by Graham Ison
‘Some murders are cleared up almost immediately,’ said Fox. ‘Particularly what we call domestic murders. But in most cases, I suppose, the victim is known to the murderer.’
‘And is this a domestic murder, as you call it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fox. ‘But possibly Lady Dawn knew her killer. At least, that is the theory I’m working on at the moment.’ He crossed his legs and studied the toe of his shoe.
‘The thing that’s been puzzling me,’ said Jane, ‘is why her body was found in a lock-up underneath some arches in … was it Lambeth, you said?’
‘Yes, it was. And it’s puzzling me, too.’ Fox paused to take a sip of his Scotch. ‘Are there any names that your sister may have mentioned that you can remember?’
Jane thought about his question for a while and then shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘Much as I’d like to be able to help, there’s nothing relevant that I can think of. I’m sorry.’
‘Did your sister ever have a close relationship, Lady Jane? Some time ago even?’
‘I do wish you’d call me Jane. I’m not very keen on this title business. It’s a bit old-hat these days.’Jane Sims smiled at him. Fox returned the smile and nodded a brief acknowledgement. ‘But to answer your question,’ Jane went on, ‘no, I don’t think that there was ever a man in Dawn’s life. Not one that she regarded as a future husband, anyway. If she did, she never mentioned it.’
‘Never spoke of getting married?’
‘No.’ Jane Sims looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose my own experience may have put her off.’
‘Yes, I remember you saying something about marrying the wrong man.’ Fox reached across and stubbed out his cigarette.
‘It was fifteen years ago, and it was a disaster.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Fox.
Jane shrugged. ‘It’s all over now,’ she said. ‘We got divorced eight years ago, but it was finished well before that. The trouble with being an earl’s daughter and living in London — which I was even then — is that most of the men you meet are chinless wonders whose whole life seems to be devoted to playing some stupid game or another, like polo or squash.’ She glanced up at the ceiling. ‘This one was a complete wastrel. Still, that’s life.’ She didn’t appear to be too upset about her failed marriage, nor did she seem to want to dwell on it.
‘Did Lady Dawn ever meet your ex-husband?’ asked Fox.
‘Yes, of course. She was a bridesmaid. Why d’you ask?’
‘It is a failing of mine to ask questions,’ said Fox with a grin. ‘Policemen hate loose ends.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’d better be on my way.’ He placed his empty glass on the table and stood up. ‘Thanks for the drink, Jane.’
‘It was a pleasure.’ Jane Sims stood up too. ‘I suppose your wife will be wondering where you’ve got to,’ she said.
‘I’m not married,’ said Fox. ‘Can’t afford decent suits and a wife. Not on a policeman’s pay.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Jane, and closing the front door behind Fox, stood in thought for a moment or two, her hand still on the night-latch.
*
‘I’ve come to the conclusion, Mr Hope-Smith, that you’re wasting my time,’ said Fox.
‘Whatever makes you think that?’ Hope-Smith looked a little nervous at Fox’s sharp opening comment.
‘When I was here last, you told me that on the night of the fourteenth and fifteenth of October you were in Kuwait.’
‘So I was.’
‘Then how d’you account for the fact that the company you work for, having checked with their Kuwait office, told one of my officers that you were in London? From the tenth to the seventeenth to be precise.’
‘Oh!’ Hope-Smith looked down at the floor, a contrite expression on his face.
‘Well?’
‘Yes, I was here.’
‘Then why did you tell me that you weren’t?’
Hope-Smith glanced up, guiltily. ‘It’s the tax business,’ he said.
‘What tax business?’ Fox was starting to get angry.
‘My income in Kuwait is tax-free,’ said Hope-Smith, ‘but if I spend too long over here, I have to pay some tax to the Inland Revenue. I’m almost over my limit for this year and as the immigration people never stamp your passport, I wasn’t going to declare that short stay. Let the blood-suckers think I was still away, you see.’
