Underneath The Arches

by Graham Ison

  TWO

  BUT FOX’S INTERVIEW WITH COMMANDER Alec Myers did not go exactly as he had hoped.

  ‘Well, Tommy, it looks as though you’ve caught another murder,’ said Myers, who had charge of several other branches of the Specialist Operations Department at New Scotland Yard as well as the Flying Squad.

  ‘I was thinking that it might be a good idea if the local CID dealt with that, sir.’

  Myers smiled. ‘Yes, I thought you might, but the rule is still the same. You found it, you deal with it.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘And apart from anything else, Tommy, it could well form a part of these robberies you’re investigating. As an experienced detective officer, you’d have to agree with that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose there might be an outside possibility, sir,’ said Fox reluctantly. It was always the same when ever he tried to avoid what looked like becoming a protracted enquiry. ‘But I don’t see two low-life villains getting involved in anything that heavy.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Myers went on, ‘but with your unsurpassable skill as a detective, highly experienced in complex investigations, I imagine that you’ll have this one buttoned up in no time at all.’ He grinned. ‘Keep me posted, Tommy.’

  Fox opened the door of Gilroy’s office. ‘We are going to Charing Cross,’ he said tersely.

  ‘Thought we might be, sir,’ said Gilroy and received a withering glance from Fox.

  *

  ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Budgeon’s thirty-six, sir, and Chesney is twenty-two,’ said Gilroy.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Fox. ‘We shall talk to young Mr Chesney first then.’ He glanced at the custody sergeant. ‘If you would be so kind, Sergeant.’

  Five minutes later, assured that the prisoner had been brought up and placed in the interview room, Fox strode in and looked round. ‘You know, Jack,’ he said, ‘there’s no doubt that the architects employed by the Metropolitan Police are starting to get their act together. This is really rather splendid.’ He stared at the prisoner. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’ he asked and smiled.

  ‘I ain’t saying nothing.’ Walter Chesney was wearing a surly expression, a leather bomber jacket and filthy jeans, and his hair, which was lank and unwashed, came down to his shoulders.

  ‘I was merely saying to my inspector here, that the decor of police stations has improved radically over the last twenty years or so.’ Sitting down opposite the prisoner, Fox lit a cigarette and riffled quickly through the man’s criminal record. ‘Well, Wally, you’ve not been at it for long …’ He closed the slim file and pushed it to one side. ‘But you’ve managed to squeeze in a commendable bit of form, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘What this is about, Wally, dear boy, is an unfortunate incident which occurred earlier today.’ Fox paused. ‘Oh, Jack,’ he said, ‘you’d better turn on the apparatus, I suppose.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ Gilroy switched on the tape recorder and announced that an interview was being conducted with Walter Chesney by Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Fox of the Flying Squad in the presence of Detective Inspector Jack Gilroy.

  At the mention of Fox’s name, Chesney sat upright. He had heard of Fox, and what he had heard did not give him any reason to think that he might shortly walk out of the police station a free man.

  Those members of London’s loose band of villainry who had not had previous dealings with Fox were inclined to regard him as a dandy, an assumption based upon a sartorial elegance that was impeccable almost to the point of being obsessive. Sometimes called, behind his back, the Beau Brummel of Scotland Yard, he was just as fussy about his spoken English — when he chose to be — even though it was delivered in a rich Cockney accent. But it was a mistake for anyone, policeman or villain, to underestimate him. Those who knew him well knew that he was a hard-nosed detective of the old school. And they also knew that he was the holder of the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.

  Shortly before Fox had taken command of the Flying Squad, a villain had made the painful mistake of pulling a gun on him. In the interests of law and order — and his own welfare — Fox had walked swiftly across the room and felled the offender with a right hook. He had then stood on the gunman’s hand and explained, briefly and in the vernacular, that he was under arrest.

  During the resulting trial at the Old Bailey, defence counsel had tried to make capital out of the fact that his client’s jaw had been broken in the course of his arrest, and suggested that Fox had used more force than was necessary. This proposition had produced from Fox a response that had gone down in the annals of the Metropolitan Police. ‘When a villain draws a gun on an unarmed police officer,’ he had said, ‘it is my view that the officer may infer that the said villain has abandoned the Queensberry Rules.’

