by Graham Ison
‘Er, yes, although I didn’t know his name at the time because we’d never met before. Anyway, as I was saying, we got talking and he seemed to know an awful lot about antiques and the antiques market, more than just a casual buyer. He eventually told me that he was a dealer, although he was mainly concerned with buying specific items on demand for wealthy Americans or Arabs and then arranging for their shipment back to their own country. There’s apparently an awful lot of paperwork involved and Robert’s become something of an expert, so he claimed. The sort of man you simply must go to if you want something badly enough to pay the earth for it and then have it shipped home for you.’
‘Did he tell you all this straight away, Mrs Harrison?’ I was already a little sceptical about the story she was relating.
‘Not really, no. It sort of came out in dribs and drabs over the two hours we were together. After the sale had finished, you see, he invited me for a drink, and then I caught the train home.’
‘But you met him again, presumably?’
‘Yes.’ This time Nina Harrison looked a little embarrassed, although I wasn’t sure if it was genuine. ‘Robert mentioned that he’d be attending a sale at another West End auction house the following Tuesday and asked if I was likely to be there. I said maybe, but I knew I’d go. There was something compellingly attractive about him. There was no pressure, he wasn’t overbearing and he appeared genuinely interested in everything I had to say.’ She stopped and put her head in her hands. ‘Oh, God! I’m beginning to sound like the woman in that film Brief Encounter.’
‘Did he mention a property he owned in the Caribbean, Mrs Harrison?’ asked Kate.
‘Yes, he did.’
‘And did he show you photographs of this West Indies hideaway?’ Kate was having a problem containing her sarcasm, but she was rapidly tiring of stupid women who fell for the most hackneyed of chat-up lines.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact. On his mobile phone.’
‘And did he ever appear in these photographs?’
‘No, he didn’t, now you come to mention it.’ Nina raised her eyebrows. ‘That doesn’t seem to surprise you, Inspector.’
‘Probably because, so far, I’ve heard it three or four times.’
‘I suppose you think I’ve been very silly.’
‘It’s not for me to judge, Mrs Harrison.’ Kate’s response was one of commendable reserve. ‘But perhaps you’d continue.’
‘Well, to cut a long story short, we met three or four times, always at auctions. And then he invited me to have lunch. Just lunch.’
‘By which I take you to mean there was no auction?’ I suggested.
‘No, no auction. We had a wonderful lunch at a hotel in the West End. Then, out of the blue, he said he’d booked a room. He didn’t ask me if I was interested, but he placed his wine glass on the table and then gazed at me, almost compelling me to agree.’
‘And you did,’ said Kate.
‘Yes, I’m afraid I just said, “All right.” That was all. Neither of us said another word. I remember dabbing my mouth with a napkin and standing up. Then we went up to a room on the third floor and made love for the rest of the afternoon.’
I glanced at Paul Harrison.
‘I know all about it, Chief Inspector. Nina confessed to everything and I forgave her.’ Harrison sounded like a head of state pompously bestowing a presidential pardon. As if to confirm his acquiescence, he leaned across and took hold of his wife’s hand, but I suspected it might have been a gesture of control rather than one of sympathy.
‘Can we now turn to the matter of the money, Mrs Harrison?’ I said, ignoring her husband’s comment and his outward display of absolution.
‘At one of the sales we were at, Robert asked me what sort of antiques interested me. I told him that I loved art deco jewellery and that I’d got one or two pieces but would like a few more.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘Nothing. At least not then. It was later, on another of the occasions when we were in bed at the hotel, that he told me about an art deco platinum, diamond and sapphire bracelet that he’d spotted in a catalogue. He said it was valued at about eight thousand pounds, but he thought it was overpriced. He reckoned he could get it for me for about four thousand by directly approaching the seller, whom he claimed to know. He asked if I was interested and I said I was. It was only later that I remembered the old adage that if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was.’
‘What happened next?’ Kate knew what the answer would be, but was as interested as I was to find out exactly how Sharp had pulled it off.
