by Graham Ison
Morton looked searchingly at Tipper. ‘Look, guv’nor, I’ve got a living to make here. If I blow the whistle on the punters they’re going to go some other place, and then I’ll be out on my neck, and what’s more it’ll get known on the circuit, and I’d never get another job.’
‘That might just happen anyway,’ said Tipper threateningly.
Morton’s anxiety manifested itself in a gentle wringing of the hands. ‘I’ll do what I can to find out,’ he said reluctantly.
‘Good,’ said Tipper. ‘I’ll wait.’
‘Jacob — Richard Jacob.’
Tipper nodded. ‘Just jot down the address for me, will you?’ He pushed a note-pad across the desk. Morton only hesitated briefly before getting out his pen.
‘This don’t have to go no further, does it, guv?’
Tipper stood up and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, and placing the palms of his hands flat on Morton’s desk leaned towards him. ‘And if Mr Jacob discovers that we’re interested in him before we tell him, there can only have been one bloke who told him.’
Morton placed his right hand on his chest approximately where he believed his heart to be. ‘Stand on me, guv.’
‘I might just do that,’ said Tipper menacingly.
*
It was no surprise to Tipper that Jacob was an importer and exporter, a term which, to his sceptical mind, covered a variety of nefarious activities.
Tipper reflected, as they were shown into Jacob’s elegant office, that the enquiry into Penelope Lambert’s untimely death was getting just a little monotonous. The murder of a Foreign Office secretary, and its investigation, was revealing at every turn, a secret life that left, at the end of each interview, further questions unanswered. There were times when he felt that for every step forward he was taking two back.
And each interview seemed to start in exactly the same way. ‘Can you tell me when you last saw this girl, Mr Jacob?’ The same photograph was slid across the desk.
Jacob picked it up and stared at it, his bottom lip slowly protruding as he thought about what he ought to say in order to leave himself as uninvolved as possible. He laid it down again, but continued to gaze at it. ‘How far does this information have to go, Chief Inspector?’
‘Mr Jacob,’ said Tipper, ‘I am not in the business of trading. I do not haggle for information. I have a variety of weapons in my armoury, like arrest warrants, search warrants, witness summonses — each of which has to be obtained in open court, and inevitably attract the attention of reporters who have little else to do but hang around the courts of this country waiting for the snippet that will keep them in good with their editors, to say nothing of the gossip columnist who might just buy them a drink.’ It wasn’t strictly true, of course; it was ages since Tipper had obtained a warrant of any sort in open court. He tended to see the magistrate in his private room, or even at home. But there was nothing to stop him. What he didn’t explain to Jacob was that to do so would, in most cases, be counterproductive to the enquiry. But it was good enough.
‘About three months ago.’ Jacob spoke in resigned tones, his shoulders visibly slumping. He looked very miserable.
‘Would you care to elaborate on that?’
Jacob glanced at Markham, sitting to one side and busily making notes, and sighed. ‘I’ve got a flat in town that I keep for entertaining …’
Tipper raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you?’
‘It’s not what you think,’ said Jacob.
‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’
The heavily-ringed fingers of Jacob’s podgy hands intertwined on his blotter. ‘I often have businessmen over from abroad, but discussing things is not always easy in a restaurant. I’ve got this flat — penthouse, it is — and I get one of these executive caterers, girls that have done the cordon bleu bit, and they come in and provide a meal for us, and afterwards we can get down to business. Talking prices and agreements — that sort of business,’ he added hurriedly.
‘And where does she fit in to all this?’ Tipper extended a finger towards the photograph which still lay on Jacob’s desk.
Jacob turned his hands over so that they lay now palms uppermost on the blotter. ‘Chief Inspector, you’re a man of the world.’
‘So people keep telling me,’ said Tipper. ‘And they say it in the hope that I’ll overlook some breach of the law.’
‘Some foreign businessmen expect more. It often makes the difference between clinching a deal and not. You see they’re used to that sort of thing abroad.’
