by Graham Ison
‘Well, it’s like this,’ Fox went on. ‘If we go and see him now, we’ve got nothing to frighten him with, have we? For a start, we don’t know who this bird is whose body we found in his lock-up. Don’t even know if he had anything to do with it. Apart from anything else, he’s bound to have heard that we’ve nicked Budgeon and Chesney and if we go steaming in, Dawes will know who grassed on him.’ Fox drained his Scotch and looked expectantly at his DI. ‘And we might just need Budgeon’s assistance. Don’t want him duffed up in Brixton do we? Not yet, anyway.’
‘What do we do then, guv?’
‘We’ll get Henry to put a discreet obo on Dawes, Jack, that’s what we’ll do. Wait and see what happens, if you get my drift. If we leave him alone, he’ll think he’s in the clear and might do something silly.’
‘So what do we do with Budgeon and Chesney, guv? Charge them with warehouse-breaking?’
‘Good heavens no, Jack. There’s a limit to my generosity. Charge them with robbery. After all, Ron Crozier did say he was threatened with an iron bar, didn’t he?’
‘And make no mention of Sliding Dawes, guv?’
‘Exactly so, Jack.’
*
The arrival of an emissary called Eddie Swinburn at Dawes’s villa in Oxford Road, Putney, was witnessed by members of DI Henry Findlater’s surveillance team. Being versed in the ways of the police, Swinburn had been cunning enough to arrive late at night and on foot; he knew that the police computer could very quickly identify the owner of a car. The fact that his car was not registered in his name — or in anyone else’s — gave him some anonymity, but also left him open to some very nasty questions if any policemen happened to be loitering in the vicinity of Harry Dawes’s pad. And in the circumstances, that possibility could not be ruled out.
He had been careful because he knew that Budgeon and Chesney had been arrested and the same source of information had also told him that Tommy Fox had taken a personal interest in the matter. That worried Swinburn, and would also worry Harry Dawes when he heard it.
Dawes’s front door opened a fraction and Swinburn oiled his way round it as quickly as possible.
‘Eddie? To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Dawes was a man of nearly sixty, painfully thin and almost bald. What hair remained was snow-white, and he had a hooked nose and a ragged moustache. Dawes had never married and had never been a front-line villain — even he accepted that he had neither the courage nor the physique for either — but had wielded power in the criminal community for nigh-on three decades. But then fences, or handlers of stolen goods as the law preferred to call them, had always been powerful men.
‘I’ve got a bit of bad news, Harry.’
‘Oh?’ Dawes carefully fitted a cigarette into an amber holder and reached out for a table lighter. ‘You’d better sit down and tell me all about it then, Eddie.’ He coughed distressingly as the smoke reached the back of his throat.
‘It’s Sid Budgeon and Wally Chesney, Harry. They’ve been nicked.’
‘Have they? When?’
‘Yesterday morning.’
‘Oh that is bad news,’ said Dawes. ‘Better tell me the tale.’
‘They done a warehouse down Balham —’
‘I heard that was in the wind,’ said Dawes.
‘And the Old Bill was lying in wait.’
‘I see.’ Dawes moved across to the mantelpiece and straightened an ornament before facing Swinburn again. ‘Well that sounds as though it’s all self-contained. I mean, like, it don’t sound as though we need to go in for damage limitation, does it?’ He flicked ash into a brass ashtray. ‘D’you like that phrase, Eddie? Damage limitation is what they do when a spy gets hisself captured. I saw that on the telly. BBC Two, of course.’
‘But they didn’t get nicked at the warehouse, Harry,’ said Swinburn, trying to break the news as gently as possible. ‘They got lifted at the lock-up.’
‘Now that’s not so good,’ said Dawes, his mind moving into top gear. ‘That’s not so good at all.’ He crossed to the window and twitching the net curtains slightly, peered out at the deserted street. ‘I hope you wasn’t followed, Eddie.’
‘No, course not, Harry.’
‘That’s all right then. Well, go on.’
‘I’m afraid they got nicked by Tommy Fox and half the bleeding Sweeney.’
