by Graham Ison
We drove straight from Chelsea to Regent Street, a distance of about three miles. For security reasons we parked the car at West End Central police station and took a taxi the rest of the way. Villains have even been known to steal police cars these days.
The Dizzy Club was one of many similar establishments that abound in the sleazy streets of Soho. The entrance to this one was next to a shop specializing in pornographic DVDs.
‘Good evening, gents.’ A shaven-headed, blue-chinned bouncer in an ill-fitting dinner jacket guarded the entrance. ‘Membership fee is twenty-five pounds each.’
‘We’re members,’ said Dave, and produced his warrant card.
‘Oh!’ The bouncer moved towards a telephone on the wall near the door.
‘If you’re calling the manager, tell him we want to see him right now, right here,’ said Dave.
It was all of thirty seconds after the bouncer finished making the call that a short, squat, bald-headed individual rushed into the entrance hall. He was sweating and had greasy skin, with little rolls of fat perched on the back of his collar.
‘Welcome, gentlemen.’ The manager, speaking with a vaguely mid-European accent, wrung his hands in a manner of supplication. ‘Do come in and see the show. We wouldn’t charge you, of course.’
‘I can’t promise to reciprocate that courtesy,’ commented Dave quietly, a barb that was clearly not misunderstood by the manager.
‘Everything’s quite proper here, Superintendent,’ said the manager, doing a bit more nervous hand-wringing. ‘We often have a visit from your Vice Squad. Just to check up, like.’
‘I’ll bet you do,’ said Dave. ‘And I’m a detective sergeant, not a superintendent.’
The manager opened his hands and shrugged. ‘Only a matter of time, Officer,’ he said.
‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of New Scotland Yard,’ I said, cutting across this verbal sparring match, ‘and I’m investigating a murder.’ It was an announcement that did nothing to restore the manager’s peace of mind.
‘Not here, surely? I can tell you that no murders have happened here.’
‘And now I want to see your list of members,’ I continued, ignoring his pointless protest.
‘Of course, of course. This way, gentlemen, please.’
Following this oleaginous individual down a flight of stairs, we found ourselves in a gloomy, cavernous basement. In the centre of a brightly illuminated circular stage, a naked girl was doing her artistic best to make love to a chromium pole. It was a lacklustre performance.
Surrounding this tiny stage, tables were tightly packed together and crowded with a mainly male clientele. I did, however, spot one or two women among this gullible audience, but God knows what they saw to entertain them. I suspected that most of the club’s customers were from out of town, and had fetched up in the Dizzy Club doubtless believing that they were experiencing something terribly risqué.
The reality was that they would finish up being ripped off.
The manager closed the door of his microscopic office and handed me a book from the top of a rusting filing cabinet.
‘This Julian Reed,’ I said, having found the entry. ‘Was he here on the twenty-ninth of July?’
The manager took back the book and glanced at the entry. ‘He might’ve been,’ he said, shrugging. ‘We don’t keep a record of when our members come here. They just show their membership card to the doorman.’
‘Is he well known to your girls?’ asked Dave.
‘Possibly.’ The manager smiled nervously. ‘But only if he’s generous.’
‘Is there any one girl that he seems to like more than the others?’
‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.’
‘Then we will. How many girls work here?’ Dave was beginning to get annoyed.
‘Only five.’
‘Are they all here at the moment?’
‘Of course. But one of them is on stage right now.’
‘Very well,’ said Dave, ‘then we’ll speak to the other four for a start.’
With a sigh of resignation, the manager led us next door to the women’s dressing room. Some optimist had put a star on the door. Without knocking, he barged straight in.
Four girls were sitting around in various stages of undress. They all appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties. One wore a cotton wrap, the other a thong and a bra, and another was wearing just a thong. A fourth girl, sitting on a stool in front of a mirror, was completely naked apart from a garter. Three of them were reading magazines, while the naked girl was generously applying oil to her upper body. They each glanced briefly at us, but apart from that glazed look there was no reaction to the arrival of the manager and two strange men.
‘These gentlemen are from the police,’ announced the manager. ‘They’re investigating a murder.’
Still there was no reaction, but that was not unusual from my knowledge of the girls who worked in the sex industry. I guessed that these young strippers, who probably doubled as prostitutes, had become so jaundiced after experiencing more of the seamier side of life than most women see in their entire lives that nothing would surprise them any more.
‘Do any of you know a customer called Julian Reed?’ I asked.
‘What’s he look like?’ It was the bra-and-thong girl who spoke.
Dave described Julian Reed in some detail.
‘Oh, Jolly Jules, we call him. Yeah, I know him.’ The nude who had been oiling herself swung round on her stool. ‘But I never knew his other name. We don’t go in for real names much.’ She spoke with a rich Cockney accent. ‘He’s always good for a few tenners in the garter, though. Know what I mean?’
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Estelle La Blanche.’
‘No, your real name.’
There was a pause before Estelle answered. ‘Rose Mooney,’ she said.
‘Was Jolly Jules in here last Monday?’
‘No,’ said Rose.
‘Are you certain?’
