Murder in Hyde Park

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Bright and breezy,’ Isaac said as the team came to order. On the table in the conference room, a selection of food from a local bakery, as well as six coffees.

  ‘Everyone’s hungry, I suppose,’ Bridget said.

  Isaac said he was, as did the others, but for him, it wasn’t true. In the short time at home, he had made love to Jenny, slept for two hours, and even had breakfast.

  So much for my weight, he thought, as he helped himself to some of the food.

  ‘We’ll go around the room for your updates,’ Isaac said.

  ‘We’ve got an 8 a.m. appointment with the taxi company,’ Wendy said. ‘We phoned the manager, woke him up. He wasn’t pleased and sounded drunk. His language wasn’t the best, full of invective.’

  ‘Not our problem.’

  ‘He sharpened up once I told him who we were and why we were phoning.’

  ‘Good job he did.’

  ‘If he hadn’t, we would have knocked on his door, woken him and the neighbours up.’

  ‘You had to threaten him?’

  ‘He was courteous afterwards. Apparently, one of the men in the office is getting married.’

  ‘Stag night, a few too many drinks, a stripper,’ Larry said.

  ‘He told you?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Not in so many words. I just added the stripper in for effect.’

  ‘We don’t want to hear about your stag night,’ Wendy said. ‘No doubt you had a stripper.’

  ‘Two, if you must know. Don’t tell my wife, will you?’

  ‘I won’t if you don’t go into any more details.’

  ‘Larry, Wendy, focus,’ Isaac said. ‘We’ve got two young and impressionable constables sitting in with us. We don’t want them to get the wrong idea.’

  ‘Don’t worry about us,’ Katrina Taylor said.

  ‘Did you get the data we wanted?’

  ‘According to the manager, their expert was worse than him,’ Larry said. ‘He promised he’d be in the office when we arrive.’

  ‘Bridget, CCTV cameras in the area?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘There’s a lot of traffic. I started last night, and although I can see a taxi, almost certainly the one in question, the tracking back to where it came from, where it was going, is not so easy. We agreed that it was best to wait till this morning.’

  ‘We need the driver and the taxi. Where is it, by the way?’

  ‘It’s out of service, engine trouble. We’ll ask the CSIs to check it out, but it doesn’t seem that much will be gained,’ Larry said.

  ‘Nothing,’ Isaac agreed. ‘We’ll meet at midday, either here, or phone in. We need to know everything about this taxi trip. See if you can find out who the mysterious woman is.’

  ‘Christine Mason?’ Wendy said.

  ‘No more to say to her at present. Did she stay with her sister?’

  ‘We believe so. I’ll phone her at the Fitzroy Hotel later today.’

  ***

  Wendy remembered the last time she had visited the principal office of a taxi firm, more years ago than she cared to remember. It had been a smoke-filled environment – everyone smoked back then – the smell of tobacco, a fan attempting to keep the place cool, two dispatchers in radio communication with the taxis, pieces of paper clipped to a board, a line drawn through them as the job was allocated. On the other side of the cramped room, a dozen people operating the phones, taking a customer’s details, and then clipping the job to the board, a runner, a young lad no more than seventeen tasked with the job. It had been bedlam, but it had been alive.

  ‘Times have changed since then,’ Patrick Gleeson, the owner of the company said. He was a ruddy-faced man, barely up to Wendy’s shoulder, although he wore a smile that stretched from ear to ear – it seemed to be a permanent fixture. He had arrived at the premises not long after Larry and Wendy. No black cab for him, but a Mercedes.

  ‘Business good?’ Larry asked.

  ‘The minicabs eat into the pie, and then we had those damn Ubers cutting corners, not paying taxes, and the drivers wouldn’t even know where Buck Palace was, even if they were standing on the balcony with Her Majesty.’

