by Graham Ison
Markham shrugged. ‘Yes, I suppose so. So we’d better make some enquiries — find out if there’s anyone there who did type it.’
Tipper shook his head slowly. ‘Not if it’s a forgery. I don’t want to put them on notice that we’re interested. Anyway who would have wanted to forge it — who could have forged it?’
There was a brief silence, then both detectives spoke at once. ‘Mallory!’ they said.
For a moment they both sat considering what they had just said, and wondering why they hadn’t said it before.
‘But he said he hadn’t seen the letter,’ said Markham.
Tipper sucked through his teeth. ‘I have known people to tell lies before, you know, Charlie,’ he said sagely.
‘This is true, guv. What do we do now, go and have a chat with him?’
Tipper smiled. ‘Not bloody likely. You’ve met him. He’s as cunning as a …’ He paused. ‘As cunning as a diplomat.’
‘But if it was him, and let’s face it, sir, we’re a million miles away at the moment, but if it was him — why?’
Tipper shrugged. ‘The oldest reason in the book, I should think. The other woman. Darwin, Godley and Wallace all said she put herself about a bit. Jacob says she was a stripper. Chummy — what’s his name in the night club?’
‘Taylor.’
‘Yeah, Taylor. He said it as well. A stripper for men and women.’ He pondered on that for a moment. ‘I can just imagine an audience of lesbians leching over her.’ He stopped again. ‘Come to think of it, though, I can’t really. But then again, Charley Godley, the dyke photographer, reckons they had it off together for six months. Makes you wonder where, and if, Mr — soon to be Sir Robert — bloody Mallory fits into it all.’
‘I think you’ve just said it, sir.’
‘Said what?’
‘Soon to be Sir Robert. Try this for a scenario,’ said Markham. Tipper winced; he hated buzz-words, and ‘scenario’ was one of his aversions. ‘Supposing Mallory was having it off with Penelope. Nice body — nice flat — nice set-up. Perhaps she puts pressure on for a bit of stability — marriage. Mallory can see his bloody precious knighthood blown out of the water by that sort of scandal — after all there is a bit of form for it in and around Whitehall. So goodbye Penny Lambert, née Gaston.’
‘Who’s “J”?’ asked Tipper.
‘What — “J took photographs”, you mean?’
‘Yeah. It’s got to mean something. We’re pretty sure that her lovely body got photographed fairly regularly, so what’s so special that it merits an entry in her diary. That bugs me, Charlie. Every time we get somewhere — or think we do — I always come back to this “J” finger.’
‘And we’ve still got three sets of marks in the flat to identify.’
‘And one of them is on the letter and on the camera.’ Tipper blew a raspberry. ‘Once we’ve identified that lot I reckon we’ve cracked it, Charlie.’
‘But how, sir? We can’t just steam in and ask for Mallory’s dabs.’
‘No, we can’t, Charlie. There’s got to be another way.’
Chapter Ten
The other way turned into one hell of an argument between the Commanders of Scotland Yard’s C1 Branch and its C11 Branch.
Tipper belonged to C1, which among other things, undertook the sort of international murder enquiry in which he and Markham were becoming more and more involved. C11 was the branch that gathered criminal intelligence, ideally before the crime, rather than after it, and they had arguably the best surveillance team in London, although Special Branch would have disputed that. Special Branch, however, tended to keep a low profile, and preferred not to offer themselves up for the sort of assignment that the Commander of C1 Branch was now busily trying to sell.
The Commander of C11 was a dour Scot — the Commander of C1 an educated cockney. C11 was called McGregor; C1 was called Finch.
‘It’s no good appealing to my better nature,’ said McGregor, ‘I don’t have one.’
‘But it won’t be for long,’ said Finch. ‘For Christ’s sake, Mac, I’m not asking for the bloody earth.’
‘You are in my book, Colin. But I’ll see what I can do.’ He looked unwaveringly at Finch. ‘Isn’t this a risky business you’re getting into here, Colin? Putting surveillance on a senior official at the Foreign Office.’
