by Graham Ison
‘I don’t understand why she left all that in a current account,’ said Tipper.
‘I do,’ said the manager. ‘If she’d transferred it to a deposit account or a building society, she’d have had to pay income tax on the interest.’
‘So what?’
‘I don’t know what you’re looking for,’ said the manager, ‘but from what you say, she may have thought that her employers would have found out in some way — perhaps through a substantial change in her tax coding.’ He spread his hands. ‘They wouldn’t, of course. The Inland Revenue couldn’t care less so long as you pay what you owe them. They’re not the slightest bit concerned that you’re breaching your conditions of employment by moonlighting.’
Tipper laughed. ‘I’ve heard it called some things …’ He stood up. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve got what we need — although God knows what it means, other than she had what appears to be a profitable sideline going. It’s amazing what the female body can earn if it’s used in the right way.’
‘Or the wrong way,’ added Markham with a smirk.
‘It’s beginning to come together, Charlie,’ said Tipper.
*
The Metropolitan Police has an unerring ability to select inappropriate titles for the various tasks its officers undertake. One such title was that of collator — just that, collator, which means one who collates. Simple. But the Metropolitan Police does not define what he collates — at least not in the title. A better description would be divisional intelligence officer, but that conjures up a picture of a red-tabbed colonel sitting in a military headquarters somewhere. So perhaps collator will do.
The collator at the police station which included Mexico Road within its boundaries was a man of about fifty. He had served the Commissioner for some twenty-nine years and quietly boasted that very little occurred on his division that he didn’t know about. And he had a comprehensive card index system to prove it.
‘I believe you were making enquiries about a Jimmy Webster of Mexico Road, sir,’ said the collator, when Tipper and Markham entered his office.
‘What d’you know about him?’ asked Tipper.
The collator produced a card from one of his many drawers and laid it on the desk in front of him. ‘Oh yes, I remember this one now. Got pulled by the area car just before Christmas — immediately before Christmas really. It was on the twentieth — a Friday — at two o’clock in the morning. It was a suspect drink-drive by the look of it. Ah, that’s a bit of luck.’
‘What is?’
‘Saunders and Ritchie — the terrible twins were on that night, and they’re on now. D’you want to have a word, sir?’
‘Yes, please — if they’re get-attable.’
‘No problem, sir.’ The collator turned to his personal radio and called the area car crew.
Within about seven minutes Saunders and Ritchie — driver and wireless operator respectively — had joined Tipper, Markham and the collator in the latter’s tiny office. In common with all policemen suddenly summoned to see a strange chief inspector from the Yard who was accompanied by a sergeant, they assumed that they were the subjects of some disciplinary action, or at best a complaint; chief inspector was the rank that normally investigated such matters. They were, therefore, somewhat relieved to hear, not only that Tipper was investigating a murder, but that, to the best of his knowledge, no complaint or disciplinary action had emanated from it.
‘Jimmy Webster, middle flat, Twenty-seven Mexico Road. You stopped him on the twentieth day of December at two a.m., according to the collator.’ The driver, Saunders, nodded. ‘What was it all about?’
‘I remember that one quite clearly — Hampton Court Road from Hampton Court towards Kingston Bridge. Got his foot down — really hammering. That’s a dodgy bit of road that — had a few fatals in its time. Got to have been on the bevvy, so we gave him a pull. Looked like a straight breathalyser job, sir.’
‘And was it?’
‘No it wasn’t.’ He paused. ‘D’you mind if I smoke, guv?’
‘Go ahead.’ Tipper waved a hand.
‘Like I said, we gave him a pull. Usual questions, like have you been drinking, sir — all that. He said no, then he said well perhaps one. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we gave him the test …’
‘Yes?’
‘Negative. I reckon he was lucky, or the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. I was about to let him go with a verbal warning for speed, when Don here weighed in.’ The driver turned to his colleague.
‘Well I’d been listening to him talking, this guy,’ said Ritchie. ‘And I was fascinated by his accent. Then it clicked. I said to him “You’re South African, aren’t you?”, and he said he was. Didn’t seem too happy about it though, sir. But I’ve got this sort of ear for accents. So we had a little chat. I asked him how long he was over here for — was he a resident, working here, that sort of thing.’
‘And?’
‘He didn’t want to give me a straight answer to anything. We did a check on the car, but that was all right. It came out on the computer as down to him, and the address was right. But there was something I wasn’t happy about, sir. D’you know the feeling I mean?’
‘I do indeed,’ said Tipper, who called it policeman’s nose. ‘But what did he actually say — can you remember?’
Both the policemen hesitated, thinking. ‘It was getting on for ten months ago — longer even,’ said Ritchie. ‘But I asked him where he was going. That was easy. He was going home. Then I asked him where he’d been. Near Windsor is what he said, and when I asked him where exactly, he hedged a bit, and said something about meeting a mate in the middle of the town, near the castle, and following him in his car to a pub. Usual thing, sir. He didn’t know the name of this pub, and wasn’t sure exactly where it was, and no, he didn’t think he could take us there. Then I asked him where he was working, and he said he wasn’t — not at the moment. That seemed a bit odd, because he was driving a BMW — well you don’t push those around when you’re on the dole, do you, sir?’
