The Home Secretary Will See You Now

by Graham Ison

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tipper acidly. ‘You could have saved a hell of a lot of time by telling me that in the first place.’ ‘Some people are never bloody satisfied,’ said Mackinnon, but he waited until he was half-way down the corridor to say it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gaffney decided that he would involve Tommy Fox in the next stage of the operation. He was unenthusiastic about it, realising that it seemed to be taking him further and further away from solving the murder of the Home Secretary’s wife — a job he should not have been stuck with in the first place. Apart from anything else, the sordid world of ordinary crime was very much the Flying Squad’s domain, and although Harry Tipper had a feel for it, resulting from his early experience in the force, it was SOS, as the Squad was known, which had the resources.

  Tommy Fox was delighted. He had Masters locked up in Paddington police station — albeit facing only minor charges at the moment — and the prospect of being able to add to his collection was appealing. Apart from that, he had an abiding and ever-increasing interest in Bernard Farrell, whom he was convinced was at it, and felt that Masters was the man to lead him to this villainy.

  It was the next day that the Brighton police telephoned Gaffney. Following the report of Drake’s arrest which had appeared in that morning’s newspapers, the administrator of a local hospital had informed the Brighton police that Drake had been brought to the hospital by ambulance at about midday on the day of Mrs Lavery’s murder, suffering from an epileptic fit. He had been detained while the medical authorities pondered on whether his mental condition warranted compulsory detention under the legislation governing such matters. Twenty-four hours later they had decided that it did not and he was discharged.

  ‘Well, that’s effectively blown that job out of the water,’ said Gaffney.

  Tipper grinned. ‘It had to be too good to be true, sir,’ he said.

  It was six o’clock in the morning when the Flying Squad, in the form of Detective Inspector Denzil Evans and his team, knocked at the door of Charlie Rogers’ council flat. Mrs Rogers opened the door slightly.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ said Evans, sweeping past her and straight into the bedroom.

  ‘What the bloody hell — ?’ It was rhetorical; she knew fine who they were.

  ‘Shut it, missus,’ said a detective constable, bringing up the rear.

  ‘Don’t hurt to keep a civil tongue in your head, bleeding filth,’ said Mrs Rogers. ‘What d’you want anyway?’

  ‘We want Charlie,’ said DS Percy Fletcher.

  ‘You the Sweeney?’

  ‘Can’t you tell by the suits?’

  ‘Bastards!’

  James Marchant beamed as he came through the door of Gaffney’s office. ‘John, good to see you after all this time.’ Gaffney smiled half-heartedly. ‘Whenever I see you, James, I get an awful sense of foreboding. What particular piece of grief are you bringing me this morning?’

  Marchant waved a deprecating hand and sat down in Gaffney’s armchair. ‘Nothing you can’t handle, John, I’m sure.’ He felt around in his pockets and took out his pipe. ‘D’you mind?’ he asked.

  Gaffney shook his head, mildly amused, as always, at Marchant’s studied absent-mindedness; he knew from previous experience that the rotund and balding man opposite him had probably one of the sharpest brains in the Secret Intelligence Service.

  ‘Colin Masters,’ said Marchant. Gaffney raised an eyebrow. ‘I believe you have an interest in him?’

  ‘Now, what makes you think that, James?’

  Marchant waved a hand and pipe-smoke eddied across the room. ‘One hears these things, you know.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘A very strange tale, John — very strange indeed — concerning the said Masters and Elizabeth Lavcry.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  Marchant looked surprised. ‘Oh, you’ve heard!’

  Gaffney laughed. ‘You know bloody well I’ve got the man in custody.’

  Marchant smiled. ‘Yes, I know; just pulling your leg.’ He became serious. ‘You know about the liaison between the two, obviously?’ Gaffney nodded. ‘What you probably didn’t know — although I don’t suppose it will surprise you — is that the KGB in Spain had picked it up also.’

  Gaffney sighed. ‘I’ve got this awful feeling that you’re about to complicate this whole bloody case, James. How did you know? Or mustn’t I ask?’

