Chelsea Mansions

by Barry Maitland

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The day before yesterday, Wednesday evening.’

  ‘What time, exactly?’

  ‘Um, about seven, dinner time.’

  After Hadden-Vane’s suicide, Kathy thought, but before John had returned to the hotel.

  ‘Why was he closing the hotel?’

  ‘Because he’d got a good offer to sell, he said, and the buyers wanted a very quick settlement. He was ever so apologetic about the short notice, but he made up for it handsomely with our severance payout. Very generous he was. And so thoughtful. He bought Destiny two tickets for that Moroccan holiday she’d been going on about, and wanted to give me an overseas trip too, but I said I’d like to spend some time with my sister first. We had to pack up that night and leave first thing Thursday morning.’

  ‘What about the guests?’

  ‘Well, they’d all gone, all except Mr Greenslade, who’d returned unexpectedly from America.’

  ‘When did the others go?’

  ‘That same day, Wednesday. Toby had to compensate them too. Why, have there been complaints? Is Toby in trouble or something?’

  ‘He is in trouble, Julie, but not over that. You see, he’s admitted to us that he murdered Mr Moszynski.’

  Julie’s jaw dropped, the whites of her eyes growing huge. ‘No! I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true, I’m afraid. He was stopped from leaving the country on a plane with Deb, Garry and Jacko. They’re all in police custody now. Toby has been quite open about what he’s done.’

  ‘The others were going with him? Well! The army connection, of course. They were always close, those four.’

  ‘Tell me about your time working for Toby, Julie.’

  ‘I won’t say a word against him. He was always a perfect gentleman. I do know that Mr Moszynski provoked him something dreadful. He must have just snapped.’

  She’d started at Chelsea Mansions five years ago, she explained, and described her life there. She had lost her home and been very depressed after a bad divorce when they took her in, and Toby and Deb had been a blessing for her.

  ‘I still can’t believe that he would kill Mr Moszynski. Are you sure he’s admitted it? He did get upset with them, but who wouldn’t, arrogant pigs that they were. Toby always tried to do the decent, civilised thing. Like, when that MP, Hadden-Vane, came visiting, he’d keep his driver waiting out there in the square for hours on end, and Toby would say, “Come on, Julie, let’s take the poor chap a cup of tea and a slice of your fresh-baked cake,” and we’d go out together and Toby would stay with him for a chat. That’s how considerate he was.’

  ‘Hadden-Vane’s driver?’

  ‘Yes, he died a couple of years ago. Can’t remember his name.’

  ‘Toby would probably pick up some gossip about the neighbours, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh yes, always came back with a titbit or two.’

  ‘Did Toby get to know any of the other staff next door?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Garry did a bit.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, he liked to go down the Anglesea with one of Mr Moszynski’s security men, Wayne. Poor Garry, is he in trouble too?’

  ‘We’ll have to see.’

  ‘Doesn’t say much, but he feels things. Very loyal to Toby. Devoted.’

  ‘Toby’s very proud of his army connections and his family, isn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s a long tradition. Those photos on his wall, the generations.’

  ‘Did you ever hear the American lady, Nancy Haynes, ask about them?’

  ‘The one who was murdered? Oh, I don’t know. She was certainly very friendly with Toby and Deb, very open and chatty. Her companion, the man, was quieter, didn’t say much.’

  During the afternoon Brock was called out of his protracted interview with Toby to answer a phone call from Commander Sharpe.

  ‘Anything new, Brock?’

  ‘Not really, sir, no.’

  ‘I’m putting out a press statement. I’ll get a copy to you now to have a look at. Tell me if there’s anything you’re unhappy with.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And Sean Ardagh has been on the phone to me. They’re interested in those bones found in Beaumont’s luggage. Foreign Office are worried the Germans will be offended if his story is true and gets out. Ardagh wants us to hand them over to his people for testing. More secure, he says, and they have some new fancy equipment we don’t have. You don’t have any objections, do you?’

  ‘Our labs are perfectly capable . . .’

