Deadlock

by Graham Ison

  The first stop on the Friday morning was at Henry Mortlock’s post-mortem room.

  ‘Just finished, Harry.’ Mortlock took off his protective gloves and dropped them into a waste bin. ‘Same as before, more or less,’ he said, gesturing at the body of Lisa Hastings, which he had just finished roughly sewing up with sutures. ‘Strangled from behind with marks on the neck similar to those I found on Rachel Steele. Again, there were no defensive wounds on the hands, and I imagine she was taken by surprise. When I examined the body at the scene yesterday morning, there were marks on her shoulders and back commensurate with having recently worn a brassiere.’

  ‘Which was nowhere to be found, I suppose,’ put in Dave.

  ‘Ah, you’ve brought your lingerie expert with you, Harry,’ Mortlock said sarcastically. ‘But, Sergeant Poole, I only examined the cadaver. I didn’t search the surrounding area for the lady’s missing underwear. That, I seem to recall, is the job of the scientific people or, dare I say it, the police.’

  ‘Oh dear! Did you lose at golf?’ asked Dave mildly.

  ‘Her physical appearance is strikingly similar to that of Rachel Steele,’ continued Mortlock, completely ignoring Dave’s banter. ‘Roughly the same height and measurements, and she had long brown hair much like the other girl. And once again, she was not virgo intacta, but neither was she pregnant.’

  ‘Any traces of recent sexual intercourse?’ asked Dave hopefully.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Sergeant Poole, but there was no semen from which you could get a DNA sample. It seems that even murderers are heeding the advice to avoid having unprotected sexual intercourse.’

  ‘Time of death, Henry?’ I asked.

  ‘About ten o’clock last night.’

  It was obvious that Sophie Preston’s days off were spent just slopping around. When she answered the door to Kate Ebdon and Steve Harvey she was attired in a pair of jeans and an old sweater, she wore no make-up and her hair was in disarray.

  ‘It must be important for you to come all the way out to Richmond to talk to me,’ said Sophie. ‘Couldn’t you have asked your questions on the phone?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate.

  ‘Oh! Sounds serious.’ Sophie and the two detectives took seats in the comfortably furnished living room. Kate could see that Sophie had influenced the décor. It was probably an untidy bachelor pad before she moved in with Roper following their engagement, or maybe before it. Assuming they were still engaged, that is.

  Kate took out her pocketbook. ‘Tony Miles claims that you spent the night of Monday the tenth of June in bed with him, Miss Preston. Is that true?’

  Sophie blushed scarlet and looked around the room, a hunted expression on her face. ‘Oh God!’ she exclaimed. ‘If Max finds out he’ll kill me, and Tony as well, I wouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Does Max make a habit of killing people?’ asked Harvey mildly.

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Sophie scornfully. ‘It’s a figure of speech.’ She leaned forward, elbows on knees, and ran the fingers of both hands through her hair. ‘Does Max have to know about this?’ she asked imploringly.

  ‘Not unless you tell him.’ Kate noticed for the first time that Sophie Preston wore a gold chain around her left ankle, and wondered who had given it to her.

  ‘But why do I have to account for my movements that night? I don’t understand. What d’you suspect me of having done?’

  ‘It’s not your movements I’m interested in,’ said Kate. ‘It’s Tony Miles’s.’

  Linda Mitchell arrived in the office later that morning.

  ‘I hope you’ve got more than Henry Mortlock was able to give me, Linda.’

  ‘You probably already know that the victim’s bra was missing, Harry.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard.’

  ‘Interestingly, another cigarette butt was found at the scene. It’s the same make as the one we found in Richmond Park, and it’s being tested for DNA. It was a common brand, though, Harry, and I don’t want to get your hopes up, but it does seem a bit too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘It’s almost as if this guy wants to get caught,’ I said, but realized immediately that pinning my hopes on two cigarette butts of the same make was hoping too much.

  ‘Are you sure it’s a man?’ Linda raised a quizzical eyebrow. When we discovered the body of Rachel Steele I’d posed the same question, albeit as a sarcastic retort to one of Dave’s comments.

  ‘Why d’you ask?’ I said. ‘Is there any evidence to suggest it’s a woman who killed these two?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time a lesbian committed a murder, guv’nor,’ remarked Dave. ‘In fact, we arrested one for murder some time ago.’

