The Perfect Crime

by Roger Forsdyke

  For his own sanity and self-preservation he could only take one stumbling pace forward at a time. Concentrate on where he was and how he might extricate himself.

  Eventually.

  Maybe.

  Right now it did not seem possible that he could he get out with any part of his job, marriage, mind or soul unscathed.

  But, black as his situation appeared, it was about to get worse.

  Far, far worse.

  He had not contacted Olivia for days. He knew that if he saw her, his whole being would dissolve and he would forget the mess, wanting only to immerse himself in the here and now. The heady sensation of being close to her. He could not trust himself even to speak to her. Would he vilify her for getting him into this situation, or pour out his love and soul, throw himself at her feet, beg her to go away with him and look after him – only him – and rescue them from this horrendous situation. Would he coo sweet words of love and conciliation to her, or embark on some crazed Hitler like rant and scream at her for being a Jezebel, Delilah, Messalina. Probably everything and all at the same time. What a stinking, shit infested can of worms.

  The phone rang. “CID. D/I Groat.” His voice flat, his tone dejected.

  “Hallo – Lester?”

  If anyone ever suggested to him that his heart could sink into his gut with the pain of dread, sick, leaden apprehension and fly like a bird released at precisely the same moment, he would have dismissed it without thought. Preposterous. Impossible.

  But it did.

  She said, “I’ve missed you.”

  He told her that it was inappropriate for their relationship to continue. He informed her that given their respective occupations she should have known, must have known that getting together in the first place – at least for him – was a complete non-starter.

  He should have.

  Why was he not able to summon the wherewithal, the concise, eloquent language to put it clearly and calmly, but forcefully to her, so she would be left in absolutely no doubt about what she had done? Why had she not given him some warning? Some inkling of her métier, before he immersed himself so totally, into this total, unremitting mess. After all, she knew he was a police officer and was in possession of that knowledge from before the time she invited him into her home, her body, her life. How was he to have known anything about her? Why was he not given at least a fighting chance?

  He said, “I’ve missed you too.”

  “We need to talk. Do you want to come round?”

  Of course I do. More than anything else in the whole world. “Better not.”

  “Just talk – clear the air a bit.”

  Just talk. Who are you kidding? “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Us – the future.”

  What us? What future? “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on. We can talk about it over a coffee. You can’t just leave it like this. Surely I mean more than that to you?”

  He wasn’t torn in a mere two or three ways in making the decision, he was shredded. He knew he shouldn’t, but wanted more than anything to see her, be with her, touch her. Feel the warm glow, once again be the one and only, receive the special treatment. If Gloria discovered his dreadful secret, she would tear him apart, physically and financially.

  No doubt, whatsoever.

  If the job found out, he might as well say goodbye to the CID, let alone his pips. How could they trust someone with such a monumental lack of judgement and savoir faire to be a senior officer? And if he lost his job? Even in his extremis he thought of the old joke about the couple divorcing on the grounds of incompatibility. One fact in his life, along with the clichéd death and taxes was the certainty that if he lost his income, Gloria would lose her palatability – what little she did possess.

  He drove in silence, his instinct to have a constant musical sound track to his life subjugated. He did not want the company of an over cheerful DJ and was not in the mood even for his own choice of music, unless it was Leonard Cohen. Chelsea Hotel, maybe.

  ‘I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel

  You were talking so brave and so sweet

  Giving me head on the unmade bed

  While the limousines wait in the street…

  You told me again you preferred handsome men

  But for me you would make an exception…’

  He thought about himself and Olivia. Wished desperately that he could turn back time, that he’d never met her, or had his eyes open from the word go. Why could he not have slipped her a quick one and thus avoided being so comprehensively seduced, mind, body and soul. That’s what she’d done, she had seduced his soul and he was certain it wasn’t only because she was so amazingly proficient in bed, either. Again, why couldn’t he simply have had a quick fling and not fallen for her?

  Stupid, stupid bastard.

  Even as it happened, small doubts niggled at him. Nothing concrete enough ever to articulate, but sufficient for him to think that she had done this before. Not that there was anything wrong with that, as far as she was concerned. He was the one who was married. She wasn’t – but before! How many before him? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? He momentarily closed his eyes. No wonder she was so expert, so effortlessly competent.

  She opened the door and smiled shyly at him. “Oh, come on,” she entreated, “don’t look so glum.”

  He shrugged in reply. Regarded her candidly. Did not smile.

  “Well now you’re here, at least come in and I’ll make us a cup of coffee.”

  He followed her into her living room. Sat on the settee where they first made love. She brought in the coffee.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She looked down. “I thought it would put you off. I’d always planned to.”

  “Like when?”

  “Like when I did. How was I to know you would take off like that?”

  “What did you expect me to do?”

  “I thought, well, I suppose I hoped that it wouldn’t make so much difference once you’d got to know me.”

