by Graham Ison
‘Yes, I heard you. Just let them get on with it and don’t interfere.’
‘Well — really, Robert. Courtesy costs nothing.’ She turned her gaze on Gaffney. ‘I’m going out,’ she announced. ‘I presume you’ve no objection to that, officer. Or are you going to arrest me?’
Gaffney stood up and turned to face her. She really was most attractive, even when she was angry — perhaps because she was angry. ‘No objection at all, Lady Francesca.’
For a moment she surveyed the three men in the room, then without another word, she turned and left. It was the last time that Robert Mallory ever saw her.
‘Were you having an affair with the van Heem woman?’
For a moment it looked as though Mallory was going to object to the question. Then he spoke quietly. ‘Yes, I was.’
Gaffney wasn’t convinced of that. ‘How often did you see her — on average?’
Mallory laughed. ‘On average? There was no average. I only saw her four times. That time in Mornington Crescent was the first meeting.’ He smiled at some arcane memory. ‘We didn’t go to bed that day, as I’m sure you will know.’ He hesitated, and then, looking straight at Gaffney said, ‘She was trying to blackmail me, you know.’
Gaffney was fairly certain he knew how, but he asked just the same.
‘I got a telephone call at the office one day — out of the blue, asking me to meet her.’
‘And you went — just like that?’
‘Yes. We’re not exactly an intelligence organisation — my part of the Office, but we do occasionally get information from some rather strange sources, so it didn’t occur to me not to go.’
Gaffney didn’t believe that for a moment, but refrained from saying so.
‘So I went,’ continued Mallory. ‘I must admit I was astounded by the sheer brazenness of the woman. She didn’t hesitate for a moment. She calmly announced that she knew I was having an affair with my secretary, hinted that if it got out I wouldn’t get the K I’m due for, and then proceeded to list the information she wanted.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I’m afraid I laughed. I don’t quite think that that was the reaction she expected. I told her that dozens of men had affairs with their secretaries, and that I certainly wasn’t going to become a spy to preserve a knighthood. One never gets away with it, so considered logically, it is counter-productive. You finish up losing all round.’
To Gaffney that sounded like diplomatic mumbo-jumbo. ‘Who is the secretary?’
Mallory played for time. ‘Oughtn’t you to have cautioned me?’
Gaffney smiled. ‘Only if and when I think you have committed an offence,’ he said.
‘I take it that we can keep this between ourselves, Mr — er, Gaffney, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is. And no — I can’t give you any undertaking of that nature, as I’m sure you must know, Mr Mallory.’
‘Kate McLaren.’
Gaffney knew that was true. ‘And how long has that been going on?’
‘Some months, actually.’ Mallory smoothed his hand over the desk top and took another sip of whisky.
‘But she’d only been your secretary for a matter of weeks, surely? Since Mrs Lambert’s resignation.’
Mallory smiled blandly. ‘That’s why she became my secretary, Mr Gaffney.’
That may or may not have been true. Mallory certainly wasn’t going to admit to having had an affair with Mrs Lambert — not yet anyway. He switched back to Eva van Heem. ‘How did it come about then that you finished up having an affair with a woman who set out to blackmail you?’
‘I’m afraid that some women find me irresistible,’ he said without any trace of vanity. ‘I can’t explain it, it’s just a fact of life.’
You conceited bastard, thought Harry Tipper, who had been watching the exchange with a mixture of astonishment and grudging admiration. Astonishment because he had never met a man who could be so cool under interrogation, even cloaked as it was in the guise of an urbane conversation. Both Mallory and Gaffney knew it was nothing of the sort, but Tipper was beginning to understand something of the talents that were needed to make a success of the Diplomatic Service.
Gaffney grinned. ‘Are you saying to me, Mr Mallory, that from a first meeting with Miss van Heem when, on your own admission, she attempted to put the black on you — that from that first meeting, by the second you were in bed with her?’
‘Yes — quite simply, Mr Gaffney. That is it exactly.’
‘I’m interested to know just how you managed to achieve that.’
‘Well I insisted that we should have no further meetings in insalubrious public houses — I don’t normally frequent such places. I said that I would think about her proposition, and that I would come and see her at her home. And I did.’
‘How did you know where she lived?’
Mallory looked pitifully at the policeman. ‘I do work at the Foreign Office,’ he said.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And so I went to Hendon about three days later. I told her that I had alerted MI5, and that they knew where I was — had in fact accompanied me there, but that they were going to do nothing about her approach provided that she made no further attempts to suborn me. She had the good grace to admit defeat and, well, one thing led to another …’
‘You hadn’t alerted MI5, of course?’
‘Come now, Chief Superintendent. You are Special Branch, I presume? You would know perfectly well that I hadn’t spoken to them. I couldn’t possibly afford to.’
‘I don’t see why not. If this woman was trying to put some pressure on you to commit a serious offence, the Security Service and ourselves would have dealt with it, firmly.’
‘Oh, I’ve no doubt. But the Director-General of the Security Service would have been duty-bound to tell the Head of the Foreign Office, and that would have been that.’
