Reckless Endangerment--A Brock and Poole Police Procedural

by Graham Ison

  ‘It’s not the one we found at the airport, then?’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Dave, ‘but we’re fairly sure she didn’t go back there, so that one’s probably still in her locker. Which is why she had to buy another one.’

  ‘I suppose she might’ve used the hotel phone from this room.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with the receptionist,’ said Dave. ‘She’ll be able to tell me. Guests get billed for calls. Usually quite heavily.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, recalling the commander’s horror when he’d discovered the cost of the calls we’d made to London while in Bermuda on an enquiry a few years ago.

  Dave and I returned to the ground floor to be met by Kate Ebdon.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Natalie Lester, the receptionist who was on duty at the desk yesterday afternoon and evening, guv.’ Kate indicated a smiling Eurasian girl who was dealing with a couple of casually-dressed middle-aged Americans. Half a dozen other people were vying impatiently for the girl’s attention. ‘She said that they were extremely busy during that time and she doesn’t recall anyone asking for the Gregory woman. She also said that a visitor could’ve asked any member of staff who happened to be helping out on reception. And she confirmed that no one was with Sharon when she checked in.’

  ‘That’s what I expected,’ I said.

  ‘But she pointed out that if a visitor knew which room Sharon was staying in, there’d be nothing to stop him or her going straight up,’ continued Kate. ‘There are so many guests milling about that they never know who’s who. Incidentally, she mentioned that Sharon Gregory had stayed here before. At least four or five times during the past year, and she always asked for a double room with a double bed.’

  ‘Did anybody see an agitated man leaving during the afternoon or early evening?’ I knew that it was a hopeless query, but sometimes a piece of vital evidence resulted.

  ‘You must be joking, guv.’ Kate laughed outright at such a preposterous idea. ‘There are always crowds of people in the hotel. And if any of yesterday’s guests saw anything, you can bet that they’re on the other side of the world by now. Most of the people who stay here are transiting airline passengers who book in for just the one night.’

  ‘Thanks, Kate. I’d guessed that the killer wouldn’t have made himself known to the receptionist. Judging by the saucy underwear in Sharon Gregory’s room, I think she knew the guy and had probably arranged to meet him here for a quick tumble. And told him the room number where he’d find her. What we don’t know is why it went so disastrously wrong.’

  ‘Of course, we’re assuming that it was lover boy who topped her,’ said Dave, injecting his customary valid scepticism into the discussion. ‘On the other hand, it might’ve been a passing floor waiter who happened to walk in and find Sharon prancing about in a thong.’

  ‘That’s in hand,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve got a team interviewing all the staff. And we’ll have to carry on tomorrow because not all yesterday’s people are on duty today.’

  ‘The receptionist confirmed that Sharon didn’t use the hotel phone, guv,’ said Dave, ‘but as I said earlier, she probably used the mobile we found and then deleted the call from the sent calls list.’

  ‘I wonder why?’ I asked, half to myself.

  ‘There again, her killer might’ve been a careful bastard and deleted the calls himself before taking off.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but why not take the damned phone with him? He could’ve chucked it in the river rather than leaving it here for us to find.’

  Leaving those imponderables for the time being, we returned to Sharon Gregory’s hotel room for another search, primarily to make sure that we hadn’t overlooked anything of importance. But we found nothing more that would help to tell us who’d killed her.

  Back downstairs, we questioned members of staff who might’ve seen anything, but they were of no assistance at all. Finally we gave Sharon Gregory’s room back to Mr Sharp, the general manager.

  ‘However, Mr Sharp,’ I said, ‘other officers will be here tomorrow to question those members of staff who are not here today.’

  ‘I hope this doesn’t get into the papers,’ said Sharp, his shoulders slumping as he sighed.

  ‘What, with an airport full of freelance journalists and paparazzi?’ scoffed Dave. ‘You must be joking.’ He glanced across the lobby at a Japanese tourist with an expensive camera slung around his neck. ‘I think he might be one of them,’ he added.

  The manager beetled off to intercept the innocent guest, but then stopped abruptly at the sight of a wheeled stretcher being pushed across the foyer. On it was a body bag containing Sharon’s corpse. ‘Oh my Godfathers!’ he exclaimed.