  Wendy and Bridget had been in Spain for a short break earlier in the year, and the Uber from the airport to their hotel had got lost twice, or maybe he was padding the bill. They were never sure which was correct, but regardless, Wendy had complained vigorously to the man who had pretended not to understand English, not even Spanish when the local police had arrived. Wendy had produced her warrant card – she wasn’t giving up without a fight. The stern faces of the local police, ready to deal with another belligerent English tourist, changed in an instance. The driver hadn’t had a chance, and the police had checked his permit to be in the country, found it to be invalid. In the end, the driver had been hauled off to the police station, and the local police had helped Wendy and Bridget into the hotel with their bags.

  ‘They’ve been given a temporary licence,’ Larry said.

  ‘The Ubers? I know, but it won’t last long. They don’t have the discipline nor the drivers. With our company, you can be sure of arriving at your destination. You’ll want a copy of the data, is that it? Young Douglas over there is the guru, not me. I can barely manage an email, and as for typing, I’m woeful.’

  A man she could identify with, Wendy thought. Another one-fingered typist.

  The three walked across the scrupulously clean room to where young Douglas sat. ‘Young’ was subjective as he was in his forties. He was a thin man with red hair down to his shoulders, he stood up and warmly shook the two police officers’ hands.

  Over in another part of the room, two women sat behind computer screens.

  ‘The blonde is Maisie, the lady with the tattoos, that’s Hannah. They run the place,’ Gleeson said. ‘I wouldn’t know how we’d manage without them.’

  ‘Their jobs?’ Larry asked. Maisie, he could see, was a woman of advancing years; she wore horn-rimmed glasses, her hair neat and tidy. A pleasant woman, he decided, although they did not go over and talk to her. Hannah was a fright to look at, with tattoos covering both arms, a spiralling design of some description on one side of her neck. She had a ring in her nose and pendulous earrings that drooped down.

  ‘I’ll introduce you later. Don’t let appearances deceive you. Maisie checks the records, follows up on any payment discrepancies, not that we get many these days, everyone flashes the plastic for payment, very little cash. Hannah, an ace with the payroll, ensures the drivers are paid on time, their insurances are up to date.’

  ‘You were saying?’ young Douglas reminded Larry and Wendy.

  ‘We have a time, a date, and a place.’

  ‘Registration number?’

  ‘LD08 CYP.’

  ‘That makes it easy. Time, date, where?’

  ‘The corner of Praed and Spring Streets, Paddington. 11.46 a.m. on the twenty-third of this month.’

  ‘The Pride of Paddington on the corner. They serve a decent beer, a good pub lunch.’

  ‘You know your London,’ Wendy said.

  ‘I did “the Knowledge”. I drove for a couple of years. After that I found an affinity with technology, and I’ve been in the office ever since. It suits me fine, although Patrick is still nostalgic for the old days,’ Douglas said. ‘We get the occasional person trying to check up on a loved one, or they’ve left a handbag in the taxi.’

  ‘You help?’

  ‘The police if they’ve got the right accreditation, the general public with lost articles. We’re not getting involved in domestics, more than our licence is worth.’

  Larry and Wendy along with Douglas looked at the computer screen; the manager had moved over to talk to Maisie and Hannah.

  ‘Here you are,’ Douglas said. ‘The cab was hailed off the street, the corner of Pembridge Villas and Chepstow Crescent, four blocks from Portobello Road. There are some expensive properties around there, out of my price range.’

  ‘Out of ours,’ Larry said.

  ‘How
many passengers?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Would the driver know who they were, recognise them?’

  ‘Not unless they were regulars, or they were getting friendly on the back seat.’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘Not at midday. Late night after a few drinks, maybe. Not that the drivers complain as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.’

  ‘Let’s assume no hanky-panky,’ Larry said. ‘What else do you have?’

  ‘He dropped them off outside Harrods in Brompton Road, Knightsbridge. That won’t help you, will it?’

  ‘Unless they were shopping, used a credit card.’

  ‘The taxi was paid with a card. I’ve got the details.’

  ‘Can you email it to this address,’ Wendy said as she handed over Bridget’s details.

  ‘The name on the credit card?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Matilda Montgomery.’

