by Graham Ison
‘Oh?’ Fox stopped in front of the prisoner again and looked puzzled. ‘From what my officers told me, you were already aroused,’ he said. ‘In fact, I am reliably informed you were well at it.’
‘I never —’
‘Incidentally, I don’t go much on your choice. Where did you pick up that scrubber?’
‘She’s my girlfriend,’ said Murchison defensively. ‘And it’s got sod-all to do with you.’
‘Yeah,’ said Fox. ‘And everybody else’s girlfriend as well. You do know who she is, I suppose.’
‘Course I do. Sandra Nelson.’
Fox scoffed. ‘Is that what she told you?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Your Sandra Nelson’s real name is Jeanie Thom, from Glasgow.’ Fox laughed. ‘Not that I blame her for changing it. Any bird with a name like Thom’d change it if she was on the game, I suppose.’
‘What d’you mean, on the game?’
‘Jeanie Thom, alias Sandra Nelson, has got a string of previous for soliciting and outrage on public decency. Mind you, she’d be an outrage on public decency just by standing there.’
‘I don’t have to take that. Not from you nor no one else.’ Murchison started to rise to his feet.
‘Sit down and shut up,’ said Fox. ‘I’m doing you a favour. Take a word from the wise, my son, and get yourself tested. You’re probably HIV positive. Furthermore,’ he continued, deliberately switching back to his original theme with a suddenness that thoroughly alarmed Murchison, ‘I am reliably informed that you’ve been up to your old tricks, my son.’
‘I dunno what you’re talking about. Look, I want to see whoever’s in charge.’
‘I am,’ said Fox mildly.
‘Well I ain’t saying nothing … not without a solicitor.’
‘No need, dear boy. I’m going to do the talking. Just for a bit, anyway.’ Fox sat down in the chair opposite Murchison and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘You see, Jim —’ He paused. ‘Don’t mind if I call you Jim, do you … Jim? You see, your problem is that we found some litter … in the river.’ Murchison went to say something but Fox held up a staying hand. ‘Very unwise of you to dump it in a busy river like the Thames. All those people chugging up and down in their expensive boats. Bound to find it. And another thing, the Thames Water Authority is very upset with you. It’s an offence, you know, putting litter in the river like that.’
Murchison sneered. ‘Are you telling me that your hoods pulled me in because of some bleeding litter in the river?’
‘Well, yes … in a manner of speaking, Jim. But it was the quality of the litter that interested them, you see. It’s not every day that our lads find a new Jaguar XJ6 dumped in the river.’ Fox lit another cigarette and pointedly ignored Murchison’s hungry look. ‘And it got us thinking. I know the ashtrays were full, but that doesn’t warrant throwing away a brand new Jaguar, does it now?’
Murchison was starting to get worried. Never in his chequered criminal career, which spanned some two-thirds of his life, had he come across a detective like the one who now faced him. ‘I don’t know nothing about no car,’ he said desperately.
‘Funny, that,’ said Fox, glancing round the room as though appraising the décor, ‘because your dabs were all over it.’ That was something of an exaggeration; there had been only the one mark, and the fingerprint officer was not too optimistic about finding sixteen points of similarity that would prove, to the satisfaction of the court, that it was Murchison’s. But it was good enough for Fox. As a start, anyway.
Chapter Five
‘I’m not saying anything.’ Sandra Nelson, known to the police as Jeanie Thom, sat sideways on to the table in the interview room and drew deeply on her cigarette.
Detective Constable Rosie Webster, one of the Flying Squad’s few women officers, stood for a moment and surveyed the red-haired prostitute. ‘Really?’ she said with a smile. Rosie Webster was six feet tall and weighed fourteen stones, but all her curves were in the right places; as usual, she was expensively dressed and wore a perfume that must have nigh-on bankrupted the male admirer who had bought it for her. ‘Well, we’ll see.’ Rosie sat down, lit a cigarette and studied the woman opposite through a haze of smoke.
‘It’s no an offence to have it off with my feller in my own bed, is it?’ Sandra Nelson spoke sarcastically and with a deliberate coarseness. Both were wasted on Rosie Webster.
