The Home Secretary Will See You Now

by Graham Ison

  ‘Broadway,’ she said, her face cracking into a brief smile. ‘He’s a big star there. Here, look, mister.’ She pointed to a framed photograph on the television set; it was the sort of photograph that embryo actors have taken and distribute in shoals to any agent, producer, backer or writer they think might employ them.

  ‘Is he a good son?’ asked Robinson.

  ‘Sure he is. Why you asking?’

  Robinson smiled. ‘Just wondering, ma’am, just wondering,’ he said. He doubted that a big star on Broadway would allow his mother to live in the obvious poverty that Mrs Cody’s apartment indicated. ‘What about your husband?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘Died ten years back,’ said Mrs Cody shortly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondering,’ said Robinson again.

  ‘Strikes me you do a lot of wondering, young man.’

  ‘Guess it’s part of the job. Where can I find Paul. Broadway’s kind of a long street.’

  ‘Hell, I don’t know. You’ll just have to look for his name in lights, I guess.’

  The news that Drake had been arrested was telephoned to Gaffney at Scotland Yard and he and Tipper left immediately

  to interview him. As Gaffney, dispirited by the whole inquiry, succinctly put it: ‘We’ve bugger-all else to do.’

  He was a little mystified that Drake had been moved from where he had been arrested to a station in the same town as the force headquarters. The reason became clear when they arrived and were met by the Detective Chief Superintendent of the force, an old friend of Gaffney with whom, long ago, he had attended a course at the Police Staff College … and drunk a lot of beer.

  ‘The Chiefd like to see you, John, before you interview the prisoner.’ He glanced around furtively as if fearing eavesdroppers. ‘He’s desperately worried about the whole thing.’

  The Chief Constable’s office was, if anything, slightly larger than that occupied by the Horne Secretary, and it seemed to Gaffney that they had to walk a long way to reach his desk.

  ‘Ah, Chief Superintendent.’ The Chief Constable neither stood up nor offered to shake hands. ‘You’ve come to interview the man Drake, I understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘D’you think he’s the man who murdered the Home Secretary’s wife?’

  It was evident to Gaffney that the Chief Constable was hoping to recover some of his tarnished reputation. ‘Until I interview him I have no way of telling, but, on balance, I should think it unlikely.’

  The Chief Constable looked at Gaffney sharply. ‘Then why circulate his description to all forces?’

  ‘Because he had written threats to murder the Home Secretary on numerous occasions previously, and he went missing from just before the time of Mrs Lavery’s murder.’ Gaffney smiled disarmingly. ‘You will appreciate, sir, that we had no alternative but to circulate him. It doesn’t make him guilty though, not by a long chalk.’

  ‘Hmm!’ The Chief Constable did not look happy. ‘Does the Home Secretary know of this arrest by my officers?’ He asked the question in a casual, offhanded way.

  ‘Yes. I arranged for his protection officer to inform him the moment he returned to London.’

  ‘Good, good. Say anything, did he?’ Again an almost disinterested tone in his voice.

  ‘Apparently he expressed the view that it would have been better if he had been arrested before he threw the dustbin, sir. I got the impression that the Secretary of State was not greatly taken with the security arrangements.’ Gaffney could be extremely cutting when the mood took him.

  The Chief Constable looked sick. ‘Well, thank you, Chief Superintendent, and now if you’ll excuse me … ’

  ‘Are you Ernest Drake?’

  ‘Captain Drake, yes.’ He put emphasis on the rank and sat down without being asked. The confidence of the army officer was still there.

  Gaffney had read the details of Drake’s court martial and his subsequent cashiering, and knew that he was no longer entitled to use the rank he had once held. There was, however, nothing to be gained by making an issue of it. ‘Where were you on the night of — ’

  ‘If you’re talking about the night that Lavery’s wife was murdered’ — Drake cut across Gaffney’s formal opening — ‘I was at Cutler’s Mews.’ He paused to give effect to his statement. Gaffney was about to intervene but Drake went on, giving him no chance. ‘I know that I’m not obliged to say anything but that anything I say will be taken down in writing and given in evidence.’ He grinned boyishly; it was evident that his knowledge of military law had not left him. ‘I went to Cutler’s Mews and I killed her.’