  ‘Our man likes to live dangerously. The chances of being seen were too easy. You’d think if he were playing the field, he’d keep his women separated by more than a few miles,’ Wendy said.

  ‘It could be innocent,’ Larry said.

  ‘Not with Colin Young.’

  ‘Did you get what you wanted?’ the manager asked as Larry and Wendy said goodbye.

  ‘Young Douglas is worth more money,’ Wendy said.

  ‘He tells me often enough to become irritating. I let him marry my youngest daughter. I reckon that’s got to be worth something,’ the man said with a smile, looking over at Douglas and the two women in the far corner, all three enjoying the joke.

  Chapter 10

  Bridget was excited as Larry and Wendy walked back into Homicide. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said. Isaac was not in the office; he was upstairs with Chief Superintendent Goddard.

  ‘Got what?’ Wendy asked. She knew that her friend was excitable, especially when she had hitherto unknown information, the result of her computer skills.

  ‘An address.’

  ‘Matilda Montgomery’s?’

  ‘Yes. The woman exists, and the credit card’s valid. I pulled in a few favours, and the bank helped out.’

  ‘Near where the taxi picked them up?’

  ‘55 Pembridge Mews. Parking’s difficult there, so you’d better park nearby and walk down.’

  ‘DCI Cook?’ Larry asked.

  ‘I’ve messaged him. He’ll be down here soon enough.’

  ‘Have you phoned the woman?’

  ‘I’ve not got a mobile number for her, and there’s no phone registered at the house.’

  ‘Not many are these days,’ Larry said.

  Wendy grabbed a biscuit out of a packet in the small kitchen area on the way out, Larry did not.

  Larry was driving, and there were roadworks on Challis Street which took ten minutes to clear. He turned into Bayswater Road, tempted to push through the traffic, but he did not. It was not an emergency, just a visit to a potential witness, a person who could help them with their enquiries. At Marble Arch, the nineteenth-century white marble-faced triumphal arch, he followed the one-way system around it. Which triumph the structure celebrated, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t important, not now – getting to Pembridge Mews was.

  They travelled down Bayswater Road, passing Buckhill Lodge, the first of the two entrances into Hyde Park that Colin Young could have used, the second being Lancaster Gate. That was passed quickly enough, then Kensington Church Street, the next intersection of interest, the road down to the Churchill Arms.

  Two intersections later, Larry turned right into Pembridge Road, taking the right turn after four hundred yards into Pembridge Villas. Two more intersections and Pembridge Mews was on the left. Larry parked close to the entrance, this time placing a sign on the car dashboard that it was parked on police business and exempted from the thirty-minute time restriction.

  The mews houses, formerly stables, usually with carriage houses below and living quarters above, had served the large city houses in front of them. But now, two hundred years later, there were no horses, no servants, only very exclusive residential dwellings. Visually, they looked the same as they had in the past; inside, most had been gutted and rebuilt to the highest standards. Wendy thought that Matilda Montgomery’s house was the prettiest in the street.

  Larry knocked on the door, Wendy standing back to see if there was any movement inside. She then peered through a window, to see that no lights were on. Larry knocked on the door again, this time louder than before.

  A woman came out of a door on the other side of the mews. The street was narrow and not suitable for cars, although a motorbike was outside one house, a couple of cycles propped up against another, a strong lock around them. ‘Matilda’s not been there for a few days,’ the woman said. She was neither friendly nor dismissive.

  ‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone,’ Wendy said as she opened her warrant card.

  ‘Matilda? What would the police want with her?’

  ‘Routine enquiries.’

  ‘She lives alone. I hope she’s not been in an accident.’

  ‘You know her well?’

  ‘For the last two years. She comes over to my house, I go over to hers.’

  ‘We need to find her,’ Larry said, having decided that the door had been knocked on enough.

  ‘She never said anything the last time I saw her. Sometimes, she goes away, but most times she lets me know. Although I’ve been away myself.’

  The woman was elegantly dressed, she was also tall and slender, statuesque, a model perhaps.

  ‘Your name?’ Wendy said.

