Murder in Hyde Park

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Is this true?’ Gwen looked over at her sister, forgetting momentarily she was there as the lawyer, not as her sister.

  ‘No, yes…’

  ‘What is it, Christine?’ Isaac said. The woman was on the ropes, the confession was about to come; he was sure of it.

  Christine buried her face in her hands. ‘I knew the address. The taxi driver only confirmed where he had picked up the two of them.’

  ‘The truth this time.’

  ‘I knew that Colin wasn’t his real name, or maybe the other one wasn’t.’

  ‘You knew that he also went by the name of Barry Montgomery?’

  ‘He left his wallet by the side of the bed once. I looked inside it. He was asleep, he never knew.’

  ‘You knew of his subterfuge?’

  ‘Not really. I never knew what he was doing when he wasn’t with me. I assumed it was something to do with the government, but I never asked.’

  ‘It could have been criminal.’

  ‘Not Colin, never. He was too smart for that, too beautiful.’

  Gwen said nothing, just sat back with her arms folded. Her sister was doing a good job without her help.

  ‘Did you check on who owned the address in Pembridge Mews?’

  ‘I didn’t stay long. I could see a woman in the window of the house behind me, an old man coming out of a door.’

  ‘You’re convinced that he’s been unfaithful with this other woman. Is that why you murdered him?’

  ‘No. I’ve lied to you, I know that. But I never murdered him, I never could. I loved him so much.’

  ‘Mrs Mason, you’ll be remanded on suspicion of involvement in the death of Barry Montgomery, also known as Colin Young.’

  ‘DCI Cook, you can’t do that to my sister, my client,’ Gwen Hislop said. ‘Consider her fragile mental state.’

  ‘A doctor will be assigned to her. He can make that judgement, prescribe the necessary medicines if needed.’

  ‘She has not admitted her guilt. You don’t have enough evidence.’

  ‘I’m afraid we do. And you as an experienced lawyer know that. Appealing to my good nature will not help. The continuing lies, the attempts at subterfuge, the denial of your client being in Hyde Park and then Pembridge Mews is damning. We also have the embezzlement of the hotel’s funds. Your client may be as she says, as you say, naive, but it does not excuse her from the crime.’

  Outside the interview room, Wendy spoke to Isaac. ‘You were harsh in there.’

  ‘I did my duty. Do you have a problem with that?’ Isaac replied tersely.

  ‘I just wish it could have been handled differently.’

  ‘It couldn’t, and you know it.’

  ‘I know, but the evidence is still circumstantial.’

  ‘It always will be. We can’t rely on Forensics and Pathology to help us here. It’s either a full confession or sufficient evidence. And with Christine Mason, there’s plenty.’

  ‘I still don’t believe she did it, a gut feeling.’

  ‘Then get your gut to tell your feet to get walking. Find the killer, and the woman walks free.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I hope you’re successful. We’ve encountered a few rogues, that Archibald Marshall for one, Tony Mason for another, and I wouldn’t give much creditability to Nick Domett. Make them sweat, and whoever else.’

  Isaac walked away, not pleased that he had spoken to his sergeant abruptly, aware that his gut also told him that the case was not over yet.

  Chapter 32

  ‘The truth, Domett,’ Larry said. The two of them, along with Isaac, were sitting in Domett’s office. It was six in the evening, and the man had been on the phone when the two police officers walked in.

  ‘I’ve got a business to run. You can’t just barge in here,’ Domett said. He was dressed casually, an open-necked shirt, a pair of jeans. He was sweating, not unexpected as the room was hot, and the fan in the corner didn’t work. Not much worked in that office, Isaac conceded, not even Domett.

  Isaac cast a critical eye over the man, vaguely remembered a fellow trainee from the past with body odour and bad breath.

  Another man came into the office. He was dressed formally, and he wore a bow tie.

  ‘Jerome, there’s an address out in Hampstead, a company dinner. You’re accompanying the person,’ Domett said.

