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

by Simon Michael

  He arrives at High Holborn forty minutes later and goes straight to Cudlipp’s office. Compared to Cecil King’s suite on the ninth floor, which can only be reached via a private lift and where King enjoys the services of his own butler, kitchen and dining room, Cudlipp’s work space is an unpretentious office on the fifth floor above the newsroom and reveals that he will always be, at heart, a newspaperman.

  Farrow knocks on the door and is told to enter. Cudlipp sits at his desk, surrounded by newsprint and copy paper. Two large spikes bristle with the rejected pieces of the recent past, testament to Cudlipp’s final editorial judgement.

  ‘Sit down,’ he orders.

  Farrow shuts the door and takes the seat opposite Cudlipp, noting as he sits that the leather of his seat is warm. Whose backside has lodged here until just a moment ago? he wonders.

  ‘I’ll come right to the point. We’re not pursuing the Boothby-Krays story.’

  Farrow is about to object but Cudlipp holds up an imperious finger to silence him. ‘The lawyers have been here all night. It looks like we’re going to have to apologise and pay damages to get the thing to go away.’

  ‘But we have proof!’ interjects Farrow. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Keep your eye on The Times over the next few days. Boothby’s written a letter to the editor, and I’ve got the proposed text here —’ he brandishes a sheet of paper. ‘What’s done for us is that the Police Commissioner’s going to issue a public statement denying he ordered any investigation between a peer and a man with a criminal record, or that such an investigation has ever taken place.’

  Farrow’s multi-chinned face drops in horror. His mouth forms a perfect ‘O’ but nothing issues from it. His astonishment is so profound that Cudlipp’s shoulders relax and he half laughs, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘I know. Unbelievable, right? Just for once, even I am astonished at how high the corruption reaches. But I’m sorry, Percy old chap, we’ve been stitched up. And the lawyers can’t see any way out of it. I know how much effort you’ve put into this, and it’s truly an amazing scoop; an absolutely first-class piece of investigative journalism, but it’s got to be buried. You can’t imagine what a barrel-load of shit has hit us, from all sides. So, take a few days off, go away if you can, and whatever you do, keep your head down.’

  Farrow’s first response is to tell Cudlipp about the other photographs, the grainy ones taken in poor lighting, of a middle-aged man doing disgusting things to a young boy; photographs that arrived on his desk in an unmarked envelope two days earlier from his photographer source, and which are at that moment hidden in his flat at Dollis Hill. But he can’t trust Cudlipp not to demand that he hand them over. Even if Cudlipp has been cowed into submission, there are plenty of editors who’d be happy to publish them, if not here, then on the continent, where newspapers are less concerned about the reach of the British courts.

  ‘Go down to your desk, and that unused filing cabinet that everyone knows you keep locked, and bring me up everything you have,’ orders Cudlipp. ‘Photos, notes, logs — everything. It’s all going to be destroyed, I’m afraid. And consider yourself lucky I’m not sacking you. You’re too good to lose, Percy, and the failure of judgement, if there was one, wasn’t yours. Unlike the last occupant of that chair,’ he adds.

  ‘Who was that?’ asks Farrow, fearing the answer.

  Cudlipp pauses. ‘Well, it’ll be common knowledge within a couple of hours so you might as well know. Reg Payne’ll be moving to other duties in a couple of weeks, when he gets back from his holidays.’

  Farrow nods sadly. Despite the fact that Payne was his boss and acted with Cecil King’s approval, Farrow, a moral man, feels some responsibility for the editor losing his job. If Farrow had waited for Cudlipp’s return, Payne would probably still be in post. But then, he reminds himself, no one could have predicted that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner would lie about the investigation, or that Cudlipp would be forced to sack Payne for running a true story.

  The two men have been close associates for years. Indeed, the Mirror’s pre-eminence on Fleet Street is largely due to the success of their partnership, and although the relationship is sometimes abrasive and they’ve been known to row furiously, for Cudlipp to sack his old friend means that immense pressure is being applied.

