Theodore du Norde remained elusive and over the next couple of days, with extensive house-to-house enquiries ongoing, Harmsworth concentrated on trying to trace Jason Giddings’s final movements. Then, on the Tuesday of that week DS Erin Melrose tracked down the taxi driver who had picked up the MP at the nearest tube station. He had dropped Giddings off at a pub, the Green Man, which was about five minutes walk from the park, at around five forty-five. Giddings had been alone, his demeanour ‘normal’; he had not appeared to be in any kind of stressed state nor in his manner hinted at any concerns.
In the very early hours of the following Wednesday morning a car went through temporary barriers on a road bridge over the M25 near Woodhill, crashing on to the motorway beneath. It was the site of a similar accident two days previously involving an articulated lorry, when several people had been killed in the resulting pile-up. This time, probably owing to the time of night, no other vehicles were passing beneath at the time, though several drivers had to take avoiding action. The emergency services were at the scene almost immediately.
DCI Harmsworth had died instantly.
One
I wrote that brief reconstruction of the last few days of Derek Harmsworth’s life quite a while afterwards from several sources: personal experience, accounts given to me by colleagues, his wife and from things he had jotted down in his own notebook and in the case file. I also used my imagination, for I am a writer by trade. I use my maiden name – Ingrid Langley – but normally stick to fiction, and this was anything but that. Neither I nor Patrick, my husband, would have been involved at all but for other occurrences in connection with the Jason Giddings murder inquiry.
Patrick had resigned his army commission some months previously then been ‘volunteered’ for a pilot scheme allowing one-time officers in the services and similar professionals to join the police at fairly senior level. During a probationary period he had tackled the assignment he had been given with his usual aplomb, meaning that he broke most of the rules, and those in charge had become exceedingly nervous. But he had finally been offered a job, as an investigator in a section that was, to quote Commander John Brinkley, ‘a sort of a branch of a branch’. Patrick, late of D12, a fairly high-flown department in MI5, had surmised that this was the equivalent of a twig, had taken a dislike to Brinkley and co.’s somewhat devious methods – they had deliberately been obstructive to see how he would react, thereby risking the outcome of the case – and none too politely declined.
Matters had not stopped there, however, and shortly afterwards a letter had arrived from the Home Office asking if Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Gillard would consider being an ‘independent advisor’ for the newly formed Serious and Organized Crime Agency on a contract basis. His pay grade would be that of superintendent even though all SOCA personnel working directly with the police are nominally constables. If his wife wished – I had been his working partner in the MI5 days – she could act as a ‘consultant’. Not surprisingly, Patrick had written straight back asking for more information.
The reply was not exactly enlightening, emphasizing that Patrick’s MI5 experience was what was needed and quoting a statement by the PM when he had said ‘We will have to do things differently’ owing to the level of brutality used by organized crime and ‘The law has been too weak in recent times and the criminal too strong.’
‘But there still have to be official ground rules,’ Patrick commented, rereading the letter. He grimaced. ‘Shall I go for it? Four young mouths to feed and all that.’
We have two children of our own, Justin and Victoria, and adopted Patrick’s brother Larry’s two, Matthew and Katie, when he was killed a couple of years ago.
I said, ‘It mustn’t be just thought of from that point of view. What do you want to do?’ What did he now want from life? come to think of it; but perhaps this was not the right time for an in-depth discussion on the subject.
‘I’m not sure really. It sounds interesting though. And I can’t just stay at home and be your toy boy’ – this with a mad grin; he’s three years older than me.
‘Go and ask George,’ I suggested. George is Patrick’s horse.
So Patrick went for a ride on George up on Dartmoor and when he returned wrote to accept the job, provided what he referred to as ‘certain conditions’ were met. The distaff side of the family, having done some thinking of her own, agreed to assist as well. Surely, I thought, two heads were always better than one. The letter posted, we were not to know that within a couple of weeks we would receive a phone call and be on the job.
