The Home Secretary Will See You Now

by Graham Ison

  It was a tedious business. The procession of senior policemen, led by the Chief Constable, supported by his deputy and flanked by the assistant chiefs, conducted Lavery round the new building, obviously under the impression that what the Home Secretary most wanted to see was the assorted new gadgetry which had been installed in the control room, the traffic unit and the computer centre. They had overlooked — or didn’t care — that Lavery had seen it all before in a dozen different places, and that all he wanted was a gin and tonic, a decent lunch which — if his private secretary had done his stuff

  -would not include chicken, and then to get the hell out of it. Ironically for a Home Secretary, Lavery did not take to most of the senior policemen he met, finding them pompous and blinkered. On walks in the countryside around his Shropshire home however, he would often have animated conversations with Selway, the junior of his three bodyguards, about a whole variety of subjects … except the police force. Selway looked now at the top brass of this particular force and felt some sympathy for Lavery, a man whose natural courtesy obliged him to be polite … even to people he probably despised.

  As if reading his detective’s thoughts, Lavery glanced at Selway, walking, as ever, at his elbow, and said: ‘Lot of people to thank today, John.’

  Selway smiled. It was a private joke. On one of their regular visits to the constituency, a constabulary sergeant had discreetly drawn Selway to one side and asked him if he could persuade Lavery to thank the local chief superintendent each time he left. ‘If he forgets,’ the sergeant had said, ‘the boss thinks something’s gone wrong and we all get hell for a week.’

  The Home Secretary had laughed when Selway had told him. ‘You must remind me to thank him after each visit, John,’ he had said and, turning to his private secretary, had added: ‘And put him down for an MBE next time, Charles. We can’t have him upsetting the troops.’

  By the time the official opening ceremony was reached

  -a ludicrous ribbon-cutting affair at the main entrance

  -the retinue of hangers-on had increased, and among

  those lunching at the ratepayers’ expense were chairmen of councils, mayors, other assorted dignitaries and the police authority in its entirety.

  The Chief Constable, never more than a couple of feet from Lavery, had sat next to him at lunch and bombarded him with facts and figures which, roughly translated, were meant to imply greater efficiency at less cost, and added up to how clever a chief constable this particular force was lucky enough to have.

  At last it was time to leave. The Chief Constable shook hands on the steps of the headquarters and again half bowed. The Home Secretary’s car had not travelled more than fifty yards when a horrified Chief Constable saw a dustbin crash on to its roof.

  John Selway didn’t know what had happened and didn’t intend stopping to find out. ‘Put your foot down,’ he said to the driver, and fingered the butt of his revolver.

  ‘What on earth — ’ The Home Secretary twisted in his seat to peer out of the rear window.

  ‘Get down, sir,’ shouted Selway.

  Lavery laughed. ‘It’s all right, John,’ he said. ‘It was a dustbin.’

  Selway relaxed, but determined that he would not stop yet awhile to examine the damage. ‘That’s his knighthood gone for a ball of chalk,’ he said quietly to the driver.

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ said the Home Secretary' from the back seat. Sclway glanced in his rear-view mirror: Lavery was smiling.

  The dustbin had been thrown from the flat roof of a building on the opposite side of the road from the police headquarters; it was obvious that whoever had thrown it had had a clear view of the Home Secretary and his departure, and the incident could have been very much more serious had the attacker been so minded. The ground floor of the building was a large shop and five or six constables ran in through the door.

  ‘How do we get to the roof?’

  An assistant pointed. ‘Through the fire exit and up the stairs,’ she said.

  Sitting on the roof, his back against the low retaining wall, was a man. His knees were drawn up to his chest and were encircled by his arms. The policemen stopped, surprised to see someone still there. In their experience, people who committed crime usually ran away.

  An older PC took charge. ‘Grab hold of him, lads,’ he said. ‘Don’t want him chucking himself over as well. That would make a mess.’ Two constables grabbed an arm each, dragging the man to his feet and pulling him away from the edge. ‘You the bloke who just threw a dustbin off the roof?’

