by Graham Ison
‘Mr Brock, a moment of your time.’ The commander didn’t even break step as he passed the open door of my office. Nor would he ever address me as Harry like real CID commanders did, presumably for fear that I might call him by his first name. I’m not sure he could cope with that.
But the commander is not a real detective, even though he fancies himself as one. After a lifetime in the Uniform Branch, he was visited upon us by some genius in Human Resources at Scotland Yard who probably imagined that it would widen our illustrious leader’s experience – and doubtless add a new dimension to the way we poor workers set about our mundane task of investigating murders. I’m not sure, however, that his knowledge of curbing unruly football crowds and instituting diabolical traffic schemes would help us very much. Mind you, he was very good, and very prolific, when it came to writing memoranda.
I followed the great man into his office.
‘Did you have a pleasant Christmas, sir?’ I enquired, not that I cared, but such social niceties tended to put him off his stroke, albeit temporarily.
‘Oh, er, yes, thank you, Mr Brock. Very quiet, of course. Very quiet.’ The commander settled himself behind his desk, and spent a moment or two surveying his overflowing in-tray with the sort of relish with which a hungry man contemplates a hearty meal. ‘Be so good as to bring me up to date on this suspicious death you’re investigating at the airport, Mr Brock.’
He would never call a suspicious death a murder in case it turned out to be manslaughter or even suicide. A bit of a pedant, is our commander.
I summarized what we knew so far. ‘But I’m not too happy about Nicholas Hammond, the dead woman’s husband, sir,’ I continued, intent upon feeding in a few red herrings, and explained how he’d gone to New York without knowing what had happened to her. ‘Seems a strange sort of thing to do,’ I added.
‘Yes, very strange, very strange indeed, Mr Brock. Are you considering arresting him?’
‘Not at this stage, sir. In the meantime, I’m having enquiries made about his business. It’s in Mayfair.’
‘In Mayfair, eh?’ The commander was always impressed by prestigious addresses.
‘But there are others in the frame,’ I said.
‘In the frame?’ The commander contrived to look both irritated and mystified at the same time. He knew perfectly well what I meant, but he always affected ignorance whenever any of us used the jargon he abhorred.
‘Yes, sir, Bernard Bligh for one. He’s one of the directors of Kerry Trucking who was apparently annoyed that control of the company didn’t pass to him on Richard Lucas’s death. Lucas was Kerry Hammond’s first husband.’
‘Her first husband? You mean she was married before? This all seems rather complicated, Mr Brock.’
It seemed fairly plain to me that if she was now on her second husband, she’d been married before. ‘And then there’s a former driver called Gary Dixon who was prosecuted by customs for smuggling.’ I said, managing to confuse the commander even further, which, of course, was my intention.
‘He sounds like your principal suspect, then,’ said the chief confidently. In his simplistic view, anyone previously convicted of a crime must have committed the one currently under investigation.
‘I don’t think it’s as straightforward as that, sir,’ I said. ‘But time will tell.’
‘Yes, but don’t waste too much time, Mr Brock. I expect to have a result soon.’ Using his customary technique of implying dismissal, the commander put on his half moon spectacles, intended to lend him gravitas, and drew the first file from the top of his in tray. But then he paused and looked at me. ‘I should be inclined to detain this Nicholas Hammond and interrogate him thoroughly. From what you say, he sounds like a suspect.’
‘Thank you, sir. That’s a very good suggestion if I may say so. I’ll bear it in mind.’ But I had long ago come to the conclusion that the commander’s advice was best ignored.
‘Be so good as to keep me informed of your progress, Mr Brock.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Detective Inspector Ebdon had been busy over the weekend, and was waiting for me in the incident room.
‘Gary Dixon, guv.’
‘Have you found him, Kate?’
‘Not yet. I called at Dixon’s Hardacre Street address, and had a chat with his wife Sonia. She hasn’t seen him since just before Christmas, and she’s no idea where he is now.’