  ‘Yes, I remember the case, but from what we’ve learned so far about Rachel Steele’s extra-marital activities, Dave, I don’t somehow think she was a lesbian, and Henry Mortlock said that Lisa Hastings wasn’t a virgin.’

  ‘It was just a thought, Harry,’ Linda said. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as we get anything more. Oh, by the way, we checked the DNA from the cigarette found at the Isabella Plantation against the database.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And no trace. Sorry, Harry, but we’ll see what the second butt reveals. If the DNA is the same as the first, you might start to get lucky.’

  And that, it seemed, was the sum total of the scientific evidence thus far, but one of the things I learned early in my CID career is that forensic scientists don’t always come up with the answers the detectives want. I had a nasty feeling that good old legwork, knocking on doors and talking to people, was going to be the way to solve this one.

  ‘Rumour has it that the commander paid a visit to the assistant commissioner yesterday evening,’ I said, once Linda had left us. I purposely didn’t float the statement in the form of a question, but Dave knew damned well it was. And laughed.

  ‘I’ve got a mate who swans about the Yard doing some obscure job that he won’t tell anyone about, and informed opinion is that our commander had applied for a deputy chief constable’s job somewhere in Wales.’ Dave paused thoughtfully. ‘Or did he say the Midlands?’

  ‘Oh, really? Did he get it?’ I asked carelessly, trying not to sound too hopeful.

  ‘No, he fluffed it. The rumour mill suggests that the Police and Crime Commissioner for the relevant police force said he was too old to be considered.’

  ‘Oh, what a disappointment,’ I said. ‘For the commander, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally, sir,’ said Dave, his face betraying not the slightest trace of a smile. ‘What’s next, guv?’

  ‘A trip to Lisa Hastings’s last known address, Dave, the one shown on her criminal record.’

  ‘Be a bloody miracle if she went back there after she was released from the nick.’

  ‘She did, Dave, but whether she’s still there remains to be seen. Anyhow, we’ve got to start somewhere.’

  The address shown on Lisa Hastings’s criminal record at the time of her arrest was in Codsmere Road, Kingston upon Thames, less than three miles from Ham Common where her body was found. I’d asked Colin Wilberforce to speak to the local intelligence officer at Kingston police station to get the SP on the premises. The reply was not encouraging; drug squad officers had raided the house several times over the last year, the last occasion being four months ago, and several arrests had been made. The LIO knew of Lisa Hastings, and although she returned to that address immediately after her release from prison three months ago, he was not sure that she was still there. She’d not been placed on probation and was under no obligation to inform anyone if she decided to move. The resident landlord, he said, was Leroy Fitzgibbon.

  ‘This address in Codsmere Road is where we’ll start, Dave.’

  ‘Sounds like fun,’ said Dave gloomily. He’d read Wilberforce’s report too.

  ‘But we’ll have a bite to eat first.’

  The man who answered the door of the rundown Victorian three-storey house appeared reasonably clean. He had short hair – as opposed to
matted locks that brushed the shoulders – and there were no tattoos on his bare arms. All of which should have indicated that he was close to being normal, except for the orange kaftan, the Moroccan-type sandals and the long string of chunky Mexican beads around his neck.

  ‘We’re police officers,’ I said.

  ‘I’m Dylan,’ the man announced. ‘I’m a poet and writer of metaphysical plays.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Dave, whose English degree inclined him to regard such literary layabouts with scepticism, if not scathing contempt.

  ‘There ain’t no stuff here any more, man,’ announced Dylan. ‘We’ve cleaned it out ever since the fuzz was poking about.’

  ‘That doesn’t scan,’ said Dave, in an aside that was completely lost on the Kingston bard.

  ‘Does Lisa Hastings live here?’ I asked, deciding not to reveal that she had been murdered. At least not yet.

  ‘Yeah, sometimes.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘She lives here, but she spends a lot of time in her office, mostly evenings and sometimes all night if the price is right.’

  ‘Two questions, Shakespeare,’ said Dave. ‘Is she here now? And secondly, where’s her office?’

  ‘No, and I don’t know,’ said Dylan.