  ‘Yes. Did I get him, that bastard Lavery?’

  The PC smiled. ‘Oh yes, you got him all right, leastways you hit his car. What’s your name, pal?’

  ‘Ernest Drake.’

  There is a fallacy propounded by the Press, usually in the aftermath of an audacious or violent crime: ‘Ports and Airports are being watched,’ it proclaims, implying that it has some inside information on the matter, and implying also that such observations occur only spasmodically. None of this is true. The police are watching ports and airports all the time, or, more accurately, are watching the passengers who flow through them, as numerous travelling criminals have found to their cost.

  It was a simple matter for Harry Tipper, when he received a telephone call from Enrico Perez telling him that Colin Masters had boarded Iberian Airways flight 616 at 11.30 local time, to pass that information to the Special Branch Unit at Heathrow Airport and still leave them about three hours to prepare a reception before he was scheduled to arrive at five minutes to three that afternoon.

  For the tenth time since lunch, Detective Inspector Geoffrey Hall glanced at the monitor in his office at Terminal Two. Flight IB 616 from Seville was slowly moving up the list of expected aircraft, still estimated to arrive on schedule

  at five minutes to three. Hall walked out into the control area. There were five minutes still to go before touchdown, but he wanted to make sure that everything was ready. He had placed officers near the immigration desks, and between there and the ‘finger’ that would eventually be put in place when the aircraft’s engines were switched off. There was no way that Masters was going to escape. He would be followed from the moment he stepped off the plane to the moment he presented his passport: always the best place to effect an arrest. Then he would be taken swiftly through to the Customs Hall where a previously-briefed preventive officer called Clancy — he refused to accept the Civil Service idea that he should now call himself an executive officer — would go through Masters’ baggage and his apparel. After that he would belong to the police, having paid any duty for which he was liable, of course: Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise were very particular about that.

  Hall was determined that the arrest of Masters should present no problems. Seville at that time of year was not, it seemed, a popular place to leave, and the airline was expecting only seven passengers to disembark, less than the number of men that DI Hall had standing by. Two stewardesses walked through the Arrivals Hall, their neat little bottoms constrained by tight skirts, their stiletto heels clacking suddenly and sharply as they crossed the thermoplastic flooring from one piece of carpeting to another. Hall watched them in an abstract way, trying to pretend that he wasn’t watching them at all. They were followed by one of the airline men whose red cap indicated that he was the traffic despatcher. He nodded to Hall and laid one flat hand on top of the other, indicating that the aircraft was down. Hall nodded back. One of the stewardesses looked over her shoulder and smiled.

  The passengers came through, seven of them as the airline had predicted. There were two obvious businessmen: one with his tie slackened off as if to emphasise his hard-working weariness; then a husband and wife: she with tired make-up and worn nail-varnish; two women in their mid-twenties came

  next, probably out-of-work dancers; and finally, a nun: there always seemed to be a nun. Two of Hall’s officers brought up the rear. The senior of the two, a young detective sergeant, spread his hands, pal
ms upwards. There was no sign of Colin Masters.

  ‘Have you checked the aircraft?’ asked Hall.

  ‘Yes, sir. There’s no trace of him — ’

  ‘Well, where in hell — ?’

  ‘ — for the very simple reason that he got off the bloody aircraft at Valencia, sir. I showed the stewardess his photo-graph.’

  ‘Terrific,’ said Hall. ‘Come into the office.’ He had noticed, on the flight arrivals monitor, that the last stop was Valencia, but had paid little heed to it. There would have been no point in concerning himself that Masters may have got off there; the Spanish police should have thought of that. The British had only been told that Masters had got on the flight at Seville with a ticket that showed a booking to London Heathrow.

  Hall telephoned Gaffney. Gaffney was not pleased, not at all pleased. Neither was Enrico Perez when Gaffney telephoned him. He swore volubly, first in English, then in Spanish, and promised to make several phone calls himself, after which he would ring back. Gaffney got the impression that he was about to reintroduce the Spanish Inquisition.

