Reckless Endangerment--A Brock and Poole Police Procedural

by Graham Ison

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Appleby

  ‘And now, Dave, you and I are going to spin the Honourable Julian Reed’s drum.’

  EIGHTEEN

  It was half past one by the time we’d finished filling in all the necessary forms and had journeyed to Marylebone Road to obtain a search warrant from the district judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

  We arrived at the Reeds’ Chelsea house at just after two. I had decided to take Linda Mitchell with us, and thought it would be a good idea to have Kate Ebdon along as well. But I told Linda to remain outside in her van until we needed her and her team of forensic examiners. If we needed them.

  Muriel Reed opened the door. ‘Oh, it’s you again.’ There was a resigned note in her voice.

  ‘Yes, it’s us, Mrs Reed. Is your husband at home?’

  ‘Yes, he is. He’s not long back from Chelsea police station. For some ridiculous reason he has to report there every day as part of his bail conditions. This whole business is rapidly becoming most intolerable.’

  If you think that’s intolerable, the worst is yet to come, I thought.

  ‘I have a warrant to search these premises, Mrs Reed.’

  ‘Oh my God! When is all this going to end? It’s absolutely farcical that my husband should be suspected of murdering that tart, whatever her name is.’

  ‘It’s Sharon Gregory, Mrs Reed, as you well know.’ I was tired of the woman’s prevarication, and of standing on the doorstep. I pushed past her.

  ‘Oh, come in, why don’t you?’ Muriel’s response was bitingly sarcastic.

  Accompanied by Dave and Kate Ebdon, I walked upstairs to the sitting room, followed by Mrs Reed.

  ‘Hello, Chief Inspector.’ Julian Reed was sitting in an armchair reading a copy of The Times. He looked tired, but his face expressed no surprise at our being there.

  ‘I was just explaining to your wife, Mr Reed, that I have a warrant to search this house.’

  ‘I suppose that’s what you have to do in cases like this,’ said Reed, standing up and casting the newspaper untidily to the floor.

  ‘Are you just going to stand there and let them ransack my house, Julian?’ Muriel Reed’s whole body seemed to vibrate with fury at our intrusion. Reaching back, she undid the clasp that was holding her titian hair in a ponytail, and shook it free so that it cascaded around the shoulders of her well-cut grey trouser suit.

  ‘We’ve no option, Muriel,’ said Reed mildly. ‘If they have a warrant there’s nothing we can do about it, except cooperate. And it’s my house, not yours.’

  ‘Well, you can cooperate if you like. I’m going to lie down. I’ve got a migraine coming on.’

  ‘My sergeant has some questions for you before you go, Mrs Reed,’ I said.

  ‘Has he indeed?’ Muriel glanced imperiously at Dave and sat down in the chair furthest from where her husband was standing.

  ‘What time did Mr Reed arrive home on the evening of Monday the twenty-ninth of July?’ asked Dave.

  ‘I got in just before five o’clock,’ said Reed.

  ‘The sergeant was asking me, Julian,’ snapped Muriel. ‘And the answer is I don’t know. I was downstairs having a swim.’ Noticing Dave’s expression of surprise, she added, ‘We have our own pool in the basement.’

  ‘No you weren’t, Muriel,’ said Reed. ‘You were sitting in that chair.’ He waved a hand at the uncomfortable white armchair in which his wife was now nonchalantly reclining. ‘And you were reading a magazine. It was much later that you had a swim.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Julian, and anyway I do occasionally have more than one swim in a day,’ said Muriel cuttingly. ‘Particularly when the weather’s as hot as it was at the end of July.’

  Dave ignored this inconsequential tiff and got to the crux of the matter. ‘Did you go out again that night, Mr Reed?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. What makes you ask?’

  ‘Because a Mercedes car registered in your name was recorded by a speed camera on the A4 – that’s the Great West Road – at six-forty-one that evening, and its speed was logged at eighty-seven miles an hour. So, if it wasn’t you driving, who was it?’

  ‘I must’ve got home later than I thought, then,’ said Reed thoughtfully. ‘I don’t really remember.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with your returning here,’ said Dave, ‘because your car was travelling in a westbound direction. In other words, it was going towards Heathrow, not away from it.’

