by Graham Ison
‘Oh, that’s nice.’ Fox toyed briefly with his cigarette case. ‘And presumably his wife is willing to give him a divorce in order to facilitate this arrangement?’
If the girl was surprised to learn that Harley was married she did not show it. ‘So he says,’ she replied coolly.
‘And it was Thomas Harley who paid for your villa in Nice … and who you were expecting to join you?’ Fox wanted to make absolutely sure that his guesswork had been on the right lines.
‘Yes,’ she said in a tired voice, as though the whole thing had become too much trouble.
‘How long have you and Harley been acquainted?’
‘About two years, I suppose.’
‘How did that come about?’
‘I’m sorry …?’
‘How did you meet?’
‘Oh, I see. At the golf club we both belonged to. It was a Saturday, I think. He hadn’t got a partner and neither had I. So we went round together. Then we had a few drinks in the bar. After that it became quite a regular thing.’
‘But he’s not been seen at that golf club since the day of the jewel theft. And neither have you.’
‘No.’
‘Go on, Mrs Meadows.’ If Fox believed that she was yet another girl who had fallen for the blandishments of a smooth-talking villain he might have felt sorry for her. But he was convinced that Jane Meadows was a very shrewd criminal.
‘He invited me out for dinner and we got to be very good friends. It sort of went on from there.’ She looked down at the table, a sad expression on her face. ‘We became lovers.’
‘How very romantic,’ said Fox. ‘Did he ever tell you what he did for a living?’
‘Not immediately, no. He said afterwards that he was something to do with insurance. He never said exactly what, but I think he was a broker. Something like that.’ She toyed briefly with a dress ring on the little finger of her left hand. ‘But later on, he said he had moved into the hotel business. Said he was fed up with insurance and wanted a complete change.’
‘Really?’ said Fox. ‘Well, there’s a thing.’ He changed direction. ‘Let’s leave Mr Harley for a moment and talk about another of your romantic exploits, shall we?’
For the first time, Jane Meadows appeared to be disconcerted and looked sharply at Fox. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let’s talk about Jeremy Benson.’
‘I’m sorry, am I supposed to know someone of that name?’
‘Mrs Meadows,’ said Fox quietly, ‘we know all about your relationship with Mr Benson. And most of the information came direct from Mr Benson himself.’
‘Well, the truth is that our relationship — Tom’s and mine — had cooled off and I’d gone to live with Jeremy at Marble Arch. But it didn’t work out.’
‘So you upped and left him.’
Jane Meadows looked reproachfully at Fox. ‘That’s one way of putting it, yes.’
‘Taking twenty thousand pounds of his money when you went.’
‘He could afford it.’ She tossed the statement defiantly into the conversation. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘I didn’t steal it. We had a joint account, and he said I could draw what I wanted.’
‘And when you left you also took some of his jewellery with you.’
‘Is that what he told you?’ The girl looked genuinely surprised.
‘I suppose your version is different.’
‘Jeremy gave me that jewellery. He told me that it had belonged to his wife. Actually,’ she went on, ‘things had started out very well. He was generous to a fault and he took me out to restaurants and the theatre. But then he started to get moody and demanding. In fact, he turned out to be an absolute pig. Well, there’s a limit to what you can put up with, so we had one tremendous row and I told him I was leaving. That’s when he threatened that he would make trouble for me. That’s why he told you that I had stolen the damned stuff, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ said Fox amiably, ‘there might just be something in that.’ And, he thought, a jury would probably take the same view. Despite the appeal for information in the Police Gazette, nothing had come in about Jane Meadows, although Fox was convinced that she made a living out of milking rich, lonely widowers. Unfortunately, rich, lonely widowers were rarely prepared to admit that they had been taken for a ride; it had certainly demanded a deal of courage on Jeremy Benson’s part to tell Fox about his experience with Jane Meadows. ‘You left Benson in about the fourth week in July, I believe?’
‘Possibly. I can’t remember.’