  ‘I think it might be a good idea,’ said Dave, stepping a little closer to Dylan, ‘if you were to search your brain, which shouldn’t take too long, and tell my chief inspector where Lisa’s office is to be found. This is in your own interest, Dylan, because my boss gets very angry when people don’t tell him things, and he has this nasty habit of taking houses apart. From the inside out.’

  ‘It’s the last house on this side at the end of the road,’ Dylan said hurriedly and, moving out to the doorstep, pointed down the street. ‘That way.’

  ‘And now you can show us to the room Lisa occupied in this grand hotel in which you live, Dylan.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you have her permission or a warrant, as she’s not here?’

  ‘Oh, but we do have her permission,’ I said. ‘Lead on.’

  ‘When did you last see Lisa?’ enquired Dave.

  ‘Three mornings ago.’ Dylan stopped halfway up the stairs and turned. ‘Why are you asking all these questions about her?’

  ‘She’s dead, Dylan. Murdered.’

  ‘I knew it would happen sooner or later,’ said Dylan philosophically. ‘I told her.’

  ‘Told her what?’

  ‘Picking up men. I told her it would end in tragedy.’ Dylan gave a great sigh. ‘What’s done cannot be undone,’ he declaimed, throwing out his arms.

  ‘Oh! You’re familiar with the Scottish play, then,’ commented Dave.

  ‘Nah! That’s from Macbeth, man,’ replied Dylan.

  Dave shook his head. ‘Where did she go to pick up men?’ he asked. ‘And would you move up the stairs? I don’t like talking to people halfway up a staircase. It gives me a crick in my neck.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, right.’ Dylan reached the top landing and stopped again. ‘The nightclubs and pubs around Kingston are where she’d go to pick up a guy, and then she’d take him back to her office. But I think she got barred from most of those fun places, and she moved on to Richmond.’

  ‘When?’ I asked.

  ‘About a couple of weeks ago, I suppose.’

  ‘Good. Now which is her room?’

  ‘This one.’ Dylan pushed open a door and made to enter, but Dave stopped him. ‘We’ll take it from here. We’ll speak to you again downstairs when we’ve finished.’

  ‘Dave,’ I said, once we were inside the room, ‘was there a key found among her possessions?’

  ‘No idea, guv. D’you want me to give Colin Wilberforce a bell?’

  ‘No, there’s no point now we’re here, but I wondered if she’d been carrying a key to the room where she took her clients.’

  ‘There might be a spare here,’ said Dave. ‘On the other hand, I daresay we could manage to gain entry.’

  Lisa Hastings’s room contained only the bare essentials. There was a bed, a cheap wardrobe containing one or two cheap dresses, a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, and a chest of drawers in which we found a few items of underwear. It was the sort of place where I would expect to find a drug addicted prostitute who’d reached rock bottom.

  ‘Nothing here that’ll tell us anything, Dave,’ I said. ‘And no key to her office.’

  We returned to the ground floor. Dylan was hovering in the hall.

  ‘D’you make enough money out of your artistic talent to exist on, Dylan?’ asked Dave conversationally.

  ‘No, man, I’m waiting for the breakthrough. Meantime, I’m on Jobseeker’s Allowance.’

  Dave nodded sympathetically. ‘It must be difficult finding a job as a poet or a metaphysical playwright. Not many vacancies, I’d have thought. Now, Dylan, d’you know of anyone Lisa was seeing regularly?’

  Dylan shook his head. ‘Nah!’ He thought for a moment or two. ‘Apart from the landlord. She’d turn a trick for him if she was a bit short of the readies to pay the rent. Sort of like barter, really.’

  From what we’d seen of Lisa’s room, it was obvious to me that the landlord wasn’t too choosy. ‘Where is the landlord?’ I asked.

  By way of a reply, Dylan pointed silently at a door at the end of the hall.

  ‘What’s his name?’ I asked, seeking to confirm the information I’d received from the LIO at Kingston nick.

  ‘Leroy Fitzgibbon,’ whispered Dylan.

  ‘Is he in?’

  ‘Yeah, man, he’s always in.’

  Dave pushed open the landlord’s door, ensuring it crashed noisily against a piece of furniture.

