Deadlock

by Graham Ison

  ‘I touched her, sir,’ said Tom Patel, taking up the story again, ‘just to feel for her carotid artery, but there was no pulse.’

  ‘Where did you learn all this, Tom?’ asked Dave.

  ‘On the telly.’

  ‘It’s a television set, not a telly,’ put in Tom’s father.

  I held up a hand, gesturing him to remain silent. I didn’t want any interruptions, and Ashok Patel acknowledged my signal with a nod of the head and a mouthed apology.

  ‘Olly and I like watching American CSI programmes,’ continued Tom. ‘Anyway, we learned it in biology.’

  ‘I got out my mobile phone and dialled nine-nine-nine,’ said Oliver proudly, ‘and called an ambulance and the police.’

  ‘Why did you call an ambulance if you knew the woman was dead, Oliver?’ Dave knew why, of course, but was interested in what the boys might say.

  ‘Because Tom said we were not qualified to make that decision,’ said Oliver.

  ‘I’m not a doctor yet, you see, sir,’ said Tom.

  ‘Did you see anyone near the woman’s body? Anyone running away, for instance, or a car pulling away as you rode on to the common?’ There was no great point in asking that question. According to Henry Mortlock, Lisa Hastings had been dead for about ten hours when these two boys found her body. But I had to show interest. After all, one of them might want to become a policeman one day.

  ‘No,’ chorused the boys, and appeared genuinely sorry that they were unable to help.

  ‘Well, you’ve both been of great assistance, gentlemen,’ I said, and we shook hands with the boys again as Dave and I stood up to leave. ‘You’re very observant young men.’ They hadn’t been much help at all, but there’s no harm in encouraging youngsters who have willingly assisted the police. All too often these days people just walk away when they come across the scene of a crime, and even if they do stop to assist, the police can’t be bothered to thank them.

  ‘Remind me to send each of those lads a letter when we get back to the office, Dave,’ I said as we were driving away from Ham on our way to Guildford.

  Sally Croft was the woman Tony Miles claimed to have taken to the theatre on the twelfth of June. Kate Ebdon had telephoned her several times without success, but she had no intention of leaving a message on the answering machine, and it wasn’t until Saturday morning that the Croft woman replied.

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ said Kate. ‘I’d like to call on you, just to clear up one or two points.’

  ‘Is it about Tony Miles?’ The woman almost whispered the question.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Could we meet at the coffee shop just around the corner from where I live?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Kate, and ended the call. She turned to Steve Harvey. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that Richmond is a hotbed of adultery. It seems that everyone is at it, and I’ll put money on Sally Croft being married.’

  It was about ten o’clock when Kate and Harvey arrived at the coffee shop.

  ‘That must be her,’ said Kate, nodding in the direction of a woman sitting by herself at a table at the very back of the shop. ‘Are you Mrs Croft?’ she asked, as she sat down opposite a young woman with shoulder-length black hair, dressed in a crop-top and jeans.

  ‘Yes, but how did you know I was married?’

  ‘I’ve been a copper for quite a long time now,’ said Kate, by way of a reply, ‘and you get to know human nature fairly well in my job. When you asked if I wanted to talk to you about Tony Miles, you wanted to meet me in a coffee shop. I knew straight away that you were married. To someone else. D’you want another coffee?’ She nodded at Sally Croft’s empty cup.

  ‘Yes, please. No sugar.’

  Kate turned to Harvey. ‘Get the lady another coffee, Steve, there’s a good bloke.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to finish up staying the night in London,’ said Sally Croft, once Harvey had returned to the table. She spoke quickly and breathlessly, as though trying to purge herself of her indiscretion as quickly as possible. ‘But the truth is that we went for a late supper after the show and then Tony said that the last train back here to Richmond had gone.’ She shrugged. ‘He said he’d book us into a hotel for the night, and, well …’ She looked up as Harvey put a cup in front of her. ‘Thank you.’ She stirred the coffee absently. ‘When we got to the hotel, I found that he’d booked it in advance.’

