The Perfect Crime

by Roger Forsdyke

  “He came back every so often and one day he asked me if he could give my number to friend of his. I was very, very reluctant at first, as you might imagine, but he told me that his friend was someone a lot like him, discreet – and very wealthy.”

  “So he came to you?”

  “Yes – and as well as coming here, every so often he takes me out. Dinner in the best hotels, little presents and the better the places we went, the more he would give me. I’ve even been on holiday with him. Last year, he gave me five hundred pounds for spending two weeks with him in the Bahamas.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Groat spluttered. “That’s as much as my compensatory grant.”

  She kissed him to shut him up.

  “All my gentlemen have come from that one chance contact. Have you any idea who he might be?”

  “Sounds like a bank manager or something.”

  “He was – and for all I know, still is – the Bishop of Brixton.”

  The effect on him of this revelation was not as dramatic as it could have been, because whilst she was speaking, she also kept up her rhythmic movement. Groat was away in his own ephemeral world of ecstasy, aware of little outside their embrace, the heavenly weight of her on him, the caress of her breasts, the warmth and scents of her body, his now rapidly ebbing climax.

  “Better?” She beamed sunshine at him.

  This time he mustered a brief, small smile in return.

  They lay side by side once more and she continued, “By now I was earning good money and it was regular enough for me to pack up the office work. I was taking at least twenty to thirty pounds a day – sometimes more – and I was able to stabilise my number of gentlemen at around twenty. Sometimes they stop coming for one reason or another, but usually another comes along to fill the gap.”

  Groat was performing rapid mental arithmetic. Twenty to thirty pounds a day – even if she only performed on weekdays – was £100 – £150 per week, which was a good £5,000 – £7,000 a year without the odd £500 bonus and, he thought ruefully, she did not have to pay income tax, national insurance, nor a hefty percentage towards superannuation like he did.

  Hell.

  Eventually he said, “Do you realise that because you don’t have to pay any deductions, you probably earn effectively over three times as much as I do?”

  She sounded suddenly business like, “Yes, but what do those deductions pay for?”

  “Not a lot.”

  She looked at him, a stern expression on her face. “Really.” It was not a question.

  He said, “Oh, all right. Sick pay, pension, that sort of thing.”

  “Precisely. And this is where my idea comes in. All right, I’m earning good money now, but I can’t keep on with this until I’m sixty, can I? If I get sick, I can’t earn and I won’t have enough to retire on, even if I do save as much as possible. And no pension.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “We. I can’t do it by myself.”

  Alarm bells started a muted but concerted clamour, “What are you on about?”

  “Well, all of my gentlemen are well off and I’m sure that they would want me to have a comfortable old age.”

  The alarm bells were gradually becoming louder. “I’m sure they would.” He said unhappily.

  “So if I asked them all for a contribution, say a thousand or two each…”

  The bells mustered for a crescendo, “Would they just give you that sort of money?”

  “I suppose some of them might need a bit of persuading…”

  Alarm cacophony. He swung his legs out of the bed and stood up, yelled at her. “Sweet Jesus, Olivia, that’s blackmail. Are you really proposing blackmail to me, a serving police officer? Are you fucking crazy? Anyway, what’s it got to do with me? Any more of this and I might end up having to arrest you.”

  “That’s an awful lot of questions, Lester.”

  He looked at her, surprised by her low, calm – dangerous – tone of voice. “Well?” he continued, unabashed, “Try answering some of them.”

  “All right. You were the one to call it blackmail. I would call it a state of mind. All I need is to show them how grateful I would be, if they were to help me. I wouldn’t ask any more than they could afford and in return I would treat them well. I want to go on living the rest of my life with all my creature comforts and surrounded by whoever I choose. In return I would offer them precisely the same. Quid pro quo. Now then, what came next? Oh yes. No, I am not fucking crazy. And what has it got to do with you? I need help, protection. Hopefully not of the physical kind, as I don’t suppose my gentlemen would stoop to physical violence – although you never know. Mainly I will need your inside knowledge. For a start, I have contact numbers, but it’s usually a work number and to do what I need to do effectively, I need addresses, home addresses, names of wives, kids, the family dog, details like that.”

  Groat’s eyes were starting from his head and the alarms had long since pealed their way frenetically off the high end of the intergalactic scale. “You’re mad. Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad. You’re mad if you think that it would work and even madder if you think I would have anything to do with it. I ought to turn you in right now.”

  “Lester. Lester.” She made calming gestures towards him. “Come on, come back to bed.” She tweaked the covers and patted the bed beside her, inviting him to return. Her action also exposed the upper part of her perfect body. She fondled her right breast suggestively.

  Drawn back to her by overwhelming sexual gravitation, he allowed her to kiss him softly, then with more determination. Open mouth now making love to his, she laid on her side next to him, one leg over and rubbed herself gently up and down against his thigh.

  She knew precisely what effect she had on him.