‘How very convenient,’ said Fox. He took out a cigarette and tapped it thoughtfully on the outside of the case. It was a deliberate act to separate what he had been saying from what he was about to say. ‘Why did you pretend to be Mrs Susan Harley and arrange the burial of Thomas Harley well knowing him to be alive?’
The voice was harsh and the question came so suddenly and out of context that it clearly stunned Jane Meadows. For a second or two she stared at Fox. Then she took a deep breath. ‘I — er …’ she began, but faltered almost immediately as her mouth went dry.
Rosie Webster poured a glass of water and placed it on the table in front of the girl.
‘What makes you think that I did?’ asked Jane, having recovered her composure sufficiently to collect her thoughts and say something.
‘The telephone number that was given to the vicar of Cray Magna was Jeremy Benson’s, in whose flat you were living at the time.’ Fox was beginning to tire of this barren exchange. ‘Benson denies all knowledge of the matter, and I believe him.’
‘It was all his idea.’
‘Whose idea, Mrs Meadows? Harley’s?’
‘Yes. He was certain that because of the trouble with the money at the last hotel he would be suspected of stealing the jewellery this time. He said that the only way out was to fake his own death so that he could lose his identity completely.’
‘Why should he do that?’ asked Fox.
‘I told you, because of the business at —’
‘Mrs Meadows,’ asked Fox, a certain edge to his voice, ‘are you telling me that Harley was prepared to commit several crimes of forgery and falsification to prevent himself being arrested for two other crimes that he claimed he hadn’t committed?’
‘Well, I —’
‘And you allowed yourself to be dragged into this, for no reason at all? What was in it for you?’
‘I told you, we were going to get married.’ She paused. ‘And I loved him. But I had nothing to do with any funeral.’
‘But you knew about it?’
‘Only what Tom told me.’
‘I see.’ Fox switched his line of questioning again. ‘And did he tell you what this coffin contained?’
‘He said that there were bags of sand in it to give it the right weight.’
‘How fascinating,’ said Fox. ‘And you believed that?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well don’t expect me to believe it, Mrs Meadows. Why should he go to all that trouble? Why didn’t he just disappear and change his name? Which he did anyway …’
‘I don’t know.’ The girl shrugged her shoulders.
‘I’ll tell you, Mrs Meadows. The reason is that it was a convenient place to hide the proceeds of the jewel theft —’
‘Eh?’ That revelation appeared to surprise her.
‘Come, come, Mrs Meadows. Don’t pretend you didn’t know that,’ said Fox. ‘Jewellery which you and he were going to share once you had established a new identity for yourselves. That’s what he told you, but in fact he had no intention of sharing it with anyone. He’s left you high and dry, Mrs Meadows.’ Fox paused to allow that to sink in. ‘We arrested one of your co-conspirators, a man called James Murchison, who obligingly told us all about it.’ Fox wished Murchison had told him all about it, but he was fairly convinced that he would be persuaded to do so if that became necessary. ‘There is, however, something far more serious than either of those things. The coffin did not contain sand. Apart from the jewel
lery, it contained the body of another of your associates, one Donald Dixon. And, Mrs Meadows, he had been murdered.’
For a second or two, Jane Meadows stared at Fox, then her eyes rolled and she slipped off the chair in a dead faint.
‘Interview terminated on account of prisoner fainting.’ Rosie Webster directed the statement at the microphone in matter-of-fact tones and with a sigh got up and turned off the tape recorder. ‘D’you reckon that amounts to a statement of admission, guv?’ she asked as she bent to attend to the prostrate girl.
Fox screwed out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Unfortunately, Rosie,’ he said, ‘I don’t think it even amounts to guilty knowledge. I think that Dixon’s murder has come as a very nasty shock to her. But it’s a damned nuisance. I’d hoped to wrap this up tonight.’ He glanced down at Jane Meadows, now showing signs of recovering consciousness. ‘Better get the divisional surgeon to have a look at her. Don’t want any nasty allegations.’
Chapter Fourteen
There is a method, a certain style, followed by the police in the apprehension of criminals who are known to them. It differs from the way in which, for example, a hitherto distinguished City banker will be arrested for fraud. He will usually surrender himself at a police station, by arrangement, in the company of his legal adviser. It is all very civilised.