  ‘Of course, but I want to appear cooperative. I’ve told him yes. He’s sending someone over.’

  When he hung up, Brock thought for a moment, then rang Sundeep Mehta. ‘Sundeep, have you tested that skull and bones we sent over yet?’

  ‘I’ve made a start, Brock, but I’ve a hundred other things to do.’

  ‘MI5 want to take them from us to carry out their own tests. They say they have better equipment.’

  ‘Really? First I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘They’re sending someone to the lab right now. Could you hold them off for long enough to finish your work?’

  ‘Not really. I had more tests scheduled later this afternoon. Is there a problem with MI5?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sundeep. I’m just naturally suspicious, you know me.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  In another part of Queen Anne’s Gate, John was giving Kathy a detailed statement describing what had happened to him.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to it, John?’ she asked. The large dressing had gone from his head, revealing three stitches and an area of inflammation on his temple. She peered at it. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Only when I theorise,’ he said.

  ‘Been doing much of that lately?’

  ‘A little. Toby’s lying, isn’t he?’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I believe he wrote that letter to The Times. Which would mean he planned it all days before.’

  ‘Yes, I pointed that out to Brock.’

  He saw the expression on her face. ‘He didn’t buy it?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  John put a hand to his forehead and winced. ‘That’s what I mean. That’s when it hurts.’

  ‘You don’t have to prove anything to him, John.’

  He shrugged. ‘Fancy a drink later?’

  Late that evening, exhausted from the day’s interrogations, Brock sat at his desk nursing a whisky. It wasn’t the letter to The Times that was bothering him, but another anomaly. According to the phone record, Harry Peebles had made a call to Hadden-Vane’s mobile about an hour after Mikhail Moszynski was murdered, just as he had after Nancy Haynes was killed. But why would he do that, if he hadn’t killed Moszynski?

  Brock called up the record of Bren’s interview with Wayne Everett on his screen, and began to go through it once again. When he’d finished he brought up the transcript of Kathy’s interview with Toby’s cook, Julie, that afternoon. Then he poured himself another Scotch.

  THIRTY-NINE

  ‘No, this isn’t right.’ Bren sat back, shaking his head.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kathy looked up. She’d had another Saturday morning swim and she felt invigorated, her hair still damp.

  ‘Brock ordered some forensic checks last night. They’ve got them all wrong. Is he here?’

  At that moment the office door opened and Brock stuck his head in and growled, ‘Morning.’ He looked rumpled and bleary, as if from a late night and possibly a hangover.

  ‘Your forensic results just came in, Brock. They’ve stuffed them up.’

  ‘Oh?’ Brock frowned, as if trying to remember what he was talking about.

  ‘Yes, the fingerprints from Ferncroft Close. They reckon they’ve got a match, but not to Wayne Everett. It’s obviously a mistake.’

  ‘Ah.’ Brock came in and sat heavily on a chair. ‘That coffee smells good.’

  Kathy got up to fetch him
a cup.

  ‘It’s a beautiful June Saturday morning,’ Brock went on. ‘They’ll be setting up the stumps on village cricket pitches all over England. Thank you, Kathy. Just what I need.’ He took an appreciative sip. ‘They’ve got a match to Garry, I take it.’

  Bren looked surprised. ‘Yes, how did you know? They must have mixed them up.’

  ‘No. Sundeep was right all along, about Peebles’ time of death. He died on the night after he killed Nancy Haynes.’

  ‘What? But he couldn’t have!’

  ‘Because he phoned Hadden-Vane three days later, yes. Except that he didn’t—Garry did.’

  Bren began to frame a protest, but Brock went on. ‘Our case against Wayne Everett is circumstantial. He knew all the players—Hadden-Vane, Danny Yilmaz, Kenny Watson up in Barlinnie and his sister’s house in Ferncroft Close—but we have no witnesses, no camera or forensic evidence to link him to the murder. Someone else who knew Wayne could have got that information from him, and used it. Yesterday Toby’s cook Julie told Kathy that Garry and Wayne were drinking buddies.’