‘Oh Gawd!’ Dawes sat down suddenly in a Rexine-covered armchair that had been in his family for at least half a century. Formerly belonging to his dear departed old mother, it had a particular place in Dawes’s affections. In fact, he did most of his thinking in that chair. ‘Someone’s grassed,’ he said eventually.
Swinburn shrugged. ‘S’pose so,’ he said, trying to sound non-committal.
‘There’s no suppose about it, Eddie. And I want to know who it is. I mean to say, how else did the filth know where to set up the ambush?’
‘It’s all a bit dodgy, Harry,’ said Swinburn. ‘’Cos they both got nicked at home, down Lewisham. I reckon the Old Bill followed them from the slaughter.’
‘How d’you know all this, Eddie?’ Dawes’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Swinburn detected the danger immediately. ‘It weren’t nothing to do with me, Harry. I wouldn’t grass, you know that. But they was up before the beak at Bow Street this morning and got an eight-day lay down in Brixton. I heard it from a bent screw who Stimkins knows. His missus works in the kitchens there.’
‘Who works in the kitchens?’ Dawes wanted to get to the bottom of this distressing item of intelligence.
‘Fred Stimkins’s missus does.’
‘How’s that then? How can Fred Stimkins’s missus get a job in the kitchens at Brixton? Fred’s got form.’
Swinburn shrugged. ‘Search me,’ he said, ‘but she does.’
‘This is all very disturbing, Eddie. I think we’d better have a drink.’ Dawes walked across to a side table and turning to face Swinburn, paused. ‘Medium or dry?’ he asked.
‘Medium or dry what?’
‘Sherry, of course,’ said Dawes.
*
Although Dr Susan Gardiner was the fabrics expert at the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory, it was the fact that she was a woman that helped to speed up the identification of the female found in the lock-up at Lambeth.
‘This is all good quality clothing,’ she said to Detective Sergeant Percy Fletcher, indicating the clothes that the dead girl had been wearing, ‘but it’s the sort of stuff that’s available at quite a few outlets. On the other hand, her shoes were very expensive. They certainly cost a lot more than these.’ Turning on her stool, she pushed out a black nylon-clad leg from beneath her white coat and waggled a foot in Fletcher’s direction.
‘Very nice,’ said Fletcher enigmatically.
‘And they are obtainable only in the London area. They’re made by an independent firm out at Harrow. I know that they’re sixes, which is just about the most common size, but it’s worth trying there before you start gallivanting round the country attempting to track this lot down.’ And Susan Gardiner pointed again at the pile of clothing.
*
Eddie Swinburn left Harry Dawes’s house unaware that he was being watched by at least four police officers. He walked confidently down Oxford Road and caught a tube train at East Putney station. Alighting at Earls Court, he made his way into the maze of streets bounded by Cromwell Road and Brompton Road, and disappeared into a large house that was divided into bed-sitting rooms. At least, he thought he had disappeared. In fact, Findlater’s men had followed him all the way.
*
‘No trouble at all,’ said the manager of the shoe factory in Harrow. He peered into one of the shoes that Fletcher had handed him and jotted down a serial number. ‘That number,’ he went on, ‘will tell me which batch this was. And the records will tell me which retailer took delivery of them.’ He looked up and grinned. ‘I hope,’ he added.
Armed with the address of the shop in the West End of London to which the dead girl
’s shoes had been supplied, Fletcher continued his enquiries. Obviously the shoes would not have been sold after the date that the body was found, and given that there was very little wear on them, and given also that any shoe which was not a size six could be discounted, Fletcher was fortunate to come out with only three names.
The inverse law of criminal investigation always comes into play in an enquiry of this nature, and it was no surprise to Fletcher to find that the first two addresses were at diametrically-opposed extremes of the Metropolitan Police District. The third, however, was in an expensive block of flats in the Edgware Road.
Fletcher went there first. There was no reply. He travelled to the other two addresses. The women who lived at those addresses were both still alive. And both still had their shoes. Fletcher went back to the address in the Edgware Road.
The hall porter was Polish, but he spoke reasonable English and studied the post-mortem photograph of the dead girl. ‘That’s her,’ he said.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive, mister.’