We were not called in because DCI Derek Harmsworth’s mutilated body had high levels of alcohol in it, nor even because his colleague DI John Gray was adamant that Harmsworth hardly ever drank when working on a case, and at other times only in moderation. Nor was it because Gray was making rather a nuisance of himself, raging at anyone who would listen to him that what had happened to Harmsworth was not an accident and there ought to be another PM. Then, somehow, the local press got to hear of his misgivings, which were duly plastered all over the front pages and the DI was carpeted.
No, we were called in because Gray was then murdered, at home, knifed in similar fashion to Jason Giddings.
There was no question, however, of loss of nerve among Harmsworth’s colleagues even though we found out later that the DCI’s sergeant, Paul Boles, had gone on long-term sick leave having suffered some kind of ‘breakdown’. I had an idea that an outsider’s presence would be resented, even a rookie member of SOCA, and Patrick would have a difficult job on his hands. First, though, he would have to be fully briefed by SOCA officers on the workings of the new organization and, on the morning following the phone call, duly caught the train to London.
I did not hear anything from him for a couple of days and reasoned that there was no need to bother him. Then, very early on the third morning, the phone rang.
‘I’m starting work for real in an hour or so,’ he began. ‘It would appear that someone put a word in for me, saying I was indispensable – heaven knows who – plus what another bod described as “your ability to get the opposition shit-scared”. Someone’s insisting I use my old army rank and I shall be permitted to carry a weapon on assignments if I think it necessary.’
‘But you’re not under the same kind of carte blanche status as in the old days surely.’ I was hoping that this did not mean he was going to be given the most dangerous jobs.
‘No, but no one’s actually saying a lot with regard to that.’
‘Patrick, I really feel you ought to establish exactly what’s what before you begin this,’ I argued.
He chuckled. ‘I’ve always enjoyed surprises. Do you still want in?’
I thought his reply typical of a man and highly unsatisfactory, but said, ‘Having agreed to do so, have I a choice?’
‘Yes, you do. I insisted that the family and your writing come first. You can just be on the end of a phone and ready to help me with ideas if you want to.’
Perhaps I was getting more cautious as I got older. ‘What would you want me to do right now should I decide to saddle up?’ I enquired.
‘Undertake, or rather pretend, to research for a new novel set in Essex. Snoop a little on the Giddings widow and see what you can find out about her and the family. I’ll fix you up with the address, which is in the poshest part of posh Woodhill. You could hang around in the locality where Giddings was murdered – that’s in fairly neck-end Woodhill – and get the feel of the place.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘I don’t know yet so I can’t tell you. I’d prefer it not to be known at the nick that you’re with me – not yet anyway. If you see me we don’t know one another unless I give you a kiss. Look, I must go. Give my love to the gang.’
‘I really could do with more information before I do anything.’
‘I know. I’ll meet up with you somehow, or give you a ring. Keep your mobile switched on.’
He rang off before I could say any more.<
br />
‘Expenses?’ I said out loud. ‘Train tickets? Conditions of employment? Or am I just on Patrick’s expense account under sundries like petrol, dry cleaning and stationery?’
I did a swift mental recce around my writing plans. I had just completed reworking the screenplay for a novel I had written some years previously, A Man Called Celeste, and sent it off to the States. I actually had no concrete ideas for what I was going to do next, other than that it would be a crime novel set in Devon with echoes of Holmes, Dartmoor and all things dark, wild and bog-ridden. But, hey, Woodhill was probably a wild sort of place in its own way and wasn’t there a thundering great forest right on the doorstep?
A few minutes later the phone rang again.
‘I’ve just had a call on my mobile from our Richard,’ Patrick said, as though there had been no break in our conversation.
Colonel Richard Daws had been our boss in MI5 days. ‘He’s found out about your new venture?’ I hazarded.
‘It’s better than that. He’s one of those with his hands on the reins at SOCA – on the intelligence side of things. It was he who wanted me in. I should have guessed he’d be involved in a set-up like this.’