‘Guilty knowledge, guv,’ said Dave, but he always said that. He set down a tray bearing several cups of coffee that he’d made on the unauthorized machine we kept tucked away in a cupboard out of sight of the Commissioner’s ‘electricity police’. Every so often, a jobsworth would arrive in search of illegal coffee-making equipment. But he never had any luck; Dave was far too cunning for him.
‘Maybe,’ said Kate. ‘But I had a heart-to-heart with Sonia. Apparently Gary is a bit of a womanizer, and she thinks he might’ve gone off somewhere with a bird. I asked her to tell him we wanted to see him, if and when he comes back, and if that results in him doing a runner, she’ll give us a bell. But somehow, I don’t think we’ll hear anything.’
It was no more than I’d expected. ‘Better put him on the PNC, Kate.’
‘Already done, sir.’ Colin Wilberforce, now back from his Christmas break, glanced up from his desk.
‘I don’t suppose that’ll help much.’ said Kate. She had no greater faith in the Police National Computer as a method of tracking down criminals than I had. In my experience, wanted villains were often nicked in the most unlikely circumstances. Frequently by a traffic policeman doing a routine stop and asking embarrassing questions such as: ‘What’s your name, and where d’you live?’ Followed up by the crippler: ‘Got any ID?’
We’d been lucky enough to find Susan Penrose’s telephone number plumbed into Kerry Hammond’s mobile. Dave had done a subscriber check with the cellphone service provider and found that she lived at Barling Towers, Royal Dock Road, in that expensive area of east London which had once been a thriving dockland.
The barefooted girl who answered the door was wearing a full-length yellow kaftan. She had brown, cropped hair and her only make-up was a minimal amount of lipstick and delicately applied mascara. For a moment or two, she gazed pensively at us.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Mrs Penrose?’
‘Yes, I’m Susan Penrose. Who are you?’
A man appeared behind the woman. ‘What is it, Sue?’
‘We’re police officers,’ I said, producing my warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of Scotland Yard, and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’
‘Oh, God, not another break-in, surely,’ said the man. ‘You’d better come in.’
The sitting room was vast, and a picture window, taking up most of one side, afforded the occupants a panoramic view of the River Thames. Adjacent to the window was a door that gave access to a balcony running the full width of the room.
‘I take it you’re Mr Penrose,’ I said, as the four of us sat down.
‘Yes, that’s me, old boy, I’m Dudley Penrose. So, one of my places has been broken into, has it? What’s been taken this time?’
Penrose was a smooth individual, probably pushing forty, and judging by the casual clothes he was wearing would have died rather than be seen in something from a high street chain. He was the sort of know-it-all who holds forth in the local chic gastropub about everything and anything. He would always know the chief man in any organization, and he’d been wherever you’d been, but more often. And even more often to places to which you’d never been.
‘If you’re talking about your car showrooms, Mr Penrose,’ I said, ‘the answer’s no. We’re here to ask Mrs Penrose a few questions about Kerry Hammond.’
‘Oh, what’s the dear girl been up to now?’ asked Penrose, still not taking the hint that I was talking to his wife.
‘She’s been murdered,’ I said flatly.
‘Oh no!’ Susan Penrose was visibly shocked. ‘
When?’
‘Her body was discovered in her car on Christmas Day at Heathrow Airport,’ I said.
‘Was it the indigo blue Jaguar XJ?’ asked Penrose, taking a sudden interest in what I was saying.
‘It was, as a matter of fact. Why d’you ask?’
‘Only professional interest,’ said Penrose. ‘I supplied it to her or, technically speaking, to her company, Kerry Trucking.’
‘This is no time to talk about your damned business, Dud,’ snapped Penrose’s wife, tears running unchecked down her face. ‘Didn’t you hear what the chief inspector said? Kerry’s been murdered. It’s my best friend we’re talking about here, damn you.’
‘Sorry,’ mumbled Penrose. ‘Can I get you guys a drink?’
‘No thanks,’ I said.
‘Well, it was good of you to let us know.’ Penrose stood up. ‘I’ll show you out.’