‘Good. Have you got a key to her flat?’
‘No. Not allowed.’
‘Damn!’ said Fletcher.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the hall porter.
*
‘There are times,’ said Fox, when Fletcher had delivered his report, ‘when I think that the inspectors in this department ought to be sergeants and the sergeants ought to be inspectors.’
Neither Gilroy nor Evans said anything, and Fletcher thought it would be unwise to pass comment on what, to him, seemed an eminently sensible idea.
‘What we need now,’ Fox continued, ‘is a search warrant and a seven-pound key.’ Fox always referred to a sledge-hammer as a seven-pound key. ‘But it’s just possible that Swann, armed with his illegal bunch of twirlers, might do the trick. Get hold of him Denzil, there’s a good chap.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Evans. ‘Where is he, d’you know?’
‘Pound to a pinch, he’s in the drivers’ room with a hand of cards in his grubby paw. Oh, and get hold of Rosie as well. Better still, get Rosie to get Swann. He’s terrified of her.’
Detective Sergeant Rosie Webster was a perfectly-proportioned, very tall blonde. And no one argued with her. Always superbly dressed and expensively perfumed, she had frightened quite a few villains — men and women — in her career. And nearly as many policemen.
When the team arrived at the flats in Edgware Road, the complaining Swann got to work on the front door with his ‘twirlers’, as his bunch of keys was known. Despite the manufacturer’s claim that the lock was virtually burglar-proof, Swann effected an entry within three minutes, and the officer in charge of the sledge-hammer put it back in the boot of his car, with a resigned look on his face.
The inside of the flat was elegant. The chairs were of leather, as was the chesterfield, and the carpet had a rich pile. Original paintings graced the walls, one of them a Degas, and several pieces of furniture, according to Fox — who had assumed the guise of an expert in such matters — were genuine and valuable antiques. The remainder was expensive reproduction quite definitely not made out of veneered plywood. ‘There’s money here,’ said Fox approvingly. ‘A lot of money.’
Neither Gilroy nor Evans disagreed. The entire interior of the flat indicated substantial wealth.
Fox sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘Right lads, get to work,’ he said to the fingerprint experts who had come with the Flying Squad officers.
The search went on for almost two hours. Early on, the detectives found sufficient evidence to identify the dead woman as Dawn Mitchell, aged thirty, and Rosie Webster found a framed photograph of her in a theatrical pose, that had clearly been taken by a professional. In a box in a wardrobe, she found dozens of other photographs obviously taken at the same time.
But the one item of property which interested Fox was a little black book. ‘This might give us one or two promising leads,’ he said, flicking through its pages. He chuckled. ‘And even if it doesn’t, there are a few people on this list who, I suspect, will not be best pleased to be involved in a murder enquiry.’
There were twenty-seven names in Dawn Mitchell’s little black book. Each had a telephone number beside it and, in some cases, an address. And there were at least five nationally-known names among them including a peer of the realm.
‘There are three telephones, guv,’ said Evans, emerging from Dawn Mitchell’s bedroom. ‘One in there …’ He cocked a thumb towards the room he had just left. ‘And two in here.’
‘So what?’ said Fox. ‘I’ve got a phone in my sitting-room and another in my bedroom. The one in my bedroom is for answering the queries of my subordinates who discover, in the middle of the night, that they can’t cope,’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Evans who knew Fox’s home telephone number by heart.
‘Do a check with British Telecom on the number, Denzil, there’s a good fellow,’ said Fox.
‘But we know who the subscriber is, sir,’ Evans looked vaguely mystified.
‘Indeed we do, Denzil, but it might just be that the lady in question has her account itemised. In which case it might provide us with some useful information.’ Fox sighed.
*
‘Right then, what do we know so far?’ asked Fox. he glanced at Gilroy, then back at Evans. ‘What about the phone?’
‘Ex-directory, sir —’ began Evans.
‘So are most women who live alone these days,’ said Fox. There was a despair in his voice that crime had got that bad.
‘And I’ve got her accounts for the year up to last September, itemised,’ continued Evans.