‘I don’t give a damn what he does for a living. He’s a murder suspect —’
‘It’s a bit thin.’
‘Of course it’s thin. How many murders have you investigated in your career where the evidence has been thin, but they’ve gone down eventually?’
McGregor nodded and then smiled. ‘Aye, a few, I suppose.’
‘Well then!’
‘But for the most part they’ve been domestics, or a brawl outside a boozer somewhere — nobody like this bloke. Supposing he susses out he’s being followed?’
Finch scoffed. ‘Are you saying that your blokes are so unprofessional that he’ll spot them?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Well, there you are, then. This bloke Mallory’s not a pro. It’ll never even cross his mind that we’ve put a team on him.’
McGregor scratched the side of his nose thoughtfully with the stem of his pipe. ‘A week then. But if anything else crops up, it’s finished — I’ll have to take them off — switch them.’
‘Make it a fortnight, Mac.’
‘Look, I’ve said —’
‘Case of Scotch?’
‘Ach, the hell with you, Colin Finch. All right, but if anything else —’
‘You’re a lovely man, Mac.’
‘Piss off!’
*
Detective Inspector Henry Findlater was also a Scot, which caused Sassenach detectives to accuse Commander McGregor of running a Scottish mafia. It was always an unwise observation; it allowed him to make odious comparisons with the English. Findlater was fresh-faced, short, barely meeting the minimum height requirement for the force, and wore, on occasion, horn-rimmed spectacles, which gave him the appearance of being a student. But he was astute, and particularly nimble on his feet, both of which were attributes for the successful surveillance officer. The team of sixteen which he led were sergeants and constables whom he had trained himself. Many had sought to join his élite squad, but there had been a fair number of disappointed applicants. The appeal of belonging was a strange one. The hours were long and arduous; the work boring and tedious; but their successes over the years had been legion.
Findlater stood now in front of them, briefing them about their latest assignment. There were five women and eleven men, remarkable only for their unremarkable appearance. It was a common mistake to assume that surveillance officers would disguise themselves as punks or that the women on the team should be pretty. In reality they shunned any characteristic that would draw attention to themselves; they must not allow a quarry to realise that he had seen a particular officer perhaps ten minutes previously, or yesterday — or last week. There were common factors though. Each member of the team was intelligent and quick-witted, physically fit — and dowdy.
*
The official car carrying Robert Mallory turned out of King Charles Street and left into Whitehall. Mallory sat in the back, wearing glasses and reading some papers which he exchanged from time to time for others in the despatch box which lay open on the seat beside him.
Following his car through the rush-hour traffic was an easy task for the motor-cyclists on the team, but they abandoned it once it reached the more open and less crowded roads of Buckinghamshire, leaving the observation to a trio of very ordinary cars which leap-frogged each other to assume the prime position during the journey. When it became apparent that Mallory was making for home they left him to be ‘booked in’ by a casual pedestrian who happened to be passing the entrance to his driveway as his car swept in.
The next morning the surveillance team took Mallory to work again, but Findlater’s problem, which he explained to Tipper later, when he gave him
what was to become a daily briefing, was that he didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking for. It was, as Tipper explained, a speculative operation.
‘In a sense, Henry, it’s a fishing expedition.’
Findlater smiled. ‘Yes, I’d worked that out for myself, guv’nor, but what are we hoping to achieve? This man is a murder suspect, right?’ Tipper nodded. ‘It’s not my place to ask how or why you came to that conclusion — it’s your business, but it would help if you could put down some markers. What d’you want?’
‘I don’t know, Henry. To be perfectly honest, I suppose I’m hoping for some abnormality of behaviour, some indication that our Mr Mallory is not the perfect diplomat — just something.’
Findlater took off his glasses and rubbed at them with his handkerchief, a mildly puzzled expression on his face. He put his glasses back on and peered at Tipper as if seeing him for the first time. ‘Not much help, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. It might be more productive if we leaned on him a bit.’