  Perez was as good as his word. Quite what he said to whoever it was he spoke to in Spain, Gaffney never discovered. It was thorough, but ineffective because it was too late. Masters had got off the aircraft in Valencia, certainly, but had changed his ticket for one that would take him to Paris where he arrived at just about half-past five. Perez spoke to a contact of his in the Police des l’Air et Frontieres in Paris who discovered that Masters had again traded his ticket and boarded a flight for London that left Paris at 1800 hours and arrived at Gatwick at eight o’clock. That interesting piece of information reached Gaffney at twenty-two minutes past eight. He rang the Special Branch at Gatwick. Yes, Masters had arrived, and they had reported his arrival — or would do as soon as the typewriter was free — on account of his being

  a main-index criminal, but they didn’t arrest him because no one had told them that he was wanted. Yes, they had checked with the Police National Computer but even that had said that he wasn’t wanted. Gaffney cursed himself for not having anticipated Masters’ deviousness, but that was the drawback with a confidential operation like the investigation into the murder of the Home Secretary’s wife: you could be too secretive … and too clever.

  Tommy Fox didn’t attach too much importance to it all. In fact, he thought on reflection, it might all have happened for the best. ‘We know where he’s going, don’t we, John?’ he asked.

  ‘We think we do,’ said Gaffney grudgingly. ‘But when?’

  ‘If he’s canny enough to change flights at Valencia and Paris and then come into Gatwick, then he’s cunning enough not to go home to his pad in Wimbledon.’

  ‘So where’s he gone?’

  ‘Quite simply, to ground,’ said Fox, carefully removing a single hair from his jacket and dropping it to the floor. He sat up as if to take the whole thing seriously from now on. ‘Look, John,’ he said, ‘he’s got wind of Elizabeth Lavery’s murder-couldn’t be off knowing it, could he, with all the publicity?’ Gaffney nodded. ‘But there was no way that he was going to let friend Farrell tear his drum apart and get away with it, was there? No, you mark my words, Masters will fetch up in Boreham Wood sooner or later, or, if he doesn’t, some of his team will. Either way we shall get to Masters. There’s something very strange coming off here. And if you ask me, there’s a bit more to Mrs Lavery’s murder than meets the eye. Quite a bit more.’

  Gaffney nodded slowly. ‘What fascinates me is this reciprocal burglary business.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Masters’ mob turn over Farrell’s place, but Farrell denies it. Question: what was Masters looking for, or what did he nick that Farrell didn’t want police to know about?’

  ‘Yes, that’s about the strength of it.’

  ‘Now, what story did you put about, Tommy?’

  ‘Bit nebulous as you might say. I let it be known that something that Farrell wanted was in Masters’ drum at Wimbledon.’

  ‘Yes, but what?’ asked Gaffney.

  ‘Dunno!’ Fox waved a hand in the air and grinned. ‘Whatever you tell these bastards, they’ll turn it into whatever they want to hear, so it doesn’t really matter.’

  ‘D’you reckon they found it?’

  ‘Who? Masters or Farrell?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gaffney, and smiled. ‘D’you reckon there’s any point in speaking to Waldo Conway again?’

  Fox laughed sadistically. ‘You can talk to him, but there’s no danger of him saying anything, not after the last interview you had with him. I know his legs are in plaster, but for all you’ll get out of him it might as well be his jaw.’

  ‘How’s the DI at Wimbledon getting on with investigating the break-in at Masters’ place?’

  ‘Not well, not well at all. He did pick up a partial that he’s gone overboard about, but he hasn’t got enough points to prove anything.’

  That was always the problem with a partial fingerprint, and it was unusual for a skilled breaker to leave one anywhere, but, from what he had heard about the damage, it was more like an earthquake than a burglary, and it was possible that Farrell, if he was at the back of it, had used some front-line expendables. ‘Is it enough for identification?’