‘Is that so? Well look at it from my point of view, Mr Hope-Smith. You tell a detective chief superintendent from Scotland Yard, who is investigating the murder of a woman whom, on your own admission, you tried several times to contact, that you were out of the country at the time of her murder. Then I find that you were, in fact, here. Now what sort of construction d’you expect me to put on that, eh?’
‘Oh Christ!’ said Hope-Smith. ‘I see what you mean. But I had absolutely nothing to do with her death, Chief Superintendent, I promise you.’
‘You’ll forgive me for not being convinced, won’t you?’ said Fox. ‘Now then, you can start by accounting for your movements on the night of the fourteenth to the fifteenth of October.’ He glanced at Gilroy who made a show of getting out his pocket book.
Hope-Smith ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said.
‘Well you’d better start thinking, pretty damned quick.’ Fox pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the mantelshelf.
‘I think I stayed in. What day of the week was that?’
‘The fourteenth was a Sunday.’
‘Yes, I’m pretty certain that I stayed in.’
‘Doing what? Watching television perhaps?’
Hope-Smith shook his head. ‘No, I rarely watch it. I think I read for a while then had an early night.’
‘Is that so?’ It was evident that Fox was not going to get any further than that, and in the absence of any proof to the contrary, he would have to accept what Hope-Smith said. But he wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. ‘When are you returning to Kuwait?’ he asked.
‘Tuesday.’ Hope-Smith looked relieved that he would be escaping so soon.
‘Well, I can always come out there to see you if necessary. And I shall almost certainly need to see you again.’
That gave Hope-Smith no comfort at all. ‘This question of tax,’ he said hopefully. ‘I suppose you won’t need to, well, you know …’
‘I am a police officer, Mr Hope-Smith, and as far as I can see, you may have made a false declaration to the Inland Revenue. I shall certainly be making a full report to them. Good-day to you.’
*
‘The Jessops went to America at the beginning of October, sir,’ said Detective Sergeant Percy Fletcher.
‘Hold on, Perce,’ said Fox. ‘I’m only a simple policeman. I can’t keep up with these rapid results you keep pouring into the system. Who are the Jessops?’
‘The other two guests at the dinner party, sir.’
‘Ah yes, Perce. Gone to America, you say?’
‘Yes, sir. Left Gatwick on Air New Zealand flight NZ1 for Los Angeles at 1710 hours on the first of October. Planning to stay until just after Christmas, so their daughter said.’ Fletcher paused. ‘Don’t want someone to pop over there and interview them, I suppose, guv?’
‘You suppose correctly, Perce,’ said Fox.
*
‘I think I’ve visited every fashion house and model agency in London, sir,’ said Rosie Webster.
‘No joy?’ asked Fox.
‘No, sir. One or two said that Dawn Mitchell might have been to them for jobs, and one said that she might have done some work for them, but they weren’t willing to put it in writing.’
‘That’s life,’ said Fox. ‘Well, now you’ve got nothing to do, Rosie, perhaps you’d pop along to St Catherine’s House and do a bit of digging on Lady Jane Sims. She was divorced eight years ago, so she said. Find out what you can, will you?’
*
‘I wasn’t able to make an appointmen
t, sir,’ said Sergeant Clarke. ‘It would appear that Sandra Nash is not on the telephone.’
‘I can’t say that I’m surprised,’ said Commander Willow. ‘In that case, we shall go to her address. Tell my driver to get the car up, will you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The black Montego turned into Purbeck Terrace, Paddington, and stopped outside Number 54. Willow alighted and looked around. ‘Are you sure this is the right place, Sergeant?’ he asked.
Clarke referred quickly to his pocket book. ‘Yes, sir, this is it.’
‘I see.’ Willow marched up the crumbling concrete steps and studied the names beside the battery of doorbells. ‘Well, there’s no one here called Nash,’ he said.
‘Perhaps she doesn’t advertise, sir,’ said Clarke but promptly removed the half-smile from his face as Willow scowled at him.
‘We’ll try this one then.’ Willow pressed the bottom bell-push and waited.
Eventually the door opened an inch or two and an attractive black woman of about thirty peered round it. ‘What you want?’ she asked.
