The Brief: Crime and corruption in 1960s London (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers)

by Simon Michael

  Charles’s legs are stiff and, despite the whisky, his hands and feet are cold. He swings his legs out of the sports car, closes the door quietly and crosses the road toward the boarding house. He climbs the steps and rings the bell.

  The outline of a woman can be seen approaching down the corridor and the door opens a couple of inches.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m looking for a room. Just for a week.’

  The woman looks Charles up and down. She has sharp, dark eyes, mean lips and straggly black hair streaked with grey. ‘No luggage?’

  Charles nods across the road. ‘In the car,’ he explains.

  ‘Just you?’ she asks. ‘This is a respectable house,’ she adds.

  ‘Just me. And I can pay a week in advance, right now.’

  ‘I’ve only got a single room left.’

  ‘That’s fine. Although I’d like to see it first, please.’

  The woman sizes Charles up for a few moments longer and then opens the door fully to admit him. He enters the hallway and waits on the polished tiles for her to shut the door behind him. A coin-operated telephone is attached to the wall at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Follow me,’ she says, and she leads Charles past a closed door from which emanates the sound of a television, and up the stairs. Charles plays a hunch.

  ‘A colleague of mine told me about your boarding house. A Scotsman. I think he might be here now. His name’s Robbie?’

  ‘Mr Smith? That’s his room.’ She indicates a door on the first landing as they pass it. Charles glances down. A thin band of yellow light escapes from underneath the door.

  They reach the head of the stairs and the landlady opens a door and stands back. Charles casts his eye around a small attic room with a single bed, a sink in the corner and a tiny wardrobe large enough to accommodate two or three hangers at most. Charles sits on the bed experimentally, bounces once and rises.

  ‘This’ll be perfect,’ he announces cheerfully. ‘I’ll get my bag from the car, and pay you. Where can I find you?’

  ‘Downstairs in the front sitting room. Just knock on the door. You’ll need to register, Mr...’

  ‘Collins,’ replies Charles.

  ‘Well, Mr Collins, the rent’s six shillings for the week, with a further one and six security deposit. No food allowed in the room, no guests allowed after nine o’clock, and no female guests allowed at any time. Understood?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  The landlady gives him one last searching look and returns downstairs, leaving the bedroom door open. Charles waits until he hears the footsteps reach the hall and the sitting room door close. He creeps back down two flights and stands outside the room below, pulling on his gloves. He takes the pistol out of his inside pocket and leans with his ear against the door. At first he can hear nothing except the occasional car passing outside and the ticking of a large clock from somewhere downstairs but, then, there’s a new sound. It reminds Charles of a kettle before it boils, a low, steady bubbling. As Charles concentrates on the noise, it pauses. There’s a different, gurgling noise for a second and then the bubbling resumes. Charles gently tests the door handle. It turns silently and the door moves inward slightly; not locked. Charles holds his breath, turns the knob fully and launches himself into the room.

  There was no need for surprise. Facing the door is a small couch on which sits Robbie Sands, wearing an overcoat and a hat. He looks comfortable, his hands in his lap and his chin resting on his chest, as if he has just come in from a walk and is taking a rest. His chest rises and falls regularly. Where his weight creates a depression in the couch there is a pool of dark shiny liquid. Sands’s overcoat is open and the top of his torso is a slowly expanding circle of dark red, in the centre of which is a black hole. It is just at the top of his sternum, slightly off centre and immediately below his left clavicle. With every gurgling breath another small gobbet of blood pulses out of the hole, runs down his saturated shirt, and joins the growing puddle in which he sits.

  Charles takes a further step into the room and notes drips of blood leading from the door to the couch. So, he wasn’t shot here. Another thought occurs to him, and he puts his head back out into the corridor. Bending down, he looks carefully at the carpet. It’s dark brown in colour but, on careful examination, he can see further dark drips, heading not towards the front of the house, but towards another door overlooking the garden that he hadn’t noticed on the way up. A fire escape?