‘What sort of thing?’ Tipper knew; he just wanted to hear it from Jacob.
‘A stripper.’
‘And that’s where this girl came in, is it?’
Jacob nodded. ‘She was quality stuff, not the sort of slag you can pick up anywhere round the village — you know, Soho. You’ve got to be a bit careful. You don’t want someone who’s going to come back at you and try and put the arm on you — you can do without that sort of aggravation.’
‘And how did you find her? She wasn’t a professional.’
‘That was partly the attraction. I had a quiet word with Pierre, the maître-d at Bellamys, to see whether he could do anything. He told me about this bird.’ He nodded at the photograph. ‘He fixed it all up. I went along to the club one evening, bought her a few drinks, fixed the price, and bingo. She didn’t come cheap, mind you, and gave me all the usual crap about not doing it as a living, and being selective — all that.’
‘So you engaged her?’
‘Yes — unfortunately.’
‘Oh! Not value for money?’
Jacob looked balefully at Tipper, trying to detect some trace of amusement behind the Chief Inspector’s bland expression. ‘A bloody disaster as it turned out. She practically wrecked the whole deal.’ He shook his head wearily as though the memory still troubled him. ‘She was good that girl, very good. And tasteful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so provocative; genteel and teasing.’
‘What went wrong then?’
‘One of my bloody guests did. She’d taken everything off and was gyrating round the room, just a fraction out of reach — you know the way they do, but one of the idiots reached out and touched her. In fact he tried to grab her. I’m not surprised, mind you, after her performance.’
‘And?’
‘She went absolutely crazy. There was nothing in it, of course — these continentals are used to being able to do that, but she obviously didn’t think so. She was like a wildcat, shouting and screaming at him. Then she grabbed him between the legs and squeezed — hard. Then it was his turn to scream …’
‘I should imagine so,’ murmured Tipper.
‘She was shouting by now, something about “And how do you like it when someone does it to you?” Well he was on the settee clutching himself and moaning, and she was about to go for him again, when I grabbed hold of her from behind and lifted her bodily away from this bloke. She cooled down a bit then, and I went round collecting up her clothes and apologising. Then I pushed her into the bedroom and told her to get dressed and get out.’
‘You paid her?’
He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Of course I paid her. She’s the sort of cow who’d have sued me in open court.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Tipper.
‘Ah, but you can never be sure — it’s not worth the risk. Actually, I gave her a bit more because she was going on about it not being in the contract — getting touched, I mean. I thought it might keep her quiet. Anyway, why are you asking all these questions?’
‘Because someone decided to keep her quiet permanently, Mr Jacob. Someone killed her.’
For a moment, Jacob sat stock-still at his desk, hands palm-down, his spatulate fingers spread. ‘That such a thing should happen! It must have been a man. She hated them.’
‘Why do you say that she hated men?’
‘You could tell. Her performance that night. I said it was good, and it was, but it was contemp
tuous — sneering almost.’
‘Aren’t most strippers like that?’ asked Tipper. ‘I don’t think they’ve a great deal of time for mere males.’
‘I know all about that,’ said Jacob, ‘but this girl, well there was definitely something more. A hatred.’
‘Like a lesbian hates men?’
Jacob nodded slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Exactly like that.’
‘Were there any Frenchmen at this select little party of yours, Mr Jacob?’
‘Frenchmen? Why on earth should you ask …?’
‘Because she was murdered in France.’
‘You don’t think —’
‘I’m not thinking anything — I’m enquiring. Now, any Frenchmen?’
He shook his head. ‘No, no Frenchmen.’
‘Would anyone who was there have been likely to see this girl again, afterwards? Could they have been at Bellamys some time after and recognised her?’
Jacob smirked. ‘I doubt it — they weren’t looking at her face.’ Neither Tipper nor Markham smiled, and Jacob looked immediately serious again. ‘Frankly, if they had seen her again I should think they would have run a mile — in four minutes. Anyway they all went back the next morning.’