  ‘Damage limitation; someone’s got to be seen to be punished. Keep it under your hat till later today, please.’

  Farrow’s shoulders slump. ‘I’ll probably go back to bed, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Good idea. Have a lie-in. And don’t answer the phone. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  Charles is in the act of unlocking the door to the flat on Fetter Lane when he hears the phone ringing on the other side. He curses silently; no one calling at this hour is likely to be the bearer of good tidings.

  He’s exhausted, sweaty and dishevelled. He has spent every night since last Friday with Patrizia, and although her hotel bed is indeed huge and very comfortable, it has seen only a few hours’ sleep. Charles has taken to slipping out as dawn breaks, avoiding eye contact with the night staff, in time to get home, shower and change, and attempt to do some work. It is difficult. Usually, when in the middle of a case, Charles can think of nothing else; the evidence, his cross-examination, the law — they consume him.

  Now, however, Patrizia intrudes into his head constantly, day and night; more specifically, images of sex with Patrizia. Charles has never experienced an attraction this powerful, and he is helplessly in its thrall. She says she feels the same, and she certainly seems as desperate for him as he does for her. When he arrives each evening he finds her pacing the bedroom, barefoot, a caged animal. She usually still wears her outer clothes — it excites them both for him to undress her — but she has removed her undergarments. He enters the room without knocking and is offered a drink, as if returning home after a long day and this is mere quotidian domesticity. They may speak, swapping polite platitudes for another minute or two, deliberately heightening their anticipation with further delay, but neither of them is able to focus on anything said by the other. They are both already at fever pitch of arousal; they are already mentally making love.

  Charles unlocks the door and reaches for the phone.

  ‘Charles?’

  ‘You’re up early, Percy. All well?’

  ‘Sorry, really sorry to trouble you at this hour, but I think you need to get over here immediately.’

  Charles runs up the staircase to Farrow’s flat. The journalist waits at the open door.

  ‘Thanks for coming. I’m really sorry to get you out of bed this early,’ he apologises again.

  ‘You didn’t,’ replies Charles vaguely.

  ‘Come in.’

  Charles sidles carefully through the open door, making sure he doesn’t touch the door posts.

  ‘If you’re worried about fingerprints, there’s no need. The police have been and said it’d be a waste of time.’

  Charles raises his eyebrows in surprise and files that comment for later exploration. ‘What happened?’

  Farrow beckons for Charles to follow him down the corridor towards the front of the block. He pushes a door open and stands back to let Charles look inside. The room was once the third bedroom of the flat but is now equipped as a study. It looks out onto the greensward and low chained wall which fronts the block, and then the main road. Books and papers litter the floor and the desk drawers have been taken out and turned upside down. Most of the books on the bookshelf have been thumbed briefly and then discarded. They lie at all angles, open and closed, one or two with broken spines, all over the floor and furniture. For some reason Charles is put in mind of a shoal of drowned fish lying on a dry shore.

  ‘My sister heard a noise in my study and thought I was up early, working. In fact I’d been called out. She came to ask if I wanted a cup of tea, just in time to see someone climbing back out of the window. She didn’t see his face.’

  Charles looks at the wind
ow in front of Farrow’s desk. The mansion block was built in the 1930s in an attractive art deco style with curved lines. The large picture window in front of the desk is still open, hinged at the top, and perfectly large enough for a lithe burglar to slip inside and crawl across the desk surface to the floor. Charles steps delicately across the few visible islands of carpet and looks out of the window. Less than a yard to his left, in an internal corner formed by the main front wall of the block and a projection housing the lift shaft and staircase, is a square metal downpipe used to carry run-off water from the roof two storeys above. That, and the joints between the blocks forming the outside of the wall, would have provided easy access for a professional burglar. Charles reckons he could have got in using the same route, and his burgling experience is definitely amateur.

  ‘What did they get?’ asks Charles.

