Gunrunner

by Graham Ison

  That done, I rushed off to court with Roberts and Hogan, and secured an eight-day lay-down, as we detectives describe a remand in custody to the Crown Court.

  As Roberts and Hogan were returned to the cells to await transport to Brixton, Kate Ebdon arrived with Sonia Dixon.

  We escorted her to the cells beneath the court and I asked the gaoler to open the wicket of Roberts’s cell.

  ‘See if you recognize that man, Sonia,’ I said.

  Sonia Dixon needed only a brief glance. ‘That’s the man who called at the house looking for Gary,’ she said, without hesitation.

  ‘I thought as much,’ I said. ‘Take Mrs Dixon back to Ealing, Kate.’

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Sonia.

  ‘Yes, and thanks for your assistance.’

  Len Driscoll had sent a couple of detective officers to the Broders Road warehouse with a view to discovering the secrets of Kerry Hammond’s wine importing business. The two officers were Detective Sergeant Lizanne Carpenter and Detective Constable John Appleby. Lizanne, a recent arrival in HSCC from Hackney, was proving to be a very competent addition to the unit.

  It was not the most popular of duties entailing, as it did, waiting around for something to happen. Something that, in their experience, might never occur.

  Hunched in parkas, Carpenter and Appleby had spent most of the morning exchanging gossip about the Job, and drinking coffee out of vacuum flasks. But at about midday, just when they were starting to wonder what to do about lunch, the door of the warehouse opened.

  The two men who entered were in their fifties, dressed casually in sweaters and jeans, and heavy topcoats.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Lizanne Carpenter, emerging from the small office at the end of the warehouse.

  ‘Oh, hello, love,’ said one of the men. ‘We’ve come for three cases of Chablis and three of claret. We phoned the order in a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Did you indeed?’ said Lizanne, having now been joined by John Appleby. ‘We’re police officers. Who are you?’

  ‘Er, I’m Tony Manning and this is Ted Piper. But what are you doing here?’ They each looked a little surprised and somewhat apprehensive to find the police there.

  ‘Investigating a suspected case of fraud involving this wine importer,’ said Lizanne. ‘What’s your involvement?’

  ‘We’ve got nothing to do with any fraud,’ said Manning. ‘We’ve always got our wine from here.’

  ‘Who was your contact?’

  ‘A Mrs Hammond.’

  ‘And did you ever meet Mrs Hammond?’

  ‘No, it was always done on the phone, and usually there was a bloke here to hand over what we’d ordered.’

  ‘Any idea of his name?’ asked Lizanne.

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘What’s your line of business, Mr Manning?’ asked Appleby, joining in the conversation.

  Manning glanced at Piper before answering. ‘We’re civil servants, but we run the bar at a bowls club down near Bromley. In our spare time.’

  ‘What did you expect to pay for today’s order, Mr Manning?’

  ‘I can’t tell you the exact amount, but it works out to about three quid a bottle.’

  ‘Is it all right to pick up our consignment, then?’ asked Piper, speaking for the first time.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Lizanne. ‘The stock has been seized as possible evidence, and as Mrs Hammond is now dead, I don’t suppose the business will continue.’

  ‘Dead? But what do we do for our wine now?’

  ‘You could try a supermarket,’ suggested Appleby. ‘However, until customs decide whether any offences have been committed the stock of this warehouse stays where it is.’

  Manning turned to Piper. ‘Well, that’s that, I suppose, Ted. Sorry to have bothered you, miss,’ he said to Lizanne.

  By the time I got back to Curtis Green, I found that Dave Poole and Colin Wilberforce had been busy garnering a few routine facts. A search at the General Register Office revealed that Charlie Pollard had been born thirty-five years ago in Southampton, the daughter of Charles Pollard, at the time a second officer in the merchant navy, and his wife Clarissa. Erica Foster, born in Bromley, was twenty-six, her parents being Frederick Foster, a musician, and Mary. All of which was useless in terms of furthering our enquiries.

  ‘I did a check with the Department of Education, sir,’ said Colin Wilberforce, ‘but they don’t have any record of a Charlie Pollard. That means that she’s not teaching in a state school or in the private sector, providing it’s a private school that has to register.’ As usual, he was making a thorough job of tying up the loose ends. ‘As for Erica Foster, she’s not a member of any of the recognized professional bodies for accountants, but that doesn’t mean very much; anyone can call themselves an accountant.’