‘We’re police officers,’ said Willow, producing his ornate commander’s warrant card.
‘Is that so?’ The woman looked Willow up and down, appearing to be fascinated by his Marks & Spencer suit. ‘You come about them boys selling crack, every night down the street?’ She opened the door wide and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Because it’s about time someone was doing something about it. We’re all law-abiding people here, and we don’t like having these junkies round here pushing. You know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I do, madam,’ said Willow, ‘but that’s not what I’m here about.’
‘Well why aren’t you? We pay our taxes, just like other folk, and we want something done about it. Now what you going to do?’
‘I’ll make sure that the local chief superintendent is told,’ said Willow, not wanting to get involved in something that, in his view anyway, was not his concern.
‘That’s what they all say.’ The woman wasn’t going to give up. ‘We been down the station, and the Paddington Residents Defence Association been down the station. And you know what’s happened?’ Willow opened his mouth to speak, but the woman went on. ‘Nothing, that’s what’s happened. Well it ain’t good enough. Why don’t you go and arrest these people, eh? You frightened of them, or something?’
‘No, madam, not at all, but I am a commander and I am here on a quite different enquiry.’
‘Oh, you’re a boss cop, eh? Well that’s just what we wanted.’ The woman leaned backwards, still holding on to the door. ‘Henry,’ she shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Come here, quick. There’s a big important policeman here, come to talk about the crack dealers.’
A man of about forty with flecks of grey in his bushy hair, and wearing a bus-driver’s uniform, appeared in the hallway of the house. He looked Willow up and down before speaking. ‘What are you going to do about this crack, sir?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just been trying to explain to your wife —’
The bus driver threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘She’s not my wife, sir, she’s the woman I live with,’ he said.
‘Yes, well be that as it may,’ said Willow, ‘I’ve told your, er, I’ve told this lady that I shall arrange for extra policemen to be sent here to deal with the problem. Now then, I am looking for a Miss Sandra Nash, who I believe lives here.’
The bus driver shook his head. ‘No one of that name lives here, sir,’ he said, and started to list the names of all the people who lived in the house. ‘There never been no one called Sandra Nash living here. Black girl, is she?’
‘No,’ said Sergeant Clarke from behind the commander. ‘She’s white. And she’s a prostitute.’
‘A prostitute!’ The bus driver’s woman screamed the word. ‘You come round here and refuse to do anything about the crack dealers and then you say we’ve got prostitutes in the house.’ She took a step nearer Willow. ‘I’m going to write to my MP about you, Mister Boss Policeman. I’m going to complain, that’s what I’m going to do.’ And with that she slammed the door.
‘The first thing I want you to do when we get back to Edmonton,’ said Willow through clenched teeth, ‘is find out what steps the custody officer at West End Central took to verify Sandra Nash’s address before he admitted her to bail. And secondly, I want to know when she is due to appear in court. D’you understand, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Clarke. He understood only too well.
EIGHT
SOME VERY RICH PEOPLE LIVE in Chiswick which is in west London. But there are also some villains living there. The villains regard the rich people, who live in expensive houses and possess an abundancy of luxury items, as fair game and frequently break in to their expensive houses and steal their luxury items. Which is why it took Tessa Hayden some time to open her front door, such opening involving peering through a spy-hole, switching off the intruder alarm in such a way as not to have half the police force turning up, and finally undoing the several locks and bolts with which the front door had been fitted.
‘Good afternoon, madam,’ said Fox. ‘I telephoned earlier. Thomas Fox … of the Flying Squad.’
‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but it’s the burglar alarm.’ Tessa Hayden examined Fox’s warrant card closely and satisfied herself that it was genuine. At least, she assumed it was genuine, but as she had only seen a police warrant card once before, it was really a piece of play-acting. ‘I’m not used to it yet. The nice officer who came round from the police station suggested fitting it — the alarm, I mean — and all the locks and everything.’
‘Very wise, madam,’ said Fox, wondering what the crime prevention officer got for Christmas from the burglar alarm company. He and Gilroy stepped into the hallway and looked around.