‘No offence at all, within certain limitations, of course.’
‘Meaning?’ Sandra snarled the word.
‘Unless he paid you for it, after having been solicited by you in a public place.’
‘You don’t think I’m on the game, do you?’ asked Sandra nastily.
Rosie smiled again and opened a file. ‘Twenty-seven previous convictions for soliciting for an immoral purpose. Three for outrage on public decency.’ She glanced up. ‘Want me to go on … Jeanie.’
‘Oh!’ Sandra lit another cigarette from the butt of her first. ‘So, I’m on the game. So what? Anyway those OPDs were a swing. There’s dozens of people doing it in Hyde Park … every night. Why’s it only girls like me who get done for outrage on public decency? What about all the rich layabouts having it off with their bimbos, eh? They don’t get nicked, do they?’ Her Scots accent had become more pronounced since Rosie’s revelation that the police knew all about her, and she puffed angrily at her cigarette so that the tip glowed fiercely. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘since when have the Sweeney done dawn raids just to nick a girl for tomming?’
‘On the twelfth of July,’ said Rosie slowly, ‘two men and a woman were concerned with stealing jewellery to the value of about one hundred thousand pounds from a hotel in the West End of London. Jim Murchison was one of them. We know that for sure. We found his fingerprints in the vehicle that was used.’ She paused to add emphasis to what she was to say next. ‘And the description of the woman involved fits you like a glove.’ In fact, Sandra Nelson was nothing like the woman the linkman had described, but Rosie Webster knew from experience that descriptions were often far from accurate and it was possible that if Sandra had been wearing the blonde wig that police had found in her house at Honor Oak Park her appearance would have been altered quite dramatically. There again, the description could have fitted a thousand other blondes.
‘Hold on,’ said Sandra. ‘That was nothing to do with me.’ She had gone white in the face and was gripping the sides of the table. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ She had done one stretch in Holloway Prison for persistent importuning, and she had no desire to return to that gaunt North London pile.
‘Don’t you?’ Rosie raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘No, I don’t, and that’s straight. And you can’t prove it.’
‘Well in that case you won’t mind if we put you up on an ID parade, will you?’
Sandra Nelson placed her hands flat on the table and for a moment or two glared at her chipped nail varnish. The criminal fraternity with whom she mixed had always told her that if you got picked out on an identification parade there was a good chance of finishing up in prison, guilty or not. Slowly she raised her head. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ll square with you. Yes, I’m on the game, but I had nothing to do with any robbery.’
‘So?’
‘I never even knew Jim then. It’s only the last week or so we’ve been shacked up together,’ said Sandra. Rosie looked doubtful. ‘Well, ask him if you don’t believe me.’
‘We did.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said the same thing.’
‘Well there you are, then.’ Sandra smiled and leaned back in her chair.
‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he? But let’s hear your version.’
‘I was working Shepherd Market, you know?’ Rosie nodded. ‘And Jim gave me a pull. Well it was pouring with rain, and I said I’d go the night for a ton.’
‘And that’s what he paid you? A hundred pounds?’
Sandra shrugged. ‘If he wants to bankru
pt himself for a screw, that’s his business. Any road, he told me that he was on the run, and asked if he could shack up with me. Only temporary, like. And he’d pay.’
‘He’d still got plenty of money, then? Even after what you’d charged him?’
Again Sandra shrugged. ‘He didn’t seem short.’
‘And how long ago was this?’
‘Like I said, about a week ago.’
Rosie Webster looked dubious. ‘And how do I know that you hadn’t fixed up that alibi beforehand, so that you could trot it out when the pair of you got nicked?’
‘Oh, Christ!’ Sandra ran a hand through her hair. ‘Don’t you bloody coppers ever believe anything?’
‘Not without proof.’ Rosie smiled cynically.
‘Look, you’ve got all my gear, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Can you let me have a look at my diary?’