‘Well, a woman is probably at her most vulnerable when she’s making love. She doesn’t really think of other things, which is probably why I fell for it.’ Nina Harrison made a pretence of looking coy. ‘Frankly, I’d no idea of the real value of that style of bracelet, but when I checked later, I found that eight thousand was marginally on the low side. Robert would never have got it for as little as four thousand. Anyway, the upshot was that I gave him a cheque for four thousand and told him that I wasn’t prepared to pay a penny more.’
‘And that was the last you saw of Robert Sharp or your money, I presume, Mrs Harrison,’ I said.
‘Sadly, yes. You must be thinking I’ve been a bloody fool, Mr Brock. I suppose being a policeman this sort of thing isn’t exactly novel in your experience.’
‘It happens,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately, much too often.’ I glanced at Paul Harrison, whose face bore the trace of a smirk. ‘Did you ever meet Sharp, Mr Harrison?’
‘No, Chief Inspector. I might’ve been tempted to do him an injury if I had.’
I got the impression that it was the loss of the money rather than having been made a cuckold that annoyed him. Nevertheless, it set me wondering. Was it a double bluff and he did have something to do with the con man’s death, or was it the naive comment of an innocent man?
‘As a matter of interest,’ said Kate, forestalling the question I was about to ask, ‘have you ever been to a naturist club?’
Harrison laughed. ‘No, although I’ve no objection to such places. Trouble is, I wouldn’t go without Nina, and she’s not too keen, are you, old girl?’
‘You’ve never asked me,’ said Nina, somewhat churlishly, ‘so you wouldn’t know.’
‘Just one other thing, Mrs Harrison. D’you remember the name of the hotel Sharp took you to?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’m awfully bad at remembering the names of shops, pubs and hotels.’
‘I think that’s all we need to bother you about, Mrs Harrison.’ I stood up. ‘But if I need to see you again, are you likely to be at home?’
But it was Paul Harrison who replied. ‘We’re both here most of the time, Chief Inspector. I work from home.’
‘Lucky you,’ said Kate. ‘What d’you do?’
‘I own several online businesses,’ said Harrison. ‘It’s the coming thing these days. Shops are old hat. And we don’t have any children to get in the way when we feel like taking a holiday. Occasionally, I have to fly to New York because I have business interests there.’
‘And you, Mrs Harrison?’ I asked.
‘Oh, my wife doesn’t do anything,’ said Harrison, ‘except occasionally go to bed with strange men. Don’t you, Nina?’
‘That’s not funny, Paul.’ Nina Harrison was furious and I wondered if her husband’s claim that he’d forgiven her was really true. ‘You may have been too occupied with other things to notice that my antiques business has made quite a profit this year.’
I learned later that rather than ‘dabble in antiques’, as Nina Harrison had claimed, she and another woman ran a very successful antiques business in central London. Such dealers often think they’ve spotted a bargain – as she had done with the platinum bracelet – only to find that for once they’ve been outsmarted.
‘One last question,’ I said, as Kate and I stood up to leave. ‘Where were you both on Saturday the twentieth of July? It’s a routine question th
at we’re asking everyone we interview. It was the day that Robert Sharp was murdered.’
‘We were both here all day,’ said Paul Harrison.
‘Yes, we were,’ agreed Nina Harrison, a little too hurriedly.
‘Any thoughts, Kate?’ I asked, as we drove back to central London.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d topped Sharp, Harry. He’s a control freak and I doubt that Nina’s allowed to do anything without his say-so. And I very much doubt that he has forgiven her. But I wondered how many women he’s got on the side. That man has womanizer written all over him and seems to have enough money to indulge himself.’
‘I’m not much impressed with either of them, Kate. Did you notice that her initial show of confidence when we arrived wasn’t repeated when her husband was there? And neither of them used endearments to each other. I got the impression that they remain together because they’re too idle to split up. Either that or it would be too expensive to divorce. I don’t think that overall it’s a happy marriage. They’re typical self-satisfied dinkys.’