  She nuzzled into his neck. “I wanna tell you how it’s gonna be. You’re going give your love to me. I’m gonna love you night and day, ‘cos love is love and not fade away. Seriously though, I suppose some nasty person or someone in a position to make life uncomfortable for me might – might – call it blackmail. I need you to help me, guide me through it. Get me the information I need. Stop me making mistakes. If you must look at it in those terms and be so bloody melodramatic, you are going to help me commit the perfect crime.”

  Groat was starting to wriggle uncomfortably, in spite of her pressing herself against him, nibbling his ear, nuzzling him with her face, her mouth, her all.

  “Listen,” she commanded, “I’m determined and you ought to know how very determined I can be.” She drew away from him and propped herself up on one elbow again, making firm, unwavering eye contact. “We can do this in a very grown up, amicable, mutually beneficial way. You help me and I will be as good to you as you know I can be. You can have me, virtually any time and in any way you want. I mean,” she kissed him, felt him up, slowly caressing him, “your Gloria. Is she good with blow jobs? Would you want her to find out how much you like them? Or how many times we can make love in one session? And tell me, how open minded is the job where shagging on duty is concerned – especially with someone like me, a person in my situation?”

  *

  Dr H Milne – notes of interview.

  You were telling me about the kidnap plans.

  Yeah, well I used to take Readers Digest. In 1972 – I think it was the May edition – there was a story about the daughter of this wealthy American property owner. One night she was snatched at gunpoint from a motel in Georgia. She were buried in remote woodland, underground, in a box, with only some water and a pump supplying her air. They demanded a kidnap ransom of $500,000. There were cock-ups there, too, but eventually the ransom was paid and the girl was saved. The FBI put an electronic bugging device with the cash and the kidnappers were arrested attempting to escape by boat. So apart from making sure any money I got was not bugged, that whole set up sounded about right to me.

  Go on.

  Well, around that same time I read a story in the Daily Express about this bloke in Hig
hley in the West Midlands, he died leaving over £300,000. Right evil swine he were. He left his wife for his secretary and cut her off with barely a penny. He fathered two bastards by the secretary and when he died, left everything to them. I thought that they could spare £50,000 out of that lot and the mother would pay up like shot to get her son back – or vice versa.

  So how come you didn’t follow your plan?

  That’s a long story. Can we take a break?

  TWENTY FOUR

  Leslie Richardson was the postmaster of the sub post office at 22, Rochdale Road East, Heywood, Lancashire. In the early hours of Wednesday 16th February 1972, his wife, Irene was sleeping only fitfully and gradually became aware of a scraping noise downstairs. Some days earlier they had found a mouse running round the bedroom, so, gathering the bedclothes, she covered her head, leaving just sufficient space for her to breathe. Leslie, asleep beside her, did not stir and she dozed off, but roused again as the scraping noise became louder. Peeping out from under the blankets, she saw a black shape on the light coloured carpet near the bed and thinking it was a rat, or a cat that had sneaked indoors, she nudged her husband. With a sudden shock she realised the black silhouette was a man’s foot, standing silently by the bed. Until then, she thought no one could break in because most of the downstairs windows were screwed down. She switched on the bedside light and nearly died, for standing next to the bed, there was a small hooded figure, clad all in black.

  Switching on the light woke Leslie, who yelled, “Run.”

  This was their code for one of them to run into the back bedroom, where the extension phone was kept – and call the police. Leslie sprung out of bed and crashed into the little man, sending his torch spinning out of his grasp. As the struggle ensued Leslie felt a hard, long cylindrical shape pressed in between them.

  The man said, “This gun is loaded.”

  Leslie realised that the muzzle was pointed straight up and away from him. With great presence of mind, he managed to pull the triggers. A sooty hole was suddenly blasted in the ceiling and black, gritty debris doused the grappling pair. In the back bedroom, afraid to turn on the light, Irene was busy dialling 000 instead of 999, wondering why on earth she kept getting the ‘number unobtainable’ sound. Eventually she realised what she was doing wrong and dialled the correct digits. She was telling the police there was a man in their house who was trying to kill her husband, when she heard the crashing explosion as the sawn-off discharged. She ran out and with huge relief saw that Leslie was not dead, but very much alive, chasing the intruder across the landing. He attempted a flying kick at the man in black, but missed and bumped painfully downstairs, catching up with him in the living room. He continued in his attempts to subdue the attacker, but tumbling downstairs had winded him. He was not used to such punishment. His assailant now booted him unmercifully, kneed him in the stomach, head butted him and stamped on his bare feet.

  Exhausted, Leslie collapsed.

  Seconds later the police arrived, but the little man had disappeared into the darkness. Leslie was taken to hospital where he was treated for a broken toe, cracked and bruised ribs and a multitude of cuts and bruises. The couple were shocked, when later they found that the intruder had crept around the bedroom even before they woke up, as Leslie’s trousers were downstairs with the pockets turned out. They were even more concerned by the fact that Leslie had actually seen the man’s face. Somehow, during the tussle, the intruders hood had come off. The man had spoken with a West Indian accent. In front of him, then hoodless, stood a white man.