  Jerome, the two police officers saw, was a black man, almost as tall as Isaac, his close-cropped hair greying. He was a good-looking man, one of the men on the Gents for Hire website.

  ‘Male or female?’ Jerome asked.

  ‘The name on the credit card is Lesley, or it could be Leslie. Take your pick.’

  ‘Fair enough. The normal rate?’

  ‘The normal. It’s dinner, that’s all.’

  Jerome looked over at Isaac. ‘Are you new here?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Cook, Challis Street Homicide.’

  Larry could tell that Jerome had not seen him as another escort. He was slightly insulted by the man’s assessment. Domett had said that he was occasionally hired out, and compared to him, Larry was sure he was a more impressive figure. But Isaac and Jerome stood out. If they had not been there in the office, Isaac and Larry would not have picked Jerome as a man who sold himself.

  ‘Not trouble, I hope,’ Jerome said.

  ‘I thought your people never came to the office,’ Larry said to Domett.

  ‘Jerome lives locally. We sometimes meet up for a beer after work; a friend, not that I have many,’ Domett’s reply.

  ‘What about you, Jerome? What’s your story?’

  ‘Is this a bust? It’s only dinner, that’s all.’

  ‘We weren’t born yesterday, and besides, that’s not why we’re here. Did you know Colin Young?’

  ‘If he worked for Nick, then no.’

  ‘As I said, nobody comes here, only Jerome.’ Domett leaned over from his chair. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m busy. Unless you’ve got a warrant, then I’ve got the right to ask you to leave.’

  ‘If there’s nothing else, I’ll go,’ Jerome said.

  ‘We checked you out,’ Isaac said to Domett after Jerome had left the office, closing the door behind him.

  ‘And what did you find? How I resigned from the police force? There’s no blemish against my name.’

  Domett continued to email and message, not looking away from his computer and phone, his back to Isaac and Larry.

  ‘We made a few enquiries at your last police station,’ Larry said. ‘It seems you had a bit of a reputation.’

  ‘I was tough, so what? I got results, arrested more than my fair share.’

  ‘That’s the official line. Detective Chief Inspector Harry Galsworthy, remember him?’

  ‘Tough bastard, wasn’t shy of slapping the occasional villain.’

  ‘He reckoned you were taking backhanders from the pimps, looking the other way, getting freebies from the girls.’

  ‘He’s lying.’

  ‘Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t, but we’d take his word over yours,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Look here, Isaac,’ Domett said, swivelling his chair around and resting his elbows on his knees. ‘It was a tough station, tough neighbourhood. We didn’t have any of your gentlemen villains, the same as you do in Challis Street, up around Kensington and Bayswater. Our villains were hard men who gave as good as they got.’

  ‘We’ve got enough of those, but that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?’

  ‘It is to me. It’s easy to cast an aspersion, to claim that a police officer was on the take, another was handy with his fists, another was screwing the local whores, turning a blind eye to the people traffickers, the drug pushers.’

  ‘We know the drill, but Galsworthy said there was proof.’

  ‘If there was, then why wasn’t I charged?’

  ‘According to him, you had a good record, although he didn’t rate you as a police officer. But you had arrested more than a few in your time, occasionally doc
toring your notebook to get a conviction.’

  ‘Supposition, hearsay, just nonsense. I played it fair, others didn’t. I was framed, forced to take the blame for others in the station, even your precious DCI Galsworthy.’

  ‘We verified it with another source.’

  ‘Name? Who is this malignant piece of filth?’

  ‘That person remains nameless. What we do know is that on account of your arrest record, the fact that the station would be subjected to an audit, one rotten apple spoiling the barrel, a decision was made for you to resign voluntarily.’

  ‘I was still framed.’

  ‘We’re not forming a judgement here, but we want the truth from you. Is that too much to ask for?’

  ‘I still can’t help you with the “specials” that Colin Young serviced.’