‘We didn’t come here to deliver a death message,’ said Dave sharply. ‘If that had been necessary, which it wasn’t, we’d’ve sent a uniformed constable.’ He’d obviously taken a serious dislike to Dudley Penrose, but he probably disliked car dealers as a species.
‘Just sit down and shut up, Dud.’ Having delivered that rebuke to her husband, Susan Penrose turned to me. ‘You obviously want to know anything about Kerry that might help you find out who killed her.’ She took a tissue from a handy box and dabbed gently at her eyes, being careful to avoid smudging her mascara.
‘We know about her first husband’s death in a car accident,’ I began, ‘and we know about her second marriage. We have actually interviewed Mr Hammond, and Kerry’s parents, Mr and Mrs King.’
‘In that case, I doubt if there’s any more I can tell you,’ said Susan.
‘Mr King said that after the death of Kerry’s first husband, and before she remarried, two years later I understand, she became something of a good-time girl. I suspect that that might’ve been a euphemism for something more serious.’
‘She certainly went off the rails a bit,’ said Susan. ‘She was drinking far too much and associating with a lot of odd people that she met in nightclubs. She wasn’t too choosy about who she slept with, either.’
‘Was there anyone in particular?’ asked Dave.
‘Not that I know of. She spent a lot of time at a club called the Spanish Fly. In fact, I’ve an idea that she had a fling with the guy who owns it, a rather oily Spaniard called Miguel something.’
‘Yes, we know about him,’ I said, without revealing that he was British and otherwise known as Michael Roberts.
‘Then she met Nick Hammond and a couple of months later she was married to him.’ Susan Penrose looked pensive for a moment or two. ‘God knows why,’ she said. ‘He didn’t seem her type at all, but after that she shrugged off her frenetic lifestyle and appeared to settle down to playing with her lorries.’
‘D’you know where she met Nick?’ I asked.
‘Believe it or not, at a tennis club dance. She was mad keen on tennis for a while. It was one of the fads that she went through. Her “get fit” phase, I called it. I met Nick once, but he was a humdrum sort of a guy, a bit of a wimp. I think he was an estate agent. At the time, I asked her if she knew what she was doing in marrying him, but she was quite adamant. Frankly, I didn’t think it would last, even though it lasted for about five years. Between you and me, though, I don’t think that Kerry was averse to having the occasional fling.’ Susan paused, a sad expression on her face. ‘Not that she will any more,’ she added, giving her red-rimmed eyes a final dab.
On Tuesday morning, DS Flynn came into my office.
‘You wanted to know about Nicholas Hammond’s business in Mayfair, guv.’
‘Yes, Charlie?’
‘I was lucky enough to find an obliging lady who keeps a shop opposite Hammond’s place.’
‘How obliging?’ I asked.
‘I wasn’t that lucky; she was a grandmother,’ said Flynn, with a laugh. ‘I spun her some fanny about drug dealers, and she let me keep obo from an upstairs room. She even made me tea and sandwiches, and lent me a pair of binoculars.’
‘And what did you learn about Hammond and his business from this comfortable little observation post, Charlie?’
‘I took up the obo at about eight o’clock, and a guy I presumed to be Hammond turned up on foot about twenty minutes later. It was a plush sort of place, carpeted throughout. There were four or five expensive desks with computers on each of them. Hammond has got a couple of assistants, a man and a woman. But he doesn’t seem to do much in the way of business; not that that means much nowadays.’
‘I suppose that in this modern age a lot of house sales are conducted on the Internet, or on the phone,’ I suggested.
‘Could be,’ said Flynn. ‘But at about midday a couple of well-dressed but shifty-looking Arab types turned up who didn’t give the impression that they were interested in buying any property. They had a quick glance up and down the street before going in, and the minute they walked through the door, Hammond ushered them into a back room. They were there for about twenty minutes, and then they pushed off.’
‘I wonder what that was about,’ I said.
‘I was in two minds whether or not to follow them, guv, but I thought it was better to stay where I was. Anyway, apart from our two Arab friends, only a handful of seemingly bona fide clients walked through the door until he shut up shop at six o’clock. By the way, I had a casual glance at the property he’d got in the window. All expensive stuff, but not one of them was marked “sold”. I reckon he’s running a front for something. Surveillance might tell us more.’