  NINE

  We got back to our office at ESB at about nine o’clock that evening, and I decided we’d done enough for one day. I sent the team home and told them to return early next morning. There was much to do.

  In the interests of remaining alert the following day, I considered it inadvisable to spend another night with Gail and went home to the flat in Surbiton I’d bought after my divorce from Helga.

  When I was a young uniformed PC, I’d met and married a German girl. Originally from Cologne, Helga Büchner had been a physiotherapist at Westminster Hospital and had pummelled my wrenched shoulder back into place following a confrontation with some youths I’d arrested in Whitehall.

  I took her out to dinner that same night, and to a police dance at Caxton Hall on the following Saturday. After a whirlwind romance we were married two months later and began our shared life in an insalubrious flat in Earlsfield, South London. The marriage had lasted sixteen years, which was about fifteen and a half years longer than the predictions of my colleagues, mainly the female ones.

  Over the years, and thanks mainly to my job, we had slowly drifted apart, but the last straw came when Helga left our four-year-old son Robert with a neighbour while she went to work. The boy fell into an ornamental pond and drowned. I didn’t blame the neighbour; I blamed Helga. I might be old-fashioned, but I thought that Helga should’ve put her career on hold, at least until Robert had started school.

  On the day of the tragedy the superintendent called me into his office to break the news. It’s a day that is forever etched in my memory.

  ‘Sit down, Harry,’ he had said. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you your son has been drowned.’ Just like that.

  Typically, the guv’nor hadn’t waltzed around the subject, but had got straight to the point. That, of course, is the CID way.

  ‘Take whatever time you need,’ he’d said, after filling me in with the brief details. ‘I’ll square it with the commander. The duty inspector at Wandsworth nick dealt with it, if you want to have a word.’

  That awful event had finally torn apart the tattered remains of a marriage that had been full of arguments, accusations and counter-accusations. It hadn’t been helped by adultery on both sides, and ultimately Helga’s decision to leave me for a doctor with whom, unbeknown to me, she’d been having an affair for the previous six months.

  The only lasting benefit I derived from the marriage was the ability to speak fluent German. On balance it might’ve been cheaper to have gone to night school.

  Gladys Gurney, my ‘lady-who-does’, had been working miracles on my flat. She really is a gem, and Gail had repeatedly tried to filch her from me. The whole place had been tidied, polished and hoovered from top to bottom. Even the windows had been cleaned, at least on the inside. My shirts had been washed, ironed and put away in the wardrobe. The bed had been changed and the dirty sheets and pillow slips laundered and placed tidily in the appropriate drawers. The detritus I’d left after my last stay had miraculously disappeared. And there was one of Gladys’s charming little notes on the kitchen worktop.

  Dear Mr Brock

  I found a pair of Miss Sutton’s shoes the ones with high heels what seemed to somehow have got under your bed. I’ve give them a polish and left them in the wardrobe. I hope she never hurt her feet gettin
g home without no shoes on.

  Yours faithfully

  Gladys Gurney (Mrs)

  P.S. Your microwave has broke down.

  As I said, Gladys is an absolute gem. I left her wages on the kitchen worktop and added an extra five pounds and a note of thanks. She’s worth every penny.

  I was in the office at eight o’clock the next morning, thus giving me two hours before the commander arrived at the stroke of ten. He was never at work earlier than that and I suspected he had been warned not to overdo it by Mrs Commander, a harridan of a woman if the photograph that adorned her husband’s desk was anything to go by.

  My team had been busy. At nine o’clock, DS Flynn came into my office.

  ‘I’ve been checking on the credit cards found at the murder scene, guv. Clifford Gregory’s card was used twice at the Chimes Shopping Centre at Uxbridge the day before yesterday. The receipts show that it was first used for the purchase of underwear at ten-sixteen, and again for an omelette, a pastry and two coffees at ten-thirty-seven at an Italian restaurant at the shopping centre.’ Flynn closed his daybook. ‘I’ve got Sheila Armitage checking it out at the shopping centre; she might turn up something useful. And the hotel told me that Clifford Gregory’s card was swiped by the receptionist Natalie Lester at the Dickin Hotel at twelve-oh-two. But we knew what time she’d booked in, of course.’