  ‘It’s no secret,’ said Marchant. ‘The KGB told us.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  Marchant shook his head slowly. ‘It happens from time to time. They knew about Masters and Elizabeth Lavery and were obviously bent on making capital out of it, and who’s to blame them? They didn’t tell us the whole story … ’ He laughed cynically. ‘They never do, of course, but their man in Seville, or wherever, disappeared without trace — ’ ‘Defection?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, or they wouldn’t have mentioned it.’ Marchant laughed again and spread his hands. ‘Unless they’d sent him over deliberately and thought we hadn’t noticed. I rather got the impression that this man of theirs had gone in a bit heavy and got his come-uppance somehow.’ He looked enquiringly at Gaffney. ‘This man Masters does have a reputation for being a violent criminal, I understand?’

  ‘Yes, he does. Are you — or they — suggesting that Masters may have murdered him?’

  ‘It’s possible; such things have happened. Now, suppose for

  a moment that that is what had happened, and then Elizabeth Lavery is murdered; that rather blows their little plan out of the water. But they’re vengeful people, John. If they think that Masters killed their man, they’re going to want to see justice. What d’you think?’

  Gaffney laughed and shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I assure you, John, the information — ’

  Gaffney raised his hand. ‘I don’t mean I don’t believe the information, James. What I don’t believe is how this inquiry is getting so bloody complicated. Why me?’ He paused to light a cigar. ‘Are you saying that, because their plan came to nothing, they deliberately shopped Masters to you? Why not just take him out themselves?’

  ‘That’s too easy. They lost the first round, which I rather fancy was to persuade Elizabeth Lavery to spy for them or to persuade Lavery himself to do so. Blackmail! That plan’s gone down the plughole, so they move on to Plan B: destabilise the British Government.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘By letting us know that Lavery’s judgement isn’t all that it might be. Hinting that he was already a spy, perhaps; and leaving another question hanging in the air: are there any others in the higher echelons, et cetera, et cetera … everybody starts looking over his shoulder.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Gaffney.

  ‘I thought you’d say that,’ said Marchant, and smiled.

  Charlie Rogers was as unco-operative as Joseph Watkins had been, but it was clear to Tipper that he was certainly more intelligent. DI Evans wanted to have Rogers all to himself, but Tommy Fox had realised the possible importance of the man to Gaffney’s inquiry, and Harry Tipper was having first bite at the cherry.

  ‘You were concerned with others in breaking into premises in Wimbledon and committing several acts of substantial criminal damage.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘What were you looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Let me put it another way,’ said Tipper. ‘The owner of the property in question is none too pleased — ’

  ‘S’nothing to do with me,’ Rogers still maintained.

  ‘And when the owner happens to be Colin Masters, he’s not much interested in proof … ’

  Rogers sat up sharply, his countenance several shades paler than before. ‘You’re having me on, guv’nor.’

  Tipper smiled tolerantly. ‘Now, would I do a thing like that?’ He studied Rogers for some moments. ‘Are you seriously telling me that you didn’t know?’ />
  Rogers was sweating now, and ran a hand nervously round his chin. ‘God’s truth, I never knew.’

  Tipper chuckled. ‘You don’t have to convince me, Charlie. But Colin Masters will suddenly take a great interest in your welfare as soon as he’s told.’

  ‘You mean he don’t know?’

  ‘Not yet … ’

  ‘Well, who’s going to tell him, guv?’ Rogers looked shiftily around the room.

  ‘Me?’ Tipper beamed at his prisoner. ‘He’s right here, banged up in this very nick.’ That was true; Rogers had been brought to Paddington as well.

  ‘Now look — ’

  ‘No! You’re the one who’s going to do the looking. You’ve got two choices. I’m investigating a murder, and you can have that, no problem. Or I let you out at the same time as Colin Masters — having had a little chat with him first.’ Tipper swung off his chair and tucked it under the table all in one flowing movement. ‘Please yourself, but don’t bugger me about or you won’t see the light of day for many a long year.’ Tipper walked to the detention room door and rapped on it sharply.