  ‘Pollard and Foster are shown on the electoral roll as the only occupants of the Argus Road address, guv,’ said Dave.

  ‘Fascinating,’ I said, ‘but if Charlie Pollard’s not a teacher, where does her money come from?’

  ‘Not from the Department for Work and Pensions,’ said Dave. ‘I’ve checked. She doesn’t receive any sort of benefit. Neither does Erica Foster.’

  ‘Dig deeper,’ I said, mildly irritated that Charlie Pollard appeared to have been deceiving us. ‘I suppose she could be living on whatever Erica Foster brings in. Any information on where Erica works, Colin?’

  ‘Not yet, sir,’ said Wilberforce. ‘But we do know that Charlie Pollard owns a new car. At least, it’s only a year old.’ He turned his computer screen so that I could see the DVLA entry.

  ‘A Ford Mondeo, eh? They don’t come cheap,’ I said. ‘She must garage it somewhere else; it wasn’t outside the house on either of the occasions we were there. Although she did mention owning a car; she thought that’s what we’d called about. Put the details on the PNC, Colin. You never know what they might turn up.’

  Further discussion on the matter in hand was interrupted by a telephone call from Capitaine Henri Deshayes.

  ‘I’m at the Gare du Nord, ’Arry, on my way to see you. I have some information about your smuggling investigation.’ There was a pause. ‘And I ’ave Gabrielle with me also.’

  ‘How did you swing that, Henry?’ I asked.

  ‘Swing it? Swing what? What is this swinging, ’Arry?’

  ‘How did you arrange it with your boss?’ Although Henri spoke fluent English, I realized that he was not necessarily conversant with the more obscure vernacular.

  ‘D’accord!’ exclaimed Henri. ‘The information is not for passing over the telephone, ’Arry. Comprenez?’ I could visualize him tapping the side of his nose with a forefinger.

  ‘I understand. What time are you arriving at St Pancras?’

  ‘About ’alf past twelve your time.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ I asked. Henri knew that neither Gail nor I had sufficient room to accommodate visitors.

  ‘We ’ave booked an ’otel in London. It is all arranged. I was due a few days leave, so I thought it would be a good idea to combine business with pleasure.’

  ‘I’ll have someone there to meet you, Henry, and take you and Gabrielle to your hotel.’

  ‘There is no need, ’Arry. We can get a taxi, but perhaps you and Gail will have dinner with us this evening.’ And Henri gave us the address of his hotel.

  My thoughts of a pleasant dinner with Henri Deshayes and his lovely wife were interrupted by Kate Ebdon.

  ‘I’ve been through the address book that we got from Nick Hammond, guv, but there were only a couple of names that might be of interest. There were mobile phone numbers alongside the names, and I did a subscriber check.’

  ‘Anyone we know, Kate?’

  ‘You could say that. Frankie Saunders and Danny Elliott, and both have got form for robbery.’

  ‘Very careless of Kerry to keep a list,’ I said, although I wasn’t surprised. Kerry Hammond didn’t expect to be murdered, and she didn’t anticipate that the police might ha
ve access to her address book. But criminals do the silliest of things, even educated ones like Kerry. And I was now firmly convinced that she had been a criminal. ‘Anything in the book about Charlie Pollard, Kate?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘She’s got Pollard’s address in here under C. Pollard, but the phone number is written backwards, silly cow.’

  ‘Not as clever as she thought she was, then,’ I said. ‘Bligh obviously worked that out.’

  ‘I presume you want Saunders and Elliott picked up?’

  ‘Too right,’ I said. ‘Get a team organized and see if you can find them. Of course, if they’d heard about Roberts and Hogan being nicked, they might’ve taken it on their toes, but it’s worth a try.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they’re bright enough to make a connection, guv. Either that or they think they’re fireproof.’

  SEVENTEEN

  To my astonishment, at two o’clock Kate reported that Saunders and Elliott were in custody at Charing Cross.

  ‘Are you coming over, guv?’

  ‘I’ll be with you in ten,’ I said, and told Wilberforce to tell Dave where I was going.

  Kate was waiting in the front office of the police station when we arrived.