  This awesome announcement was followed by a second or two of complete silence.

  Clenching his fists, but otherwise controlling the anger he must’ve felt, Reed stared at his seated wife. ‘It was you who murdered Sharon,’ he said in a remarkably restrained voice. Despite his apparent absent-mindedness, he was obviously quick to grasp the implications of this latest revelation.

  ‘Don’t try and swing this on me, Julian,’ said Muriel, matching her husband’s mildness with her own calm response. ‘Do you really think I could be that bothered about one of your tarts? It was you who killed her, wasn’t it? Just be honest for once in your life.’

  ‘I wasn’t driving the bloody car, Muriel,’ said Reed, ‘so it must’ve been you.’

  And I believed him. It was time for me to put a stop to this argument before it damaged our case.

  ‘Stand up, Mrs Reed,’ I said. ‘Muriel Reed, I am arresting you on suspicion of murdering Sharon Gregory on or about the twenty-ninth of July. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Do you understand the caution?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ snapped Muriel. ‘I’ve watched police programmes on television often enough, but you should know that you’re making a big mistake.’ Apart from that statement, she was remarkably unmoved by her arrest. ‘And I warn you, Chief Inspector, that I shall instruct my solicitor to take proceedings for wrongful arrest.’

  ‘Put your hands behind your back, Mrs Reed,’ said Kate Ebdon, and promptly handcuffed her.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ asked Julian Reed.

  ‘Yes, it’s for your wife’s own safety, Mr Reed,’ I said. But I was nevertheless surprised that Reed was concerned for Muriel’s reputation and the indignity of seeing her taken out to a police car in handcuffs. I don’t think he was too worried about what the neighbours might think; he wasn’t that sort of man. Apart from which, the residents of Chelsea were occasionally arrested, but usually as a result of holding heroin parties. It was that sort of area.

  ‘Would it be all right if I came with you to the police station, Chief Inspector?’ asked Reed.

  ‘Yes, in fact it’s necessary for you to come with us, Mr Reed.’

  Leaving Dave to oversee a search of the house – not that I thought anything useful would be found – Kate and I escorted the Reeds out to the car. The street was quiet and none of the neighbours seemed to notice that Muriel Reed was handcuffed. Or if they did, they were observing this minor melodrama from behind Venetian blinds or net curtains.

  It was past four o’clock by the time we arrived at Charing Cross police station and got the Reeds booked in with the custody sergeant. I decided to interview Julian Reed first.

  ‘I have to remind you that you’re still under caution, Mr Reed,’ I said, once Kate Ebdon had gone through the procedure of setting up the recording machine and announcing the names of those who were present. ‘And I also have to tell you that you are under no obligation to answer any or all of my questions.’ I had yet to satisfy myself that he had played no part in the murder of Sharon Gregory, but I hoped that he would be prepared to tell me more about what led up to it. ‘I must also remind you that you are entitled to have a solicitor present during this interview.’

  ‘I don’t mind what you ask.’ Reed appeared to be in shock after seeing his wife arrested for the murder of Sharon Gregory. ‘And no, I don’t want a solicitor. Anyway, Brian’s only good at conveyancing and drawing up wills and that sort of thing.’
r />   ‘How long had you known Sharon Gregory?’ I asked.

  ‘It must’ve been getting on for two years, I suppose,’ said Reed. ‘She was an air hostess on the flight to Miami that I regularly travelled on, and it was on about my second trip out there that we got talking.’ He paused and smiled shyly. ‘And one thing led to another. After that our meetings became a regular thing, and I’d call her in advance and ask her which flight she was on so that I could book on the same one. We’d usually have dinner in the evening at a discreet restaurant in Miami, away from her colleagues in the crew – she preferred to keep her personal relationships private from her friends – and then we’d spend the night together either in her hotel room or mine. It was some time after that that we began to meet at the Dickin Hotel near Heathrow Airport.’

  Reed could still not see – or preferred not to see – that Sharon had been a conniving woman with an eye to the main chance. Had she known, I wondered, that he was heir to an earldom? And had she deliberately failed to take birth-control precautions so that she would become pregnant by him?