‘Course I am. You don’t forget a bloke who drops you a century just for watching you get up close and personal to a bloody pole.’ Rose sniffed. ‘I’m paid to do it anyway, whether he’s here or not.’
We left the Dizzy Club and walked back to the police station.
‘So where was Reed that afternoon, Dave?’ I asked. But it was a rhetorical question.
The following day was the first of August and it seemed as though the weather was aware of the change of month. The temperature had fallen to seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity had given way to a balmy breeze.
I began the morning by reviewing the evidence that had been gleaned in the Sharon Gregory murder investigation, and going through the statements that had been taken so far. I held a brief conference with my team and brought them up to date.
At one minute past ten, Colin Wilberforce appeared and told me that the commander wished to see me. I made my way to his office, all of two yards down the corridor.
For a few seconds, the commander continued to read a bulky file, skimming back and forth through the pages. But then he looked up, as though surprised to see me standing there.
‘Ah, Mr Brock.’
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’
‘So I did,’ said the commander, closing the file with obvious reluctance. ‘About this second suspicious death you’re dealing with …’
‘It’s a sight more than suspicious, sir. It’s a murder. The woman died as a result of manual strangulation. In the Dickin Hotel near Heathrow Airport.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh yes, it was definitely the Dickin Hotel, sir,’ I said, taking a risk on matching his pedantry.
‘Yes, yes. I meant, are you sure she was strangled?’
‘Doctor Mortlock, the Home Office pathologist, is adamant, sir.’
‘I see.’ The commander had great respect for anyone with letters after their name that denoted a professional qualification and was ill dispos
ed to question their findings. ‘Do we know the identity of her assailant?’ he asked, still avoiding committing himself by referring to Sharon Gregory’s killer as a ‘murderer’. At least, not until the jury came in with a guilty verdict, and probably not until the appeal stage had confirmed that verdict.
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Two murders, of a husband and wife on different dates in different places, but no arrests. Have I got that right?’ Slipping into his censorious mode, the commander raised his eyebrows.
‘You have indeed, sir.’ I said nothing further and waited for some magisterial advice.
‘No arrests? The DAC was enquiring. He’s very interested in the outcome.’
‘No, sir, no arrests.’ I could visualize the consternation that had ensued when the deputy assistant commissioner had posed a question to which the commander had no answer, if in fact the DAC had posed it at all. It was one of the commander’s traits that he tried to shift responsibility for asking a question by implying that the query had come from higher up the food chain. But I decided to put him out of his misery. ‘But such evidence that we have gathered so far suggests that Clifford Gregory was murdered by Sharon Gregory, his wife.’
‘She murdered her own husband? Good gracious me.’ For a moment or two, the commander gazed at me, slack-jawed. And then he glanced at the photograph of his battleaxe of a wife. Perhaps he was wondering if he might one day fall victim to a spousal attack.
‘But of course we can’t arrest her now because she too is dead.’
‘Quite so, quite so,’ murmured the commander, apparently still stunned by the realization that a woman could actually murder her husband. ‘Keep me informed, Mr Brock.’
‘Of course, sir,’ I said smoothly, and hastened away to get on with the job in hand before the boss could think of another question.
At ten-thirty a call came in from the police in Essex to say that earlier that morning they had at last managed to contact Sharon Gregory’s parents, Kevin and Helen Cross, at an address in Basildon. According to the local police, the couple had just enjoyed a fortnight’s river cruise the length of the Rhine, and arrived home to find a note asking them to telephone the police station. Fifteen minutes later two police officers had called at the Crosses’ house and told them the sad news that their daughter had been murdered.
I decided that an interview with the bereaved parents was an unpalatable priority. I opted to take Kate Ebdon with me; it’s always wise to be accompanied by a woman officer on these occasions.
ELEVEN
It was about forty miles from Earls Court to Basildon, but even with Kate’s ‘positive driving’ skills, an expertise that was somewhat akin to Dave’s, it took her nearly two hours to get us there. We arrived at a quarter past two.
The Crosses’ house was a neat semi-detached three-up two-down property, of a style which pointed to it having been built before the Second World War. The front garden, in common with most of the houses in the street, had been paved over to accommodate the ubiquitous motor car. The vehicle outside the Crosses’ house was an ageing Honda Civic fitted with manual controls.
A wreath was already hanging on the front door, an indication perhaps that Sharon Gregory’s parents were very conventional people when it came to signs of mourning.
A woman answered the door. ‘Are you from the press?’ she asked. Although she was in plain clothes, I guessed who she was and why she was there. ‘Because if you are—’
‘No, we’re police officers from the Met,’ I said. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock and Detective Inspector Ebdon.’
‘Sorry about that, sir, but the vultures have started circling already. I’m PC Jacobs from Basildon police station, a victim support officer. You’re here about the Crosses’ daughter, I suppose.’
‘Yes, we are.’
PC Jacobs beckoned us into the small hall and closed the front door. I noticed that a chair lift had been fitted to the staircase. Jacobs shut the door to the sitting room. ‘It’s not a happy state of affairs, sir,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Mrs Cross suffers from multiple sclerosis. She’s in a wheelchair, and her husband Kevin is severely disabled. He was badly crippled in a train crash some years ago.’