  ‘What the hell?’ Leroy Fitzgibbon was propped up on his bed watching a programme on television, and started in alarm. ‘Who the hell’s you, man?’ He was about the same skin shade as Dave, and his ancestors probably originated from the same part of the world.

  ‘Police,’ said Dave, picking up the remote control and switching off the television.

  ‘What’s wrong? Are you da Vice Squad?’

  ‘Now what makes you ask that, Leroy? Expecting the Vice Squad, were you?’

  Fitzgibbon backtracked rapidly. ‘No, man, I just thought, seeing as how there used to be junkies and hookers an’ all that what was living here, that you might not be up to speed on the ongoing situation.’

  ‘Unfortunate choice of phrase.’ Dave tossed the remote control on to the bed.

  ‘But we’re all cleaned up now.’ Fitzgibbon hadn’t understood Dave’s quip and therefore chose to ignore it.

  ‘Is that a fact? By the way, you can cut out the Jamaican accent. You’re not very good at it, and I know you were born in Poplar anyway,’ said Dave. ‘Tell me about Lisa.’

  ‘She’s a respectable young lady,’ said Fitzgibbon, reverting to his native East London mode of speech, but it was obvious that he didn’t expect to be believed.

  Dave laughed. ‘Of course she was. But to answer your question, we’re not from the Vice Squad. We’re from Scotland Yard and we’re investigating a murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ Fitzgibbon swung his legs off the bed and stared at the detectives in alarm. ‘Who’s been murdered?’

  ‘Lisa Hastings,’ I said. ‘The woman who used to pay her rent in kind. That is to say, pleasuring you in that pit you’re sleeping in.’

  Fitzgibbon looked shifty, but said nothing.

  ‘Which means that you’re guilty of living on immoral earnings,’ said Dave, and turned to me. ‘D’you think we should arrest him now, sir, or squeeze him a little bit more and see if any pips come out?’

  ‘No, hang on, man. Wait a minute,’ protested Fitzgibbon. ‘You got that all wrong. She offered, like. Lisa was a very friendly girl, and she practically threw herself at me.’

  ‘And you’re so weak, you just couldn’t resist,’ suggested Dave. ‘What d’you reckon, sir?’ he asked, turning to me again.

  ‘Rather depends on how much he’s prepared to
tell us, Sergeant. Of course, it’s possible that it was him who murdered that respectable young lady called Lisa Hastings, and that would solve all our problems.’

  That did it. Suddenly, Fitzgibbon was falling over himself to assist us.

  ‘Look, man, I never knew what she was up to until I saw her going into this house down the end of the street with some guy. Well, then the penny dropped, like, and I told her she had to go, after all the troubles we had with the fuzz – er, I mean with the police, and she went.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Three days ago. She said she’d come back for her stuff, and I told her she’d better make it soon or I’d take it down the tip. But she never come back. On my mother’s grave, I never had nothing to do with her getting topped, man.’

  ‘Your mother’s still alive and living in Poplar, Leroy,’ said Dave, taking a guess on the longevity of Fitzgibbon’s mother, ‘but that aside, what about this story that your poet friend downstairs told us about her paying the rent in kind?’

  ‘Like I said just now, she come on to me, but she always paid her rent on time. Her getting all fruity, like, wasn’t nothing to do with that.’

  ‘I’ll believe you, Leroy,’ I said, ‘but there’s a thousand policemen who wouldn’t.’

  ‘A thousand and one,’ muttered Dave. ‘You said Lisa went three days ago. Where did she go?’

  Fitzgibbon shrugged. ‘Search me, man.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ said Dave, and glanced at me. ‘I think I know where she’ll have gone, sir.’

  ‘So do I,’ I said. ‘Did she have any particular men friends, Leroy? Men that she saw more than once, maybe?’

  ‘She always kept her business affairs private,’ said Fitzgibbon.

  ‘Afraid of industrial espionage, I suppose,’ commented Dave quietly.

  ‘We’ll be back if we don’t get any satisfactory answers elsewhere,’ I said.

  ‘And next time we will bring the Vice Squad, Leroy,’ said Dave, a comment that quite clearly discomfited Fitzgibbon ever further.

  We went back into the hall to find a nervous Dylan hovering by the door to his room.