  ‘I’ve got Saunders in the interview room, guv.’

  ‘Right, let’s go. And you can kick off.’

  Frankie Saunders was forty-three years of age, and had the appearance of the conventional robber. He was muscular and belligerent.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ he demanded.

  Kate turned on the tape recorder and made a big thing of announcing the presence of Detective Chief Inspector Brock and Detective Inspector Ebdon of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command. That caused Saunders to sit up and take notice.

  ‘You are in serious shtook,’ said Kate, as we sat down opposite Saunders.

  ‘Is that a fact? Well, p’raps you’d start off by telling me what I’ve been nicked for.’

  ‘Gunrunning,’ said Kate, ‘and to make it quite clear, you’re likely to be charged with conspiring with Kerry Hammond, deceased, and others now in custody, illegally to import firearms.’

  ‘Dunno what you’re on about.’

  ‘Furthermore, you are also likely to be charged with the murder of the aforementioned Kerry Hammond on the twenty-fourth of December last.’

  ‘Bloody leave it out,’ protested Saunders, his face working in panic. ‘I don’t know nothing about no topping.’

  ‘Well, you’d better start by telling us what you know about the shooters, and the murder might just go away.’

  ‘I don’t know nothing.’

  ‘As a result of a raid on premises at Cantard Street, Walworth, on Saturday,’ continued Kate, as though Saunders hadn’t spoken, ‘a quantity of firearms was discovered and Michael Roberts and Patrick Hogan have been arrested and charged.’

  That piece of news appeared to unnerve Saunders. ‘Well, it ain’t nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Fingerprints found at Cantard Street have been identified as yours and Danny Elliott’s so, as you’ve nothing to say, you’ll both be charged as principals in the conspiracy.’

  Both Kate and I knew that a fingerprint examination of the warehouse had failed to prove the presence of either Saunders or Elliott, but Saunders didn’t know that.

  ‘All right, so I was there, but I was just helping to unload some gear. I never knew what it was.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Charlie Pollard?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah! I heard his name mentioned once or twice, but I never met him.’

  ‘Who mentioned Pollard?’

  ‘It was Mike and—’ Saunders stopped, realizing that he was on the point of saying too much.

  ‘So you do know Roberts,’ said Kate.

  ‘Yeah, well, he asked me to give him a hand unloading some gear. But, like I said, I never knew what the stuff was.’

  ‘D’you want me to tell you exactly where we found your fingerprints, Frankie?’ Kate persisted with the fiction of the fingerprints.

  Saunders slumped in his chair. ‘All right, he asked me for a bit of help, but if I’d known what it was to start with, I’d’ve told him to get lost.’

  ‘So, you did know it was firearms, and you were there when Roberts and Hogan opened the secret panel in the lorry.’

  ‘It was a one-off,’ said Saunders.

  ‘How did he contact you?’

  ‘In a boozer.’

  ‘Of course he did,’ said Kate acidly. ‘It’s where all the dodgy transactions are made. And Danny Elliott was there too, I suppose.’

  ‘Yeah. What d’you reckon I’ll get for this?’

  ‘Difficult to say,’ said Kate, ‘but if I was in your position I wouldn’t buy a five-year diary.’

  I sent for a PC and asked him to put down Saunders and bring up Elliott.

  Danny Elliott strolled into the interview room as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

  ‘Wass this all about, then?’ he demanded, dropping into the vacant chair.

  ‘Mike Roberts, Pat Hogan and Frankie Saunders have given you up,’ said Kate, ‘and unless you’ve got anything useful to say you’ll be charged with conspiring with them illegally to import firearms.’

  ‘I don’t know nothing about no shooters,’ protested Elliott.

  ‘Furthermore, my chief here,’ continued Kate, indicating me with a wave of her hand, ‘is looking for whoever topped Kerry Hammond.’

  ‘Who?’ Elliott’s relaxed and truculent attitude vanished. ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. Who’s Kelly Hammond?’

  ‘Nice try,’ said Kate, ‘but it’s Kerry: K-E-R-R-Y, and I’m talking about the woman who masterminded the whole shebang, along with Charlie Pollard.’

  ‘Never heard of ’em,’ said Elliott, shifting his position slightly.

  I thought that was probably true.