  Groat recalled some of the prostitutes he had dealt with over the years. From the terrifyingly promiscuous, grubby young waif who looked like she could do with a bath, a few square, hot meals and a good night’s sleep. He hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry when she offered him a hand job as an incentive to let her go. Most toms of his experience were in their late teens, twenties and early thirties. By that age many of them had made a bit of money, could not face life on the streets any more, got hitched or simply retired. They came in all shapes, sizes and skin colour and although back in the sixties most were female, nowadays there were a growing number of boys taking to the streets, as well. At the other end of the scale he knew of ladies still working into their fifties and, if the rumour was to be believed, there was one game old girl still turning tricks past her seventieth birthday. Others, he considered, were so stinking, filthy and unattractive that they gave ugly old bags a bad name. They needed fumigation, a good scrubbing and hosing down with disinfectant – and how anyone could allow them within shouting distance, let alone in the same room and expose their delicate parts in their close proximity… He shuddered expressively.

  And then there was Olivia.

  Elegant, sophisticated, gorgeous Olivia. The last word ever to come into your mind looking at her, listening to her, being in her company, would be one of them. He still could not bear to put the two words anywhere near each other.

  Olivia.

  Cocktail party hostess, maybe. Socialite, certainly. Glamorous woman about town, definitely. Business woman. Professional person, young doctor, top model, solicitor, even.

  Prostitute.

  Merely saying the word sounded like spitting.

  He shook his head.

  “I want to give it up.”

  He looked up at her, grasping at sudden hope.

  “But I can’t afford to, not yet.” She offered a small, wistful smile.

  He felt as though he had been kicked in the gr
oin.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you about my idea.”

  He shrugged miserably. Once again, he wished desperately to turn back the clock. To be whisked off somewhere, anywhere, anything to escape this predicament. Had no idea what she was talking about. Didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to do anything at that juncture, least of all think. Thinking hurt; wrenched his gut.

  She smiled at him, making her best effort to appear positive. “Why don’t we… you know…” She raised her eyebrows, “Make you feel better.”

  “Not in the mood.”

  “Soon sort that out.”

  Eventually, predictably, he allowed himself to be persuaded.

  They lay side by side. He stared up at the ceiling. She held his hand, cuddled him for a while, saying nothing. After a while she propped herself up on one elbow, leant across and smiled down at him. Kissed him long and soft, then, judging it was time, progressed her plan. Her breasts now pressing against his chest, she moved slowly, kissing him again and again.

  “Now that I’ve got your attention,” she said, “I think it’s time I told you all about me – and my idea.”

  TWENTY TWO

  BBC News item, Friday 4th February 1972.

  ‘At 5:30 a.m. this morning, the postmaster of the Nottingham Road Post Office, Spondon in Derbyshire, discovered that during the night, the premises had been broken into and the safe raided. The thief had found the keys and, without waking the occupants, made off with cash and property valued at nearly two and a half thousand pounds. A police spokesman said that this was the latest in a series of similar crimes sweeping across five or six police areas in the country.’

  *

  Gloria answered the phone. “Good morning; Worldwide travel agents.”

  At first the caller sounded Scots, then the voice transmuted into South African, or was it a Norfolk burr? It was a nightmare, like those poor souls she had seen on the TV, evacuated from the island of Tristan da Cunha hours before the volcano erupted in 1961. Virtually untouched by modern civilisation, their accent was probably as it was in England two or three hundred years ago, and nothing like any now to be heard.

  “Are you wanting to book a holiday, or just a flight?”

  “I do not want anything from you, madam, but your attention.” The voice now took on something of the Irish, with touches of the sing song lilt of Welsh, or Chinese.

  Gloria frowned, concentrated on understanding. Get rid of him as soon as possible. “What do you mean?”

  “I represent Spanish Overseas Properties, a subsidiary of BOAC. We are contacting travel agents to find out if you would be willing to carry some of our brochures advertising our property developments in Spain.”

  That was it, he was foreign. That was all right then.

  “Why would we want to do that?” Gloria managed a travel agents, not an estate agents, her work cut out with ensuring the smooth running of that business, organising her staff – as well as her own discounted holidays – without some stupid idea of people wanting to buy houses in Spain. Many people could not even afford to buy houses in England, with inflation running in double figures as it had for several years now, house prices doubling, gazumping rife.

  “It has vast potential.” The man said, now sounding like Michael Bates’ Asian character Rangi Ram, in the new BBC comedy series her husband liked so much, ‘It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum’.

  “Like what?”

  “Like people being offered cheap flights to go and see the properties and getting the cost refunded when they buy. BOAC get the extra flights and you get the commission on them.”

  Gloria sighed, “Why on earth would anybody want to go all that way to buy a house in Spain?”

  The salesman pressed on, “We’re not only talking houses with swimming pools, we’re talking flats, apartments, condominiums. Tell me, what’s your average semi cost in England today?”