  ‘What can you tell me about the day Sharon was murdered?’ I asked.

  ‘I got a phone call from her at just after midday telling me that she was at the Dickin Hotel, which is where, as I said, we usually met, and that she wanted to see me.’

  ‘Did she ring you on your landline at Chelsea?’

  ‘Yes, she did on this occasion. Muriel knew that I played around, but she didn’t seem to care. Anyway, I knew that she had her admirers, too. Sometimes she would be out all night and I guessed that she’d be in some young man’s bed.’

  ‘Did Sharon say why she wanted to see you?’ I asked, steering him away from talking about his wife’s extramarital trysts.

  ‘It was the usual: a pleasant afternoon in bed with her.’

  ‘What time did you arrive at the hotel?’ I asked.

  ‘It must’ve been about an hour after Sharon called. It was sometime after one o’clock, anyway.’

  ‘Did she tell you later if there was a particular reason for her wanting to see you on that day?’ asked Kate.

  Reed smiled at her. ‘Yes, there was. She told me that she was pregnant and that the baby was mine.’

  ‘Was there any doubt in your mind that it was your child?’

  Reed gave the question some thought. ‘There was always the possibility that it was someone else’s,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘We both slept around, you see.’ It didn’t seem to worry him that Sharon was promiscuous. I suppose he took the view that if he had other partners, it was only fair to accept that she did too.

  ‘Well, I can tell you from the pathologist’s post-mortem report, and a DNA comparison, that the child was yours,’ I said.

  ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘A boy.’

  Reed looked immensely sad. ‘He would’ve been my heir.’ He picked at an imperfection on the table, as though trying to remove it with his fingernail. ‘My father is the eighth earl, and if I don’t sire an heir the earldom will become extinct. I don’t want that to happen … but now the title will die out, I suppose,’ he added with obvious regret.

  ‘Was it your intention to marry Sharon Gregory, then?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Yes, definitely. We’d actually talked about it for some time, but when she told me she was pregnant that settled it. I proposed to her that afternoon, and she accepted. I said that I was going home to tell my wife that our marriage was over and that I intended to marry the girl who was carrying my child. My life with Muriel had become a sham.’ Reed glanced up and stared at Kate. ‘It was Muriel who first introduced me to the Simpsons at Dorking. And to Adrian and Donna.’ He stared out of the window for a second or two, a wistful expression on his face. ‘Donna was a nice girl,’ he said, looking back at Kate.

  That last statement seemed to be an irrelevancy, and Kate didn’t question it. Julian Reed was so naive at times – childlike almost – in his approach to life that I was beginning to wonder if he was suffering from some form of arrested development. An article I’d read some years ago about the effects of interbreeding among the aristocracy flitted briefly through my mind.

  ‘And did you tell your wife that you were going to divorce her?’ I asked.

  Reed chuckled. ‘Yes, and I made no secret of the fact that I’d spent the afternoon in bed with Sharon at the Dickin Hotel and that I intended to marry her. Muriel didn’t like it much.’ Reed described his wife’s reaction with breathtaking simplicity. ‘You see, one of the things that she coveted, apart from my money of course, was the prospect of becoming a countess when eventually I succeeded to the earldom. She’d’ve loved that.’

  ‘You say she didn’t like the idea of being divorced by you, Mr Reed. That, surely, is putting it mildly.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ This time Reed laughed outright. ‘Actually she went ballistic. I don’t suppose it helped much when I told Muriel that Sharon was pregnant and that I was the father. And I reminded Muriel that she wasn’t able to conceive, although I did at times wonder if she’d made sure that she wouldn’t become pregnant. I don’t think the idea of childbirth appealed to her very much; she was always worrying about her figure. And she often said that being a domesticated housewife wasn’t her scene. However, that no longer matters.’ He brushed aside his wife’s objections with a brief wave of the hand.

  ‘What was your wife’s actual response to your statement?’ asked Kate. ‘Apart from going ballistic, as you put it.’