Nathaniel Barber was not, however, in the distinguished City banker bracket. Mr Barber, inevitably known to several generations of detectives as Ali, was a low-life, all-time-losing, petty villain. He knew more about the admission procedure at Her Majesty’s prisons than most of the officers who dealt with it. But that was because he had started his prison career before most serving screws had been born.
But the arrest of Ali Barber was no less civilised for all that.
Detective Sergeant Fletcher and Detective Constable Bellenger had drawn the short straws in Fox’s lottery and therefore found themselves on a doorstep in Catford at six o’clock in the morning. They were not accompanied by a team of the specially trained firearms officers who occasionally grace television screens, doing set-piece poses, and aiming at nothing in particular.
Nor was there what viewers call back-up. No white Transit vans blocked off the street. No tapes crossed the ends of roads. No traffic police put in expensive diversions resulting in announcements on the wireless.
It was just Fletcher and Bellenger.
Fletcher banged on the front door.
And waited.
He banged again.
And waited again.
The woman who came to the door knew who they were. Even though she had never seen them before. She took in Fletcher’s kindly face and Bellenger’s stocky figure. ‘You want Ali, I s’pose,’ she said in resigned tones.
‘Yes, love,’ said Fletcher.
‘He’s in bed. Come in and I’ll give him a shout.’ She stopped, one foot on the bottom stair. ‘D’you want a cuppa?’ she asked.
‘Wouldn’t say no, love,’ said Fletcher.
‘Hang on, then. But I’ll give Ali a shout first.’
Some ten minutes or so later, the forlorn figure of Nathaniel Barber appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. ‘Hallo, Mr Fletcher.’ He wore a dull tartan dressing gown and looked as though he hadn’t shaved for a week. But then he always looked as though he hadn’t shaved for a week.
‘Hallo, Ali. How y’keeping?’
‘Oh, not bad. Back’s playing up a bit.’
‘It’s the weather, Ali.’ Fletcher took a sip of Mrs Barber’s tea. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to come down the nick, old pal.’
Barber shrugged. ‘What is it this time, Mr Fletcher?’
‘Seems you helped Ozzie Bryce and Sid Meek out with a funeral, Ali.’
‘Yeah, s’right. What about it?’
‘Turns out the bloke you took down to Devon had been topped.’
‘Oh, my oath,’ said Barber. ‘I’d better get me duds on, then.’ He stopped at the door. ‘Time for a couple of kippers, have I, Mr Fletcher?’
*
‘Are you fully recovered now?’ asked Fox. He had decided to suspend the interview with Jane Meadows after she had fainted the previous evening. It had been close to ten o’clock anyway, and although he preferred to interrogate prisoners fully as soon as possible after their arrest he had had little alternative but to break off. But in the event it probably did not matter. He was starting to think that Jane Meadows knew less than he had originally thought.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Despite her reply, the girl looked pale and drawn. Her arrest — and the discomfort of a police cell — had prevented her from getting much sleep.
‘Last night, I was talking to you about the body of a man that we found in a coffin at Cray Magna. The unusual aspect of which, you may recall, was that he had been murdered. I put it to you again, Mrs Meadows, that you arranged that funeral and were present at the interment. What d’you have to say to that?’ Before Jane Meadows could reply, Fox added, ‘I must remind you that you are still under caution.’
‘I didn’t know anything about there being a body in that coffin,’ said the girl and paused. Then, ‘Oh, God, I’ve been a fool.’
‘D’you want to tell me about it?’
‘Where shall I start?’ The girl looked imploringly at Fox.
For a moment or two, Fox studied the girl’s face. It was evident that she was no longer acting. ‘At the beginning, I suppose. Wherever that is.’
‘I was divorced about four years ago. There were no children and my ex-husband disappeared straight after the decree absolute, so there was no chance of getting any money from him. Not that I would have wanted it anyway. Then I met Tom, as I said, at the golf club.’
‘And he took you out to dinner —’ Fox interrupted himself. ‘How many times did that happen, incidentally?’
