward Smith?’

  ‘Exactly. Get a couple of your office juniors to take photos round the sweetshops and newsagents, especially near the schools; see if anyone recognises him. It shouldn’t take long. Aim for four o’clock.’

  ‘Why then?’

  Charles smiles. ‘That’s when they’ll be full of hungry Picnic-eaters. When the schools come out.’

  Charles enters the Temple via the studded arched doors of the Inner Temple Gateway. Outside the clerks’ room he pauses for a moment and then, taking a deep breath, opens the door silently. As always the room is a bustle of movement and activity and for a moment no one looks up. Charles strides to the pigeonholes, collects all the papers waiting for him without sorting them, and heads back to the door. He has almost made it back to the safety of the lobby when Jennie, one of the junior clerks, spots him. Her sharp intake of breath and involuntary exclamation at the state of his face is heard by everyone in the room. Before Charles can get himself out of the door, everyone has turned around. Charles just has time to register the mouth of Jeremy, Jennie’s male counterpart, opening in a silent ‘O’ and to note the identity of the only barrister in the room: Marcus Bradley. Charles could not have worse luck.

  Bradley is reputed to have one of the greatest intellects of any barrister in practice. Still in his late twenties, he was called a short five years earlier, but is already being touted for silk. When anyone in Chambers, from the most junior pupil to the most senior silk, has a difficult legal conundrum, they will often put their head round Bradley’s door and ask if he has a moment to talk it through, despite the fact that he usually extracts a price for dispensing his wisdom. Before putting down his fountain pen, leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head and listening to the problem, he might require the poor stumped barrister to tidy his room, make him a pot of tea or, on one never-forgotten occasion, clean his shoes. But, on the occasions he is disposed to give assistance, his an
alysis is always scalpel-sharp and invariably correct and his colleagues are usually content to pay the price of mild humiliation. It is only for these reasons that his presence in Chambers is tolerated.

  Bradley is also a notorious gossip, and very funny at the expense of his victims. His targets include anyone he considers to be his social or intellectual inferior; in other words, everyone. Charles was a favourite victim for a while. Having left Chancery Court under a considerable cloud, Charles had no choice but to bear it; he was lucky to have found another berth at all after the adverse publicity surrounding Henrietta’s death and his run from the police.

  For almost a year Charles bore with amused tolerance the jibes and innuendos concerning his supposed expertise in murder, his impoverished East End origins and his Jewish background. Then, after several months and his practice re-established, Charles waited one evening for Bradley to descend the staircase from his room on the second floor. Charles stepped silently out of his room as Bradley went past, cornered him and lifted him off the dusty floorboards by his neck. Bradley’s feet kicked and flailed as he struggled for breath while Charles spoke a few quiet words in his ear. Then Charles stared at him with those eyes that he could somehow empty of emotion and which Patrizia had found so frightening, and slowly lowered Bradley back to the floor.

  That was the last time Bradley ever spoke to him directly; it was also the first time Charles realised that having the members of his profession wonder whether he was a murderer might occasionally be useful.

  Charles allows the door to slam behind him knowing that the damage is done. The state of his face and the fact that he has obviously been involved in a fight will be common knowledge in Chambers by close of play and throughout most of the Temple by the end of the week.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Thursday, 9 July

  Percy Farrow enters the Daily Mirror newsroom. His office is in the linked building, formerly the offices of the Sunday Pictorial, but the editor of the Mirror is to be found on the fifth floor of this building. Farrow’s visit is by way of reconnaissance.

  The phones dotted around the banks of desks are, as usual, quieter at this time of night, yet the incessant clatter of typewriter keys persists. Most of the desks are still occupied by men in suits, a handful with their jackets off. Two in shirtsleeves still wear their hats. All are bent over their typewriters and most have cigarettes clamped in their mouths or burning in ashtrays. There’s an air of intense concentration, and no conversation. As always, scattered over the tops of the metal desks and filing cabinets are plates of half-eaten congealed food and abandoned cups of tea, many with cigarette ends floating in them. The floor surface is pitted with the black melted evidence of stubbed out cigarettes and littered with sheets of copy paper and newspaper. One of the junior female sub-editors in cardigan and sensible shoes delivers cups of tea from a tray to two of her colleagues, neither of whom looks up or acknowledges her presence.

  Farrow goes to an unoccupied desk, looks around furtively and, when satisfied he is unobserved, fishes from his trouser pocket a key on a chain attached to his belt. With a grunt, he stoops to unlock a filing cabinet from which he takes a manila folder. He stands with a wheeze and pushes the filing cabinet drawer closed with his foot, not bothering to lock it.

  ‘Seen Reg?’ he asks his nearest colleague.

  A waggle of a pencil in the relevant direction. ‘Office.’

  ‘Condition?’ asks Farrow.

  Fleet Street is marinated in alcohol. Most of the journalists are drunk most of the time, but Reg Payne, the editor of the Daily Mirror, is a class above. The phrase “drinks like a fish” might have been invented for him. He once famously taunted a colleague over the man’s police record for being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle, but the retort — that Payne was guilty of worse, being drunk in charge of a newspaper — had become part of Fleet Street legend. Payne has an abrasive tongue even when sober, and Farrow doesn’t want to have this conversation if his editor is drunk; he knows he might not get another run at it.

  ‘He was at the Savoy with Pinnington for lunch but got called back. So: sober,’ comes the response. ‘Do stop nattering, Percy. Tight deadline.’

  Farrow nods his thanks. He goes to a telephone and dials an internal number.