  ‘As my inspector told you, Danny, you’ll be charged with conspiracy,’ I said.

  I sent for the PC-gaoler and told him to settle Elliott in a cell for the night.

  It was as well that I arrived early to collect Gail from her house in Kingston.

  Aware that Gabrielle Deshayes was something of a fashion icon, Gail had taken a considerable amount of time selecting her outfit. After several false starts, and frequent reminders from me about the time, she’d eventually appeared in a dark green confection of heavy silk with a daring décolletage. Nipped in at the waist, the dress did everything to emphasize her perfect figure.

  ‘You look gorgeous, darling,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ said Gail, and sketched a curtsy.

  Henri and Gabrielle, already seated at a table in the hotel restaurant, stood up to greet us as we arrived.

  Gabrielle, the epitome of the chic Parisienne, was fetchingly attired in a white cashmere suit with black ribbon trims at the collar, the pockets and the cuffs. In true Chanel style, so Gail later told me, the straight skirt came to just below her knees, inevitably directing male attention to her shapely legs.

  Henri and I were wearing suits, of course. Gail had once commented that it was all right for us men; we just had to throw on a suit. But at least we were wearing ties, something of a rarity these days.

  There were handshakes and kisses all round, and Gail and Gabrielle started talking about the latest fashions in London and Paris even before the aperitifs were served.

  There was a minor amusing diversion when the waiter, addressing Henri with a pseudo-French accent, was taken aback when Henri rattled off his order in his own native language. To adopt a sporting term, the waiter retired hurt.

  ‘It was a very successful operation, ’Arry,’ said Henri as he took a sip of his pastis. ‘The Police Judiciaire in Marseille found a cache of firearms in Marcel Lebrun’s warehouse, and arrested him and three others immediately after your man had left with his load. It seemed that for some time now, Lebrun had been crossing from Sète to Morocco to buy wine, but also to buy firearms at the same time. I don’t know how the
douaniers didn’t catch ’im before.’ He gave a Gallic shrug of the shoulders. ‘Why go to Morocco for wine? France is full of it.’

  ‘Did he use a commercial lorry for these runs, Henry?’ I also wondered how Lebrun had avoided the usually vigilant French customs officers.

  ‘Non!’ Henri shook his head. ‘It is not a commercial ferry, and I understand that Lebrun used a small van. ’E was clever to carry only very small amounts. The PJ found the van at the warehouse. It ’ad a very cleverly concealed compartment underneath.’

  I told Henri about the arrests we’d made in London, but that we still had to find evidence implicating others, notably Charlie Pollard. I gave him further details about the murder of Kerry Hammond, too, and that she was probably the brains behind the gunrunning.

  ‘Do you think her murder was connected with this business, ’Arry?’

  ‘It’s beginning to look like a strong possibility, Henry,’ I said. ‘As a matter of interest, did Lebrun supply others, apart from the people we arrested?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Henri. ‘There are many enquiries still to be made, and it could take a long time. The PJ in Marseille are looking into possible connections in Belgium and the Netherlands, but the worrying aspect is that Lebrun might also ’ave been selling guns to extremist groups in France itself, and possibly also to ETA in Spain. And there’s always al-Qaeda.’ He shrugged and spread his hands. And that means that the DCRI ’ave now become involved.’

  ‘What’s the DCRI, Henry?’

  ‘Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur,’ said Henri. ‘It is like your MI5, I think.’

  ‘Oh, I see. If they’re anything like our lot, they could take forever.’ I just hoped that their operatives were not all like Nicholas Hammond, whose laid back attitude did not impress me.

  Henri sighed. ‘I think so, but that does not worry you, ’Arry. Your job is all . . . What’s that expression you use? Done and dusted?’

  I laughed. ‘Not yet, Henry,’ I said. ‘Now, about tomorrow. Would you like to have a look over Scotland Yard?’

  Henri gave me an apologetic smile and spread his hands in a typical Gallic gesture. ‘I don’t think so, ’Arry, if you don’t mind. I am on leave, and one police headquarters is much like another, I think. If it’s anything like our Quai des Orfèvres it’s full of people running about with bits of paper. No, if you don’t mind, I’ll spend the day at the British Museum and ’aving a poke about in ’Arrods.’