Jane shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Four or five, maybe.’
‘And where did you go to make love?’
The girl’s colour rose sharply. ‘I don’t see how that —’
‘Just answer the question, Mrs Meadows.’
‘At a hotel usually.’ She stared down at the table.
‘The one where the theft occurred?’
‘Once he’d started working there, yes. It was quite easy to arrange. He was the deputy manager.’
‘That’s what he told you, was it?’ Fox sighed. ‘He never took you to his house?’
‘No. I didn’t know where he lived.’
‘You knew him for four years, but you didn’t know where he lived?’ Fox didn’t believe that. He realised, too late, that it would have been better to have had the girl followed from the airport instead of arresting her the moment she landed on British soil. In that way she might have led them to Harley. But there again, he’d not had much option. Someone as strongly suspected as Jane Meadows could not be allowed to roam free. ‘Right,’ said Fox, leaving that enigma for a moment, ‘let’s get back to Jeremy Benson. Tell me about that.’
‘I answered an ad in the paper. It said that a recently widowed man was seeking a companion to go on holiday with him. All expenses paid. I wrote and sent a photograph. That’s how we met.’
‘But it didn’t work out?’
‘No. He told me originally that he was in his early fifties, but he was nearer sixty-five. And it was obvious after a while that there was only one thing he wanted.’ She added the last comment bitterly.
‘Which you gave him, of course.’
Jane Meadows looked scathingly at Fox, a blush rising on her face. ‘Everything has to be paid for,’ she said profoundly. ‘Particularly expensive holidays in the South of France.’
‘You told Benson that you were a partner in a business. A business vaguely connected with the hotel trade?’ The girl nodded. ‘Why? Benson was prepared to keep you in luxury, wasn’t he?’
‘Well, I —’
‘All very plausible, Mrs Meadows, but it won’t wash. You were in league with Harley, and your so-called romance with Benson was at Harley’s
instigation. Furthermore, you were a willing accomplice. You had known Harley for some time — you’ve admitted that — but it was you who suggested he got a job at the hotel because of the rich pickings. Benson’s advert in the paper was a bonus and you both shared the proceeds of what you stole.’ Fox paused to light a cigarette. It was largely speculation, but Fox was an experienced detective and he knew that she would probably confess to a conspiracy to steal as soon as he put his next proposition to her. ‘You, Murchison and Harley conspired to murder Donald Dixon so that you could share the proceeds of the theft from the hotel. Then the three of you disposed of the body in a way that you thought was foolproof.’
‘No, it’s not true.’ Jane Meadows’ voice almost reached hysteria, and a red flush started to creep up her neck. ‘I don’t know anything about a murder, honestly. You’ve got to believe me.’ Her eyes opened wide and stared straight at Fox.
‘Then you’d better tell me how much you do know,’ said Fox quietly.
‘All right. Tom did organise the stealing of the jewellery. He told me that himself. There were some others in it, too —’
‘Names?’
She gave a brief shake of the head. ‘I only know the one. Murchison. But there were others. Another man, and a woman. A blonde, I think. That’s what Jim said.’
Fox produced the post-mortem photograph of Dixon. ‘Was he one of them?’ he asked.
The girl looked at the dead face and turned away quickly, her face going pale. ‘I, er —’
‘I see you know him.’
She nodded miserably. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s Don Dixon.’
‘I think you’d better stop pussy-footing about, Mrs Meadows. We are talking about serious charges here.’
‘Tom said that after the job he and I would go to the South of France for a holiday. He said we might even stay there to live if his plan came off.’
‘What plan was this?’
‘He said that as he’d done the dangerous bit it was only right that he should take all the proceeds and leave everyone else out.’
‘And it was at that point that you and Harley decided to get rid of Dixon.’
‘No!’ There was still anguish in the girl’s voice. ‘I keep telling you, I knew nothing about Don’s death. Tom told me his plan about faking his own death and asked me to help. Well, it didn’t seem very risky at all —’ The girl broke off and felt in the pockets of her skirt.