A few minutes later, Rosie returned with a large plastic bag containing the property that had been taken from Sandra Nelson at the time of her arrest. She broke the seal and emptied the contents on to the table. Picking a dog-eared diary out of the handbag, she passed it across. ‘Is that it?’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’ Sandra thumbed quickly through the diary. ‘There,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Thursday the twelfth of July. I was in bed with an Arab all day … and all night.’
Rosie examined the scrawled entry. ‘Since when have girls on the game kept records? Or are you paying VAT now?’ she asked. ‘Anyway, that doesn’t mean a thing. You could have put that in there as insurance in case you were arrested.’
‘Oh, Jesus!’ said Sandra. ‘How else can I prove it, for Christ’s sake?’
‘All you’ve got written down there is the name of the hotel and a room number. There’s no time. And there’s no name.’
‘Oh, leave it out. You don’t honestly expect me to put names in my diary, do you? You trying to get me striped?’
Rosie dropped the diary into Sandra’s handbag. ‘Looks like we’re back to square one, then, doesn’t it?’
‘All right, I’ll level with you.’ Sandra was now looking very scared. It seemed to her that she was faced with the stark choice of either being convicted of a crime she hadn’t committed or naming her client. The first was a terrifying prospect; the second breached the unwritten code of the prostitute and could have very dire consequences. ‘I’m no good with these Arab names, but he was called Aziz-something. And if you speak to the hall porter at the hotel, Charlie, his name is, he’ll tell you. I had to give him a ton, or he wouldn’t have let me in.’
‘You gave the hall porter a hundred pounds?’ asked Rosie. Sandra nodded. ‘How much did you get from the Arab, then?’ Sandra paused briefly. ‘A grand,’ she said reluctantly.
‘A grand? That sounds like easy money.’
‘Easy money! I earned every penny of the thousand I got from that cruel bastard,’ exclaimed Sandra with feeling. ‘You wouldn’t believe the disgusting things I had to do for that.’
‘Try me,’ said Rosie and pushed her cigarette packet across the table. Not for the first time she felt some sympathy for a prostitute.
*
Rosie Webster did not believe in wasting time on enquiries. Not when there was a short cut, anyway. After racing back to the Yard and changing into what she called her Vice Squad gear, she and Detective Sergeant Crozier made for the hotel where Sandra Nelson claimed to have spent a distressing twenty-fours with an Arab.
‘This shouldn’t take long, skip,’ she said to Crozier as she got out of the car. ‘But you know what to do if I’m not out in ten minutes with a statement, don’t you?’
Crozier looked slightly alarmed. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘Volunteer me for the Juvenile Bureau,’ said Rosie. She smiled her usual devastating smile and walked towards the hotel entrance.
The doorman’s brief glance took in Rosie’s tall well-built figure as she swept past him. Her appearance convinced him that he knew what she was there for. Which was not altogether surprising. Her shiny black raincoat was open to reveal a knitted black dress that was well above the knee and low enough at the neckline to reveal her deep cleavage, and she wore black nylons and patent leather shoes, the spindly heels of which clacked across the marble flooring of the lobby.
The hall porter looked up and smiled knowingly. ‘Can I help you, Madam?’ he asked in a tone just short of sarcastic. He too thought that he had assessed Rosie.
‘Are you Charlie?’ asked Rosie.
‘I am indeed, madam.’ The hall porter paused. ‘How can I help you?’ he asked tentatively. It was a deliberately ambiguous question. He thought he knew what she did for a living, but he was being cautious. He knew from long experience that it was not always easy to distinguish between prostitutes and some of the very rich women who patronised his hotel.
Rosie leaned confidentially towards the hall porter. ‘I’ve come to see an American gentleman,’ she said as she made a pretence of searching in her handbag. She looked up. ‘He said that if I were to give you a little something, you’d be able to tell me the number of his room … discreetly.’ She smiled sweetly.
‘What would his name be, madam?’
‘He said it was Clint Farman.’ Rosie repeated the name that DS Crozier, using a fake American accent, had given to the hall porter on the telephone not thirty minutes previously when he had arranged for the use of a room … for a fee, of course. She pursed her lips. ‘I don’t think he’s registered under that name, of course, but then I got the impression that he’s a very tactful sort of gentleman.’