  ‘So . . .’ Bren’s brow creased as he digested this, ‘you’re saying that Garry discovered that Wayne was acting as Hadden-Vane’s fixer to arrange Nancy’s murder, and then, when Toby killed Moszynski, he used that knowledge to frame Peebles for the second murder, by going to Ferncroft Close where he discovered his body and phone, and sent a further message to Hadden-Vane. All within an hour of Toby killing Moszynski. Pretty smart work.’ Bren sounded sceptical.

  ‘Yes, unless they’d planned it that way all along.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘There’s another way of looking at it, Bren. Garry wasn’t the only one from the hotel getting pally with the staff next door. Julie told Kathy that Toby had made friends with Hadden-Vane’s old chauffeur, Bernie Watson, when he was alive, taking him cups of tea when he was sitting out there for hours waiting for his boss. I think they’d been spying on the Moszynski household for years, hoping to get something to use against them.’

  ‘Well, yes, but . . .’

  ‘The thing is, we now know Garry was in the house at Ferncroft Close, but we don’t know when. You’re suggesting that he went there at the very end, after the Moszynski murder, but he could equally well have been there from the beginning. He could have been the one who arranged for Peebles to come down and murder Nancy Haynes.’

  ‘What, you mean he could have been working for Hadden-Vane?’

  ‘No, Bren, for Toby. Freddie Clarke’s confession would have ruined Hadden-Vane financially, politically and socially—that’s why he jumped off Westminster Bridge. But it didn’t provide any evidence that he was involved in murder.’

  ‘But why would Toby want Nancy dead?’

  Brock shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But I’ve always felt that those two murders, although they were so different, were part of the same story. Nancy Haynes tossed a bomb into the works when she came to London. I don’t know what it was, but we’ll find out.’

  Kathy, who had been silent up to now, decided she might as well get her two bob’s worth in. ‘And that would mean that John was probably right about the letter to The Times being a fake.’

  Brock gave an impatient little frown. ‘Maybe so,’ he conceded. ‘But you mustn’t let your feelings get in the way of your reason, Kathy.’

  She stared at him in astonishment. ‘My feelings?’

  Brock blinked and looked embarrassed for a moment, then said quickly, ‘Bren, we need to find out exactly where Garry left his traces at Ferncroft Close, and whether any of them were overlaid by Peebles’. I’m also wondering if Garry may have killed Peebles with that overdose. It always seemed very convenient that he died before we could get to him.’

  As they began to discuss procedures, Kathy turned back to her desk and got on with her work.

  John had moved to another hotel, not far from Chelsea Mansions. When Kathy called on him that evening she found him ironing a shirt.

  ‘Catching up with the laundry?’ she said.

  ‘Helps me think,’ he replied.

  ‘Have you been doing much of that?’ The truth was that she had half expected him to be gone, back home to Canada.

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Not theorising though, I hope.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, that too. I’ve been making my head hurt.’

  She noticed a pile of books and pamphlets on the table. She looked at a title. ‘Imperial War Museum?’

  ‘I spent a bit of time there today. Interesting.’

  There was a certain intensity in the way he said it. ‘Anything you want to share with me?’ she asked.

  He switched off the iron and hung his shirt in the closet, then turned to face her. ‘Yes. Let’s sit down.’

  They sat, and for half an hour Kathy listened without speaking. Finally he said, ‘What do you think?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I think it’s brilliant. You must tell Brock.’

  ‘Oh no.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘I got burned the last time, Kathy. You can take this to him if you think it’s worth it, but leave me out of it. That way he may give it a fair hearing.’

  ‘No. If you believe this then you’ve got to tell him yourself. And I’m going to be there and I’ll make him bloody listen.’ She got out her phone. ‘Okay?’

  He bowed his head and, after a long pause, agreed.

  Brock was still at the office, Kathy found, and hadn’t had an evening meal. ‘How about Mexican?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not very keen on Mexican.’

  ‘You’ll like this,’ she said, and gave him the address of the place in Brompton Road.