‘All? How many?’
‘Three.’
‘And where did they go?’ Tipper began to feel as though he was extracting teeth — without gas.
‘Düsseldorf.’
‘And were they all Germans?’
‘Yes.’
‘Names?’
Jacob knew the question was coming, but hoped that it wouldn’t. He held up his hands. ‘Mr Tipper,’ he said pleadingly. ‘I’ve got a business — a reputation. What are you asking? Why do you want these names?’
‘Because I’m going to have them interviewed by the German police — that’s why.’
‘Please, Mr Tipper …’
Tipper looked round the opulent office. ‘Of course, we could get a search warrant, if you prefer, and interview all your clients until we get down to the right ones. Might take time, but we’ve got plenty of that.’
‘All right, all right.’Jacob stood up and walked across to the door. ‘Dora, get me the file on that order we did with Graz of Bonn.’
Jacob found the three names in the file and jotted them down on a piece of plain paper. ‘Please, Mr Tipper, be discreet, eh?’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Jacob. The German police are the soul of discretion.’ He handed the piece of paper to Markham. ‘Afterwards — after she had wrecked your little party — what happened then?’
‘She went home.’
‘She didn’t stay for a drink?’ Tipper asked with a smile on his face.
‘You must be joking. As soon as she was dressed, I put her in a cab.’
‘Where was home? Where did she go?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask and she didn’t say. It’s better that way.’
‘You must have heard what she said to the cabbie.’
‘She didn’t say anything. She got into the cab and went. She probably did it deliberately so I wouldn’t hear. Told the driver the address once they were on the move.’
It didn’t matter too much; Tipper knew where she was living then. ‘When did you see her again?’
‘Never. I didn’t see her again. Never wanted to.’
Tipper paused and then spoke as though struck by an original thought. ‘Did you take any photographs of her?’
‘Photographs — me? What would I want with photographs of her? No thank you — I just wanted to forget her. That woman was bad news, Mr Tipper, believe me.’
Tipper sighed. That was another ‘J’ who could have taken photographs but denied it; curiously he believed this one.
*
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been involved with an enquiry that came to so many dead ends,’ said Tipper.
The enquiries that the German police had made on behalf of the British police who were making enquiries on behalf of the French police had come to nothing. It was exactly as Jacob had said — well almost. The three German businessmen had been interviewed and had confirmed the account of Penny’s strip-tease performance. The only difference was that the man whom Jacob had said grabbed the girl denied having done so. He also denied that she had grabbed him and severely bruised his testicles in the process. But that didn’t surprise Tipper, and didn’t really make any difference to the enquiry overall. The German police, with typical Teutonic thoroughness, had verified the whereabouts of the three men for the weekend of Penelope’s death, and were able to say that all three had been in Germany. Finally they sent a set of fingerprints for each of the men they had interviewed.
‘That was good of them,’ said Markham.
‘Yes,’ said Tipper, and smiled as he thought of a macabre exhibit in the Black Museum downstairs. Some time ago Scotland Yard had asked the German police for a set of fingerprints from a dead body. They had sent the arms.
None of it added anything to the hunt for the Lambert girl’s killer. And Jacob’s fingerprints — Tipper didn’t bother to get a set from him; had known that they were already on record at Scotland Yard before they interviewed him — did not match any of those found in Penny’s flat. It was as if they were back at the beginning again. Which in a sense they were.
‘I’m bloody sure that blackmail’s got to be at the back of this somewhere, Charlie.’ He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Here we’ve got a girl employed at the Foreign Office of all places, who’s moonlighting as a stripper, a photographic model, and probably a bit of selective tomming as well. She’s bi-sexual, has got her hooks into a civil servant in the Department of Trade, and is secretary to some big-wig, what’s his name: Mallory, and finished up getting herself topped in Brittany. It stinks!’
‘It’s a familiar pattern, sir,’ said Markham. ‘A few naughty pictures of her and her fancy man of the moment in bed together, and then the screws go on.’