‘What the hell’s a dinky?’ Kate appeared genuinely puzzled.
‘It’s an acronym: “double income, no kids … yet”.’ I was delighted at being able to come up with a colloquialism that Kate didn’t know. More often, it was other way around when the rest of us were struggling to understand the Australian argot into which she occasionally lapsed in moments of great annoyance.
‘But do you think Harrison could’ve topped Sharp, Harry?’
‘It’s possible, but there again we have to find out about the reaction of the two boyfriends of Janice Greene and Gina Page.’
‘And we probably haven’t heard the last of Sharp’s conquests,’ said Kate. ‘How these silly bitches fall for it, I’m damned if I know.’
‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘I think Nina Harrison is lying about arranging trysts at a hotel with Sharp. I’d put money on her being another naturist club conquest. Did you notice how quick she was to complain she’d never been asked to go au naturel when her husband said it sounded like fun?’
‘You could be right, Harry. I don’t think there was a hotel at all, simply because Sharp couldn’t have afforded it. I reckon it was nonsense about dining at some swish hotel and going upstairs to have it off. Sounds like something out of a chick lit novel.’
After grabbing a quick bite to eat, Kate and I were back in the office by two o’clock. While we’d been interviewing the Harrisons at Bromley, seven more calls had come in on the hotline from women claiming to have met Sharp. Five were in London, one was in Edinburgh and the other in Birmingham.
‘Would you organize a team to get in touch with these women, Kate? Probably a DS and a DC. The information will probably turn out to be useless, like I met him on a bus, but I never saw him again. You know the sort of thing, but if they come up with something that might be useful, I’ll interview them later.’
‘I think that DS Liz Carpenter and DC Nicola Chance will be right for that job. D’you want them to do the Edinburgh and Birmingham calls?’
‘Not immediately. We’ll ask the local police to deal with that at the outset.’ I glanced back at Wilberforce. ‘Perhaps you’d organize that, Colin.’
‘Very good, sir. Incidentally, one of the calls was from a Mrs Michelle Taylor. She declined to give her address, but she did give her mobile phone number.’ Wilberforce wrote the number on a slip of paper and handed it to me.
‘Did she say why she’d phoned? Any clue as to what she wanted to tell us?’
‘All she’d say was that she’d met Sharp and it ended in a row. She said that she’d only talk to the officer in charge of the investigation.’
‘She’s either got an inflated sense of her own importance,’ said Dave, ‘or she’s got something worthwhile to tell us.’
‘Come into my office, Dave, and I’ll ring her.’
It was a short conversation. Michelle Taylor still refused to give me her address but was willing to meet us in Starbucks in Chelsea. She ended the conversation by giving me a detailed description of herself.
ELEVEN
The particular Starbucks nominated by Michelle Taylor was on a corner and Dave parked the car where we could see it from inside the shop. In the near anarchy that now exists in London, thieves take a delight in stealing police cars and ours, being unmarked, was even more vulnerable. We needed to keep an eye open for traffic wardens, too. The only real problem in becoming a victim of either was the amount of paperwork involved. But particularly the former. The Commissioner takes a dim view of officers who lose valuable police property like motor cars, although these days does little to prevent it happening.
She was seated alone at a table at the far end. An attractive woman who appeared to be in her late twenties, she had titian hair that brushed her shoulders, and was clad in a white sweater. She’d also mentioned that she was wearing white jeans and white loafers, but they were not immediately visible. It was a very good description she’d given us. But there was something about her that gave an impression of vulnerability.
Dave bought two lattes and we moved towards the woman’s table.
‘Mrs Taylor?’ I asked quietly.
‘Yes. Are you Mr Brock?’
‘I am, and this is DS Dave Poole. Would you like another cup of coffee?’
‘Please. A cappuccino, and could I ask you to get me a Danish pastry? I’ll pay for it, of course.’ She smiled at Dave.