There was a tap at the study door, and Tipper walked across and opened it. There was a brief conversation and he walked back to Gaffney. ‘This room needs to be searched, sir,’ he said to him.
‘Tell them to come in,’ said Mallory magnanimously. For the next ten minutes conversation was suspended as the two officers who had been assigned to searching the study went methodically about their task. Mallory sat back in his chair calmly drinking from his recharged whisky tumbler, apparently secure in the knowledge that these clumsy policemen would find nothing.
Gaffney, too, sat calmly watching them. He had seen it all before. The over-confidence that so often preceded disaster when a policeman found something that alone meant little, but only because the suspect was unaware that they had other evidence which, when put together with the find, made it suddenly significant. Gaffney smiled to himself: it was MI5’s jigsaw syndrome again.
And then it happened. A detective constable — a young man, with only four years’ service, and two of those walking a beat — opened a small reproduction antique cabinet upon which rested a silver gallery tray and some glasses — the companions to the one from which Mallory was drinking. Inside the cabinet was a safe. ‘Would you open this, please, sir,’ said the detective.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ said Mallory.
‘You mean you don’t have the key?’ asked Gaffney.
‘I have the key, but it contains certain secret Foreign Office documents. I’m sure you will understand, Chief Superintendent, that —’
‘May I use your telephone?’ asked Gaffney mildly.
‘Of course.’ The self-confidence was still there.
‘I suppose you don’t know Sir John Laker’s telephone number off hand, do you?’ Gaffney asked. ‘It’ll save me bothering the Resident Clerk at the Foreign Office.’
‘What do you want his number for?’ There was an edge to Mallory’s voice, now that the Head of the Diplomatic Service had been mentioned.
‘Because I shall need him to come here — now — to be present when that safe is opened.’ Gaffney remained seated and relaxed. ‘If, as
you say, it contains Foreign Office documents, I don’t suppose he’ll be too happy at the prospect of their being kept in a private house — in a safe or not.’
Mallory put his hand in his trousers pocket, and by way of an answer threw a bunch of keys on to the leather top of the desk. He said nothing, but his stature seemed to have diminished slightly, and Gaffney thought that he now looked faintly ridiculous in his white tie and tail-coat.
Tipper, who had seen the reactions of some people to the finding of damning evidence, decided that he would prefer not to have a desk between him and Mallory. The film-maker’s favourite scene of the suspect withdrawing a pistol from the drawer of a desk was not likely to occur here, but it always paid never to take chances — just in case. ‘Would you mind coming round here, Mr Mallory.’
Mallory raised a quizzical eyebrow, but started to walk round the desk.
‘It’s just that I would prefer you to witness what is taken out of your safe.’
The young detective removed two or three jewel boxes and handed them to a colleague who put them on a side table. Then he opened a shallow drawer at the bottom and withdrew an envelope — a government issue envelope. He handed it to Gaffney. ‘And there’s this, sir,’ he said, passing over a video tape.
Gaffney walked over to the desk and emptied the contents of the envelope on to its leather top. There were six half-plate prints, and six negatives which Gaffney presumed matched. The photographs were of Mallory and Penelope Lambert engaging in several variations of the sexual act, most of which would probably have been described as disgustingly obscene by any member of the judiciary you cared to mention. He was pretty certain he knew what was on the tape.
Gaffney looked up. Mallory was staring at the photographs as if mesmerised. ‘You knew these were there, of course?’
Mallory nodded blankly.
‘In the act,’ said Gaffney drily. ‘There’s a Latin phrase for it, but I can never remember it.’
‘In flagrante delicto,’ murmured Mallory.
Chapter Nineteen
Gaffney had suggested that Mallory got changed before they took him to the police station, and he had put on a sports jacket, cavalry twills and a polo-necked sweater. Gaffney left two officers behind to keep the search warrant open, but Mallory had insisted on showing them how to set the burglar alarm in case, he said, they left before he got back. The irony of that caused Claire Wentworth to disappear into the kitchen to have a private fit of the giggles.
Gaffney, Tipper and Mallory sat now in the interview room of Cannon Row police station in the shadow of the old Scotland Yard, abandoned to politicians by the Metropolitan Police in 1967.
While the police had been searching the house at Chalfont, another contribution to the demise of Robert Mallory had arrived. The gendarmerie, to their credit, had carried out a thorough scientific examination of the house in St Brouille where Penelope Lambert had stayed. One of the fingerprints which they had found, but not identified, was compared with Mallory’s, and when Gaffney had arrived at Cannon Row there was a message waiting for him from the senior fingerprint officer. They matched: and it was not portable evidence as the camera had been. The case was getting stronger.
Tipper had cautioned him, which Mallory wrongly assumed to be a routine part of arriving at a police station. But it was Tipper’s next statement which dismayed him. ‘You stayed with Mrs Penelope Lambert at a house known as Seventeen Rue de la Digue in St Brouille in Northern France on Saturday the twenty-third of August and Sunday the twenty-fourth.’
The sudden change in police interest from Eva van Heem — an almost friendly and sympathetic approach — to Penelope Lambert, seriously rattled Mallory.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Your fingerprints were found in the house, Mr Mallory.’