  Dave appeared with cups of coffee. ‘Not much joy so far, then, guv,’ he said, when I’d brought him up to date.

  ‘I think there’s no doubt that Sharon Gregory murdered her husband, Dave. The purchase of the window sash weight and the clothes line is down to her, and the online transaction with the Mexican pharmaceutical company was almost certainly for the Rohypnol. As well as the evidence of Clifford Gregory’s blood in the shower tray and on the sash weight.’

  ‘I can’t see this ghostly intruder bothering to take a shower,’ said Dave, ‘unless he hadn’t got any clothes on either. And that would create a whole new ball game. Frankly, I don’t think he exists.’

  ‘Perhaps not an intruder as such, Dave,’ I said. ‘Even so, it might be a good idea to examine the computer at the Gregorys’ house to see if it turns up any other names. And Charlie Flynn has confirmed that she used her husband’s credit card on two occasions in Uxbridge, and to check in at the hotel.’

  ‘And they haven’t got a hope in hell of getting their money. What a terrible shame!’ commented Dave, who had jousted with credit card companies in the past.

  ‘The only question,’ I continued, ‘was whether she had any help to murder her husband. Was this mysterious intruder known to her and was he an accomplice in the murder? Or perhaps he didn’t exist at all.’

  ‘I just said that … sir,’ said Dave.

  At two o’clock that afternoon, we were back at Henry Mortlock’s mortuary.

  The naked body of Sharon Gregory, sewn roughly together after Mortlock’s probing, lay on a table.

  ‘As I said at the scene, Harry, the cause of death was manual strangulation.’ Mortlock finished washing his hands and turned to face us. ‘Petechiae, cyanosis and congestion all indicate pressure on the jugular veins. There was also heavy bruising in that area – probably caused by the killer’s thumbs – which, as I suggested previously, implies that he had some strength in his hands.’

  ‘Like a surgeon, Doc?’ queried Dave, with feigned innocence. ‘They’ve got strong hands, haven’t they?’

  ‘Very funny, Sergeant Poole.’ Mortlock put on his jacket. ‘There’s something else that may interest you, Harry. Sharon Gregory was two months pregnant. In view of the fact that her husband had had a vasectomy, it might give you something to think about.’

  ‘From what we’ve learned about her, Henry, I’m not at all surprised. Is it possible to get a DNA sample from the fetus?’

  ‘Already done,’ said Mortlock. ‘It’s on its way to the forensic science lab. But that’ll only help you if the father’s DNA is on record.’

  ‘It will be, by the time I’ve finished,’ I said. It was more a pious hope than a certainty, although the father of Sharon Gregory’s unborn child was not necessarily the murderer. And from what I’d learned so far, the father could be any one of a dozen men that she had known.

  ‘Incidentally,’ continued Mortlock, ‘she’d recently had unprotected sex. It’s possible that the DNA of the sperm will match any that’s found in the fetus.’

  ‘This job’s turning into a nightmare,’ I said.

  ‘It gets better,’ said Mortlock. ‘There were two different traces of vaginal fluid on Sharon Gregory’s body. One was hers, but the other has yet to be identified.’

  ‘Great!’ I exclaimed. ‘So now we’ve got another woman in the equation. Thanks a bundle, Henry.’

  ‘Don’t shoot the messenger,’ commented Mortlock drily.

  When Dave and I returned to ESB, I was still thinking about the identity of Sharon’s murderer, and the added complication of another woman having been at the murder scene. Sidney Miller kept coming into mind. He was on the scene of Clifford Gregory’s murder very quickly – much too quickly, perhaps – and I wondered whether he had been involved in it. Sharon’s belated admission that she was naked when she’d wandered around the house with Miller, and his ready confirmation that she was, led me to believe that there might’ve been a greater degree of intimacy between the two than either of them had been prepared to admit. More to the point, Miller had instantly and vehemently denied any such relationship: ‘You don’t do it on your own doorstep,’ he had claimed. I’d thought at the time that the denial was just a little too instant and a little too emphatic to be true. But CID officers are, by the very nature of their calling, cynical and disbelieving.