‘Leaned on him?’
‘Sure — let him know he was under observation. See if it panicked him a bit — yes?’
‘No!’ said Tipper. ‘He’s not that sort of man. I’ve interviewed him once. He’s supremely confident; he doesn’t rattle easily. The only effect of letting him see we were taking an interest would be a complaint of harassment — and probably straight to the Commissioner. I don’t mind that, but it would mean taking the obo off, and I don’t want to do that yet. The least I’m hoping for is some indication of his life-style. To see if there are any cracks.’
Findlater shrugged. ‘Well, it’s your job, sir. My team’ll do their best. See you tomorrow.’
*
Findlater’s team started to establish the pattern of Mallory’s normal daily routine. With some difficulty they unobtrusively covered all the entrances to the Foreign Office. At lunch-time, Mallory emerged and strolled casually along King Charles Street and descended the Clive Steps. He crossed the road and did a circuit of St James’s Park, regularly nodding to acquaintances, of whom there appeared to be an inordinate number but, as Findlater said when he received the report, it was not surprising. When one had worked in the Whitehall area as long as Mallory, one got to know a surprising number of people, if only distantly. What had to be avoided, Findlater told his team, was being misled by them, and taking off on the pointless pursuit of some casual contact. Surveillance was a disciplined business.
In the case of Mallory, it was not only disciplined, but was used as a vehicle for gathering information about him, and the background enquiries which could be made as a result of learning a little more about him each day.
On the fourth day there was a variation in the pattern. The target left the office earlier than usual, but went straight home. Findlater kept a nondescript vehicle near the Mallory house and was rewarded at about seven o’clock when the official car reappeared. Mallory emerged from the house in a dinner-jacket and ushered an attractive woman into the car. Findlater knew already that this was Lady Francesca Mallory, a daughter of the late Earl of Homersham, and sister of the present earl. That much one of his beavers had learned from a few hours at the General Register Office at St Catherine’s House. Mallory and his wife drove to the Egyptian Embassy where local enquiries of the Diplomatic Protection Group indicated that the ambassador was hosting a select dinner-party. Mallory and Lady Francesca went home again at about eleven and Findlater’s officers went home too.
The following day the normal pattern was resumed. To the office, a walk round the park, and home again. The only thing to occur that was different was the arrival at the house at the same time of a Porsche sports-car which pulled into the drive behind Robert Mallory’s car. A young man, whose age the watchers put at about twenty-eight, got out and exchanged a few words with Mallory before both went into the house. A check of the car’s index mark against the police computer showed that the keeper of the car was a Sean Pearce whose address was shown as Princes Risborough.
The log of the surveillance team showed that Pearce came out of the house again about twenty minutes later accompanied by a young blonde girl who, although a little on the plump side, was nonetheless quite attractive. This they assumed, rightly, to be the Mallorys’ daughter, Tessa.
On a hunch — what he called the just-in-case syndrome — Findlater decided to leave the Mallorys’ house under observation the following day while Robert Mallory was at work. It paid off, even if it didn’t prove that Robert Mallory had anything to do with the death of Penny Lambert. That afternoon, when Robert Mallory was known to be ensconced in his office, Sean Pearce reappeared, this time on foot. He was admitted by Lady Francesca and left again about two hours later, leaving a comfortable gap of about an hour before Mallory got home from work. He walked some way before driving off in the Porsche which he had parked judiciously some way away.
At his dourest, Findlater merely nodded when he read that part of the report.
Tipper was a little more forthcoming. ‘What a crafty ladyship,’ he said. ‘If Lady F’s having it off, then it wouldn’t be surprising to find that her old man’s doing the same.’
Findlater looked dubious. ‘That doesn’t follow, sir,’ he said. ‘Anyway, we don’t know for sure that they were having it off.’