  He steps back into the room and closes the door quietly. The gurgling suddenly stops as the dying man coughs gently. Blood suddenly appears between Sands’s lips, and his head lifts. He looks straight at Charles and his mouth widens into a black grimace. He tries to speak but the effort simply brings more blood from the hole in his chest and through his teeth.

  Charles casts about looking for a weapon by Sands’s hands but, finding none, moves closer.

  ‘Too late,’ whispers Sands.

  ‘Why?’ demands Charles, but Sands’s head is slowly dropping to his chest again. The breath whistling through the hole in his trachea is now less regular, with longer pauses between each one. Charles grabs Sands’s bloody chin and lifts his head. The Scotsman’s eyes are half-closed but, for a second, they focus and he reaches up with a bloodied hand and grabs the sleeve of Charles’s leather jacket. He seems about to say something, but the light dies from his eyes and with a final bubbling wheeze, his arm and head fall in unison.

  Charles returns to the door, locks it, and sits at the table that overlooks the dark street below. He regards the dead man thoughtfully. One step behind, yet again. Not to mention the growing body count. Until a week ago, Charles had only ever once seen a dead body close up; one of the advantages of the RAF over the other armed services. Now they’re turning up everywhere.

  He stands and surveys the room. There’s a massive old wardrobe, its mirror blotched with age, but a search reveals only a coat with nothing in the pockets and a small pile of clothes, a change of shirt and underwear, none of it clean. A spare blue blanket is folded on the floor of the wardrobe. On a shelf by the door is a bathroom bag containing shaving gear, toothpaste and so on, but nothing of interest. Charles balks at searching Sands’s body, but he is about to start when he glimpses something dark by the end of the bed. Partly hidden under the trailing edge of the counterpane is a small brown leather attaché case. It looks like a narrow school satchel with two buckles fastening it. Charles pulls it out. Inside is a sheaf of papers, including a simple sketch of Putt Green with his own home marked with a large red asterisk, the layout of the house, and a blurry photograph of Henrietta. Charles’s heart thunders in his chest; here it is at last: real proof.

  He takes the photograph to the light hanging from the central ceiling rose to examine it more closely. It’s unusually grainy, as if it’s been enlarged from something much smaller. It shows Henrietta standing in a line with other young women, all wearing summer dresses. Some have hats and others are shading their eyes against the sun, which appears to be low and shining directly into their faces from behind the camera. Behind them is a section of a single storey wooden building with a veranda, and beyond that are tall trees in leaf. Charles has a vague recollection of the scene, but can’t immediately place where the photograph was taken.

  A lightning bolt of illumination suddenly strikes him, and he spins round and reopens the wardrobe door. He lifts out what he supposed was a blanket and turns it over. It’s not a blanket; it’s a barrister’s robes bag, blue, and brand-new. It still has the Ede & Ravenscroft price label hanging from the cord which closes the mouth of the bag. Charles feels around inside, but it’s empty. His investigation is suddenly cut short by a shout from downstairs. He throws the bag back into the wardrobe.

  ‘Mr Collins? Mr Collins!’

  Charles hurriedly slides the documents back into the leather case and replaces it, half-hidden, at the foot of the bed. He tiptoes across to the door, unlocks it, and sticks his head out. The landlady is calling from the b
ottom of the staircase. Charles closes the door behind him, and goes downstairs.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he says, ‘but on reflection, I think I’ll find somewhere closer to the centre of town. I’ve business in the City, and this is a bit far out for me. I’m really sorry to have troubled you.’

  Without waiting for a response, Charles strides past her and out of the front door, closing it behind him. The woman watches him go and then runs upstairs as fast as her arthritic knees will allow to reassure herself that Charles hasn’t stolen the furniture from her top room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Is that Buckinghamshire Police?’

  ‘Yes. How may I direct your call?’

  ‘I need to speak to Detective Constable Sloane. I think he’s based at Aylesbury Police Station. It’s very urgent.’

  ‘Please may I have your name?’

  ‘Charles Holborne. I’m wanted for the murder of my wife. And I have another murder or two to report.’