‘Come through to the withdrawing room,’ said Tessa Hayden, using a term she had read in an up-market magazine as being the correct description for the room where she spent most of her waking hours. She was, as Jason Hope-Smith had said, about forty-five to fifty, and although he had described her as a dragon, Fox actually thought that she had made the best of herself. Given the limitations. And given also that she would always look as though she was about to set off on a day trip to Southend.
Prominent on a grand piano was a framed photograph of Tessa and a man in morning dress, complete with silk top hat, whom, Fox presumed, was Freddie Hayden.
‘That was taken at the palace,’ said Tessa.
‘Crystal Palace?’ asked Fox innocently. Gilroy turned away, taking a sudden interest in the view from the French doors.
‘Oh no, Buckingham Palace. It was the garden party.’ Tessa’s condescending tone implied that policemen could not be expected to know about such social events.
‘Oh, very nice,’ said Fox who had, in fact, been to a garden party at Buckingham Palace only the previous July.
‘Mr Hayden and I often go,’ said Tessa casually, ‘Mr Hayden’s connected with one or two charities that you-know-who is interested in.’ She whispered the last few words.
‘You know who?’ Fox repeated innocently.
‘Yes, you know.’ Tessa continued to whisper. ‘Her Majesty,’ she said, dropping her voice even further.
‘Never!’ Fox made a pretence of being manifestly impressed by this revelation. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘who’d have thought it?’
‘Oh yes, Mr Hayden works tirelessly for charity.’
‘Is that what he’s doing now? He’s not in his office.’
‘He’s gone to Africa. Somalia actually.’
‘And when will he be returning, Mrs Hayden?’
‘Next week, so he says. About Thursday, I should think.’ Tessa Hayden primped at her hair. ‘This is quite dreadful about Dawn Mitchell. We called her Dawn, although she was really a lady. A lady in her own right, I mean. She was Lady Dawn Sims, you know.’
‘Yes, I did know that,’ said Fox. ‘But how long have you known it?’
Tessa Hayden looked away. ‘Oh, some time,’ she said in an offhand way.
‘And how did you learn of her death?’
‘Connie told me. Er, Mrs Crawley, that is.’
Fox was beginning to tire of this woman’s posturing and make-believe. ‘I understand that you first met Lady Dawn — or Dawn Mitchell as she would have been known to you — at a dinner party at the Crawleys’ last August. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, that’s right. A lovely girl. Really lovely.’
‘And that was the only time you met her?’
‘Well …’ Loathe to admit that she did not hob-nob with the well-to-do all the time, Tessa Hayden appeared to give this question a great deal of thought. ‘Yes, now you come to mention it, I suppose it was, but she was one of those terribly warm girls that you felt you’d known all your life.’
‘Mr Jason Hope-Smith, whom you will also know …?’ Fox lifted one eyebrow slightly.
‘Er, let me see …’
‘He’s in the oil business. Constance Crawley invited him to make up the numbers. I think he sat opposite Dawn and next to you.’
‘Oh yes, of course. A nice young man. I thought that Connie had been ever so clever, matching those two up.’
‘I understand that your husband was quite taken with her too, Mrs Hayden.’
There was a brief pause as Tessa Hayden weighed that question but, as is so often the case with women of her sort, she thought she was much more clever than she really was. ‘To tell you the truth, he was trying to cultivate her.’ Her voice dropped to the conspiratorial whisper she had used when talking about the Queen. ‘It was the title, you see. Freddie — that’s Mr Hayden — never misses a chance to get a member of the aristocracy involved in his charity work, when he can.’
‘I see.’ Fox saw only too well. Hope-Smith had said that Hayden had flirted with Dawn Mitchell at the dinner party and Tessa Hayden was now using the girl’s title to excuse her husband’s philandering. Even though Fox was certain that, at the time, neither she nor her husband had known that Dawn Mitchell was the daughter of an earl. ‘What sort of charity work is your husband involved in, Mrs Hayden?’