‘He had been fired. He had plenty of money, so what does he do?’
‘Saves it for a rainy day?’ Farhan knew the remark was incorrect.
‘Not our Charles Sutherland. He’s out partying, sometimes at his place, sometimes in the various clubs around town where the drugs are available, and the women are costly.’
‘He blew all the money?’
‘In record time, and then his landlord dumps him on the street. Throws him a couple of bags with clothes that can’t be sold second-hand and there you have it ‒ the fallen celebrity.’
‘And you were going to write a story about him?’
‘Not only him. There are a few more out there.’
‘Did you find the others?’
‘I know where a few are supposed to be, but I found Sutherland first, and then he gives me this story about Marjorie Frobisher.’
Farhan, his interest piqued sat down again close to her. He could not help but notice the smell of perfume. He got up again and reseated himself in another seat, this time, more uncomfortable. ‘What story is that?’
‘He knew things about her that would rock the nation, bring down the government and so on.’
‘Did you believe him?’
‘I wasn’t sure what to think. He seemed to know facts not commonly known. He seemed to know a lot about Marjorie Frobisher.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Past lovers, some prominent. He also alluded to something more significant.’
‘Her personal life is not that well-hidden?’ Farhan said.
‘It is to her fans.’
‘The magazine puts him up in the Savoy, supplies him with whatever he wants - purely on the basis that he knows a few names.’
‘Yes.’
‘It seems very generous. Are these names important?’
‘According to him, they are.’
‘You don’t know the names?’
‘The magazine editor may. She’s the one who agreed to pay for all this. She even picked up the bills for the prostitutes.’
‘Many of them?’
‘A couple that I signed for. I suppose they would be called escorts, but they performed the same function as any woman off the street.
‘The women were here?’
‘On a couple of occasions. The hotel complained, but I managed to smooth it over. It cost extra money, but Sutherland said for the magazine to pay, or he was walking.’
‘Walking where?’
‘Another magazine. If what he had was dynamite, he could sell it with no trouble. He knew that.’
‘Smart man?’
‘Foul habits, but he knew how to negotiate. Yes, I would say he was smart.’
‘You didn’t like him?’
‘Not at all. Not that I would kill him, though. He was my meal ticket out of freelancing into a reliable and steady position, but he could make me feel dirty.’
‘You alluded to that before.’
‘He thought I was paid for as well. I couldn’t tell him that I found him morally reproachable and that I wished he was still in the gutter.’
‘You could, and then you would be out of a job.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Could one of the women have killed him?’
‘Do you see that as likely?’ she asked.
‘I would have thought not. They typically perform their function, take the money and leave.’
‘I never saw anyone else in the room, but I wasn’t watching all the time. It’s possible, I suppose. Prostitutes murdering clients seems a little far-fetched.’
‘I agree it does,’ Farhan said, ‘but someone was here, and subject to confirmation, someone administered the poison. We need to find these women and check out their alibis.’
Chapter 15
After leaving Christy Nichols, Farhan headed over to the company that had been supplying the women for Charles Sutherland. Located in a modern office block not far from Tower Bridge, it did not look to be the sort of place to provide prostitutes, but as Marion Robertson explained, ‘We supply escorts of the very highest quality, not some street-walker. Our women are educated, beautiful and articulate.’
‘But, they are available for sex?’ Farhan needed to clarify.
‘If that is what the client wants.’ Marion Robertson was a stunner. Farhan, with a difficult and unattractive wife, found solace in her presence. Christy Nichols had not been calming, quite the opposite. Marion Robertson was in her early forties, he assumed. Still slim and exceedingly attractive, he mused that she would have no trouble selling herself.
‘What else would they want them for?’
‘Escorts. I believe the name says it all. Some men need a date, someone to take to a function. Sometimes that is all they want.’
‘It seems unusual.’
‘Not at all. Rich men sometimes crave the company. They may have past the age of wanting to screw every woman they can lay their hands on. Their wealth may have come at a cost, especially if they had started with no money.’
‘What do you mean?’ Farhan noticed that she had also started to become more open with him. The Farhan charm, Isaac had jested in the past, although he had not appreciated the compliment. Initially, she had stayed on her side of the desk. He could not help but notice the mobile phone. It looked to have a genuine gold case. It looked expensive.
‘The phone?’ Sitting as she was now close to him, her legs ‒ long and slender, he thought ‒ pointed at him. She had noticed him observing all in the office. He was feeling a little uncomfortable, a little excited. He wasn’t sure which was the best emotion, but he did not intend to move.
‘It looks expensive.’
‘It is. A grateful client.’
‘Exceedingly grateful.’
‘Please, don’t misunderstand,’ she said. ‘Not for services rendered by me. One of my girls spent a couple of weeks with him. It was just a way of showing his gratitude to me.’
‘You mentioned before that wealth comes at a cost.’ He returned to an earlier question.
‘Some men, in the climb to succeed dispense with relationships, others suffer broken marriages, others take advantage and marry a twenty-something bimbo. At a certain age, they find they need the company of a woman, but not the long term hassles and not always the sex.’