‘From your phone call, I gather that you have something to tell me,’ I said, once we were settled.
‘I’m sorry about the cloak-and-dagger business, Mr Brock, but I’m very worried about my husband.’ There was a brief pause while Michelle Taylor summoned the courage to add, ‘Actually, I’m frightened of him.’
‘Please go on.’
‘Frank and I are members of the Pretext Club and we decided to take a week’s break there in June.’ Michelle Taylor didn’t look up when she made that admission but concentrated on stirring her coffee. I noticed that she had added two small sachets of brown sugar and I found that unusual, given her age and slender build.
‘I presume that Frank is your husband.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘D’you remember the exact dates you were at the Pretext Club, Mrs Taylor?’ Dave asked.
‘It was Monday the third of June to Saturday the eighth.’
‘Yes, please go on,’ I said. Dave and I knew that Sharp and Madison Bailey had been there during that week.
‘The Pretext Club is a very friendly sort of place. There are no inhibitions and people just wander around, swimming or playing volleyball or chatting with each other, having coffee or just doing nothing. It’s very relaxing. The first afternoon, Bob Sharp started a conversation with me by the swimming pool but there was nothing strange about that. As I said, it’s all very friendly and I thought nothing of it. It was just a casual conversation with no sexual overtones, but then there rarely are, even though there are some ill-informed people who think that these clubs are actually a place for swingers to commit adultery. The next morning, I went for a swim and Bob was by the pool again, and we got talking. The weather was wonderful and I said as much but he said it was much better in the Caribbean where he had a villa.’
‘Did he show you any photographs of this villa, Mrs Taylor?’
‘No. He said they were all on his smartphone and he’d had to hand it in when he arrived. As it’s a club rule, we all hand in our phones the minute we get there. Jolly good thing, too. You can’t relax if you’re playing with a mobile phone all the time.’
‘Forgive me for asking, Mrs Taylor,’ I said, ‘but where does your husband come into this?’
‘I was just getting to that, Mr Brock. The second morning, I went for a swim as usual. When I got out of the pool, Bob was there and he invited me for a cup of coffee. It was at that point that my husband Frank arrived on the scene. I think he must’ve been spying on me.’
‘And he took objection to you talking to S
harp, I suppose.’
‘Very much so. I’ve never known him to be that jealous before. All right, he’s always been a bit jealous of other men taking an interest in me, however innocent, but this time he really went mad. He told me to go back to our room and pack because we were leaving. But before I went, Frank turned on Bob and really went for him. He accused him of trying to get me into his bed and he was shouting that he knew what Bob was up to and he’d met men like him before. It developed into a full-scale row. Frank was red in the face by this time and I was afraid of what he might do, but then a couple of the other members arrived and separated them.’ Michelle paused. ‘Actually, they might have been staff. I’m not sure. But it was just as well, because I thought Frank was going to hit Bob.’
‘And did you pack, as your husband had asked, or did you stay?’
‘We stayed. We had a row in the room and I told him that if he wanted to go, then he should go, but I was staying. I think that set him off again because he thought I was going to start something with Bob. But then he hit me, Mr Brock. He slapped my face really hard. He’s never struck me before and we’ve been married for three years.’ Michelle Taylor suddenly emitted a convulsive sob and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I have to admit, however, that our marriage hasn’t always been plain sailing.’
‘What does your husband do for a living, Mrs Taylor?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break down,’ said Michelle, dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue. ‘He’s a rep for a company that sells stationery.’
‘And is he successful at it?’
‘He always has been, but he’s worried now that he might lose his job. It’s not that he’s no good at it – in fact, he was the company’s top salesman last year – but the online businesses are cornering the market and the trouble is that he’s not really qualified to do anything else. He’s well up on IT, but then so are a lot of other people. I’m not sure that he’d get a job with an online company, even though he knows the paper business thoroughly.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Taylor, but I don’t see that this has any connection with the death of Robert Sharp.’