  Set against that was the evidence that had come to light that Sharon Gregory was promiscuous. Miller had said she was a flirt, and Gordon Harrison admitted to having had sexual intercourse with her whenever they were both in Miami. But now, it seemed, she was also bisexual.

  Gordon Harrison’s name had, of course, been only one of those on the mobile that Sharon had kept at the airport, well away from where her husband might’ve found it. There were three others who we had yet to see.

  And that reminded me …

  ‘How are you getting on with tracking down the two Florida telephone numbers, Dave?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve been on to the Miami-Dade Police, guv, and they were able to give me details of the subscribers. Both were cellphones, as the Americans call them. One went out to a Lance Kramer, a theatrical designer, and the other to a Miles Donahue, described as an entrepreneur.’ Dave laughed. ‘And that’s a job description that covers a multitude of sins. Both these guys are resident in the Miami Beach area within a ten-mile radius of the Shannon Hotel.’

  ‘I think we need to ask the Miami-Dade Police to interview them and find out how well they knew Sharon. And where they were on the night of her murder.’

  ‘It’s the Miami Beach Police we need to talk to, sir,’ said Dave. ‘Apparently, that’s the force that covers that area.’

  ‘On second thoughts, Dave, I don’t think so. This enquiry is beginning to get complicated. We’ll have a word with Ben Donaldson.’ Donaldson was the resident FBI agent at the United States Embassy in London and masqueraded as their legal attaché. ‘He’ll know the best people to get in touch with in Florida, and while he’s at it, we’ll ask for enquiries to be made at the Shannon Hotel. We know Sharon was visited there by Gordon Harrison, but I’m interested in any other visitors she might’ve had while she was staying there on a stopover. And see if you can get a decent photograph of her that we can take with us to the embassy.’

  ‘We’ve got the post-mortem photograph that was taken at the scene, guv. Will that do?’

  ‘It’ll have to, Dave. I don’t want to delay this investigation any more than is necessary.’

  ‘Surely you don’t think that one of these guys might’ve come over to Heathrow for one night just to strangle Sharon Gregory, do you, guv?’ There was do
ubt combined with cynicism in Dave’s voice.

  ‘Funnier things have happened,’ I said. ‘Get a car and we’ll make our way to the embassy.’

  ‘By the way, guv, Ted Richie rang back. He’s made a few enquiries and he’s come up with a name.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘D’you remember asking him if Sharon had a special friend among the crew. Richie reckons that a girl called Cindy Patterson and Sharon were as thick as thieves. She might be able to shed some light on what Sharon got up to in Miami.’

  ‘We’ll make a point of seeing her at some time,’ I said. ‘Remind me.’

  ‘Got a minute, sir?’ asked DC Sheila Armitage, appearing in my office.

  ‘What is it, Sheila?’

  ‘I went out to Uxbridge, sir, and followed up on the purchases that were made on Clifford Gregory’s credit card.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Sharon Gregory was identified by the shop assistant who sold her the kinky underwear. At least, she said it was a woman in airline uniform and the time and the description fitted. Apparently they had a discussion about the erotic underwear Sharon purchased. I also spoke to the waiter who served her in the Italian restaurant. He remembered her very clearly.’

  ‘Was he sure?’

  ‘Definitely, sir. He said she flirted with him outrageously. So much so, that when he put her credit card in his machine he didn’t notice that it was in a man’s name. What’s more, Sharon propositioned him, and he scribbled his phone number on a napkin and gave it to her.’ Armitage turned over a page in her pocketbook. ‘It’s the number found on the napkin that was in her handbag at the hotel. And before you ask,’ she added with a smile, ‘the waiter was on duty until midnight that evening, and the following evening. And that checks out. He said he hadn’t heard from her again.’

  ‘Anything about the mobile phone we found at the scene, Sheila?’

  ‘Ah, the mobile. Yes, sir. A mobile phone was certainly purchased by Sharon Gregory at an outlet in the Chimes Centre. But according to the cash receipt you found in her handbag, it wasn’t the phone found in her room at the Dickin Hotel. I checked the serial number with Linda Mitchell.’