  ‘I see.’ Gaffney was leaning back in his chair, at an angle to the table; his left hand played idly with a pencil and he looked as though he was not much interested in what Drake was saying. ‘And how did you murder Mrs Lavery, Captain Drake?’

  ‘Why are you asking me that? You know, surely?’

  Gaffney nodded and smiled. ‘Oh yes, I know, Captain Drake, but you see,’ he said mildly, ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Drake considered that for some time. ‘I strangled her,’ he said eventually.

  ‘And what time would this have been?’

  Drake reflected on that for a few seconds, and then: ‘About six o’clock, I suppose.’

  Tipper had been sitting to one side of the room and now stood up. He brought his chair closer to the table, swung it round and sat down so that his forearms rested on the back. ‘Stop poncing about, Drake,’ he said sharply. ‘You didn’t kill Mrs Lavery, and we all know it.’

  After the soft courtesy of Gaffney’s questioning, Tipper’s uncouth onslaught shook Drake, but he recovered almost immediately. ‘Yes I did,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he killed my wife.’

  ‘That’s balls and you know it. He had nothing to do with the death of your wife. She committed suicide.’

  Drake smiled patiently as though he had had to explain this elementary matter over and over again. ‘If the judiciary had not put my wife in prison, she would be alive. Dudley Lavery is at the head of the Department of State responsible for prisons, so he is responsible. He killed my wife and I killed his. It’s perfectly simple.’ He leaned back and folded his arms.

  ‘Why not kill the Home Secretary himself, if he’s the one you hold responsible, then?’

  ‘There’s a certain justice in killing his wife, a rich irony.’ ‘But why didn’t you kill him yesterday when you had the opportunity? From where you were on that roof you could have assassinated him quite easily. But instead you threw a dustbin at his car. Why a dustbin? You must have known that wouldn’t harm him.’

  ‘I didn’t want him to think that he was that important,’ said Drake. ‘There’s something rather insulting about having a dustbin thrown at you. It’s belittling.’

  ‘Well, Harry, what d’you think?’

  ‘Mad as a March hare, guv’nor.’

  It was obvious that Masters knew that Farrell was at home — he was that sort of thorough villain — and that he intended to do him some harm. What he did not expect though, was that Farrell’s house would be under surveillance — or as he mistakenly assumed, under guard — by the police.

  His arrival in a silver-grey Mercedes with three of his henchmen could have no other explanation than that of someone looking for trouble. But Masters was a shrewd villain — up to a point — which was how he managed to stay out of trouble for long periods at a time; and he seemed to have a sixth sense for detecting the Old Bill. The Mercedes drew up in the road outside Farrell’s ostentatious mansion and Masters got out. Still holding the open door of the car, he peered round in the darkness; Findlater swore afterwards that he was sniffing the air — a statement which brought a ribald reaction from certain of his colleagues, policemen’s humour being what it is — but whatever the reason, something warned Masters. He got back into the car — like a rat up a drainpipe, as one sage observer commented — and drove off at high speed even before the door of the car
was closed.

  That sort of behaviour tends to disconcert surveillance teams, but Henry Findlater responded with as much alacrity as his limited resources permitted. First of all he alerted the Central Command Complex at Scotland Yard through his main-force radio, then passed a spontaneously coded message for Gaffney, all while his driver tried desperately to keep up with Masters. There was not much chance; Findlater’s vehicle was designed for static observation, not high-speed chases, but he did at least manage to gain the impression that Masters was making for the Ml motorway, presumably with the intention of getting lost somewhere in Central London.

  Within minutes, every police vehicle in the Metropolitan Police District had a description of the car in which Masters was travelling, but they had been advised that there was a distinct possibility that Masters and his cronies were armed, and that they should only observe and report. One of the police cars which picked up the transmission was a powerful

  Ford Granada containing Detective Inspector Denzil Evans of the Flying Squad and his deputy team-leader, Detective Sergeant Percy Fletcher. Not far away, in an equally powerful Vauxhall Senator, were another sergeant and a detective constable. Each of the cars was driven by a Metropolitan Police advanced driver, which proved to be unfortunate for Masters. There are two things you should never try to do to an advanced driver: one is to beat him at cards; the other is to outdrive him. Both are virtually impossible.