  They watched him come, look around, then respond to her wave. He shook hands with John and sat down, taking the menu the waiter gave him.

  ‘I can never remember what these things are,’ he grumbled, looking down the list. Kathy made some suggestions and poured him a glass of wine.

  ‘Well,’ he said, sitting back. ‘Cheers. It’s been a beautiful day to be out and about, and not stuck indoors like us. What have you been up to, John?’ It sounded as if he was trying to be neutral and polite.

  ‘John’s been working too,’ Kathy said. ‘He’s got an interesting story to tell you, Brock. He told me, and I thought you had to hear it, all the way through, without interruption.’

  Brock looked at her in surprise, then gave a quiet smile. ‘Excellent. I enjoy a good story. Fire away, John.’

  So John cleared his throat and began.

  Half an hour later the enchiladas lay cold on Brock’s plate, untouched.

  ‘So that’s about it,’ John concluded, looking at him warily.

  ‘Import–export,’ Brock said at last with a chuckle. ‘Well, it’s a very good story, John. Why can’t I find detectives with that sort of imagination?’

  Kathy looked at him to see if he was being sarcastic, but he seemed genuinely impressed. He began attacking the enchiladas without apparently noticing them, his mind clearly still fixed on John’s account.

  ‘Circumstantial, of course, but we can fill in some of the gaps. Kathy, what do you think?’

  ‘Quite interesting.’

  ‘Quite interesting? It’s bloody brilliant.’

  ‘You think there might be something in it?’ John asked.

  ‘I think it may be exactly what I’ve been looking for.’ Brock chewed for a moment. ‘This isn’t too bad.’

  forty

  The interagency meeting reconvened on Monday morning at eleven a.m. The same people were there from the Home Office, Foreign Office and the police, all except Brock, who had taken Kathy’s place at Commander Sharpe’s side.

  ‘A wrap-up session, then,’ Sir Philip opened the proceedings. ‘Shouldn’t take too long, I hope.’ He looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Commander Sharpe, a brief summary? We have all read your report, I take it.’

  Sharpe outlined the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Toby Beaumont and his team, and made some recommendations about what should
be released to the press. His account was accompanied by chuckles and raised eyebrows from the Foreign Office man.

  ‘Excellent,’ Sir Philip said. ‘No international ramifications, almost all of Moszynski’s millions recovered, first-class result all round. Any comments?’

  ‘Just a small rider,’ Sean Ardagh said, ‘regarding the human remains found in Beaumont’s suitcase.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Our lab has completed tests and they support Beaumont’s story—probably a young German soldier from the First World War.’

  Sir Philip shook his head sadly. ‘Disgusting. I think we’ll keep that quiet, don’t you?’

  ‘What about the strip of material with the bones?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Collar of his uniform,’ Sean said.

  ‘Really?’ Brock looked puzzled.

  ‘Something worrying you, Chief Inspector?’ Sir Philip was gathering up his papers.

  ‘Well, I didn’t realise the Germans went to war in rubber uniforms, Sir Philip.’

  ‘Rubber?’ Sir Philip stared at him. They all stared at him.

  ‘Yes. Our lab also carried out extensive tests on those bones before MI5 removed them, and they came up with rather different results. They say that the skull belonged to a man aged about fifty, rather old for an infantryman on the Western Front one might think. Also that he died no earlier than 1950. And the strip of fabric was of a rubberised material, very like the collar on a 1950s Heinke diving suit. There’s one in the Imperial War Museum.’

  ‘Diving?’ A ripple of astonishment went round the table. Only Sean Ardagh, lips pursed, wasn’t looking at Brock. ‘What are we supposed to make of that?’ Sir Philip demanded.

  ‘Well,’ Brock went on, ‘it’s interesting that Toby Beaumont’s father, Miles Beaumont, was in the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, and in Operation Harling in occupied Greece in 1942, against the German supply lines for the Afrika Korps. He was a qualified diver, and is understood to have taken part in limpet mine attacks on shipping in Piraeus harbour.’