  ‘She said she’d fight a divorce all the way, and I said I hoped she could afford to, because I wasn’t going to pay for a barrister for her. By then I was becoming a bit annoyed by her reaction.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  I had decided to let Kate continue with the interview. She seemed to be getting more out of Reed than I had been able to. But I put that down to Kate being an attractive woman, and there was little doubt that Reed was a pushover when confronted by a pretty girl. Even if she was a detective inspector.

  ‘I had a shower.’

  ‘You had a shower?’ Kate was unable to hide her astonishment at Reed’s cavalier reaction to the acrimonious discussion with his wife that he’d just described.

  ‘Yes. It was a very hot day,’ he said, as though that were sufficient reason. ‘And when I came downstairs Muriel had gone. I didn’t know where, but I assumed she’d gone out somewhere in a fit of pique, probably to seek solace in the bed of some male friend. She had quite a few.’

  ‘And did she take the Mercedes?’ Kate asked, not that there was much doubt about that now.

  ‘I imagine so. It certainly wasn’t outside the house when I’d finished showering,’ said Reed. ‘We’ve got a resident’s parking permit, you see,’ he added unnecessarily.

  ‘How did she know where Sharon was?’

  ‘I told her I’d been at the Dickin Hotel, and when I’d taken Sharon’s call I’d jotted down the room number on the pad beside the telephone. We always keep a pad by the phone, it’s handy for jotting things down.’ Reed seemed to think it necessary to describe in detail his actions that day. ‘Bit careless of me really.’ It seemed that Reed was not one disposed to take any precautions. About anything.

  I was surprised that Sharon had still been at the hotel when Muriel arrived, but then I recalled that she’d booked the room for the night. Given that she must’ve realized by then that we suspected her of murdering her husband Clifford, I wondered what she’d intended to do next. That, however, was no longer of any importance.

  ‘Did you, by chance, leave your mobile phone in Sharon’s room at the Dickin Hotel, Mr Reed?’ asked Kate.

  Reed looked mystified, but only for a moment. ‘I must’ve done,’ he said. ‘I wondered what I’d done with it. I’m always losing the wretched things. I must’ve bought half a dozen of them over the past year.’

  ‘When did your wife get back?’

  ‘I don’t know really. I suppose it must’ve been about nine o’clock. I’d spent the eveni
ng reading in my study and I first saw her at about half past nine, I think. I remember that she appeared in the study door wearing a swimsuit.’

  ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘Only that she was going for a quick swim and then she’d go to bed. But apart from that, hardly anything. It was a very short conversation. She certainly didn’t mention anything about the divorce or my plans to marry Sharon. Anyway, I didn’t see her again until the following morning. We don’t sleep together any more, you see – there’d be no point – and we have separate bedrooms.’

  ‘Did you ask Mrs Reed where she’d been when she came home that evening?’

  ‘Yes. She said she’d been to the Dorking swingers’ party with Adrian and Donna. But I thought that was unlikely; she usually insisted on staying the night whenever we went there together. I’ve never known her to leave as early as she said she had.’

  ‘Did Sharon say what she was going to do after you left her at the Dickin Hotel?’

  ‘No, she said she’d be flying most of the time. She mentioned visiting her parents in Basildon to tell them of our engagement.’

  I knew that that was unlikely. We’d interviewed Kevin and Helen Cross and knew that they’d been on holiday at the time. But perhaps Sharon didn’t know; the Crosses had told me that they didn’t see their daughter very often. However, it didn’t matter what Sharon had told Julian Reed; she was dead within a few hours of talking to him.

  ‘But then, of course, you brought the dreadful news that she’d been murdered,’ continued Reed.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything else, Mr Reed. You will remain on bail for the time being, but I’ll arrange for the requirement to report daily to Chelsea police station to be lifted. We’ll advise you if and when your bail is rescinded altogether.’

  I’d come to the conclusion that Julian Reed had not played any part in the murder of Sharon Reed, and recalled what Muriel Reed had said when we’d first interviewed her and her husband. ‘To be quite frank,’ she’d said, ‘he hasn’t got the guts for that sort of thing.’ But it seemed that what Julian lacked in that sort of twisted resolve was more than compensated for by his wife.