  At that point, to the discomfiture of defence counsel, the judge, a former Oxford boxing blue, had glanced up and said, ‘I entirely agree.’

  ‘Now where was I?’ Fox stared at Chesney for some time. ‘Ah, yes. Now, Wally, this morning at about five-thirty, you and Mr Sidney Budgeon, who lives next door to you —’

  ‘No he don’t,’ said Chesney.

  ‘Oh but he does, dear boy. He is currently occupying the cell adjacent to your own. And is likely to for some time to come I shouldn’t wonder.’ Fox beamed at the prisoner. ‘You and Mr Budgeon took it upon yourselves to steal eight video-recorders from a warehouse in down-town Balham. You then transported these wondrous items of electronic gismo to a lock-up in Lambeth. But at that point, you decided on a radical change of plan. For some reason you took them to Prince of Wales Drive, Battersea, and abandoned them. Now why, I ask myself, should you have done that?’

  ‘I was home in bed.’

  ‘Furthermore,’ continued Fox, as though Chesney hadn’t spoken, ‘you then leaped into a cab and high-tailed it back to Lewisham. And I can produce at least twelve police officers who will happily testify to that fact, when eventually the Crown Prosecution Service can be prevailed upon to arrange for you to be tried at the Old Bailey, or such lesser place as may be decided.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Chesney.

  ‘Oh indeed.’ Fox stubbed out his cigarette. ‘But what is worrying me grievously at this moment is the body.’

  ‘Body?’ Chesney’s voice rose slightly. He had known instinctively that the sarcastic policeman opposite would get to that sooner or later.

  ‘Dear boy, you couldn’t have failed to notice, on the floor of the lock-up, that there was the body of a young lady. A dead body.’

  ‘That weren’t nothing to do with us. It was there, like.’

  ‘Indeed it was, Walter, dear boy. The thing that puzzles me, and my officers …’ He nodded towards Gilroy. ‘Is what it was doing there.’

  ‘Dunno!’

  ‘Let’s just get this straight then,’ said Fox. ‘You and Uncle Sid do this blagging and set off for your lock-up in Lambeth. When you get there, you find, to your astonishment, that someone has carelessly left a dead body within. Bit unreasonable that, I thought. And, no doubt, so did you.’

  ‘I’m telling you, we never knew nothing about it.’

  ‘When did you last visit the lock-up, Wally?’

  ‘About a week ago.’

  ‘After your last blagging, I suppose,’ said Fox. ‘When you nicked a quantity of gent’s natty suiting.’ He held up his hand as Chesney went to say something. ‘None of which, I note, seems to have found its way into your wardrobe.’ He surveyed Chesney’s clothing with an expression of distaste on his face.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Chesney. It was unconvincing. When he had embarked on this particular villainous enterprise, he had been assured by the elders and betters of his criminal fraternity that there was no risk. And now, suddenly, he was sitting in a police station facing a very nasty detective who seemed to know all about it. And who kept mentioning a dead body. Wally Chesney was not a happy man.

  ‘What is going to happe
n now, Walter,’ said Fox, ‘is that another of my officers will talk to you and you will tell him all about these little heists that you and your nasty little friends have been carrying out. Once that is out of the way, I shall return and talk very seriously to you about this murder with which you and Sidney are involved.’

  ‘Murder?’ Chesney whispered the word, but the surprise he tried to convey was unconvincing.

  Fox studied the ceiling for some seconds before looking back at Chesney. ‘Well, of course it’s murder,’ he said. ‘You don’t think she fell over and banged her head on the floor, surely?’

  At Fox’s request, the custody sergeant removed Chesney to another interview room, there to be interviewed by DI Evans, and brought in Sidney Budgeon.

  Budgeon was about five feet seven inches tall, had broad shoulders and a broken nose. He sat down in the chair opposite Fox and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Got a light, have you?’ he asked. ‘That bleeding sergeant took mine off of me.’

  Fox pushed his lighter across the table. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.

  Budgeon lit his cigarette and handed the lighter back. ‘I ain’t saying nothing,’ he said, exhaling smoke and leaning nonchalantly back in his chair. ‘Not without a brief.’