  ‘Everything,’ replies Farrow heavily. ‘All my notes, copies of observation logs, some brief statements, and most importantly, some damning photos. Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll make some coffee. I don’t know about you, but I’m knackered.’

  Charles sits at the kitchen table while Farrow potters around him.

  ‘Explain to me about the fingerprints,’ asks Charles. ‘Looking at the shiny surfaces in your study, I’d be surprised if there was nothing.’

  ‘It was a detective chief inspector. Surprisingly senior I thought for a domestic burglary. I’d not come across him before, a chap called Clarke. But he looked round and said it was obviously a professional who’d have been wearing gloves. So, waste of time calling out forensics to dust for fingerprints.’

  ‘Not an unreasonable assumption, but you’d still expect them to try.’

  ‘I agree. What’s more, he spent more time questioning me about what might have been stolen than he did about the burglary. He barely looked round. And he said there was no point taking a statement from Dorothy either, because she didn’t get a good look at the burglar.’

  ‘This doesn’t smell right, Percy.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And when you add the focused nature of the search and what’s been taken, there’s only one conclusion.’

  ‘The Krays. Or maybe someone hired by Boothby. Or Driberg for that matter.’

  ‘They’re all on the same side, aren’t they?’ comments Charles bitterly. ‘None of them wants your story coming out. So, one or more or all of the aforesaid.’ Farrow shakes his head sadly at this legalese. Charles continues. ‘I’m prepared to lay even money that the burglar and Clarke are part of the same team.’

  ‘I haven’t told you about the last piece of the jigsaw, the reason I wasn’t here at five a.m.’ says Farrow. ‘Cudlipp called me in to High Holborn. They’re spiking the follow-up story and issuing an apology. Boothby’s challenged them publicly to publish and be damned.’

  ‘So publish.’

  Farrow shakes his head. ‘Sir Joseph Simpson’s issuing a public statement denying the entire thing, the investigation, everything.’

  It takes Charles a moment to absorb the implications of Farrow’s revelation. He whistles softly. ‘Someone’s nobbled the Metropolitan Police Commissioner? I don’t believe it. Simpson has a reputation for straight dealing.’

  ‘Not this time. Even Cudlipp’s spooked.’

  ‘Jesus,’ says Charles, softly. Farrow winces. ‘You mentioned photographs. Is this the one the Sunday Mirror said it couldn’t publish?’

  Farrow puts a pot of coffee on the kitchen table and shakes his head, his jowls wobbling. ‘Oh no. Better than that. It was a snap of Driberg indulging his scatological practices with a young Adonis — I’m told he was only twelve or thirteen — at Cedra Court. I’m sure that was the real target of the burglary, because pretty much everything else of value was already with the Mirror.’

  Charles’s hand, halfway on its journey towards the coffee, stops in mid-air. ‘Young Adonis?’ he asks softly. ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Please, Percy,’ Charles insists.

  ‘Well, the photos weren’t brilliant; taken through a one-way mirror into a darkened bedroom. But curly hair, light in colour, maybe blond. A very slim lad, not fully developed yet. As far as I could tell from the camera angles, a very beautiful boy. Angelic. Why?’ he repeats.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ whispers Charles to himself.

  ‘Very likely. Why?’

  ‘I think your star witness is my client.’ Charles shakes his head slowly as he considers what happened to Teddy. ‘Oh, that poor kid. That poor, poor kid. No wonder he’s traumatised.’

  ‘You’re representing him? How?’

  ‘It’s a long story. I was recommended, following that murder case a couple of months back. The Thames one, remember?’

  ‘The one where your cousin was killed?’

  Charles nods. ‘This lad,’ he says, ‘has been charged with murdering a member of The Firm, one of the Krays’ pretty boys. I knew the twins and their bent copper friends were looking for him, which is bad enough, but this is much worse! He’s a witness to activities that the Krays’ powerful homosexual friends need to keep quiet.’ Charles pauses as the tumblers all fall into place and the safe door swings open. ‘Oh,’ he concludes.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Now it makes sense. I’ve had pressure put on me by Chambers to drop the case. Bad publicity, stirring the rumour mill again — all very reasonable arguments. But for reasons I couldn’t fathom, Arnold Goodman was at the meeting, together with someone who was never identified. Goodman’s the link.’