‘I thought he’d retired.’
‘I expect growing roses and writing letters to The Times gets tedious after a while. And, as you know, SOCA did recruit a lot of senior service people due for retirement to get the structure right.’
I also knew that this new agency was essentially an amalgamation of four others: the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the investigations divisions of HM Customs and the Immigration Service.
‘So you’ll be working for Daws?’
‘Indirectly and as long, as he put it, “as everything works out satisfactorily”. Presumably that means as long as I still have balls in the right places. It was he who insisted I call myself Lieutenant-Colonel – as he put it, “or some jack-in-office might treat you like one of the cleaners”.’
‘We didn’t arrange a place where we could bump into one another.’
‘There’s a pub near the park where Giddings was murdered called the Green Man. I’ll be in there between eight and nine for the next few evenings.’
‘I probably won’t be there tomorrow.’
‘OK.’
‘How d’you want me to be?’
‘Yourself, for the present.’
Good. I did not want to be bothered with assuming a disguise if I was to undertake research, genuinely or not, for a new novel. This was not to say that I would necessarily have to refrain from using a change of appearance at all, as Patrick had intimated. It is amazing the transformation a temporary colour-rinse and change of hairstyle, different make-up and weird and wonderful clothes can make, the latter often freely available in charity shops. With this in mind I planned to travel light.
When, after a pause, the door of my friend Maggie’s flat opened and the most beautiful man I had ever clapped eyes on in my life gazed at me sleepily, I thought I had come to the wrong address.
‘You’re Ingrid,’ he said with a smile that turned my knees to jelly.
I prayed that I had gawped neither at him nor at his deep-violet-coloured pyjamas.
‘Maggie told me you were coming,’ he went on, opening the door wide. ‘She’s out right now, seeing a client, but told me to wait on you hand and foot until she comes back. I’m Julian, by the way, the lodger.’
I endeavoured to slay any suspicion of another arrangement he and my old friend might have, telling myself sternly that Maggie was in her early fifties. Sadly, I failed. Unless this gorgeous mortal before me was gay.
As I already knew, her homes always reflected Maggie’s chosen career – that of interior designer – although I was also aware that she never invited her clients to where she lived, at least not since she had had a bad experience with a slightly dodgy character who had tried to steal a small but valuable item when her back was turned.
I went in. My friend had only lived in this particular apartment for a few months and had certainly had the place redecorated: the smell of paint still lingered. I do not have time to pore over home and garden magazines, but here, surely, were the latest trends imbued with her personal taste. In the living room were the ‘signature’ silk-covered and hand-embroidered cushions and lampshades as well as the woven wall hangings and antique furniture that I recognized, remembering that she had inherited them from an aunt.
Julian had taken my travel bag from me without my noticing and was bearing it away, presumably in the direction of the spare bedroom. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ he asked over his shoulder. ‘Or are you one of those writers who like whisky at any time of day?’ – this with the kind of grin that told me two things; well, one really: he wasn’t gay and was flirting with me for his own amusement.
‘Coffee, please,’ I answered, adding, ‘I hope I didn’t get you out of bed.’
‘You did, but I’m glad. I hadn’t meant to sleep in. Rehearsals at noon.’
‘You’re involved with the theatre?’
‘Dance. I’m with the Royal Ballet.’
Maggie had been saying for a while, during our periodic telephone conversations, that I must come and stay with her and see the new flat. She lived quite a way from what was to be my zone of operations, in West Hampstead, but I did not intend to inflict myself on her for very long nor return to her home every night, and would be out for most of the day.
‘I understand you’re in London to research a book,’ Julian said over coffee. He had changed, ready to go out, into black jeans and black roll-neck cotton top and looked good enough to eat. ‘What’s it about?’
‘Murder.’
‘Don’t tell Maggie – that kind of thing makes her nervous.’