‘And the person who gave you the phone was one of them?’
‘Yes. Exceedingly wealthy, obscenely wealthy, in fact. To him the cost was negligible. He was in his early seventies and whereas still an attractive man, he had no need of a nymphomaniac blonde. The woman I supplied him was in her late forties, highly educated and fluent in several languages. It was her company he wanted, not a quick lay.’
‘So he didn’t sleep with her?’
‘He may have; I didn’t ask.’
‘Charles Sutherland. I don’t think he was either rich or attractive.’
‘With him, it was pure sex,’ she said. ‘Perverse, threesomes ‒ that sort of thing.’
‘What kind of women did he like?’
‘Early to mid-thirties, stunning, not skinny and flat-chested.’
‘You’re able to supply that type of women?’
‘The two I sent him were exactly what he wanted. One was a housewife making some extra cash on the side. Not sure if her husband knows, probably not. The other one was single and into casual sex. She works in the city somewhere, or maybe she doesn’t. I don’t ask too much about their private lives. I ensure that I don’t become overly friendly with them.’
‘More like an employment agency than a supplier of women for hire.’
‘You seem not to approve of what I am doing here,’ she said.
‘I’m a policeman. It is not for me to form an opinion.’
‘As a Muslim, I assume you have.’
‘Yes, but that is not the issue here, is it? Charles Sutherland is, and the women you procured for him.’
‘Procured, such an unpleasant term,’ she said. ‘It sounds illegal, and there is nothing illegal about
what we do here. The women come of their own free will. They are not coerced in any way. The only requirements I have is that they are medically certified with a clean bill of health, and if I set up an appointment for them, they keep that appointment. Also, if they negotiate another meeting with the client, they inform me, and I receive my commission.
‘Any problems with difficult clients?’
‘Sometimes, rarely. On the first meeting with a new client, I have a man who takes them to the meeting and brings them back. The woman also has a panic button if there’s an issue. It’s happened once in the last three years.’
‘Charles Sutherland, what can you tell me about him?’
‘Not a lot. I never met the man.’
‘I need to contact the women.’
‘I can’t let you do that. They do their job, go home. Their private lives are sacrosanct.’
‘At this present time, we regard Charles Sutherland’s death as a possible murder. I could get a court order ‒ even a police car to deliver it to their front door on a Saturday morning, flashing light as well.’
‘I understand.’ She came forward, touched him on the knee. He felt a tingling sensation go through his body. ‘There must be an alternative?’ she said.
‘I could meet them at a neutral location, but I’m not sure how I can keep them out of the limelight indefinitely, especially if there is a murder trial.’
‘I will set it up. Give me a couple of days.’
‘Thank you.’
As he prepared to leave the office, she asked him again the question which he had not answered previously. ‘As a Muslim, are you shocked by what I do here? What these women do?’
‘As a conservative Muslim, I should, but as a policeman living and working in this country, then the answer is no. It is not for me to judge and as long as no one is harmed, then why should I criticise.’
‘One of the women has a husband and two children. She does it for them. Don’t you think they will be harmed if her activities are revealed?’
‘I will do all I can to keep her and the other woman out of the courts and the news.’
‘Detective Inspector Ahmed, you are a good man.’
If only that were true, he thought. He reflected on the problems he was causing his family, by his inability to comply with the extended family’s wish for him to leave the police force.
‘You are a good man, don’t let anyway tell you different.’ She repeated her previous statement as she shook him by the hand, almost looked as if she was going to come closer for a minute. Farhan left flustered, a little embarrassed. He assumed she had been an escort once, maybe still was. He understood why men of wealth paid for such women. He wished he was a man of such means.
***
Isaac needed an update on how Charles Sutherland came to be sprawled naked on the floor of a hotel room. Gordon Windsor, the crime scene examiner, had alluded to a suspicious death; poison, if what Inspector Barry Hopkirk had found, was confirmed.
Isaac realised that the suspicious death of a celebrity would require a full autopsy. He knew that would take time, weeks possibly. An interim evaluation and the full Murder Investigation Team could be mobilised. Gordon Windsor was his best bet for an update. He phoned him.
‘I’ll be in your office in one hour,’ the man replied.
One hour, almost to the minute, he walked in to the room. He was as Isaac remembered him at the crime scene, only, this time, he was dressed in a suit, his hair combed over to hide a rapidly expanding bald spot. It looked mildly ridiculous to Isaac.
‘Gordon, give us the facts without the jargon,’ Isaac said. Farhan was also in the office, more relaxed than he had been at Marion Robertson’s office.
Gordon Windsor took advantage of the whiteboard ‒ same problem, pen dry. Farhan gave him another. ‘The poison was administered in a drink.’
‘Any sign of drugs?’ Farhan asked.
‘Cocaine, but it did not kill him. There was more alcohol than drugs in his system.’
‘What type of poison?’ Isaac asked.
Gordon Windsor went to the board and wrote its name - Arsenic. ‘It’s tasteless, odourless and colourless; used to kill rats or at least it was in the past.’