  ‘How did you explain that away to your husband?’ Kate asked. It was irrelevant to her enquiries, but she was always interested in the foibles of cheating wives and husbands. And she was amused that Sally Croft’s innocence was such that she hadn’t spotted precisely what Miles’s intentions had been from the outset. The cost of the show was just the price he had to pay for a night in bed with the attractive woman sitting opposite her.

  ‘He thought I was at the theatre with an old university girlfriend of mine,’ said Sally. ‘Anyway, why is any of this of interest to you?’

  ‘We’re investigating a murder that almost certainly took place that night,’ said Harvey, ‘and we need to be satisfied that Tony Miles was where he said he was.’

  ‘Oh, he certainly was,’ said Sally. ‘We saw Motown at the Shaftesbury Theatre, followed by supper and a night in a hotel.’ She looked down at her coffee, the expression on her face seeming to imply regret about the whole incident.

  ‘Thanks.’ Kate stood up. ‘We’ll not need to bother you again, Mrs Croft.’

  ‘D’you think she’s telling the truth, guv?’ asked Harvey as they walked to where the car was parked.

  ‘I don’t know, Steve. Perhaps she’s just saying what Miles told her to say. And I’m sure that a lot of women would be that stupid,’ she added cynically. ‘For all we know she might have engineered this stay at a hotel with him, rather than the other way around. You never know, Mr Croft might be one of those terribly dull little men who has no interest in sex.’

  ‘Further enquiries, then, guv?’

  ‘In the fullness of time, Steve.’

  It took Dave and me about an hour to get from Ham to the village outside Guildford where Rachel Steele’s parents lived.

  ‘Mrs Jackson?’ I enquired of the woman who answered the door.

  ‘Yes, I’m Gerda Jackson. I take it you are the policemen, come to talk to my husband and I about Rachel.’ She was a tall woman and rather masculine in appearance. Physically, there was little similarity between her and Rachel.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock and Detective Sergeant Poole, Mrs Jackson.’ Although the woman spoke perfect English, I detected a German accent that I recognized. ‘Are you from the Köln area by any chance?’ I asked, as she showed us into her sitting room.

  ‘Yes, I am. You know it?’ The woman raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘I’ve been there a few times,’ I said, without telling her that I was once married to a girl who came from the city. Helga had insisted on working as a hospital physiotherapist even after our son was born. The catalyst came when she left the four-year-old in the care of a neighbour and he fell into an ornamental pond and drowned. I could never forgive Helga for that, and what had started out as a happy and passionate marriage became increasingly acrimonious and, after sixteen years, resulted inevitably in divorce.

  ‘I will fetch my husband. He is working in his study.’

  ‘I hope we’re not interrupting him,’ I said.

  ‘No, he knew you were coming, of course, but he’s just catching up on a few things. He’s in IT, you know.’

  Edward Jackson was a slightly built man, and a good four inches shorter than his wife. He had a harassed look about him, a permanent frown and a toothbrush moustache.

  ‘Mr Brock? We spoke on the phone yesterday.’ Jackson shook hands with Dave and me and invited us to take a seat.

  ‘I’m sorry about your daughter,’ I said, shifting my gaze from one parent to the other.

  ‘I’m not Rachel’s mother,’ said Gerda Jackson sharply.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I
said, ‘but Daniel Steele didn’t explain that.’

  ‘We didn’t know she was married until one of your lady detectives came here to tell us the news of her death,’ said Gerda.

  ‘I see. However, you’ll appreciate that my job is to find out who murdered your daughter,’ I said. ‘Anything you can tell me about her, however trivial and seemingly unimportant, might help.’

  Edward Jackson sniffed and stared at a mirror over a radiator before replying. ‘She was a difficult girl,’ he said eventually.

  ‘In what way difficult?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Rachel was five when her mother died, and for the next thirteen years I was faced with bringing up the girl by myself, admittedly with occasional help from my mother, but then she died too. Believe me, Mr Brock,’ continued Edward Jackson, shaking his head, ‘those mid-teen years are when a girl needs a mother most, just to keep her in check.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ I said, even though I had no experience whatsoever of bringing up girls, but one or two of my friends had complained about the problems involved when their daughters became of an age to be interested in boys.