‘Some of us don’t even drive them when we’re working,’ said Tipper with feeling.
‘Anyway we decided to have a look in his motor.’ He glanced at Saunders, as if seeking confirmation for his actions. ‘That’s when we found the video tapes.’
Tipper’s eyes narrowed. ‘What video tapes?’
‘There were four of them in the boot of the car. The minute we turned those up he started to get quite animated. He started asking us about our powers of search, and then said they were private and wouldn’t be of any interest to us. Funny that, the way people react: if he’d said they were four episodes of Coronation Street, or something like that, we’d probably have slung them back in the boot and told him to go on his way. But there was something — I don’t know what, but you just get that feeling, like I said before.’
‘So what did you do?’
Ritchie looked sideways at Saunders — the older of the two. The driver smiled. ‘We nicked him, guv.’
Tipper smiled too. ‘What for?’
‘Well we didn’t actually nick him, not in the true sense. We just told him we weren’t satisfied, and that we were taking him down to the station for further enquiries to be made.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘Nothing much. I suppose he thought he could talk his way out of it — whatever it was. He was probably thinking that that would give him time to work out some excuse that would satisfy us. But he was certainly a bit nervous about those tapes.’
‘So you took him to the nick — in here, in fact?’
‘Yes, sir. And by the time we’d got here he’d recovered a bit. The usual thing — saying we couldn’t hold him; he’d done nothing wrong, and he wanted his solicitor. All the usual old madam in fact. Anyway, we dumped him in the interview room, told the station officer what we’d got — or at least, what we thought we’d got, and then we nipped upstairs and borrowed the Chief Superintendent’s video.
’ Saunders laughed. ‘Well, I suppose you can guess, sir? Porn!’
‘What sort of porn?’ asked Tipper.
‘It was nothing professional. It was a tape of some bloke having it off with some bird — quite juicy it was.’
‘D’you think that this film was taken from one position?’
Saunders laughed. ‘One position?’
Tipper laughed too. ‘You know bloody well what I mean. Was the camera in one place all the time?’
‘Yes — sorry sir. Yes, it was. And it was a bit misty — sort of filmy, if you’ll excuse the pun. Bit like it had been taken through a piece of dirty glass.’
‘A two-way mirror maybe?’
‘Yes, indeed. That’s exactly what it was like.’
‘Was the bloke in the film Webster?’
‘No, sir. Don’t know who it was but he was quite a performer. And the bird — she was something else — great.’
‘Who was this girl? Any idea? Or the man?’
‘No — ’fraid not. We put it to him, of course, but he wouldn’t say a word. He said it was no offence to have them — that it was no offence to take them, and that was all he was going to tell us. Then he said he wanted his solicitor, and that we should either charge him with something or release him.’
‘Did you just look at the one tape?’
‘Yes, sir. We guessed that the others were all the same, but I suppose we should have had a dekko.’
‘So what happened then?’
‘We had a word with the night-duty CID, and he said there was nothing we could put him on the sheet for, and the best idea was to have a word with Special Branch on account of he was South African, and might be an illegal immigrant, and he might even be in the porn trade, even though the tapes we’d got seemed to be private ones, if you know what I mean. Anyway the station officer bailed him — police bail pending further enquiries, and told him to report back here in twenty-eight days.’
‘And did he?’
‘I don’t know, quite honestly, guv. We handed the tapes over to Special Branch and let them get on with it. I don’t know whether anything came of it …’ He paused. ‘Just a minute, though …’ He turned to his colleague. ‘Didn’t he skip, Don?’
‘Yes, I remember something about that,’ said Ritchie. ‘The SB bloke — a skipper, I think he was, came and saw us. Yes, that’s right. He’d apparently been back to this bloke’s drum, and he’d scarpered — back to South Africa, he said. He was thrashing about trying to get some more details. He asked us if we’d seen a passport, or anything like that. Well, we couldn’t help him — we hadn’t even seen a driving licence; I remember that because we issued him with a form to produce that, his insurance, and test certificate …’ He glanced at Saunders. ‘Or did we? No, no test certificate. It was practically a new car. That’s about it, guv.’
‘You don’t remember the name of this bloke in Special Branch, by any chance?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No matter,’ said Tipper. ‘We should be able to track him down easily enough. Incidentally, did he say whether this bloke was of any interest to them?’
Ritchie grinned. ‘No, guv. They never tell you anything, those blokes.’
‘Where are the video tapes now?’ asked Tipper.
‘We handed them to Special Branch. As far as we know, they’ve still got them, sir.’
‘Did she look as though she was a professional at this sort of game?’
‘I don’t know about professional, sir, but she certainly looked as though she was enjoying herself.’
‘Doing it for a living maybe?’
Saunders nodded slowly. ‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘I reckon that those four tapes-worth would have been worth a bob or two to her.’
Chapter Eleven
But Tipper’s ponderings on Penelope Lambert’s alternative source of income suddenly took second place to what emerged next.
The Commander of C1 Branch had managed to secure a third week’s surveillance, but only by a great deal of cajolery and bribery, the more commendable because he too was beginning to agree with the Commander of C11 Branch that the watchers were wasting their time.