‘Is it a subtle method of killing a person without it being discovered?’ Farhan asked.
‘Subtle, yes. The risk of its being discovered is minimal.’
‘But you found it?’
‘The toxicologist did. Mind you, that’s only the initial analysis of the bottle found at the scene. How much was in his body and whether it was the sole cause of death will not be known until the autopsy report comes in.’
‘Then it’s a murder investigation?’ Farhan asked.
‘Unless advised to the contrary, that would be correct,’ Gordon Windsor replied. ‘They used to call it the inheritor’s powder.’
‘What do you mean?’ Isaac asked.
‘Favoured poison of women in the nineteenth century. Sprinkled in small amounts on the husband’s food over a period of time and a guaranteed death, totally undetectable.’
‘And today?’
‘Forensics will pick it up. Only one issue, though.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Normally, a person cannot be killed with a single dose.’
‘Why?’
‘A sufficient dose usually causes the person to vomit.’
‘But you consider it murder?’
‘Vomiting is not automatic. If he had been drunk and spaced-out, he might have kept it down for long enough.’
‘Are you indicating the murderer may not have known this?’ Isaac asked.
‘It seems possible, but they must have known that a well-known celebrity in a famous hotel and in apparently good health would have been subject to an autopsy.’
‘Would they?’ Isaac put the possibility forward.
Gordon Windsor thought for a moment. ‘If it was a professional hit, they would have known.’
‘Are you saying this was not a professional assassination?’ Farhan asked.
‘I’m purely the scientist here. You are the detectives. What I am saying is that if they were professional, they would have known there would be an autopsy of a suitable standard.’
‘And they would not have left a bottle in the kitchen with the poison in it,’ Isaac said.
‘Precisely, unless they were disturbed, but even that appears unlikely. Professionals don’t put bottles in kitchen sinks in the first place. Normally it would be coat pocket to drink and then back to coat pocket.’
Gordon Windsor left the office soon after.
Both Isaac and Farhan left a little later. It was five in the afternoon. Neither would be having an early night. Isaac, so far, had not caught up with Sophie, and he was feeling in need of her. Farhan also felt the need, but he had no Sophie, in fact, no one except an empty house.
A Chinese restaurant close to the police station satisfied their hunger. Prawn Chow Mein for both. The food was adequate, but not home cooked - purely there to satisfy their hunger.
‘We’ve assumed his death was related to Marjorie Frobisher,’ Isaac said on their return to the office. ‘Is that an assumption we can make?’
‘What other option do we have?’ Farhan replied.
‘Which brings up another question. If Charles Sutherland is murdered to protect him saying something to this magazine, then who else knows something? Is anyone else targeted for elimination?’
‘How do we know?’ Farhan replied. ‘We only have assumptions.’
‘Apart from a murdered man lying on a pathologist’s table.’
‘And we don’t know why he’s there.’
‘Farhan, you’re right.’ They were a good team, able to bounce ideas off each other, able to form conclusions, formulate plans of action, except this time they were floundering.
‘What do you reckon we should do?’ Farhan asked after five minutes of silence while neither said anything, just checked emails and surfed the net.
&nb
sp; ‘I’ve still to meet up with Richard Williams.’
‘I thought you went to see him the other day.’
‘He left the production lot before I had a chance to talk to him.’
‘You’re playing with fire,’ Farhan said.
‘I’m keeping my distance.’ Isaac replied, a little indignant.
‘No one is free of suspicion; you know that?’ Farhan realised he had not been as diplomatic as he should have been, but Isaac was not only a colleague, he was a friend. As a friend, he had advised him to keep his distance from Jess O’Neill. He was sure Isaac would take his advice in the manner it was given. Besides, he was experiencing similar problems.
There was Christy Nichols, attractive and agreeable, more his age, and Marion Robertson, older, more worldly, but still exceedingly attractive. How would he act if one or the other, maybe both came on to him? He knew how he would act ‒ badly.
***
Marion Robertson was not in a good mood when Farhan phoned the next day. ‘My girls value their secrecy. I still regard this is an intrusion.’
‘Marion.’ Farhan realised that a degree of familiarity usually defused the tension. ‘I understand your concerns, but I’m doing my job and until told otherwise, your two women were the last persons to see Sutherland alive.’
‘I understand, but they’re blaming me for fixing them up with him.’
‘From what you said, he paid his money, and they came to no harm.’
‘That’s correct, but the magazine is refusing to pay. Probably afraid their reputation will be tarnished if it becomes known that they paid for prostitutes.’
‘You’ve had non-payers before?’
‘Of course, but I can hardly take them to court, can I? That will let all the cats out of the bag. Besides, I’ll still pay the women.’
‘Regardless of payment, I need to meet with these women. I’m trying to help you, but you will have to trust me.’ Farhan realised he was falling into Isaac’s trap. An attractive woman and police procedure takes a back seat.
‘I’ve already set up a meeting with one of the women for you. I’ll send a photo. She uses the professional name of Samantha.’
‘What’s her non-professional name?’
Murder is a Tricky Business (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 1) Page 12