by Graham Ison
‘What other photographs?’
‘They were obscene pictures of Dawn,’ said Hayden. ‘The most disgusting poses I’ve ever seen. Quite graphic, I can assure you, Mr Fox.’ He let out a great sigh as though relieved at having been able to tell someone about it at last. ‘I kept paying until I couldn’t afford any more, but still she pressed. That last night in Pimlico, she went too far. I got angry and grabbed hold of her.’ He gave Fox a pleading look. ‘I didn’t mean to kill her,’ he said. ‘It just happened.’
*
‘Christ! Aren’t you ever going to leave me alone?’ Jason Hope-Smith looked at Fox and Evans. ‘I’m getting bloody fed up with this, I can tell you. It’s nothing short of harassment.’
Fox pushed the door open and barged into Hope-Smith’s flat. ‘Get the photographs,’ he said.
‘You’ve got them, remember? You took them away the last time you came.’
‘Not those. The photographs you took of Frederick Hayden in bed with Dawn Sims. And the others that you took of Barnes, the weaselly little civil servant, and all the others you and Dawn were blackmailing.’
‘You must be imagining things,’ said Hope-Smith. He appeared to be quite unmoved by Fox’s allegation.
Fox shrugged. ‘Please yourself,’ he said, ‘but I have ten officers downstairs who are just waiting for my signal to take this place apart. Then I shall obtain a crown court judge’s warrant to examine your bank accounts and any safety deposit boxes you may have. But while all that’s going on, Mr Hope-Smith, you’ll be at the police station taking part in an identity parade. Mr Frederick Hayden is quite confident that he’ll be able to pick out the nocturnal photographer who took pictures of him and Dawn in bed together.’ There wasn’t a hope of that; Hayden had said that he’d been blinded by the flash-bulb of the camera.’
But it was enough for Hope-Smith. He sank down into a chair and put his head between his hands. ‘It was all Dawn’s idea,’ he said.
Fox nodded. ‘A gentleman to the last,’ he said.
*
Three months later, at the Old Bailey, Frederick Hayden pleaded diminished responsibility and was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment for the manslaughter of Lady Dawn Sims. The counts of making demands with menaces and that of conspiring to handle stolen property were left on the file, but the first year of his confinement was enlivened by frequent visits from representatives of the Serious Fraud Office. And at 10 Downing Street, an official rubbed out a pencilled question mark before scoring a line through Hayden’s name.
The judge told Dawes that he would receive a lighter sentence than his crimes merited because he had assisted police enquiries into the death of Lady Dawn Sims, and then gave him ten years for being an accessory, conspiring to commit robbery and to handle stolen property.
Jason Hope-Smith went down for ten years too, but not before he had received a long lecture from the judge on the iniquities of demanding money with menaces.
Carmody received eight years on an indictment similar to that which Dawes had faced, and the other, smaller fry who had been arrested along the way, were sentenced to lesser periods of imprisonment.
Peter Skinner, Hayden’s accountant and a trustee of his charity, was placed on probation for two years.
And Tommy Fox took Jane Sims out to dinner.
*
She was wearing an emerald green silk dress when Fox collected her from her flat near Knightsbridge. Her hair, long to her shoulders, was shining, and her high-heeled shoes set off her nylon-clad legs to perfection.
‘Well, what d’you think, Tommy?’ she asked, pirouetting in front of him.
‘You’ve cracked it,’ said Fox.
*
It was seven-thirty the next morning. Detective Sergeant Ernest Crabtree and Detective Constable Sean Tarling sat in a Flying Squad car in a street near Knightsbridge. They were acting on information received, as the police so often say. According to an informant of doubtful repute, there was going to be a robbery from a Post Office van. Other Flying Squad vehicles were in the area and DI Denzil Evans had his men deployed all over the place.
‘Here,’ said Crabtree, ‘isn’t that the guv’nor?’ He pointed to a figure which had just emerged from a block of mansion flats. A figure wearing a light grey cashmere overcoat.
‘Where?’ asked Tarling. But at that moment a bus obscured his vision. And when it was gone the road was empty.
And the Post Office van didn’t get robbed either.
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