‘I don’t see —’
‘Furthermore, Mr Mallory, the letter of resignation which she submitted to her employers — the Foreign Office — was in all probability typed on the portable typewriter found at your house. That machine has been taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory where tests will be carried out, but I don’t think that there is any doubt, do you?’
‘She asked me to type it for her.’
‘Why? She was a competent typist, and she had a typewriter in her office.’ He went on, relentlessly. ‘And there was no trace of her fingerprints on the letter. Strange that, don’t you think?’
Mallory opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and remained silent.
‘I suggest, Mr Mallory, that you forged that letter of resignation — we are fairly satisfied that it was not her signature — and that you then obtained a false passport …’ With a flourish, he produced the application form which the police had obtained from the authorities, and laid the photograph of Mallory, wearing glasses and purporting to be James Lambert, on the table between them. ‘That you then accompanied Mrs Lambert to France where you murdered her.’ He leaned back in his chair.
‘Murdered her? What do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I say.’
‘She drowned.’
‘Really? Perhaps you would care to tell me about it.’
Mallory appeared to be taking stock of his position, but Tipper was now familiar enough with the man to know that his brain was racing madly, trying desperately to think of a counter to this latest twist that threatened him.
‘I admit I’ve been foolish,’ he said at length. ‘Very foolish. But it was a difficult situation — of my own making, certainly, and looking back, I should never have done it. It was just a bit of excitement. It was for the sex — nothing else. But then she started talking about marriage. I could see her point of view, being divorced and everything — wanting some permanency, some security, but we were just not compatible — except in bed. We really hit it off there.’ He smiled at the recollection. ‘It was later on on the Sunday evening — about nine o’clock it must have been, and she started on again about getting married. We had a blazing row — nothing violent — we didn’t come to blows; we were neither of us like that.
‘Finally she swept out of the room and went into the bedroom. I just sat there — regretting. Regretting having started the whole thing — regretting having come to France. Anyway she came back into the room. She was wearing her bikini, well the bottom half — it’s quite normal there. She had a towelling robe on, just over her shoulders, and she was carrying a towel. She said she was going for a swim to cool off. I should have stopped her, I suppose. We’d both been drinking fairly heavily — a lot of wine through the day — then more with dinner, and a few brandies when we got in. I wouldn’t say that we were drunk, but I wouldn’t have driven a car.
‘Anyway, she went off — just across the road to the beach, I imagined, because she didn’t take the car — it was still outside later on. After about an hour, I started to get a bit worried, and I’d calmed down by then. I walked over the road to look for her. The beach was deserted. No one. There was no sign of her. No one in the water and I couldn’t see her towel or her robe anywhere. I just didn’t know what had happened to her. I walked the full length of the beach, along the waterline, looking for her and calling out. It was quite dark then, but I couldn’t see or hear anything of her.
‘I must admit I panicked then. I didn’t want to raise the alarm — I would have had to face the publicity — my wife, the Office. And if she had drowned it would have been too late for me to do anything. I sat up half the night wondering what to do, hoping that she’d turn up. I eventually dozed off in the armchair.
‘I suppose I woke up about eight o’clock the next morning. There was still no sign of her. I went across to the beach again and searched for her robe and towel, but I didn’t find them. I went back to the house and gathered up her things — there weren’t many — we’d both travelled light — and took them with me. I suppose I took a chance, but you don’t think very clearly in circumstances like that. I just left them on one of the luggage racks on the ferry.’<
br />
Tipper nodded slowly, as if he had accepted all that Mallory had been saying. ‘This car you mentioned — where did that come from?’
‘We’d hired it — or rather Penny had. I didn’t have a licence you see.’
‘Not in your own name, just the provisional one you obtained in the name of James Lambert to support your application for the false passport.’
‘You know about that?’
‘Of course. But what happened to the car?’
‘I didn’t want to leave it there, so I drove it to the garage where she’d hired it from, and left it outside. There was nothing to pay.’
‘And the camera? What about the film in the camera?’
‘That had a photograph of me on it. I couldn’t very well leave that, could I?’ He smiled, a trace of the old contempt still there. ‘I took it out before I packed her things and threw it overboard during the crossing.’
‘And then you just came back to this country and went to work as if nothing had happened?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. It wasn’t a very noble thing to do, but there was nothing tangible that I could contribute, was there? She had just gone — without a trace.’
‘But still you didn’t think to tell anybody — the authorities, the police for instance? And when I came to see you, you still didn’t see fit to mention it. Now why was that, Mr Mallory?’
‘It was obviously too late then, wasn’t it?’ There was an almost supercilious sneer on Mallory’s face now, as though he constantly despaired of the dull-wittedness of policemen. ‘There was absolutely nothing I could do to bring her back. As I thought — she had drowned. It was still a shock, when I read it in the newspaper.’ Mallory’s confidence was clearly fast returning, and Tipper thought, grudgingly, what a resilient man he was.
‘Have you ever heard of George Joseph Smith?’ asked Tipper conversationally.
‘Er-no, I don’t think so. Should I have done?’ He raised an eyebrow as if Tipper were talking about someone who might have worked in the Foreign Office at some time.