On the last day but one of that third week, the surveillance team, now in danger of becoming lethargic because a pattern had been established, were shaken out of their professional reverie.
Mallory emerged from the Foreign Office at half past twelve as usual, and walked through the archway into King Charles Street. But instead of going down the Clive Steps and into the park, he turned left, across Whitehall and into Westminster tube station.
‘Blimey, someone’s shaken the kaleidoscope,’ said one of the watchers enigmatically.
The surveillance officers were not close enough to hear Mallory ask for a ticket. It wasn’t crucial, because they travelled anywhere on the London Underground on their warrant cards; but it would have been helpful to know in advance where he was going.
Mallory caught the first eastbound train that came in, and oblivious to the police officers surrounding him, rode to the Embankment. He made his way quickly through the station — so quickly in fact, that for a moment the team thought that he had spotted them — and onto the Northern Line platform. There he waited while trains for High Barnet and Mill Hill East came and went.
‘Looks like it’s the Edgware train he’s after,’ said one of the team into the microphone secreted in his sleeve.
Minutes later his assumption was confirmed. Mallory sat down on one of the long seats, spending his time assiduously reading the advertisement cards, unaware that the disinterested yob standing not six feet from him was a detective sergeant from the Criminal Intelligence Branch.
Ten minutes later, Mallory alighted at Mornington Crescent. He stopped briefly outside the station, and spoke to a news vendor who, seconds later, was shaken to discover a warrant card thrust under his nose. ‘What did he want, guv?’
‘Blimey, mate, watch me ’eart. He arst fer a boozer in Malplaquet Street. Why? What’s ’e done?’
‘He’s a hopeless alcoholic,’ said the detective, moving on swiftly, and broadcasting Mallory’s destination through his personal radio so that some of the team could be there ahead of him.
Two of the surveillance team were already at the bar drinking pints by the time Mallory walked in. He was clearly apprehensive; the clientele in this particular pub was not the type with whom he normally mixed. He bought a gin and tonic and sat down at a vacant table in the corner not far from the door.
The remainder of the team stayed in the street on the orders of Henry Findlater. ‘I’m not having all you buggers getting pissed on the firm’s time,’ he said. He knew policemen very well, which was as it should be.
For the next five minutes or so, Mallory sat, occasionally sipping his drink and wishing that he had bought a newspaper. Then a woman walked in. She was about five feet nine inches tall and wore white slacks and a navy sweater that did nothing to disguise her shape. She walked confidently up to the bar and ordered a drink. She turned and ran a hand through her short brown curly hair. Then without hesitation she crossed to Mallory’s table and sat down. He half rose, but relaxed again at a gesture from the woman.
One of the two police officers in the bar drained his glass and clapped his colleague on the arm. ‘Cheers, mate,’ he said. ‘See you again.’ He ambled out of the pub and told the DI what had happened. It was certain that after so discreet a meeting, Mallory and the mystery woman would split up before leaving, and the surveillance team would wish to follow her to find out who she was.
After some twenty minutes of intimate conversation during which the woman appeared to do almost all of the talking, she stood up, nodded briefly, and walked out, leaving Mallory white-faced at the table. Whatever she had said to him had shaken him badly.
Most of the team were now deployed to follow the woman whose white trousers and height were a gift for the followers. A couple of the team were left to take Mallory back to the office, which is where they we
re sure he would go, but followed him just the same — in case.
The woman walked quickly to Mornington Crescent station and boarded a southbound train. She alighted at Embankment and went out of the Villiers Street exit and across into Northumberland Avenue. As quickly as before she strode towards Trafalgar Square, skipped through the traffic, across the Strand and into the large building on the corner.
One detective, chancing his arm, followed her into the building. The woman held a pass out to the security guard and walked straight through, but the same guard stopped the detective. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘Is this Canada House?’ asked the policeman, knowing full well that it was not.
The security guard smiled bleakly at the stupidity of the general public. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s on the other side of the Square. This is the South African Embassy.’
*
Harry Tipper always got the impression that he was entering a rarefied area of Kew Gardens whenever he went into his Commander’s office. According to the stark architectural specification, it was three modules — about twelve feet by fourteen — but softened by wall-to-wall carpeting. To these basic essentials of police command, Finch had added a vast number of potted plants which decorated the radiator grilles, the small table, the top of the bookcase; and on his desk, set at an angle across the corner of his room, stood a Devil’s Ivy which spilled over the edge. The slats of the Venetian blinds were aslant to permit the light but obscure the view; and a green-shaded desk lamp cast a pool of light on to the leather-edged blotter. Colin Finch liked a bit of couth in his office.
‘Come in, Harry,’ said the Commander, in response to Tipper’s gentle tap on the open door. He looked up expectantly.
‘Bit of a problem arisen on this French job, sir — the Lambert murder.’
‘This going to take long?’ The Commander put down his pen and linked his fingers together. ‘Shut the door.’
‘I’ll make it as brief as I can, sir.’ And Tipper outlined the enquiry to the point where Mallory’s meeting came to the notice of the surveillance team.