  ‘Is Mr Payne still available? OK. Thanks.’ He presses the receiver rest down, breaking the connection, and immediately dials another internal number. ‘Mike? We’re on. I’m in the newsroom. I’ll wait by the lift.’

  Farrow leaves the newsroom and waits on the landing. A minute later a bell sounds as the lift arrives at his floor and the door slides open. Mike Taylor, the recently appointed night editor, waits in the lift in his shirtsleeves, his finger on the button keeping the door open, a cigarette between his lips.

  ‘Evening, Percy,’ he says out of the corner of his mouth with a crooked smile.

  Taylor, appointed at twenty-six years of age and one of the youngest ever editors of a national newspaper, is always smiling through his thick black-rimmed glasses. He is one of the few senior executives liked by everyone on the staff, and one of a very small handful whom Farrow trusts to give him a fair hearing.

  Farrow steps into the lift. They travel up to the fifth floor in silence, file out of the lift, and wait outside Payne’s door. Shouting can be heard from inside. Taylor knocks on the door.

  ‘Come,’ says a voice from inside.

  Taylor enters, followed by Farrow.

  Payne is on the phone in shirtsleeves standing by his desk, a Cuban cigar in his hand, gazing out of his window in the direction of Holborn Viaduct. Several empty bottles of champagne and half a dozen used glasses litter his desk. He points vaguely at a half-full bottle, indicating that they should help themselves, and then at chairs on the opposite side of his desk. He turns his back on the arrivals to complete his call. Already sitting patiently to one side of the desk, wearing a pinstriped suit, is Stewart Cowley, one of the newspaper’s lawyers. Farrow nods to him as he and Taylor sit quietly. Taylor pours himself a glass of champagne and offers the same for Cowley and Farrow, both of whom decline. A few moments later Payne hangs up and resumes his seat. He addresses himself to Farrow.

  ‘OK, Percy. Mike’s kept me up to speed, and I’ve asked Stewart to listen in. You’ve got thirty seconds.’

  Farrow takes out a sheaf of papers from the folder, turns them the right way up so Payne can read them, and fans them on the desk. He points a pudgy forefinger at each in turn.

  ‘C11 observation logs, three-week period. A page from a memo to 3 District CID. Photographs of Bob Boothby, Tom Driberg, one bishop and two judges arriving and leaving Cedra Court.’

  Payne picks up one of the photographs and examines it closely.

  Farrow continues. ‘Various photographs of East End lowlife, all sharing two common features: all are members of the Krays’ Firm, and all are reputedly homosexual.’

  Payne looks up and interrupts Farrow’s evidential list with a dubious glance.

  ‘OK,’ concedes Farrow, ‘I can’t prove they’re all homosexual. But the parties are exclusively male and there’s no doubt about Ronnie’s sexuality. He boasts about it.’ Farrow points to one of the observation logs. ‘There’s evidence of blue movies being shown. And as for The Palladium…’

  ‘Palladium?’ asks Cowley.

  ‘Boothby’s nickname,’ interjects Taylor. ‘“Twice a night” Boothby, ergo “The Palladium”. He makes no bones about it, girls or boys, it’s all the same to him. He’s a man, as they say, of large and indiscriminate appetites.’

  Payne grins and snorts, but shakes his head at Farrow. ‘You showed me most of this last week. The answer’s still no. It was a party. People come and go. Where’s the evidence linking Boothby with the Krays? He’ll admit being at the party, and deny ever meeting the twins. That’s what he’s already said, isn’t it? That he’s never met them?’

  ‘That’s right. But there’s this.’ Farrow pulls a single large black and white photograph from h
is folder. His pièce de résistance, held back for maximum impact. ‘That’s Eaton Square, Boothby’s lounge.’

  Farrow watches Payne’s face as his editor absorbs the content of the photograph. It shows Ronnie Kray sitting on a settee next to Robert Boothby, Leslie Holt to one side. Kray and Boothby are smiling for the camera and shaking hands.

  Taylor and Crowley stand to get a better view of the photograph. Taylor whistles with admiration.

  ‘Where the fuck did you get this?’ breathes Payne in astonishment. Farrow opens his pudgy hands wide: he is not going to divulge his source.

  ‘And who’s this?’ asks Taylor, pointing at the third man in the photograph.

  ‘Leslie Holt. Burglar, close associate of Ronnie Kray, and now the even closer friend and chauffeur of Boothby. He’s the link. An undeniable link.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ says Payne softly. He spins the photograph back onto the desk and sits back in his seat, considering. ‘What do you think, Stewart?’

  ‘Well, I’d want to get libel counsel to run through it with a fine-toothed comb —’

  ‘Agreed,’ interrupts Payne. ‘I don’t even want to imagine what’d happen if we get this one wrong.’

  ‘But,’ continues Cowley, ‘I think it’s OK. We might have to lose some of the names, at least for the moment, but we’ve caught Boothby out in a definite lie.’

  ‘We have very little time,’ warns Farrow. ‘Right now no one else has got this, but C11 leaks like a colander, and they’re all looking for payback. Also…’

  ‘What?’ demands Payne sharply, suddenly suspicious.

  ‘Well, the source of this photograph wants it back.’

  ‘Of course he does,’ says Taylor. ‘It’s worth a small fortune. There isn’t a newspaper in the world that wouldn’t pay thousands for this.’

  ‘There might be another reason,’ answers Cowley softly. ‘The Krays.’

  Farrow nods in affirmation. ‘Exactly. So, if we’re going with it, it’s got to be now. There could be injunctions. There could be violence. But at the moment we hold the photo, and it’s a world exclusive. So, can we run it by Hugh Cudlipp tonight?’