  The obvious thing for Masters to do was to ditch the vehicle in which he was travelling, but that would put him in danger of being arrested, he thought, because he didn’t know how close his pursuers were. He was angry, very angry, and he was going to kill someone for this. The people he employed were supposed to know about things like policemen watching houses in which he had an interest; that’s what he paid them for. If he had known, he would have made alternative arrangements — like not going — or would have had another car placed judiciously in some side-street. Someone was in trouble and Masters let it be known. It created an uncomfortable atmosphere in the car.

  The first police vehicle to spot the Mercedes was a traffic car pulling off the Scratchwood Services area on to the Ml and making south. The wireless operator switched on the double blue beacons and the siren, then grabbed the handset as the three and half litres of the Rover seemed to hit him in the small of the back. These two didn’t give a damn about ‘observe and report’; if there was a chance of stopping this monkey then they would do so. Anyway, he was exceeding the speed limit, and that was their department, whatever the Flying Squad might think.

  Detective Inspector Denzil Evans and company were patrolling — or marauding, as Tommy Fox described it — in the same direction but on a parallel road. They were going south on the Watford Way having just unsatisfactorily executed a search warrant in Mill Hill; it was unsatisfactory because they hadn’t found any stolen goods. ‘Get on the bloody motorway,’ said Evans to the driver of his car, and grabbed

  the handset of the radio to instruct the other car to follow suit.

  ‘How?’ asked the driver.

  ‘What d’you mean how? You’re the bloody driver.’

  ‘There’s no access road, well, not officially.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to bloody mean?’

  ‘Well, there is a road, guv,’ said the driver, hunching his shoulders and adjusting his position as the needle of the speedometer crept past sixty miles an hour.

  ‘Then use it, for Christ’s sake,’ said Evans. ‘What d’you think I’m going to do, summon you for a traffic offence or something?’

  They heard the whining siren of the traffic car as they slowed down by the unofficial slip road and saw the white Rover speeding down the overtaking lane.

  ‘Reckon he’s doing over the ton, easy,’ said the Flying Squad driver with a professional interest.

  ‘Well, see if you can catch him,’ said Evans testily.

  The Granada accelerated on to the motorway and into the outside lane, rapidly gaining speed. Evans was rocking to and fro as if to urge the car to go even faster.

  ‘Better book us on, guv,’ said DS Fletcher from the back seat.

  ‘Do what?’ Evans glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘Tell the Yard we’re involved in the chase, sir.’

  ‘Ah, right, yes, good,’ said Evans and seized the handset of the radio once more.

  It was Junction One that did for Masters’ driver. The complexity of the roundabout system where the Ml gets involved with the North Circular Road and the Edgware Road was just too much for him. Trying to select the right road and avoid a bus at the same time was his undoing. The Mercedes ground to a halt against a wall that tore most of the car’s side out and severely shook its occupants.

  The traffic car pulled to the offside, its blue lights warning of the accident; Denzil Evans and his sergeant were out of their car before it had stopped.

  The DI ran to the Mercedes and pulled open the door. His

  pistol touched the ear of the driver. ‘I think you’ve just had an accident, gents,’ he said. ‘Never mind, the RAC’s just over there.’ He paused. ‘Oh, and by the way, you’re nicked.’

  ‘Don’t forget the reckless driving as well, sir,’ said the traffic car driver.

  The pathetic figure of Joseph Watkins sat in the detention room of Rochester Row police station and contemplated the walls. Police station detention rooms were familiar territory to the petty criminal, but he had developed an immunity to the overawing effect that such places sometimes have on the more law-abiding, particularly those who have erred for the first time.