  ‘The link with the Krays?’

  ‘In a way. He’s trying to protect Driberg and, incidentally, Bob Boothby. The Krays are just the collateral beneficiaries.’

  Farrow’s piggy eyes screw up as his formidable brain moves the pieces of the jigsaw around, seeing what fits where. ‘Is there anything in the charges against him?’

  Charles shrugs. ‘I don’t know. We’ve instructed a child psychiatrist. She says the boy’s so badly traumatised that he’s suffering from amnesia.’ Charles shrugs. ‘We’ll see.’ Another thought occurs to him. ‘I wonder if they realise that your photo, the one of Driberg, might have provided the Crown with a much more plausible motive for Teddy committing murder. If he was abused in the way you describe.’

  ‘Yes, but murder of the Kray’s chap? Wouldn’t he be more likely to kill the abuser, Driberg? In any case, the photo blows the entire sordid story. If I were them, I’d just want it destroyed.’

  ‘Yes. I agree. And the murder charge is the perfect way to shut someone up: discredit them and their story.’

  ‘Exactly. But whatever their motives, haven’t the people putting you under pressure to drop the case got a point? Shouldn’t you be leaving this one to someone else?’

  Charles is thinking furiously and doesn’t answer.

  ‘Charles?’ repeats Farrow. ‘I know you’ve previous with the Krays. You seem to have managed that situation for the present, and I’m not going to ask how. But if the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police can have his arm twisted to lie in public about an ongoing police investigation, there are some serious heavyweights manoeuvring behind the scenes. This must go all the way to Number Ten. Or, at the very least, the Home Secretary.’

  Charles nods slowly, staring unseeing out of Farrow’s kitchen window at the gathering morning traffic as he calculates. The journalist puts his hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Are you listening to me, Charles?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This isn’t a problem you can punch your way out of. You do understand that, don’t you? This is serious.’

  ‘Yes,’ replies Charles finally, his focus returning to the small kitchen. ‘Of course I know that. But this lad’s got no one. He’s been used as a sex toy. He’s apparently alone in the world. And now, the whole weight of the Establishment, the police, organised crime — all ranged against him? He’s just a child. Who could bear that weight? I couldn’t, not alone. Someone’s got to stand up for him, hav
en’t they?’

  ‘Maybe. But why you?’

  Charles stands, his chair grating sharply on the quarry tiles. He’s not sure exactly why; perhaps in subconscious answer to his own question; perhaps because he feels as if he’s made a decision.

  ‘I don’t know. Because, as ill luck would have it, I’ve joined the dots before anyone else? Because I have some idea of what he must be going through, with the whole world against him? Maybe … I don’t know … maybe just because it’s the right thing to do.’

  Farrow stares up at his friend, and then nods slowly. ‘You’re a remarkable chap, you know that, Charles? And one of these days it’s going to get you killed.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Thursday, 23 July

  Charles steps out onto Fetter Lane wearing sweatpants and a sports vest. It’s late and the street is empty. His head is clearer now he’s formulated a plan, but a late run will help him sleep. It’s also good cover for his rendezvous.

  Traffic noise can be heard faintly to the west, where late theatre and opera-goers are still hailing taxis and business will be picking up for the toms as the kerb-crawlers emerge. The evening air feels thick with humidity and unnaturally still. Charles looks up at the narrow rectangle of sky between the buildings. Purple thunder clouds are gathering above him.

  He can’t see the member of the surveillance team outside his flat but has the strong sensation that he’s still being observed. He’s used to being followed. For almost two years it’s been either the police or members of the Firm, sometimes both at the same time. He’s become adept at avoiding them; at times it’s almost become a game.