  ‘But guv’nor — ’

  ‘Stay fit,’ said Tipper maliciously, and the detention room door swung to with a dull thud.

  ? ? ?

  Tommy Fox stood, elegantly poised, in the doorway of the cell. He was holding a cup and saucer, and stirring his tea. ‘Well, if it isn’t Colin Masters. Is there anything you’d like to say to me, Colin?’

  Masters scowled at the Chief Superintendent. ‘I want my brief-now,’ he said.

  Slowly, Fox shook his head. ‘So impetuous,’ he said. ‘Oh well, see you tomorrow.’

  Having given Charlie Rogers time to come to the boil, Tipper had him brought to the interview room. ‘D’you know how much I get paid an hour?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Rogers, who couldn’t see the point of the question, shook his head.

  ‘A lot,’ said Tipper, ‘and my guv’nor doesn’t like people who waste public money. And,’ he lied, ‘my guv’nor is Detective Chief Superintendent Fox of the Flying Squad.’

  Rogers gulped. ‘I been thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Yes — and?’

  Rogers stopped again. ‘Look, if I tell you this, will I get off?’ He looked hopeful. ‘You know what I mean, guv?’

  Tipper nodded. ‘I know what you mean, and you know also that I can’t make any promises of that sort. I can make one promise though … ’ He left the threat unspoken, but it registered.

  ‘Drugs.’

  Tipper masked his surprise. The inquiry had taken yet another turn. ‘What about them?’

  ‘That’s what we were looking for.’

  ‘Explain!’

  ‘This geezer wanted us to turn over this drum. He said that there was a packet of cocaine in there and it was his, and the bloke whose gaff it was had had it away.’ Rogers turned the palms of his hands upwards. ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong in that, is there?’

  Tipper looked at the ceiling. ‘Only about six offences for a start, each one of which is worth several years,’ he said. ‘Oh!’

  ‘Go on. What sort of packet? Size, I mean.’

  ‘He never said. Just said it was a packet of white powder. I asked him what it was, and he said it was cocaine.’

  ‘What else did he tell you?’

  ‘He give us the address and told us to find this packet, and, if it weren’t there like, to give it a bit of a duffing-up,’cos this geezer needed a little lesson.’

  ‘Nice! What was this little job worth?’

  Rogers looked down at the table and hesitated. ‘Er — ’ ‘Look,’ said Tipper, ‘I’m a copper, not a bloody tax collector. How much?’

  ‘Fifteen hundred.’

  ‘How many of you?’

  ‘Just me.’

  Tipper smiled. ‘Uncharacteristic loyalty on your part,’ he said. ‘How many of you?’ Rogers still paused. ‘I’ve got one of them locked up already.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Rogers, ‘there was three of us done the drum, but it was only me what got the job.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tipper. ‘You sub-contracted.’

  Rogers face cracked into a slight grin. ‘Yeah, sort of.’ ‘Right,’ said Tipper, anxious to clear up loose ends. ‘I’ve got Joseph Watkins; who was the other one?’

  Rogers ran his tongue round his top lip and decided not to argue. ‘Steel — Randy Steel. He’s a coloured bioke from Wanstead. But don’t let on I told you.’

  Tipper smirked. ‘Would I do such a thing?’ He stretched and yawned. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s get to the question you seem to be avoiding. Who did you do this job for?’

  Rogers had hoped that that question wouldn’t come; knew instinctively that it would. ‘Look, guv, it’s more than my life’s worth.’

  Tipper smiled. ‘Right now, your life’s worth sod-all, Charlie. Through that door is the charge room. You go on the sheet for murdering the Home Secretary’s wife and I go home.’ He folded his arms and sat back in the hard chair.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Rogers had gone white. ‘I never knew it

  was that job.’ Again he licked his lips nervously. ‘You’re having me on, guv’nor, aren’t you?’