‘Exactly. But how the hell do we get at it. Mallory and Wallace would both be terrified of the publicity if it got out — and both would probably lose their jobs, and their wives probably; though in Wallace’s case, I shouldn’t think he’d be too sorry.’ Tipper reached for the phone and dialled the number of the fingerprint officer dealing with the Lambert case. ‘Sid, remember telling me that the half-print you found on the camera recovered from the ferry matched one of the sets on the letter of resignation? Have we got any further with that?’
He put the phone down. ‘Dammit!’ he said simply.
‘No joy?’ asked Markham.
‘No!’ Tipper sat in contemplation for some minutes. ‘The answer’s got to be there — in the Foreign Office somewhere, Charlie. If that print on the camera matches one of the sets on the letter, then someone from the FCO might just have put the luggage on the ferry. And that someone’s got some answering to do.’
‘And it’s not Penelope Lambert’s print?’
‘No it’s not — Sid’s quite adamant that her prints do not appear on the letter.’
‘I don’t understand that,’ said Markham. ‘How the hell can you write a letter of resignation and not get your prints on it. Unless she wore gloves.’
‘Why should she do that?’
‘Unless she was trying to set someone up?’
‘Don’t see it, Charlie. Christ, man, no one sits down at a typewriter with gloves on — and you don’t sign a letter with gloves on.’
‘So what do you deduce from that, sir?’
‘That she didn’t write the letter, Charlie.’
‘Where do we go from here, then?’
‘We pursue our enquiries, as they say. First of all, get alongside that bird who’s now doing Penelope’s job, what’s her name, Deidre, or something?’
‘Not bad, guv. It’s Kate McLaren.’
‘Yeah,’ said Tipper, ‘I knew it was something like that. Get hold of her — not literally, of course, and find out the procedure for resigning. What happens. Who the letter’s normally written to, who it’s
given to, and what departments it has to go through. That sort of thing. And anything else that might come in useful. Chat her up. That sort of thing. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ said Markham, not too displeased at having to take a girl out to dinner on expenses.
*
‘It seems,’ said Markham, ‘that a letter of resignation goes to the Establishments Department at the Foreign Office. It can go through the bloke you work for, or you can just tell him you’re doing it. The Establishments people pass it around — pensions — that sort of thing, just to check if she’s entitled to anything like a repayment of the contributions they don’t make in the first place,’ he said sarcastically. In common with all policemen, Markham resented having to contribute eleven per cent of his salary to buy a pension that everyone else got free.
‘In other words, we’re no further forward.’ Tipper thought for a moment or two. ‘If her fingerprints aren’t on the letter, it probably wasn’t written by her.’
‘She could have got a typist to do it for her,’ said Markham.
‘Christ, Charlie, she was a bloody typist — of course she would have done it herself.’
‘Supposing she didn’t. Just supposing she got another girl to knock it out for her and just signed it. She could have done that without getting her dabs on it.’
‘Give me a bit of paper — out of that cabinet there.’ Tipper pointed to a small cabinet of drawers containing all the stationery that detectives might need to get through a working day. ‘Now, put it in front of me, as though you were a typist bringing it in for signature, and see if I can sign it without getting my prints on it.’
Markham slid the sheet of A4 onto Tipper’s blotter and he signed it two-thirds of the way down, about where Penelope Lambert’s signature appeared on her letter.
‘There you are,’ said Markham. ‘All you’ll have got on there is the side of your hand, and there’s no trace of that.’ He held the side of his palm in front of Tipper’s face. ‘See, guv. It’s smooth beyond the palmprint — which we haven’t got anyway.’
‘There’s a lot of assumption gone into that, Charlie. I still can’t see that she would have let someone else type it, still less would she have let someone else hold it. Look. If I take it normally, there’d be prints on the edge where I took hold of it, and then there’d be almost a full set somewhere on the left-hand side where I’d held it firm while I signed.’ He demonstrated by putting a second signature on the sheet of paper.