‘Of course, madam,’ said the hall porter and looked expectant as Rosie opened her handbag once again.
‘Oh dear,’ said Rosie. ‘I don’t seem to have any money, but I do have this.’ She laid her warrant card on the counter.
The hall porter looked as if he had been pole-axed. ‘Christ!’ he said, his cut-glass accent disappearing along with his confidence. ‘Is this “Candid Camera” or something?’ His feeble joke was more to hide his fear than any attempt to amuse Rosie.
‘The only camera you’re likely to be staring into is the one we keep at West End Central for photographing prisoners,’ said Rosie with no trace of a smile. ‘Now, on the twelfth of July last, a tom called Sandra Nelson gave you a hundred pounds to let her in to see an Arab called Aziz-something.’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said the hall porter automatically.
‘That’s a pity,’ said Rosie. ‘It looks as though we’re going to have to continue our conversation down at the station. But I’d better have a word with the manager first. He’ll have to arrange a relief for you, won’t he?’
‘What the hell’s this all about?’ The hall porter’s anguished glance took in a couple of guests who were waiting patiently to speak to him.
‘Perhaps you’d better deal with your customers first, Charlie.’ Rosie dropped her warrant card casually into her handbag and walked to the other end of the lobby.
‘What’s coming off here, then?’ asked the hall porter, rushing back to Rosie after having dealt somewhat cursorily with the two guests.
‘Same question,’ said Rosie, ‘and I’m running out of time.’
The hall porter’s shoulders drooped. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Yeah, I know Sandy Nelson. She’s often in here, but I’ve never took anything from her, God’s honest truth.’
‘Really?’ Rosie looked sceptical. ‘Well, for the moment I’m not interested in whether you did or not, Charlie, unless …’ She left the threat hanging in the air. After hearing Sandra Nelson’s account of precisely what her Arab punter had put her through, Rosie would have had great pleasure in swifting the hall porter straight into the charge room of the nearest police station, but she knew that it would be impossible to get him convicted of living on the Scots girl’s immoral earnings. There just wasn’t the evidence. ‘Tell me what time she came in and what time she left.’
Charlie gave up. ‘OK,’ he said. �
��I s’pose she came in about ten in the morning and went up to this Arab’s suite. Room four-oh-four, it was. She stayed all day and all night, as far as I know. Left next morning about ten.’ He sniffed. ‘Poor little cow looked as though he’d given her a right hard time. I tell you straight, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it if I’d known what he was up to.’
‘And how d’you remember that so clearly, might I ask?’ Rosie looked at the hall porter with a penetrating stare.
‘Are you going to do me for this?’
‘Possibly, but all I’m interested in right now is eliminating certain persons from a serious crime. I’ll think about your little scam later.’
For a moment or two the hall porter considered his position, then, ‘I set it up for this Arab,’ he said at last. ‘But I didn’t think it was … well, you-know-what. He asked me if I could find a nice young lady to keep him company for dinner —’
‘What, at ten o’clock in the morning?’
‘Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. I didn’t think about that.’
‘That’s understandable, Charlie. I wouldn’t imagine that thinking’s your strong point.’
‘Well, I thought he wanted an escort, like. He didn’t say anything about sex. He said he was lonely, and away from home, and —’
Rosie leaned closer to the hall porter. ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Charlie, it makes me angry,’ she said menacingly.
The hall porter moved back sharply. ‘No, honest, miss, I —’
‘If you’ve forgotten that it’s a police officer you’re talking to, you can see my warrant card again,’ said Rosie with heavy sarcasm.
‘But they all expect it,’ said Charlie. His voice had now assumed a wheedling tone, and despite his elaborate livery Rosie knew that she was dealing with just another small-time villain. ‘It’s very difficult not to oblige.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Rosie. ‘Just as you’re going to find it difficult not to oblige me now.’ She opened her handbag again and took out some statement forms. ‘Now we’ll just go somewhere quiet and you can give me a written statement to that effect.’