  Gloria dragged herself slowly into focus. Their first house in Leytonstone back in the sixties cost them less than £2000. They’d sold that over a year ago for ten times that and bought their rather superior semi in Loughton for £25,000. Nationally, certainly outside London, prices were not so astronomical.

  “I don’t know. Ten, fifteen thousand? More in London, but I’ve heard you can still get older properties for a lot less in the sticks.”

  “Yes, but a brand new four bedroomed detached villa with extensive grounds and a swimming pool… for the equivalent of two and a half thousand pounds? A luxury apartment for under fifteen hundred? That’s what we’re talking here and anyone who gets in quick will be bound to make a killing.”

  He slipped her the crippler, “Some investors have seen a tenfold rise in the value of their properties once the development has been completed. But people will have to get in quick. They’ll be beating a path to your door once the advertising campaign gets underway on the telly.”

  He blathered on about what a good way of increasing the turnover of the agency it would be and how they would easily exceed their targets, if they agreed to be one of the lucky sites to accept the supply of brochures and the attractive display stand. She ignored the twinge that the voice gave her every so often; she was distracted, it was of no importance. She was in Spain, living in sunlit luxury in a large detached property, with a swimming pool and grounds stretching away as far as she could imagine. All owned by her and her husband, their already handsome joint income boosted miraculously by the rents from their block of apartments.

  No more two week vacations, they could stay there as long as they wanted and when they didn’t need the place, it could provide them with yet more money. From somewhere far away, she heard herself say, “Yes, all right. I suppose we could let you have a small space, somewhere in the shop.”

  *

  Dr H Milne – Notes of interview.

  You were saying that the plan had to change, or you were going to move on to ‘Plan B’?

  Well, it had to really.

  So what did you do?

  At first, all I knew was that I needed a big hit, a really big haul, but I had no clues as to how to go about it. Didn’t even know what ‘it’ might be. I told you, bank robberies and that sort of caper were out of the question, so what was I going to do?

  Go on.

  Well, like I had a lucky break with screwing that first post office – the one I thought was a house – I had another piece of luck. I read a book called ‘Murder in the Fourth Estate.’

  The Muriel McKay kidnap.

  That’s the one. What a carve up. The police couldn’t have made more mistakes if they had wanted to. Mind you, the Hosein brothers kidnapped wrong person in the first place – they thought they were kidnapping Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Anna. But the investigation was one horrendous cock up from start to finish. They never found her, you know. Reckon they chopped her up and fed the bits to the pigs.

  So what did you get from this?

  I decided to kidnap someone, didn’t I.

  Go on.

  Well, one of my principles has always been to learn from mistakes I might have made and also from what the police do, so I read the book from cover to cover to learn as much as I could. All I had to then was find someone with enough money and plan the whole job. God, that was good. A proper project again, using all my skills, abilities and experience. A real campaign, along strategic military lines. What a buzz. Felt really good about it.

  TWENTY THREE

  Groat was sure he did not want to know any more about Olivia. He knew quite enough – more than enough already. Certainly didn’t want to pile on more details to add to his misery at that precise moment. Especially the part about her idea, which sounded dicey. He possessed an instinct that alerted him to dicey. Unfortunately, for some reason it didn’t seem to function when an attractive woman formed part of the equation.

  She told him that she lived in the flat with her mother until she died a few years previously. She’d worked as an admin assistant in the city. Unexciting, dead end. Work in an
office until sixty and retire to what? There’d been boyfriends, but no one special, or really serious. After her mum died, she’d been strapped for cash. The rent wasn’t too much of a problem, but the place was shabby and even when her parents originally furnished it, they were not been able to afford quality, and certainly nothing to her taste. She tried to think of a way to improve her lot, maybe even have a holiday, but couldn’t see that she would ever be able to afford it.

  One evening her doorbell rang. A smart, middle aged man dressed in a dark suit smiled at her as she opened the door.

  “Oh. Hallo, er, is this the right place?” He looked past her into the flat, an uncertain air about him.

  Olivia regarded him in an amused fashion. “It depends on what you mean right. Right for what?”

  “Is this where,” he hesitated, “where the girls are?”

  Often since, she had attempted to work out why she didn’t tell him to push off and shut the door. But she hadn’t. She could not explain why she said and did what she did.

  She said, “This girl’s here.” Then, as though from a great distance, she heard a voice that sounded like her, but surely must have been someone else. She knew that was stupid, though, because she was the only female there. The voice inexplicably said, “Would you like to come in?”

  Groat removed his face from where he was snuggling in the top of her cleavage. “You didn’t just…”

  “Sshhh.” She said and started moving a little faster to distract him. “Yes. Well, eventually. And when he had gone, I found twenty pounds left on the side.”

  “Jesus.” Groat’s voice was muffled. He very nearly added, “Twenty quid for one shag?”