‘Good. Get a subscriber check done on all of them, will you.’ Fox tapped Dawn Mitchell’s address book. ‘Looks as though it’s time to start asking some questions of her friends and acquaintances.’ He moved the book into the centre of his blotter. ‘Was there anything on her answerphone tape?’
‘One message, sir,’ said Evans, ‘from a girl called Bunny, inviting her to some party.’
‘Oh well,’ said Fox and shrugged. ‘What about that photograph we found, Jack? Anything on that yet?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Gilroy flicked open his pocket book. ‘There was a set of them, taken about three years ago by a legit West End studio. They supplied a hundred copies of each, to distribute to agencies, one supposes. Seems that Muzz Mitchell was contemplating a career as a model. Doesn’t seem to have come to much, though. Most of the prints were in that box that Rosie found in the girl’s wardrobe.’
‘Well that doesn’t get us very far,’ said Fox. ‘Get hold of Percy Fletcher, Denzil, and tell him to get out and beat on the ground. See what comes up. Neighbours at her block of flats, model agencies, clubs. Perce’ll know the sort of thing. Better still, get Rosie to do the model agencies, see if any of them employed the Mitchell girl, or even if she applied to them. And get a few prints run off from that photograph so that we can show them around. Anything else?’
‘The fingerprint lads found some marks, but they’re still classifying and searching, sir,’ said Evans.
‘Well chase them up, Denzil.’
‘What about Harry Dawes, guv’nor?’ asked Gilroy. ‘Are we going to give him a spin?’
‘D’you know, Jack, I think we might just do that.’
*
But Detective Sergeant Fletcher drew a blank. It was apparent from the outset that the occupants of the three flats sharing the late Dawn Mitchell’s hallway, all foreigners, were even more distrusting of the police than the average member of the indigenous population. They had seen nothing and heard nothing.
And Fletcher’s usual West End informants, carefully cultivated over the years during which — and since — he had done duty at West End Central Police Station, yielded nothing either. The name of Dawn Mitchell, they confessed, meant nothing to them.
FOUR
WHEN FOX RETURNED TO SCOTLAND Yard there was a note on his desk telling him to speak to the commander as soon as he got back. Irritably, he sc
rewed it up and threw it into the waste-paper basket before marching down the corridor to Alec Myers’s office.
‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ Fox managed to convey the impression that, heavily involved as he was in a murder enquiry that he shouldn’t have been lumbered with anyway, he had little time to respond to Myers’s every whim.
‘Yes, Tommy. Sit down.’
‘I am rather tucked up, sir.’
‘This won’t take a moment. But there’s been a complaint made against you.’
‘Well, there’s a surprise, guv,’ said Fox who had been the subject of so many complaints that he had lost count. ‘Who’s belly-aching this time?’
‘John James Stedman,’ said Myers, glancing down at the file on his desk.
‘Stedman! That’s outrageous,’ said Fox. ‘That little toe-rag’s banged up in Parkhurst doing ten years for armed robbery, with an option for renewal.’
Myers grinned. ‘Yes, I know, but he’s written to his MP complaining that during the course of a search of his dwelling, you stole two hundred pounds, several compact discs and a quantity of women’s clothing.’
‘The saucy little bastard,’ said Fox, shaking his head.
Myers shrugged. ‘Well, Tommy, that’s it. Got to go through the motions. Commander Willow of One Area Headquarters has been appointed to investigate.’
‘Willow?’ said Fox. ‘Never heard of him.’
‘He’s a Uniform Branch commander,’ said Myers.
‘Oh, good.’ Fox paused thoughtfully. ‘Does that mean I’m off this murder then, guv?’
Alec Myers shut the file and laughed. ‘No, Tommy, it doesn’t,’ he said, ‘but try to make yourself available whenever Mr Willow needs you.’
‘He’ll have to catch me first,’ said Fox.
*
Some four or five days had elapsed since the discovery of Dawn Mitchell’s body, and Fox had decided that Harry Dawes could not be left undisturbed any longer. He knew that by now, Dawes would have convinced himself that any fall-out arising from the arrest of Budgeon and Chesney would not be falling in his direction. But he was about to be disabused of that pious hope.