  TWENTY FIVE

  Groat decided – as if there was any choice – that he would play along with Olivia, at least for the time being. This willingness conferred one overriding advantage. He could continue with the comforting pretence that they were simply lovers – with all the bonuses that brought him. Although his head was desperately attempting to come to grips with the fact that he had clearly been manoeuvred into this situation, he was still so fanatically obsessed with her that he could not bear to imagine life without her somewhere in it.

  This obsession also dulled his awareness and his (admittedly limited) critical thinking ability. Blunted it to the point, that any realisation that she may have planned the seduction from the start, and her entire raison d’être was to gull him into assisting her with the blackmail project, was completely without his comprehension. If that had been suggested to him he would have immediately entered into total denial. The whole episode was very simple. He had fallen in love with her. She was in love with him. Any other thoughts or considerations must have come along later. How dare anyone suggest that this affair could be anything but genuine? There was far too much passion, too much intensity of feeling, for it to ever have been anything but the real McCoy.

  They sat opposite each other, at her kitchen table, coffee as yet untouched. Olivia held a small, black book in her hand. She had called this business meeting; Groat did not want to attend, but she was determined. And he knew what was entailed when she said she was determined.

  Eventually and with extreme reluctance, he said, “So how do you see this working?”

  Olivia looked at him and turned on her wonderful, radiant, gloom busting smile. “Darling, it’s easy. We decide in which order we take them and invite them to subscribe to my pension fund. We can assess their position, decide how much they can reasonably afford and that can be their contribution. They will know what the alternative would be, so there should be no need to make unseemly threats.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “So who is going to make this demand – sorry – ask for this contribution?”

  “I am. It’s my pension fund, it wouldn’t make any sense for anyone else to do it, would it?”

  “And you think your cosy relationships would jog happily along after your little bank raids?”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah.” Groat paused, then slowly shook his head. “You don’t want to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs, do you? You want them to keep coming, maintain your regular income as well.”

  “Hadn’t thought of it like that.”

  Stupid bitch.

  “No, well. Do any of them know about any of the others?”

  “The Bishop knows about his friend – and vice versa, I suppose. I wouldn’t think they all know about each other. Why?”

  “I was thinking that you could try it out on one, to see if you could persuade them that they were safe to keep coming to see you after that. On the other hand, if they are in touch with each other – as you said, they all come from that one initial contact with the Bishop – you might lose them all for the sake of a thousand or two. On balance, you might be better off hitting them all at once – or at least as soon as possible one after another, to minimise the possibility of them talking to each other. I suppose by the very nature of the subject they are not immediately going to call everybody and broadcast the fact they’re being blackmailed – and what for.”

  She smiled at him again, “I knew you would know what to do. I shall have to increase your percentage.”

  One thing was certain, Groat would never accept any of the dirty money. He regressed into his black mood and sighed. “It’s bad enough me sitting here talking to you about it. I’m committing a criminal offence simply by doing this.”

  “Why? We’re only talking.”

  “Degrees of crime,” he growled, “it’s all about aiding and abetting, counselling and procuring – and if the substantive offence is then committed, I could be tried as a principal.”

  “Meaning what, precisely?”

  “Meaning that if you do carry any of this through, I can go to prison just for sitting here, talking to you about it.”

  The black book lay between them on the table, Olivia put down her mug of coffee. “Nobody,” she said with determination, “is going to prison.”

  The phone in the hallway started to ring. As she left the room Groat was aware of, but paid no attention �
�� as he would normally have delighted in – her perfume, looking at her legs, her clothes, watching the way she walked. He stared blankly into nothingness in front of him. He could hear her voice, but could not make out what she was saying. Did not try. Gradually, the black blur in front of his eyes pulled into focus. He hesitated, then reached out, picked it up and riffled through the pages. It was the first time he had seen her handwriting. Rounded, characterful, grown up schoolgirl’s script. Names, numbers. Some crossings out, the odd date here and there. He searched, could not see anything about himself, then stopped in amazement. One name struck him as though he had carelessly opened a bottle of bubbly and the cork had thwacked him straight in the eye.

  Hugo Van Lesseps.

  How many of those were there to the pound? How many entries would you find of that name in the telephone book?

  I bet there’s only the one – and I bet I know who that one is.

  “Well, bugger me.” He said and carefully replaced the small black source of potential misery on the table.

  Olivia sashayed back into the room and sat down. “Where were we?”

  Groat sighed, “All right – how are you going to deliver your demand? Er, that is, make your request?”

  “Just ask them.”

  “What, ‘Excuse me but have you got a thousand pounds about your person’? That sort of approach?” In spite of his peculiar, dark mood, he smiled to himself.

  “Sort of. What’s funny?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing really. It’s the old definition of indecent exposure. ‘Wilfully, openly, lewdly and obscenely exposes his person…’” He recited. “Person means penis, that’s all. I suppose you wouldn’t have to ask if there was a thousand pounds about his old man, it’s something you might notice. So. When are you going to pop the question? In bed, in a moment of passion, or on the phone?”

  She looked at him sharply. “I don’t know.” Petulant. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”