  ‘We’ve moved on from them at this time,’ Isaac said. ‘We’ve remanded a woman for Colin Young’s murder, but my sergeant doesn’t believe it’s her, and Inspector Hill’s not so sure, either.’

  ‘Then why remand her? Insufficient proof means no conviction.’

  ‘We don’t hold with falsifying the evidence, something that your record indicates you’re capable of. We want the murderer, not someone we can stitch up for the crime.’

  ‘Then why are you here? I’m not a murderer, and yes, they asked me to leave. The sacrificial lamb for the good name of the police station and the chief superintendent. A hearing into my supposed misdemeanours would have sullied his copybook.’

  ‘Did you know that Colin Young’s real name was Barry Montgomery?’

  ‘Why? Should I?’

  ‘Domett, if you don’t stop answering a question with a question, we’ll haul you and your pathetic arse down to Challis Street. Now, one more time. Did you know that he was also known as Barry Montgomery?’

  ‘A lot of them have other names, nothing special in that.’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘Once, when he answered his phone. He must have forgotten who he was talking to, which phone he was using. It was just the one time, and I didn’t think much to it.’

  ‘Did you know that he was visiting Nancy Bartlett, one of your clients, and taking money from her direct?’

  ‘I found out. I phoned her up a few weeks back, trying to drum up business, and don’t ask the exact date. I’m not police anymore, so I don’t detail everything.’

  ‘You would have. What did she tell you?’

  ‘That she was fine, and she had herself a beautiful man.’

  ‘Which meant she had Colin Young.’

  ‘It did. Who else was referred to as beautiful? You saw Brent, one of our most popular. A good-looking man, the same as you, and neither of you would be called beautiful. Handsome, masculine, manly, but never beautiful.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I knew how much money she had, how much money she had paid for Colin when she came through me. I remonstrated with her, told her that contractually she was obliged to pay my commission. I’m running a business here, not a charity.’

  ‘Her response?’

  ‘Polite, calm, no money.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Angry. What else would I have been?’

  ‘Angry enough to have slapped her, to slap Colin, to hit him over the head in Hyde Park and to watch him drown?’

  ‘Cook, I may not be your idea of the perfect police officer, but I’m not a fool. Money is one thing, murder is another. At some stage the murderer makes a mistake, a missed clue, someone says something, and then it all comes together.’

  ‘Not like screwing the local tarts, taking a backhander when you were in the force. You got away with those. Domett, you’re in the firing line. Don’t be surprised if we’re not back with an arrest warrant.’

  ‘What for? Telling you the facts of life?’

  ‘Another question, when you should have given an answer. Be very careful from here on as to what you do, who you see, what you say.’

  ***

  ‘I’ve got a hotel to run,’ Archibald Marshall said from the sanctity of his side of the desk. ‘You’ve arrested Christine. Damn stupid thing for her to do, killing the man.’

  It was seven in the evening, and Wendy and Larry were with the man. Neither would admit to liking him, but he had a point if indeed Christine had killed her lover.

  ‘She’s been remanded. Sergeant Gladstone’s not sure of her guilt. She’s still got her money on you,’ Larry said.

  ‘For what? I got her out of this hotel with no criminal convictions against her name. I must get some credit for that.’

  ‘Not from me, you don’t,’ Wendy said. She was not comfortable sitting in the same room as the manager, knowing full well his history, the leverage that he had exerted over Christine Mason, the sexual favours he had received as part of the deal, the money he had taken.

  ‘How long before you leave the hotel?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Fourteen days, maybe fifteen.’

  ‘Another job?’ Wendy snarled.

  ‘Overseas. A resort, part of the hotel group’s foreign acquisitions. I’m taking control, dealing with the local bureaucracy.’

  ‘Greasing the palms of every crooked official, is that it?’

  ‘Not officially,’ Marshall said. Wendy didn’t like the way the man spoke; a self-assuredness that he had got away with embezzlement, the harassment of a fellow employee who now languished in the cells at Challis Street.

