by Graham Ison
It was on Monday morning, only a matter of three days later, that I got a visit from Linda Mitchell, our crime-scene manager.
‘I have some good news, Harry. I think.’
‘I could do with some, Linda. What have you got?’
‘The senior fingerprint officer in charge of the scenes-of-crime index rang me about half an hour ago. The prints found on the steering wheel of Charles Lavender’s cabin cruiser are a match for prints found on a marble-topped table at a house in Chelsea a year ago.’
‘I wonder what that was all about. A burglary perhaps?’
‘I’ve no idea, Harry. The prints belong to someone who hasn’t got a conviction and, like you, the SFO thought it might have been a burglary and offered to find the entry on their database when he had a moment, but I told him that all you’d want was the address.’ Linda handed me a slip of paper with the details.
It was a three-storey house in one of the streets behind Harrods. A young Filipino maid answered the door.
‘Is Mrs Crosby at home?’ I asked. The maid was rightly reluctant to admit us and so I showed her my warrant card, which she examined carefully. ‘We’re police officers, miss, but there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Ah! OK.’ The young woman smiled and invited us into the hall. ‘I tell Mrs Crosby,’ she said.
A few moments later a middle-aged woman descended the staircase. She wore a grey skirt and jumper and sensible flat shoes and her grey hair, styled so that it fell just below her ears, had a fringe. The entire ensemble presented a schoolmarmish image.
‘Jasmine said you’re from the police.’ She peered at each of us in turn. I suspected that she was short-sighted but was either too vain to wear spectacles or had forgotten where she’d left them.
‘Yes, ma’am. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock of the Murder Investigation Team at New Scotland Yard and this is Detective Sergeant Poole. It’s Mrs Crosby, is it?’
‘Yes, I’m Anne Crosby. Do come in.’ She led us into a comfortable sitting room and invited us to take a seat.
‘Would you care for coffee? I usually have mine about now.’
‘That’s very kind of you. Thank you.’
Mrs Crosby rang a small bell and the Filipino maid appeared promptly. Mrs Crosby issued a string of instructions in what I presume was the maid’s native language.
Seeing my surprise, Mrs Crosby said, ‘My late husband was in the Diplomatic Service and our last posting was in Manila. I’ve always had a flair for languages and enjoy learning them.’
‘You certainly seem to have mastered that one,’ said Dave. ‘I presume it was Filipino.’
‘Thank you.’ Anne Crosby raised her eyebrows momentarily, presumably because Dave recognized the language, but then inclined her head, looked at me and smiled. ‘I’m intrigued by your being from a murder squad or whatever it was you called it? I presume, therefore, you’re here in connection with a murder.’
‘Not directly, Mrs Crosby,’ I said, ‘but we are investigating two murders.’ That wasn’t strictly accurate; the murder of Madison Bailey was Devon and Cornwall’s case, although I suspected that we might finish up solving it for them. ‘A number of fingerprints were found on a stolen cabin cruiser that was abandoned in Cornwall. When checks were made in the records, it was found that they tallied with some found on a marble-topped table in this house about a year ago.’
‘My word, that’s very impressive.’
‘Can you recall how those fingerprints got there? If you know, that is.’
‘I remember it only too clearly, Mr Brock.’ The coffee appeared and Mrs Crosby spent a few moments pouring it from a rather splendid silver coffee pot. She pointed to a matching creamer and sugar bowl and invited us to help ourselves. ‘I saw this advertisement in the newspaper that had been placed there by an antiques dealer. He offered to value people’s antiques for insurance purposes and, to use his own words, might be tempted to make an offer if he liked a particular item.’
‘D’you recall this man’s name, Mrs Crosby?’ asked Dave, who had now started to take notes. He forbore from suggesting that to invite such a person into one’s home was asking for trouble. In this case, it might turn out to have been helpful. To us, that is.
‘Yes. It was Forbes. Norman Forbes.’
‘What did he look like? Are you able to describe him?’
‘He was of medium height,’ began Anne Crosby. ‘A full head of hair and a very suave manner. Oh, and he had what I call fleshy good looks. Does that make sense? I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful than that, but it was a year ago.’
‘It’s perfectly all right, Mrs Crosby, it was asking a bit much,’ said Dave, being his own suave self. ‘I wonder if we might see the table.’
‘Yes, of course. It’s in the drawing room.’ Anne Crosby rose from her chair and made for the door. Dave scooted ahead and opened it for her. Again, she smiled at him and murmured her thanks.
Standing in the centre of the room into which we were shown was a rather squat table with three feet, each of which was shaped like a lion’s paw.
‘This is it. It’s what they call a French Empire guéridon – a pedestal table – and we picked it up in Paris, years ago, when my husband was second secretary at our embassy there.’ Anne Crosby placed her hand on the table, splaying her fingers so that only the tips touched the marble top. ‘That’s how his fingerprints came to be on it.’
‘Why were the police involved?’ I asked,
‘This Forbes person examined this table very carefully, even getting down on his knees at one point. Eventually, he shook his head and estimated that it was worth about a thousand pounds. Well, I knew that was nonsense. Several of our friends said that it was worth at least twice that if not more. However, to get to the point, Mr Brock, after he’d left the house, I noticed that one of my ornaments was missing from the mantelshelf.’ Anne Crosby pointed. ‘Right there in the centre, it was. A Chinese jade snuff bottle probably worth about four thousand pounds. But it was only two inches high and Forbes must have slipped it into his pocket when I wasn’t looking. Thinking about it, he obviously recognized it and knew its worth.’