  Fox spread his hands. ‘No idea. Fingerprint Branch are searching like mad at the moment, but it all takes time. After all, what is it? Somebody does over a main-index villain’s drum. No one’s going to get too excited about that.’

  ‘Except me,’ said Gaffney. ‘Right now I’m clutching at straws and that may be the only hope I’ve got.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gaffney’s telephone call to the head of Fingerprint Branch ensured that priority was given to the search to identify the partial fingerprint, and it was the middle of the following morning when he got the message to say that they were ninety-percent certain that they had matched it.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Gaffney.

  ‘It’s a hood called Watkins,’ said the head of Fingerprints. ‘Joseph Watkins. Hang on, I’ll give you his CRO number … ’

  ‘He’s got a string of previous,’ said Tipper coming through the door. He waved the microfiche of Watkins’ criminal record in the air.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like every bit of petty villainy you can think of, starting off when he was twelve.’

  ‘Same sort of form?’

  ‘Nah!’ Tipper scoffed. ‘Anything that comes to hand. The only consistency is that he always gets caught.’ He skimmed through the summary. ‘Seems to use his head a lot.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like it,’ said Gaffney.

  ‘For damaging other people with,’ said Tipper. ‘He’s got two or three here for GBH — head-butting his victim and then robbing them.’

  ‘Sounds like our man. I think we’ll have a little chat with him, Harry.’

  Detective Inspector Henry Findlater peered through his large spectacles. ‘I’ve a team at Wimbledon, watching Masters’

  place, sir, and another at Boreham Wood, at Farrell’s house.

  I must say that they couldn’t have been further apart.’ He shrugged hopelessly. ‘Does make life difficult.’

  ‘Never mind, Henry,’ said Gaffney. ‘You’re doing a grand job.’ Findlater sniffed. ‘And I hope it won’t last too long.’

  ‘If Masters does turn up, d’you want him nicked, sir?’ ‘Most definitely, Henry. You’ll have no problem identifying him, will you?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘I’d like to have a pound for every mile we’ve followed him in the past,’ said Findlater sourly.

  ‘Joseph Watkins?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘You’re nicked,’ said Tipper, ‘official.’

  Sometimes a policeman will get lucky. It doesn’t often happen, but when it does he gets a warm feeling deep inside. Special Agent Frank Robinson of the Kansas City FBI office got this feeling of satisfaction when he found that Martha Cody, now sixty-three years of age, still lived at the address the U
S Air Force had turned up.

  It was a dowdy apartment in a dowdy apartment-building just back of 35th Street, a building which displayed none of the aesthetic loveliness of the centre of Kansas City, with its tree-lined boulevards, its statues and its fine buildings.

  ‘Who’s there?’ the voice, croaky with age, shouted through the door.

  ‘FBI, ma’am,’ said Robinson, hoping that the woman was not prone to a heart attack.

  Bolts were drawn, locks were turned, and eventually the door opened an inch or two to reveal the face of the occupant. ‘Who d’you say you are?’ A heavy chain bridged the gap.

  Robinson held up his badge. ‘Frank Robinson, ma’am, FBI. From here in Kansas City. Mrs Cody, is it?’

  ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘I want to talk with you about your son, Paul.’

  ‘What about him? He ain’t done nothing wrong. What’s the FBI want with him?’

  ‘If I could just step inside, ma’am. It won’t take a minute.’

  The door closed briefly while the chain was released, and with evident reluctance Martha Cody admitted the agent.

  ‘He ain’t done nothing wrong,’ said Mrs Cody again as Robinson followed her through to the sitting room.

  ‘I didn’t say he’d done anything wrong. We just want to talk with him.’

  ‘What about?’ She stood with her feet apart and her hands on her hips, challenging, and disinclined to ask Robinson to sit down. He didn’t mind that; the chairs were old and filthy.

  ‘It’s about a lady he knew once when he was in London — ’

  ‘Pah!’ she said vehemently. ‘Ain’t nothin’ but trouble, women.’

  ‘If you could just tell me where I can find him, ma’am … ’