  ‘Whereabouts?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Barbados.’

  ‘A promotion?’

  ‘It’s a tough job, and I’m good at what I do.’

  ‘You may be that, but I still don’t hold with Christine being labelled a murderer. You had reason to want him dead.’

  ‘What for? Just because Christine was soiling the bed linen upstairs with him doesn’t mean that I’d want to murder him. The hotel’s senior management has seen fit to reassign me out of the country. They're having a tough time down there with their expansion plans, the builders, the government.’

  ‘Christine is thrown out, not so much as a reference, and you bask in the glory.’

  ‘Not glory. I’d rather stay here, but they’ve offered the deal, they call the tune.’

  ‘And you, one of the children, follow the Pied Piper, not caring that a woman who we are certain you felt some fondness for is sentenced to ten years, probably more, for second-degree murder.’

  ‘Manslaughter, I would have thought.’

  ‘You know about these sorts of things? Did you check on the internet what you would get if we arrested you?’

  ‘Ludicrous, and need I say, slanderous.’

  ‘It’s a police investigation, slander doesn’t apply. You’re still a criminal, even if your management wants to sweep it under the table.’

  ‘As you say. Now if you don’t mind, I’m busy.’

  It had been a wasted visit, Larry and Wendy knew that. And Wendy was acutely aware that one more piece of damning evidence against Christine Mason would put the final nail in the coffin, and her conviction would be assured.

  Back in the office, Gwen Hislop sat with her sister. She had a legal practice that required her time, but her sister had taken precedence. An air of calm existed between the two, due to Christine being mildly sedated, and Gwen feeling guilty for distancing herself from her for years over Terry, her former husband.

  Isaac sat in his office wrestling with paperwork, attempting to figure out what to tell Jenny if the trip back to the ancestral homeland was off. He couldn’t hold Christine Mason indefinitely; he didn’t want to formally charge her and have her sent to a woman’s prison. There was a niggling feeling inside him, the same as there was with Wendy, that somehow they were missing something, an already known fact that was crucial to the investigation.

  The sixth sense, some police officers called it; the innate knowledge garnered after years of policing that made the difference to knowing someone was guilty or not. Christine Mason, her own worst enemy, had not helped
the investigation, and by her own admission she was passionate and jealous.

  Tony Mason, who had been out of the country when Christine had been remanded, entered Challis Street and headed up to Homicide. Two uniforms blocked his way into the department, only to have Isaac wave them aside.

  ‘Mr Mason, we can talk in a room down the hall,’ Isaac said. He could see that the man was not happy, although that was understandable given the circumstances.

  ‘My wife,’ the man blustered. ‘You’ve arrested her for what? I know she can be stupid sometimes, but murder? You’ve got to be joking.’

  Finally, the man sat down in the room that Isaac had led them to. Mason was red in the face, not having waited for the lift up to Homicide, having instead bolted up the stairs. He had a suitcase with him, and it should have been scanned downstairs, but hadn’t been.

  ‘Your case,’ Isaac said as a uniform stood at the door to the room. ‘Any weapons in there?’

  ‘I sell guidance systems, not guns.’

  ‘You never know who could come through the door. A police station is as good as anywhere else for the terrorists.’

  Isaac gestured to the uniform standing nearby to check, Mason handing him the key. ‘I packed it myself if that’s what you’re about to ask.’

  ‘Any of your company’s products inside?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘No, there aren’t, just my clothes and brochures. We ship the product and samples through couriers, the proper documentation in place, export licences, whatever else the government throws at us. We make plenty of money for this country, yet they still get in our way.’

  ‘Your products kill a lot of people, as well.’

  ‘What are you? A policeman with a soul?’

  ‘Mr Mason, your wife has consistently lied to us. We can place her in Hyde Park on the day before the murder; we can place her outside the house of the man’s sister, the same place that she and her father committed suicide.’

  ‘A double act?’