  There’s no sharp intake of breath from the young telephone operator at the other end of the line, which slightly disappoints Charles. Remarkable sangfroid, he thinks.

  ‘Please hold the line, sir,’ she replies calmly, ‘and I’ll put you through.’

  It takes five interminable minutes and most of Charles’s change before Sloane is located.

  ‘Holborne?’ he asks, without precursor, his voice echoing oddly down the line.

  ‘Yes. Listen carefully. I’m going to have to trust you, Detective Constable.’

  ‘You’re going to have to trust me? And why would you be doing that?’ asks Sloane. Charles thinks he detects a very faint Irish accent.

  ‘Because I can’t trust your Superintendent. I have proof of my innocence, but if I give it to him, it’ll disappear.’

  ‘What proof is that?’ asks Sloane in a neutral tone.

  ‘If you get your men quickly to Oak Lodge Boarding House, Ormiston Grove, Shepherd’s Bush, in the front bedroom on the first floor you will find Robbie Sands, recently of HM Prison Long Lartin. He escaped ten days ago. He’s dead, shot, and before you ask, no, I didn’t kill him either. At the end of his bed you’ll find a briefcase with the instructions he was given to enable him to kill Henrietta. It should have his fingerprints all over it. And with a little luck, if you check under the bonnet of my Jag, you might find some more there.’

  ‘Where are you, Mr Holborne?’

  ‘I’m in a call box in West London.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time you handed yourself in?’

  Charles laughs sardonically. ‘Are you serious? I may have been a yard behind the murderer throughout, but at least I’ve been looking. I know how this works, Sloane, and I know your bastard of a Superintendent all too well. If anyone’s going to break the seal on his “watertight case”, it’s going to have to be me.’

  ‘We’re not all as stupid as you think, Mr Holborne. We already know the Jag wasn’t running, so it had to be fixed before you could make your supposed getaway. And we’ve also traced the owner of the girl’s Mercedes, Neville Fylde — who I gather you’ve already … interviewed — and we know he was paid to make it look like you had a mistress. Was it you who put the hole in his ceiling?’

  ‘Ceiling? Don’t know what you’re taking about,’ replies Charles insouciantly, remembering at the same time Ronnie’s Kray’s assurance that, whatever else he was, he wasn’t a grass.

  ‘What colour’s your robes bag?’

  ‘What?’ asks Charles, incredulous.

  ‘You heard. What colour?’

  ‘Red.’

  ‘Your wife’s murderer was seen to run off with a blue bag.’

  Charles begins to think that Sloane, at least, is indeed no fool. ‘Which you will find in the wardrobe of Sands’s room,’ confirms Charles. ‘It’s brand-new — the price label’s still on it — and it has no barrister’s initials stitched on it.’

  ‘I’m telling you all this, Mr Holborne, to persuade you to come in. I assure you, I have more than just an open mind, and my guvnor is … coming round. But you must realise the danger you’re in. You’ve done well so far, but you’ve been lucky. You’re not trained for this; we are.’

  ‘I’ve a got a few things to do first. But I promise I’ll hand myself in when they’re done.’ There’s something about the way Sloane refers to his guvnor which makes Charles suspicious. ‘Are you recording this?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘And how many others are in the room with you, Sloane?’

  There’s a pause. ‘Most of the team.’

  Another dry voice adds: ‘Including DC Sloane’s bastard Superintendent.’ Wheatley. It’s his voice that continues. ‘You told the switchboard you wanted to report “a couple” of murders. Do you want to tell us anything about the other one? Or are you keeping that one as a surprise?’

  ‘Hello, Superintendent. Sands’s accomplice on the Express Dairies robbery was a man named Derek Plumber. When I left Plumber’s house in Limehouse this morning he was in a diabetic coma. I organised an ambulance and left him with the district nurse. I’m not one hundred per cent certain about this, but I think Sands deliberately kept him from his insulin.’ Charles’s voice accelerates as the pips start, signalling that he needs to put more money into the phone box. ‘I’m not sure of the motive yet, maybe simply for money. And I have one further lead to —’ At that, Charles’s money runs out. He fishes in his pockets for more change, but changes his mind and lets the pips finish. The line is cut.