  ‘Then I met Gerda when we were both working on a project, flying back and forth between London and Cologne. It was, I suppose, what you’d call a whirlwind romance, but at our ages it’s best not to wait too long.’

  I estimated that Gerda Jackson was at least fifty, and her husband a few years older.

  ‘Did your stepdaughter get on with you, Mrs Jackson?’

  ‘At first, yes, and I thought we would have a good relationship.’

  ‘But it didn’t work out?’

  ‘No. Edward asked me to give Rachel advice about how she should dress and how she should conduct herself, but I’m afraid we always had a difference of opinion about such matters. She was quite rude at times and told me that I was not her mother and couldn’t tell her what to do.’

  ‘Then she became pregnant,’ said Edward, with a deep sigh. ‘Gerda arranged for her to have a termination, but it seems that was the last straw. She complained of Gerda’s high-handedness, and after she’d recovered she walked out. We didn’t know where she’d gone or where she was, and we’ve not seen her since.’

  ‘How old was she when she left home?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Eighteen. That was seven years ago,’ said Gerda, ‘and as Edward said, we heard nothing more until your Inspector Ebdon told us she had been murdered.’

  ‘To be perfectly honest, we thought she’d gone off with some boy, or was living in a squat somewhere,’ said Edward. ‘You hear such terrible things these days. We tried ringing her mobile, but she must’ve changed the number or got a new phone. Gerda and I contacted some of our colleagues and friends in IT to see if we could trace her that way, but we had no luck.’

  We thanked the Jacksons and returned to London. It had been a wasted journey, and only served to confirm what we knew already: that Rachel Steele had been a wayward girl who’d developed into a woman who sought only her own pleasures and the company of men. Instead of which, she’d finished up dead in the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park.

  NINE

  It had been very much a wasted morning. The two boys who’d discovered the body of Lisa Hastings had done all the right things but in terms of moving the investigation forward weren’t able to add anything. The Jacksons – outwardly anyway – had not appeared to be greatly disturbed by Rachel’s murder, and had been unable to help at all in terms of pointing a finger at a possible killer. They did suggest that Rachel was promiscuous, but we’d already worked that out. I hated to admit it, but we seemed to have reached deadlock.

  Dave and I had lunch at our favourite Italian and made our way back to the office.

  ‘D’you want to do anything more about the last two men Rachel Steele called from her mobile, guv?’ asked Dave. ‘Roper, Miles and Skinner have already been interviewed, of course. DI Driscoll interviewed the other two and wrote them off as innocent parties. They’d met her at the wine bar, and after having had a few drinks exchanged phone numbers.’

  ‘Anything in it?’

  ‘Each of the men later got a call from Rachel inviting him to spend a night with her; at least, that was the implication. But having sobered up, they declined her offer – probably because they were married,’ Dave added with a wry smile. ‘DI Driscoll saw them again after the second murder and they denied any knowledge of Lisa Hastings. And they both had alibis to prove they were elsewhere at the time of her murder. The men’s statements and DI Driscoll’s covering report are with Colin Wilberforce.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ I said. Len Driscoll, who was the other detective inspector on my team, was thorough to a fault, and if he was satisfied with the outcome of those enquiries, so was I. Unfortunately, he was so good that we were going to lose him at any moment; he was next on the list for promotion to DCI. ‘What about the other two outstanding selfies that were on Rachel’s mobile? Any feedback on those?’

  ‘Mr Driscoll and Sheila Armitage identified a guy called Dudley Fuller, and Liz Carpenter and Ray Furness fingered a Tim Harris. Fuller lives in the Richmond area, and Harris lives in Norbiton. Their phone numbers were on Rachel’s phone.’

  ‘Are those two teams still on duty, Dave?’

  ‘Certain to be, guv. D’you want a word?’

  ‘I’ll just see Carpenter and Armitage, Dave.’

  Moments later, they appeared in my office.