  ‘If I were in your position, I think it likely I would adopt the same attitude,’ said Fox mildly. ‘But there again, as I am Thomas Fox … of the Flying Squad the question does not arise.’

  Budgeon took a deep breath, coughed on his cigarette, but otherwise remained silent. He too had heard of Fox.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Fox continued, ‘faced with a murder charge, I think I might try to be as helpful as possible.’

  ‘Murder? What murder?’ Budgeon eased himself slowly into an upright position.

  Fox sighed. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, glancing at Gilroy. ‘I suppose we’ve got to go through this farce all over again. I am talking, Sidney, of the dead body which you and young Master Chesney found underneath the arches at about six o’clock this morning.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ Budgeon pretended to be quite unperturbed by this statement.

  Fox outlined, as briefly as possible, what he had said to Chesney. ‘And so you see, Sidney, we know all about it. And at this very moment, young Walter is next door falling over himself to put it all down in writing.’

  ‘Look, guv’nor, I’ll square with you.’

  ‘That’ll make a change,’ murmured Fox.

  ‘We’ll have the heist. Ain’t got much option, I s’pose.’

  ‘Very realistic,’ said Fox.

  Budgeon struggled on. ‘But the body’s not down to us. A bit of honest blagging is one thing, but a topping’s definitely not our line of business. It’s too risky. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Oh I do, I do indeed,’ said Fox warmly. ‘So my colleagues and I can count on you for your unstinting assistance, can we?’

  ‘Yeah, well I mean —’ Budgeon, somewhat bemused, lapsed into silence.

  ‘Good. Now when did you last visit this lock-up?’

  ‘About a week ago.’

  ‘After the blagging at the stock-room of a high-class gentlemen’s outfitters in Tottenham Court Road, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ Budgeon sighed. If he ever got his hands on the person or persons who had dumped a stiff in the Lambeth lock-up and thereby involved him in his present grief with the Old Bill, he’d make sure they never did such a thing again. There was, after all, a code of ethics among the villainry. Or there was supposed to be.

  ‘You appeared to have some trouble opening the doors this morning,’ said Fox mildly as though he were a salesman trying to sell a new set of locks to a nervous householder.

  ‘Yeah, we did. Some bastard had switched the padlock. That wasn’t the usual one on there, see. That’s why I had to banjo it off.’

  ‘Very unreasonable of somebody,’ said Fox. ‘And you had not visited this repository of stolen goods during the intervening period?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You hadn’t been to the slaughter since the last blagging?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened to the gear that you left there last time, then?’ Fox held out his hand and Gilroy gave him a list. ‘According to my information, some sixty gents’ suits, ditto shirts with French cuffs —’ He broke off and glanced at Gilroy. ‘What the hell are French cuffs, Jack?’ he asked.

  ‘Cuffs which take cuff-links, sir,’ said Gilroy.

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Fox. ‘I thought they all did.’ He turned back to Budgeon. ‘And fifty silk ties of assorted design.’

  ‘That’s a bloody stitch-up,’ said Budgeon angrily. ‘We never nicked all that. They’re trying it on with the insurance. That’s bloody dishonest, that is.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Fox and shook his head slowly. ‘Make a note of that, Jack. We’ll have to talk to these people. I don’t wonder there’s a recession if fellows go about fiddling the underwriters like that. Makes you feel sorry for Lloyd’s names, doesn’t it?’ He turned his attention once more to Budgeon. ‘And now, Sidney, we come to the important question. If you didn’t remove the stolen property from this lock-up in Lambeth, who did?’ Fox sat back and lit another cigarette.

  ‘Nothing to say,’ said Budgeon.

  ‘Dear me, how unfortunate.’ Fox smiled. And waited. Budgeon shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘You can’t expect me to grass, can you?’

  ‘Don’t see why not,’ said Fox. ‘It seems to me that whoever took the gear also left a dead body there. And you’re the one who got nicked, dear boy. Well, you and the bold Chesney. Think about it.’

  There was another longish pause before Budgeon spoke again. ‘Will this definitely row me out of this topping, guv?’

  Fox pursed his lips. ‘I can’t make any promises,’ he said, ‘but let’s say it may go some way towards assisting you in your present predicament.’