  ‘Amelia Bentham, the Honourable.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘Lord Bentham. He doesn’t use his title, nor do I mention it normally.’

  ‘You told us.’

  ‘You’re the police. Mind you, it comes in handy when I’m booking a good table at a restaurant. A title still opens doors in this city.’

  Wendy did not comment that she thought very little of the class structure and those who hung onto it. The whole system should have been abolished a long time ago, around the time that Pembridge Mews had stopped being a place for the horses and the downtrodden servants of those in the big houses.

  ‘We need to check her house,’ Wendy said.

  ‘I’ve got a key.’

  ‘If you walk around with us, otherwise we’ll need a court order.’

  Larry phoned Isaac, now back in Homicide and keen to find out about Matilda Montgomery, Bridget having detailed what had been messaged to him in a précised form on his mobile.

  ‘Make sure Amelia Bentham is with you at all times. I don’t want any comeback on this.’

  ‘There won’t be. I’ll stay outside, just let the two women go in. Supposedly, Matilda Montgomery and Amelia Bentham have an agreement to look after each other’s properties, feed the cat, the fish, whatever.’

  ‘Is there a cat?’

  ‘I’m speaking figuratively. So far, we don’t know much about Miss Montgomery.’

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘According to Amelia Bentham. Her brother comes to stay occasionally.’

  ‘Is it him?’

  ‘It’s probable. We’ve not shown a photo to the young woman yet.’

  ‘Her age?’

  ‘Amelia Bentham’s in her twenties. She speaks posh, which should upset Wendy, but the two women are getting on like a house on fire.’

  ‘Matilda Montgomery’s age?’

  ‘Miss Bentham, how old is Miss Montgomery?’ Larry shouted over to the two women. Up the street, a couple of curtains moved, and an old man, bent over and with a walking stick, listened, adjusting the volume on his hearing aid. A dog barked from inside a house further down.

  ‘Damn nuisance,’ Amelia said. ‘A neurotic Chihuahua, but then, aren’t they all?’

  ‘Matilda Montgomery’s age?’ Larry repeated the question.

  ‘Twenty-nine last week. We went to the local Starbucks, shared a cake to celebrate.’

  �
��Not to the pub?’

  ‘Neither of us drink, not much anyway. Her brother likes to occasionally, but he’s not been around for a while.’

  ‘How long since he’s been here?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I saw him three weeks ago, and I’ve been away for ten days. I returned three days ago.’

  ‘Photo shoot?’ Wendy said, hazarding a guess.

  ‘Yes, a photo shoot. I’m a model. You’ve not been buying any magazines lately?’

  ‘That’s why you’re familiar.’

  ‘Six weeks ago, although it’s only just been published. This time it was next winter’s fashion range for one of the top labels. Norway, and it was cold. I can show you the proofs if you’re interested.’

  ‘You got all that?’ Larry said to Isaac.

  ‘Check the house, and then show a photo to Matilda’s friend. It looks as though we’re on to something,’ Isaac said.

  ***

  Larry walked back to his vehicle. A parking enforcement officer – the term traffic warden no longer favoured – was looking at it suspiciously. The man’s attitude changed after Larry showed his warrant card.

  ‘You can never be too sure,’ the officer, a man in his forties, said. Judging by his accent, he was from Africa. Probably only in the country for a year or two, he had drawn the short straw in the job market. There wasn’t any profession that people disliked more than a traffic warden.

  ‘It’s a police vehicle, the sign in the car’s clear enough.’

  ‘Sometimes they forge the signs. I picked up an obvious forgery with a disabled driver. I was giving the vehicle a ticket. The driver, fifty yards away, stood up from where he had been slouching and made a dash for me, Olympic pace.’

  ‘Tough job.’

  ‘So’s yours. Can you make sure that you move the vehicle before 3 p.m.? We’d have to move it then, police or no police.’

  ‘I’ll remember. If not, I’m in the mews.’

  ‘I knock off in a couple of hours, so it won’t be me. I’ve made enough for the council.’

  ‘Not to deter the wrongdoers?’