  ‘Try me.’ Tipper did not smile. There was a pause while he let Rogers sweat a bit more. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work, and that would be that. But the trouble facing villains like Rogers, was that they never knew who might have fingered them, or why; and alibis presented a terrible problem, too. In order to avoid a charge like the one Tipper had just offered him, Rogers would have to hold up his hands to a blagging in Tottenham, which unfortunately had occurred on the same night as the demise of Mrs Lavery. He thought it unlikely that his fellow robbers would be willing to come forward in order to exonerate him. And finally, he didn’t know whether this chief inspector knew any of that anyway.

  ‘Farrell.’

  Tipper’s face remained impassive. ‘Who’s Farrell?’ he asked.

  Rogers’ hands were clenched together on the bare table, the knuckles showing white. ‘He’ll bloody kill me for this,’ he said; the full impact of what he had just done suddenly descended on him.

  If he doesn’t, Masters will, thought Tipper, but deemed it impolitic to say so at that precise moment. He was certainly amazed that the name had come so easily. If it was true, and he had no reason to doubt it, and it could be proved, which was going to be much more difficult, it would spell disaster for Farrell; provided always that the jury believed a twelve-times loser rather than an ostensibly upright businessman and friend of the Home Secretary. Tipper thought of what Lavery’s reaction would be when he heard, and smiled.

  ‘It’s not very funny, guv’nor,’ said Rogers.

  ‘You don’t know what I was laughing at.’ He looked at Rogers closely. He was the sort of villain you could see any day of the week at any one of a dozen Crown Courts. Shifty, undernourished for the most part, possessed of a certain element of pavement cunning but, at the end of it all, a loser. And Farrell was prepared to risk everything he had by taking a man like this into his confidence. And why? Greed, Tipper supposed, and the one dead give-away of the

  self-made man: if someone owed you, you couldn’t let it go; you had to collect.

  ‘Did you find this packet of cocaine?’ asked Tipper.

  ‘No. I reckoned it weren’t there. Just an excuse like, to do this bloke’s gaff over.’

  ‘Don’t see the point of that,’ said Tipper. ‘There’s no profit in it. What did he say when you saw him next?’

  ‘He was well pissed off. Asked us where we’d looked, and were we sure it wasn’t there. Then he made us tell him all over again, where we’d looked like.’

  ‘But he still paid you?’

  Rogers grinned. ‘Didn’t have to. He done that first, see. Money up front, that’s me.’ He pulled down a lower eyelid with a grubby forefinger. ‘Have to get up early in the morning to catch Charlie Rogers,’ he said.

  ‘We did,’ said Tipper.

  It
is in the nature of things that the world of criminal investigation cannot function without information. For the most part this information — despite computers and all the other wonderful gadgets which the police now have — comes from informants … or snouts as the more earthy British detectives call them. But this method of acquiring information is not confined to Britain, and detectives operating in any part of the world will have a collection of such informants. The United States of America is no different, except that there the detectives refer to these mines of intelligence as snitches; but the principle is the same.

  Pete Roscoe, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s New York office had been with the Bureau for more than twenty years, many of which had been spent in New York itself, and he had gathered around himself many such snitches. These snitches operated in diverse fields of criminal activity, and would from time to time pass snippets of information to Roscoe gratuitously; gratuitous only in the sense that they were unsolicited: not gratuitous in the sense that they were free. Snitches always expected to be paid for the information they provided — and sometimes they were — if it was worth

  it. Occasionally, however, an investigator would put out the word that he had a special interest in someone or something. A week or so previously, Roscoe had done just that, but the call he had from Frank Robinson in Kansas City had helped to narrow the field of enquiry. Or so he thought. Unfortunately

  -and it came as no surprise — Paul Cody turned out not to be a big star on Broadway at all.

  In a sense there are two Broadways in New York: there is Broadway, and there is Off Broadway; and generally speaking those who are Off Broadway have only one object in life: to get On Broadway.

  The Galaxy Theatre was definitely Off Broadway; in fact, it could almost be said to be Off Off Broadway, and looked as though it had started life as a garage or a warehouse … which it probably had.