‘Are they up to being interviewed?’ It was not a pleasant task talking to people who had just lost a member of their family, but in these circumstances it would be doubly harrowing.
‘I think they’d want to hear what happened, sir,’ said Jacobs. ‘I’ll take you in. Incidentally, Sharon was their only child.’
The Crosses’ sitting room was neatly furnished and clean, but it was fairly evident that they were not well off, despite having just returned from a cruise. There was a small television set in one corner, and a three-piece suite that had seen better days, as had the cheap carpet, now showing wear in places.
‘These police officers are from London, Mr Cross,’ said Jacobs. ‘They’ve come to talk to you about Sharon.’
‘I’m Kevin Cross,’ said the man, pressing a button that raised him from a chair that was different from the others. He struggled into an upright position with some difficulty and leaned heavily on a walking stick. ‘And this is my wife, Helen.’ He indicated a grey-haired woman seated in a wheelchair. ‘We got back from holiday first thing this morning only to find that our daughter had been murdered. Some homecoming this has turned out to be. It was the first holiday we’ve had in years and we’d been saving for it for ages.’
Mrs Cross gazed at us with red-rimmed eyes, but remained silent.
‘You both have our deepest sympathy, Mr Cross,’ I said. ‘I know what it’s like to lose someone close. I lost a son some years ago.’
Kate Ebdon glanced sharply in my direction. She obviously didn’t know about young Robert, but it wasn’t something I’d talked about. Although Dave knew the details, he obviously hadn’t shared them with anyone else in the office.
‘Can you tell us what happened, sir?’ said Cross, sinking back into his chair and allowing his walking stick to fall to the floor unnoticed.
There was no way in which I could shield the Crosses from the truth of the matter; they were entitled to know the awful details.
‘Sharon was found murdered at the Dickin Hotel near Heathrow Airport three days ago, Mr Cross,’ I said. ‘She’d been strangled.’
Helen Cross gave a convulsive sob and struggled to put a handkerchief to her mouth.
‘But who would do such a thing?’ Kevin Cross shook his head in bewilderment.
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ I said.
‘She was happily married, you know, and she had a very good job as an air hostess. It was always her ambition, even when she was a little girl. She always wanted to fly to wonderful places. Even when she was tiny we would take her on the bus to see the aeroplanes at Southend Airport as a treat.’ Cross paused and looked sadly at the empty fireplace. ‘Her husband must be devastated,’ he mumbled, almost to himself.
This was getting even more difficult. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that her husband has also been murdered, Mr Cross.’
‘Oh good God!’ Kevin Cross’s whole demeanour registered extreme shock, and the blood drained from his face. For one awful moment I wondered if he was about to suffer a heart attack, but he recovered after a few seconds. ‘Someone killed them both? Did this killer break into their house?’
‘No, Mr Cross,’ said Kate Ebdon, taking over from me. ‘Mr Gregory was found murdered in the marital home at West Drayton last weekend. Sharon was murdered two days later in a hotel close to the airport. I think it was a hotel where the crew stayed,’ she added, telling a white lie to avoid adding further grief to an already distressing situation.
‘Was it the same person who murdered them both?’ Kevin Cross was clearly having trouble absorbing the enormity of the crimes we were describing.
‘It’s possible, but that’s something we’re still looking into.’ Kate decided that this was definitely not the moment to tell the Crosses that we had
convincing evidence to indicate that Sharon had murdered her own husband.
‘It’s all quite dreadful. What is the world coming to?’ Helen Cross spoke for the first time, her delivery halting and almost inaudible, as if she were actually talking to herself.
‘Do you know of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm your daughter, Mr Cross?’ I asked. It was a routine question and sounded crass in the circumstances, but it was one that had to be posed.
Cross didn’t give it any thought. ‘No, no one,’ he said promptly. ‘She was a lovely girl – the most popular girl at her school. Everyone who knew her liked her.’
But there’s one person out there who obviously didn’t like her that much, I thought.
‘You say her marriage was a happy one, Mr Cross,’ said Kate, taking up the questioning again.
‘Very. They were devoted to each other. Admittedly Cliff was fourteen or fifteen years older than Sharon, but it made no difference. Their only disappointment was that they couldn’t have children.’
There was also nothing to be gained by telling the Crosses that their daughter was two months pregnant when she died. Or that her late husband had had a vasectomy and could not therefore have been the father.
‘Did Sharon visit you often?’ asked Kate.
‘No, young lady,’ said Cross, ‘but she had a very demanding job and a house and a husband to look after. I suppose you find it like that. Are you married?’
‘Not yet, Mr Cross.’ Kate smiled at the man. ‘Did your daughter and her husband have any close friends?’
‘I don’t really know. As I said, she was a very busy girl and it’s a long way from West Drayton to Basildon. We didn’t see her that often.’
It was clear that we weren’t going to get anything useful from the Crosses, particularly as they laboured under the illusion that she’d enjoyed a happy marriage. Our continued presence would only serve to exacerbate their grief.
PC Jacobs saw us to the door and turned to Kate. ‘Have you any idea when and where the funeral will be, ma’am?’