Murder is a Tricky Business (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 1)

by Phillip Strang

‘And?’

  ‘The Peerage Act of 1963.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Prior to it being enacted into law, no member of the house of lords could take a seat as an elected member of parliament. He was able to renounce the title.’

  ‘Marjorie Frobisher referred to him as a ‘Lord’.

  ‘That’s what people call him. Technically, he’s not.’

  ‘Are you saying, who I think it is?’

  ‘Yes, there’s only one person.’

  Chapter 41

  ‘I did not kill Richard.’ It was not what Isaac expected to hear on picking up his phone at one o’clock in the morning.

  ‘Where are you?’ Hearing Linda Harris’s voice again reminded Isaac of the guilt he felt over the night they spent together; the pleasure they had mutually enjoyed, but mainly the guilt.

  ‘I am not in England.’

  ‘Then why phone?’

  ‘I just wanted you to know. Under different circumstances, we could have been something more.’

  ‘I don’t see how?’ Isaac responded.

  ‘We’re very much alike.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Yes. We are both ambitious.’

  ‘I work for an organisation that tries to save lives,’ Isaac said. ‘Your’s apparently condones deaths when it’s in the national interest.’

  ‘I was there to find out where Marjorie Frobisher was, nothing more.’

  ‘Is her life in danger?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Because of what she knows?’ Isaac, regardless of his initial trepidations, was enjoying the conversation.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did she know?’

  ‘I never knew. I’m relatively junior. They never told me.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘My superiors.’

  ‘Do they have a name?’

  ‘I am not authorised to tell you.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just wanted to phone and say I was sorry; assure you that I did not kill Richard.’

  ‘Sally Jenkins?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘She knew too much.’

  ‘Are you saying you killed her?’

  ‘Someone else did.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Richard.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She was blackmailing him, threatening to go to the newspapers.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Marjorie Frobisher. He did it to protect her.’

  ‘You provided him with an alibi.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you with him that night?’

  ‘Some of it, but not in his bed.’ With that, she hung up the phone. Isaac, shocked by what he had been told, sat down for a couple of minutes to compose himself.

  ***

  Richard Goddard, woken up from a deep slumber in the early hours of the morning, was initially angry. Upon hearing Isaac’s voice, he relocated to another room.

  ‘Sally Jenkins was not assassinated,’ Isaac said.

  Isaac recounted the phone conversation with Linda Harris.

  Goddard listened calmly. ‘How do we handle this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s clear that Richard Williams knew, as did Sally Jenkins.’

  ‘Can we prove that Sally Jenkins was murdered by Richard Williams.’

  ‘The evidence is circumstantial. We’ll never be able to prove it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Richard Williams had been in Sally Jenkin’s place on many occasions. His DNA, fingerprints are everywhere. There’s nothing conclusively tying him to the night of her death,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Apart from Linda Harris,’ Richard Goddard realised as did Isaac that she was not going to come forward anytime soon to point the blame at Williams. ‘So how do we record it?’

  ‘Crime unsolved, I suppose.’

  ‘What about Richard Williams?’

  ‘It appears to be a professional assassination. It doesn’t make sense. Williams kills to maintain the secret and then he is shot because he knows the secret.’

  ‘It’s clear that he was not about to reveal it.’

  ‘If Marjorie Frobisher had been liquidated, he may have.’

  ‘Are we saying, that she’s safe now?’

  ‘She still knows who this person is.’

  ‘Will she tell?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘She’s still a target,’ Richard Goddard stated the obvious.

  ***

  An austere, wood-panelled office in the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. A meeting between two powerful men.

  ‘Angus, have we dealt with all the loose ends?’

  ‘Not yet. The woman remains alive.’

  ‘And the child?’

  ‘He continues to search for his parents.’

  ‘What proof do we have that he is oblivious of the truth?’

  ‘If he knew, he would exercise his right to the peerage; his right to your title.’

  ‘On my death?’

  ‘Yes, on your death.’

  ‘You know what to do.’

  ‘I will ensure the instruction is carried out immediately.’

  ‘She could still talk,’ the father said.

  ‘Her current behaviour indicates that possibility.’

  ‘Angus, deal with this, and your elevation to the peerage is guaranteed.’

  ***

  Two weeks had passed since Christy Nichols had been charged with the murder of Charles Sutherland. Sally Jenkins’ death had been put on the back-burner.

  Richard Williams’ death still occupied Farhan and Isaac’s time, but only minimally. Apart from the occasional discussion, there had been no further developments.

  Linda Harris’ phone call, the only time she had contacted.

  Marjorie Frobisher, no longer in hiding, apparently no longer in fear of her life, was out and about, on the talk shows, in the magazines. Isaac found her a tiring woman, and he kept his conversations with her to a minimum. It was clear that the knowledge she had was not going to be revealed.

  Farhan had met with Aisha on several occasions, slept with her on some. The romance seemed solid, but without the constant pressure of a murder investigation that dragged on for too long, he had begun to re-evaluate his life.

  He loved her, but was it a love that he could jeopardise his life and his career for. How much of it was true emotion? How much of it was the sexual awakening for him with a liberated woman? He realised that time would lessen the intensity of emotion for him and for her. With no further media scrutiny, her secret seemed to be safe.

  Isaac had taken the opportunity to meet up with Jess O’Neill. Most times they planned to meet she had been too busy with her newly elevated position. They had slept together, but she was busy now, and he knew he would be again when the next murder occurred. He still felt that he had a few more years of playing the field ahead of him.

  He sometimes reminisced back to Linda Harris and what it could have been, but he knew even that would have faded in time. There were too many women, too many opportunities.

  ***

  The accident occurred at exactly ten minutes past four in the afternoon. Widely reported, it marked another event in the turbulent life of Marjorie Frobisher.

  As she left the restaurant in Sloane Street, Chelsea, apparently the worse for wear after a few too many drinks, she had inadvertently stepped in front of a taxi.

  The verdict, after a short court case - the taxi driver had been charged with manslaughter - recorded as ‘Accidental death’. The defendant received a suspended sentence. It occupied the newspapers for a few weeks until the public tired over the aspersion that the case was a whitewash.

  Angus MacTavish duly reported to his superior. ‘It has been resolved.’

  The deputy prime minister, James Alsworthy was delighted. Invariably referred to as his ‘Lordship’ due to his aristocratic manner. He had renounced his hereditary peerage to allow him to sit in the House of Commons He w
ould reclaim it when he tired of politics.

  The former Benjamin Marshall, the adopted son of an influential family in the north of England, would never know. As Ibrahim Ali, an Islamic Jihadist convert, and the most vocal, most eloquent promoter of the movement towards the introduction of Sharia in England, he had within his grasp, the undeniable title of Lord Alsworthy, a seat in the House of Lords, and a fortune valued conservatively at fifty million pounds.

  The End