  Tipper, however, was a very skilled interrogator, and the fact that he wanted information this time, rather than evidence, gave him a greater licence than the law allowed under normal circumstances. It is simply this: that a confession obtained under duress will be resisted by defence counsel when the case eventually goes to trial, and there is a good chance that the judge — judges being a bit of a soft touch these days — will exclude it. A verbal admission is, after all, only something which is destined to be denied at the trial on the advice of counsel.

  But Tipper didn’t want to charge Watkins with anything — not that he intended telling him that — merely wanted him to put the finger on bigger and better villains, and would be quite happy to release him from custody at the end of the day. In fact, he did tell him that. ‘I’ve got Colin Masters locked up next door, and if I let the pair of you out together and he thinks you’ve been grassing, he’ll probably cut your head off,’ said Tipper conversationally.

  ‘I ain’t saying nothing.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Tipper, ‘I could let you out at a different time, and no one need know you’ve ever been here.’ Tipper thought it unnecessary to tell Watkins at this stage that Masters was in custody at Paddington, some three miles away.

  Watkins looked foxily at Tipper. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know.’ Tipper was aware that he was dealing with a foot-soldier, and the likelihood of his knowing very much was remote to say the least. ‘But I’ll tell you this for nothing: there’s a murder charge at the end of it, and thirty years is a long time.’ He paused to give that effect. ‘Of course, this particular murder could easily be worth forty.’

  That did it. ‘I ain’t had nothing to do with no murder. There was no one there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘But I thought — ’

  ‘Don’t do that; it could seriously affect your health. Just tell me.’

  ‘Some place down Wimbledon.’

  ‘D’you know who it belonged to, Joseph?’ Now was the time for friendliness and support.

  ‘Dunno! Some geezer.’

  Tipper didn’t bother to point out the truism of that. ‘It is the residence of a gentleman named Colin Masters, previously mentioned as being locked up here. Now do you get the drift?’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Watkins, which seemed adequately to summarise the situation in which he now found himself
.

  ‘Exactly so. Now, would you like to go on?’

  ‘We was told we was looking for a package.’

  ‘What sort of package?’ Tipper knew that this was going to be hard work.

  ‘Dunno! We was just told to look for it.’

  ‘And what were you to do if you found this mysterious package?’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Watkins.

  Tipper sighed. ‘Tell who?’

  Watkins realised the trap. ‘I ain’t saying nothing,’ he repeated. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Tipper made a move to stand up. ‘In that case, I’ll ask Mr Masters to step in and have a word with you in private. As you are prepared to take full responsibility for all the damage to his property, it seems only right that he discusses the question of compensation with you in person, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve just remembered,’ said Watkins. Tipper waited patiently. ‘It was a bloke called Rogers.’

  ‘First name?’

  Watkins looked puzzled, as though unused to people having first names. ‘Er — ’

  ‘We don’t have to go through all that again, do we?’ ‘Charlie Rogers, it was.’

  ‘And where do we find your friend Charlie Rogers, Joseph?’ ‘He’s not a friend.’

  ‘No. And he certainly won’t be from now on. Where?’

  ‘Up Finchley way. He hangs out in a boozer called The Stag, I think.’

  ‘How old is he, this Charlie Rogers?’

  Watkins pondered on that. ‘’Bout forty, I reckon,’ he said at length.

  Within the five-year bracketing of Charlie Rogers’ estimated date of birth, the Police National Computer threw up — and that, in Tipper’s view, was exactly the right phrase — five known criminals called Charles Rogers.

  ‘Well?’ said Tipper. ‘What d’you reckon?’

  Detective Sergeant Ian Mackinnon shuffled the computer printouts on which he had made his rough notes. ‘One of them’s in the nick at Lincoln doing five for aggravated burglary. One lives in Sheffield and another in Manchester. That leaves two in the London area. One … ’ He paused to look at the papers in his hand. ‘One has previous for buggery, attempted buggery, and falsely representing himself to be a private in the army … ’ He looked at Tipper. ‘Don’t think he’s our man, somehow.’ He laid another printout on the desk in front of the Chief Inspector. ‘I reckon it’s this one, if it’s anyone. Twelve previous — mostly petty — but a couple for robbery with violence.’ He paused, and then said triumphantly: ‘And he comes from Finchley.’