It suddenly occurred to me that if our activities stirred up trouble right from the start – in other words, if Patrick and I stirred up a nest of criminal hornets – I would have to be very, very careful that I was not followed back here.
The next morning, with a slight hangover, Maggie and I having drunk far too much wine as we had yarned into the small hours, I set off for Woodhill, using the tube. This mode of travel did nothing to improve my headache and it was a decidedly grumpy novelist who arrived and headed straight into a chemist’s for some kind of cure and then into Starbucks for something with which to wash it down. Part of my irritation was caused by the realization that I had behaved stupidly in not staying clear-headed, and it was unfair to blame Maggie even though she does have a bad effect on me. A general ‘What the hell?’ attitude seems to rule her life. Without it I think she would be far more successful in what she does.
No more wine and late nights, then.
And no, I was none the wiser about the true status of the delectable Julian.
Slightly restored, I found the public library and read everything I could lay my hands on in back numbers of the local papers about the Giddings murder, DCI Derek Harmsworth’s death, DI John Gray’s misgivings about it, and then his own violent end in his own home the previous week. I made detailed notes, which took me around one and a half hours. Though I was aware that Patrick would eventually brief me with details that would not reach the press, it was at least useful to have a framework upon which to make a start.
Even knowing as little as I did, it seemed odd that Harmsworth’s car had gone through the parapet of a bridge over a motorway in exactly the same spot as had a heavy goods vehicle two days previously. The damaged and missing railings had been temporarily replaced by orange tape and plastic netting by the Highways Agency. Locals, according to the letters in the papers, thought the place an accident black spot – something to do with a bend in the road just before the bridge. I decided to bring the car the next day and have a look for myself.
One had also to take into consideration that, according to Gray, Harmsworth had not been an excessive drinker – in fact had been known to hardly touch alcohol at all while working on a case. He had been a very careful driver. Another point w
as that he had been due to retire soon and although Gray had known his chief had been looking forward to this he had made no plans with regard to what he would do with the rest of his life. This had bothered him slightly but not depressed him. Questioned further, the DI had said he was convinced that Harmsworth really was looking forward to leaving the job and not pretending. Besides which, he had always had a very dim view of people who took their own lives.
I decided that I wanted to leave the police to investigate the murders and try to find out what had happened to Harmsworth, as that matter now appeared to be regarded as closed. Someone from officialdom, preferably someone with clout – Patrick, for example – could grill Honor Giddings and lurk near the park where her husband had died. Bitchily, perhaps, I had already cast her in the shape of a differently named lookalike – tall, thin-lipped, haughty, violent even, as she had assaulted a press photographer who had come too close – as the number one crone in my new novel.
Even more bitchily, as a stinking red herring.
The Green Man was situated at a crossroads at the western, Woodhill end of Epping Forest (the entire area being far greener than I had imagined it would be) and I had an idea it was one of those very old hostelries that had recently been modernized out of all recognition. The children’s play area had one of those plastic trees that my two boys sneered at as pathetic – even Justin, who once had to be rescued by the Fire Brigade from a real one, bigger, at the age of three. This and the brightly coloured swings were bereft of little ones, though, as it was term time.
It seemed a good idea to have a look at the place, besides which it was lunch time. Julian had still been in bed and Maggie had disappeared while I was in the shower and her hospitality had not run to breakfast. I had had a tentative rummage in the kitchen, found lots of things like fresh anchovies, fillet steak, wildly expensive olive oil and kumquats, but no bread or cereal.
For some reason I could not get Derek Harmsworth out of my mind, possibly because of Gray’s obvious loyalty and high regard for him. ‘One of the old school,’ the DI had said. ‘As honest as the day is long. Right on the line,’ clichés that somehow made the homespun integrity of both men more poignant and their deaths pure tragedy. I found myself wondering if investigating them would answer quite a lot of other questions. Gray had been killed in the same ghastly way as Giddings, but was this a copycat killing by someone hoping to draw suspicion away from themselves?
Cobweb Page 2