  At Aylesbury police station, DC Sloane hangs up and switches off the tape recorder. He turns to face the room. Behind him sit or stand all the members of team he was able to round up to listen to Holborne’s call. He’d made sure they were all in the room before he called Wheatley down. Only then did he have Holborne’s call put through.

  Superintendent Wheatley pulls another chair out from the desk and sits heavily. Twenty-four hours after the murder he had enough evidence to convict Holborne. Now, what looked like a simple collar is falling apart in his hands and, what’s worse, half the team heard it, so he has no choice; he has to follow through on Holborne’s information. What galls him most is that the arrogant Jew-boy has demolished the case against him by a combination of dumb luck and brute force.

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ Wheatley says. ‘What’s to say Holborne didn’t give Sands all that stuff to do the job, and then shoot him to keep him quiet?’

  ‘All that stuff to incriminate himself?’ points out Sloane.

  ‘And why tell us?’ adds Bricker.

  Wheatley looks round the room and meets the eyes of his junior officers. He sees a challenge in all of them, and accepts the inevitable. ‘Bricker,’ he orders.

  ‘Sir?’ replies the DS from the other end of the long table.

  ‘Have we got all the elimination prints from Chancery Court yet?’

  ‘All except three. One’s confirmed as being in the British Caymans for the last month, so he’s ruled out. Two others are here, but out of town on cases.’ He fishes in his pocket for his notebook and flicks over some pages. ‘Erm … Jonathan Beardsley and Simon Ellison.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘According to their diaries, Beardsley’s in York on a three-week civil trial and Ellison’s at the assizes in Wiltshire.’

  Wheatley turns to Sloane. ‘I assume you’ve had the Jag looked at? Seeing as you ignored my earlier orders about it?’

  Sloane smiles cheerily at his Superintendent, trying to look fresh-faced and keen, rather than insubordinate. ‘Yes. There were prints all over it belonging to Holborne and his wife, a couple from two of the mechanics at the local garage, and some half-prints from someone presently unidentified.’

  ‘You think Sands was working with someone in Holborne’s Chambers?’

  ‘Well, sir, we know someone set him up to make it look as if Holborne had a mistress. They had to have access to the diary, to know where Holborne would be; they couldn’t risk her running i
nto him at Fetter Lane. And they had to have his keys copied. Both of which would be easy if they worked in the same office. There’s no security of any sort and the barristers wander into one another’s rooms all the time. So, yes, I’m thinking it was one of the other barristers. Several witnesses say that Mrs Holborne was, if you don’t mind my language, a right tart. I’m pretty sure we’ll turn up any number of motives.’

  Wheatley sighs. ‘All right. I’m not saying I’m buying it, but we’d better get down to the Temple. Make sure someone brings the dabs from the Jag. If it is one of the barristers, I suppose we’d best identify him before Holborne gets himself killed. Not that I’d shed any tears, mind, but still… Bricker, get on the radio. Get the City of London boys to bring in the clerk, Stanley Wigglesworth. Sloane: you and PC Redaway get to Shepherds Bush and see about Sands. Come on. Let’s get on with this.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Stanley arrives at Chancery Court just before 11 p.m. He has still to get over the shock of having one of his guvnors on the run, charged with the murder of his wife. Rita has never known him to get home so early, so assiduously has he been avoiding all his usual haunts for the last week. He can’t bear the looks he receives whenever he meets other clerks. But then, to be called out of his bed just as he’s settling to sleep, raced to London in a speeding police car still in pyjamas, and required to open up Chambers for more investigations, this time into another member of Chambers, well that was the final straw. ‘I’m going to retire at the end of term,’ he announced to Rita as he pulled a coat on over his pyjamas.

  Superintendent Wheatley, DS Bricker and a third man get out of the car in which they’ve been awaiting Stanley’s arrival. Bricker introduces Stanley to Wheatley and to the third man, named Reeves.