‘It could be a sham, Charlie, although God knows for what, but it’d take a lot of manpower to put on round-the-clock observation. Whatever Hammond’s up to, I don’t think it’d have much to do with Kerry’s murder. We’ll have to wait and see,’ I said. ‘But in the meantime, I think I’ll have him into the nick and give him a good talking to.’
But that idea was thwarted almost immediately by a telephone call.
‘It’s the commander here, Mr Brock. Be so good as to step into my office.’
The commander’s office was two doors down the corridor, but he had to ring me. Alan Cleaver, the detective chief superintendent, would have strolled into my office, cadged a cup of illegal coffee and sat down for a chat.
‘You wanted me, sir?’
‘Close the door, Mr Brock.’ The commander drew a sheet of paper towards him, and glanced at it; he makes a note of everything. ‘I’ve just received a telephone call from the DAC in charge of Counter-Terrorist Command. He wishes to see you immediately, and you’re to go alone.’
‘Very good, sir,’ I said, wondering what the hell that was all about. I couldn’t think of any complaint against me that might’ve come from that quarter, although you never can tell.
‘And when you’ve seen him, you’re to come straight back here and report to me.’
I decided to walk. I could do with the fresh air and it would give me time to think. And at this time of year, there were few foreign tourists to stop me and ask inane questions. Even though I wasn’t wearing a policeman’s costume, I looked English.
I walked along Parliament Street, cut across Parliament Square, into Victoria Street and finally to New Scotland Yard.
Over forty years ago, the Metropolitan Police had been ousted from its headquarters on Victoria Embankment by parliamentarians who wanted the building for themselves. Consequently, the Yard was now housed in a glass and concrete pile in Broadway that possessed all the architectural appeal of a third world tenement block.
I’d not previously met the deputy assistant commissioner for counter-terrorism, but he turned out to be an affable fellow, and obviously a real detective.
‘DCI Brock from HSCC, sir. I understand you wanted to see me.’
‘Good morning, Mr Brock,’ said the DAC, waving me into a chair. ‘It’s Harry, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘This is David Simpson, Har
ry,’ said the DAC, indicating a man seated in an armchair. ‘He’s from the Security Service. And before we proceed, nothing you hear in this room must go any further. Is that clearly understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I shook hands with the man from MI5, but guessed that his name wasn’t really Simpson. Such shadowy characters never give their real names when dealing with ordinary mortals like me.
‘I understand that you have an interest in Nicholas Hammond, Mr Brock,’ said Simpson.
‘He’s a suspect in a murder enquiry,’ I said bluntly, even though I wasn’t sure that he was. ‘I’m investigating the death of his wife who was discovered in her—’
‘Yes, I know all about the case,’ said Simpson, holding up a hand, and glancing at the DAC. ‘I have to tell you that Mr Hammond is one of our officers.’
‘Bloody hell!’ I said.
The DAC laughed. ‘I thought that’d surprise you, Harry.’
‘Do you consider Nicholas Hammond to be a viable suspect, Mr Brock?’ asked Simpson.
‘One of several,’ I said, unwilling to offer Simpson any quarter.
‘I see.’ Simpson lapsed into silence for a moment or two. ‘I’m going to ask a favour of you, Mr Brock. Is it at all possible that you could avoid interviewing him at his Mayfair premises, or taking him to a police station? You see, it would quite possibly compromise a rather special operation in which he’s currently involved.’
‘Well, don’t leave it there, David,’ said the DAC. ‘You’re putting Mr Brock in a very difficult position and it’s only fair you tell him what he’s up against.’
It obviously went against all the principles of the Security Service for Simpson to say any more than he had to, but he eventually capitulated.
‘Of late, Nick Hammond has been cultivating a number of informants, mainly expatriate Iranians, and he’s also been in touch with our liaison in the United States.’
‘By which, I presume you mean the CIA, Mr Simpson,’ I said.