Tipper smiled. ‘I’ll put money on their not having spent the time playing Trivial Pursuit.’
‘Depends what you mean by trivial,’ said Findlater drily, and Tipper blew him a kiss.
*
On the following Monday, Lady Francesca drove to Victoria and parked her Rover in one of the back streets of Pimlico. She then made her way confidently to a small flat and let herself in with her own key. She spent about two hours there before returning to Chalfont St Giles. More background enquiries were made and the flat was found to be a pied-a-terre rented by Sean Pearce. Tipper contemplated the enigma of her not going to Princes Risborough because it was too close to home, but happily going to Pimlico, less than half a mile from where her husband was working.
That too was resolved by enquiry. At Princes Risborough, Pearce shared a house with his widowed mother.
*
All of that was very interesting, and supported Findlater’s Calvinistic view of what he described as the upper classes, but it contributed little to the case against Mallory.
‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’ said Tipper. ‘Young Sean turns up and takes Tessa out to night clubs and discos, and then in his spare time, to coin a phrase, he pops back and gives her ladyship a seeing-to. Must be on Benzedrine.’
‘Bloody disgraceful,’ said Findlater mildly. ‘These are the people who’re running the damned country. It’s downright immoral.’
Tipper smiled. ‘Let he who is without sin, et cetera …’
‘Anyway, guv’nor, I reckon that’s about it. We’ve kept this obo going for a fortnight now, and you must admit that nothing’s come out of it. Nothing that’s any good to you.’ He paused and rubbed his nose. ‘If I’d been in the matrimonial enquiry business, I’d’ve made a fortune this week and no mistake.’
‘Early days, Henry — early days.’
‘That’s as maybe, but it’s a fortnight, sir, and our time’s up.’
‘Not quite,’ said Tipper. ‘My guv’nor’s talking to your guv’nor — see if we can’t keep it going for another week.’
‘Bloody hell, sir. What’re you trying to do, bore my blokes to death?’
‘Patience, my son,’ said Tipper. ‘Complicated murder enquiries are not solved in a couple of weeks.’
‘But what are you hoping to get out of this?’
‘I don’t honestly know, Henry. Call it instinct, if you like, but there’s something about this bloke Mallory that just gives me a feeling in the bones. I’m sure he knows more than he’s prepared to say. It’s the letter — the letter of resignation — that worries me. How can a girl submit a letter of resignation without her own fingerprints on it, and then go to France on holiday — and not come back? No, H
enry, I want to keep it on.’
*
‘If my reading of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act is right, Charlie, we can get a warrant from a circuit judge to examine Penelope Lambert’s bank account.’
‘Are you sure, guv? I thought —’
‘If you’re going to say that we’ve got to have substantial evidence of her having committed an offence, you’re wrong. Part Two, Section Nine, allows us to do it. And it’s got nothing to do with whether she’s committed a serious offence — so long as someone has.’ He pointed to his bookshelf. ‘There’s Stone’s — look it up for yourself.’
‘You’re right, sir,’ said Charlie, when eventually he found what he was looking for. ‘But you’re going to have to get the warrant — I’m only a sergeant — it’s got to be at least an inspector.’
‘I knew there’d be a bloody catch in it somewhere. Never mind — all these things are sent to try us.’
*
They had already discovered from examining her papers in the flat that Penelope Lambert had two bank accounts — one in that name at a local bank, and another in the name of Penny Gaston in a bank in the West End. They saw Judge Harper in his room at the Central Criminal Court, and, after some hard and factual talking, convinced him that a warrant was pertinent to their enquiry.
The Penelope Lambert account was very ordinary. It showed the transactions they expected. Payment of salary every month, and the usual outgoings that settled household bills — rent, telephone, electricity, car insurance, BUPA, and housekeeping. It was the Penny Gaston account they found interesting. It stood at a few pounds under four thousand, a sum that had accrued over the last two or three years, and was made up of irregular payments of about two to three hundred pounds a time.