  ‘I don’t want none of this recorded,’ said Budgeon.

  Fox glanced at the tape recorder. ‘Oh, how remiss of me,’ he said, ‘I quite forgot to switch it on.’

  ‘Harry Dawes,’ said Budgeon quietly, as if afraid that he might be overheard by the said Dawes.

  ‘Good grief!’ said Fox. ‘Don’t tell me that old Sliding Dawes is still at it? Better tell me the tale then, Sidney.’

  ‘He’s got outlets and that,’ said Budgeon, still nervous at having disclosed Dawes’ identity. ‘But I never seen him as into topping. Not his line.’

  ‘What is his line? Now, I mean.’

  ‘Well, like I said, he’s got outlets. He’s got all sorts of contacts what wants special gear like. They gives Dawes a bell, and he tells me what’s on the list like.’

  ‘And you pop out and do their shopping for them, I suppose.’

  ‘Yeah, well sort of.’

  ‘And who are these mysterious punters, Sidney?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Budgeon. ‘You’ll have to ask Harry.’

  ‘I shall, Sidney, believe me, I shall.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought you might.’ Budgeon looked as unhappy as Chesney had done.

  *

  When Fox and Gilroy returned to the Yard, DI Evans was waiting.

  ‘What news from John Harris’s carvery, Denzil?’

  Evans skimmed through a folder of papers he was carrying. ‘He confirms the cause as manual strangulation, sir. But he now says that the time of death was at least ten hours prior to the discovery, possibly longer. Something to do with the temperature and …’ Evans paused.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And the fact that she was murdered elsewhere and transported to the lock-up subsequently.’

  ‘It would be subsequently if she was murdered somewhere else,’ said Fox in an aside to Gilroy.

  ‘It was hypostasis, sir,’ said Evans despondently. ‘The lividity of the skin indicates that the body was face down to start with but when we found it, it was —’

  ‘Face up. Yes, Denzil, I do know what hypostasis is. Anything else?’


  ‘Yes, sir. Dr Harris found some skin tissue beneath the fingernails of both hands, as if she had tried to tear the attacker’s hands away from her neck.’

  ‘Much, is there? I mean enough for DNA testing, if we get lucky?’

  ‘He seems to think so. sir. Anyway, it’s been taken to the lab.’

  ‘All that remains for you to tell me now, Denzil, is her name.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’ Evans looked crestfallen.

  Fox stared pointedly at the clock over the door of his office. ‘Here we are at nearly five o’clock and you still haven’t found out who she is, Denzil. That’s eleven hours since the body was discovered. Well really, what have you been doing?’

  ‘I’m waiting on the lab, sir. We sent all the clothing over there from the mortuary and they’re seeing if they can come up with something.’

  ‘Fingerprints, Denzil,’ said Fox. ‘What about fingerprints?’

  ‘Nothing, guv. She hasn’t got a record.’

  Fox sniffed. ‘Bloody inconsiderate that is,’ he said. ‘What about teeth?’

  ‘Being done, sir,’ said Evans, ‘but it’s a long business sending details out to all the dentists in London. There are a lot of them.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox, ‘I do know that.’

  ‘And I’ve got Photographic Branch doing their best to get a decent portrait of her.’ Evans hoped that he had covered all the possibilities.

  ‘Yes, well keep chasing them, Denzil. Can’t start until we know who she is, can we?’

  ‘What about Harry Dawes, guv’nor?’ asked Gilroy. ‘Want him brought in?’

  Fox took a cigarette out of his case and tapped it thoughtfully on the edge of his desk. ‘No, Jack, I think we shall go and talk to him. We won’t knock him off. Not yet. If we chat nicely to him, he might think he’s in the clear.’ He chuckled quietly. ‘And that’ll be his first mistake, but it will not be his last, Jack. Not by a long chalk.’

  THREE

  ‘ON SECOND THOUGHTS, JACK, I think we’ll let Sliding Dawes sweat for a while.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Until then, Gilroy had been enjoying a drink with Fox in The Old Star public house close to Scotland Yard. But now he put his pint down on the bar and stared. When Fox started acting out of character it worried him.