  ‘These two guys you identified,’ I began, and glanced down at my pad. ‘Fuller and Harris. Have a word with them and see what they’re made of, and find out if they’d ever met Lisa Hastings. Preferably tonight. Or earlier if you can find them.’

  Given what we knew of the habitués of that particular wine bar, the chances of either of the two men being at home on a Saturday evening, comfortably dozing in front of their televisions, was remote. Neither officer looked happy about the assignment; they probably thought I’d sent for them to give them the rest of the day off. But that’s police work for you. However, it turned out that Fuller and Harris didn’t know each other and were married. More to the point, they were innocent of any connection with the death of Rachel, who they thought was a good-time girl. But by the time they’d sobered up, each of them had come to the conclusion that it hadn’t been very clever to give her their phone number.

  Given that rank hath its privileges, I decided that there was little else I could do before tomorrow, and seized the opportunity to ring Lydia.

  ‘I’ve managed a few hours off this evening, Lydia. Would I be able to tempt you out to dinner?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, it was just that—’ She’s going out with someone else, I immediately thought. I knew that sooner or later she’d get fed up with a copper letting her down time after time.

  ‘I’ve got a better idea, Harry.’ Lydia paused and then laughed. ‘I’ve never seen the inside of your flat. How about I come over there and prepare supper?’

  ‘Er, well, I …’ Police officers will face armed robbers, and although scared stiff will try to put on a brave face. But the thought of a newly acquired girlfriend wanting to enter one’s flat and prepare a meal – or even inspect the accommodation – would throw even the stoutest of coppers into a panic. And it certainly did me. Was it clean? Had the incomparable Gladys Gurney done everything? Yes, of course she had. Might Lydia want to view the bedroom? No, not yet anyway. ‘I don’t think I’ve got anything in the fridge.’ I was desperately trying to make up excuses.

  ‘I didn’t imagine you would have, Harry, my love,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring what’s needed with me, if you don’t mind a simple meal. And don’t rush around tidying up. I know what bachelor pads look like. I just hope that you’ve got some champagne in your fridge.’

  ‘Yes, I have, and the fridge also contains white wine.’ I wondered how many bachelor pads she had visited, and why. No, don’t go there; you’re getting paranoid, Brock. ‘And I also have plenty of red wine.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve got your p
riorities right, Harry. About eight o’clock suit you?’

  ‘Perfect.’ Despite what Lydia had said, that would give me enough time to rush around and make sure the place was in reasonably good order for entertaining a lady, something I’d not done since Gail deserted me for the States.

  Lydia arrived at precisely eight o’clock.

  ‘You’re very prompt,’ I said, as she stepped into my small hall.

  ‘More by good luck than good judgement,’ Lydia said. ‘I was able to get a cab straight away, and he found his way from Esher to your Surbiton apartment without any problems.’ She handed me the cold bag she’d brought with her. ‘Pop that in your kitchen, there’s a dear.’

  ‘Do I have to do anything with it? Put any of it in the fridge, or anything?’

  ‘No, just leave it and I’ll deal with it when the time comes. In the meantime, let’s sit down and catch up.’

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ I showed her into the sitting room. ‘Champagne or something stronger?’

  ‘Champagne will be fine. Thank you.’ Lydia took off her jacket and dropped it casually on the settee. Even wearing jeans and a denim shirt, she managed to look elegant. But she probably paid considerably more for her jeans than I paid for mine. ‘The chalet is finished,’ she announced, as she sat down in one of the armchairs.

  ‘The chalet?’ What on earth is she talking about now? I handed her a glass of Moët.

  ‘Don’t you remember? The night we had dinner with the Hunters I told you I was having the swimming pool covered in. Well, it was completed last week. You must come over and help me launch it.’ She laughed. ‘Though I’m not sure you can launch a swimming pool. Anyway, now tell me what you’ve been up to.’

  ‘Oh, just investigating a couple of murders. The daily round, the common task, but nothing exciting. Until now,’ I ventured.

  Lydia laughed. ‘You make it sound so commonplace, Harry.’

  ‘It is. It’s what I do.’