‘And so you called the police.’
‘Of course,’ she said, rather tartly reawakening the schoolmarm impression. ‘They came along and took a few details. I told them that the man had put his hand on the table and a fingerprint chap came along and put powder all over the place. It took Jasmine ages to get it off. But I never saw my snuff bottle again.’
Dave, like me, had come to the conclusion that Forbes’ modus operandi was similar to that of Robert Sharp in that he went only for portable items of value. Much as he might have liked the French table, he could not have carried it away. That would have meant having a motor vehicle of some sort that would have had a number plate. And a number plate meant that there would be a chance of the vehicle and the con man being traced. Dave opened his briefcase and took out the photograph of Sharp that had been given to us by Rebecca Chapman, whose daughter Fiona had committed suicide after Sharp had left her pregnant and waiting at the church. And he had stolen five thousand pounds from the young woman’s father.
‘Would you look at this photograph, please, Mrs Crosby.’
She took it from Dave and stared at it. ‘That’s him!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s Norman Forbes.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘I have no doubt whatsoever. Has he been arrested?’
‘We think he’s dead, Mrs Crosby,’ said Dave diplomatically, not wishing to admit that it looked very much as though Sharp was alive and well and had not been murdered at the Pretext Club. Or anywhere else.
EIGHTEEN
‘What do we do now, guv’nor?’ asked Dave, once we were back at Belgravia.
‘Start looking for the bugger, Dave, but first I must speak to the commander.’ Anne Crosby’s revelation had just turned our murder enquiry on its head.
I walked down the corridor and tapped lightly on Alan Cleaver’s open office
door.
‘What’s on your mind, Harry?’ The commander waved me towards a chair. As usual, he was in his shirtsleeves and his desk was clear. Folding his copy of the Daily Telegraph, he dropped it into the wastepaper basket. That he’d been reading a newspaper was a sure sign that he had no outstanding problems to deal with. Until now.
I brought him up to date with the investigation, finishing by recounting our interview with Anne Crosby.
‘The scenes-of-crime prints taken from Lavender’s boat led us to Mrs Crosby in Chelsea. Sergeant Poole showed her the photograph of Sharp that Mrs Rebecca Chapman had given us, and Mrs Crosby identified him as the guy who stole her snuff bottle, although she knew him as Norman Forbes. It looks very much as though I got it wrong, guv’nor.’ There was absolutely no point in being other than completely straight with Cleaver.
‘Don’t beat yourself up, Harry. There was no way in which you could have thought that the victim was someone other than Robert Sharp. According to the pathologist’s report there was nothing that would enable you to identify the body, and in view of the circumstantial evidence and the statements of the staff at this nudist place, the victim had to be Sharp. After all, he was found in Sharp’s room at this club. I’d have come to the same conclusion. The problem now is what to do about it. What are your thoughts?’
‘He’ll be pretty confident that he’s in the clear,’ I said. ‘He knows that his fingerprints aren’t on record because he’s never been arrested. And it’s a racing certainty that he won’t know that the dabs he left on the table at Mrs Crosby’s place are on file. Knowing what we know about his modus operandi, I’m sure he’ll think we’re looking for James Brooks, the guy who escaped from Ford open prison. But now it looks as though it was Brooks’ body that was found at the Pretext Club. Although we’ll never know for sure unless Sharp levels with us. If we find the bastard.’
‘I’m inclined to agree, Harry.’
‘However, sir, if Sharp learns from the press and the television that we’ve mounted an active search to find him, he might get desperate. If my theory is right, he could be facing a life behind bars for two toppings – Brooks and Madison Bailey – and I don’t doubt that if he has to kill again to escape, he won’t hesitate. After all, he can only do one term of life imprisonment, no matter how many toppings he does. It’s also possible that he’ll try robbery because he’s bound to be running short of cash. I’m sure he thought he’d hit the big time when he came up with this scheme to get Madison Bailey to smuggle drugs, and he was confidently expecting seventy grand’s worth of cocaine to drop into his lap when he picked her up at St Mary’s. But he must’ve gone ballistic when he found out that it was most likely talcum powder he was betting on.’
‘He probably thought she’d had him over and had flogged the gear to someone else, Harry,’ said Cleaver. ‘I reckon it’s a strong possibility that he strangled her in a fit of rage and chucked her body over the side. Mind you, that is a guess and from what you’ve said previously about Madison Bailey, she doesn’t sound bright enough to have come up with a plan like that. But we’ve got to keep our feet on the ground, Harry. Despite all the ifs, buts and maybes, there’s no firm evidence that Sharp is the killer. Speculation won’t hack it at the Old Bailey and for all we know at the moment, she might have been in cahoots with some other guy over the drug smuggling.’
‘I was about to say the same thing,’ I said. ‘My one hope is that when the scrapings from under Bailey’s fingernails are compared with Sharp’s DNA, we’ll have a match. Then we’ll have him bang to rights.’
‘So, what can I do, Harry? You’re the investigating officer, but my job is to give you any support you need.’
‘I should like to impose a news blackout on this latest twist, guv’nor. If the public is allowed to carry on thinking that we’re looking for Brooks in connection with two murders, Sharp might just start to get overconfident. But, as I said just now, once he knows he’s wanted, he could become dangerous.’
‘I’ll speak to the Yard’s director of media and communications or whatever it’s called this week, Harry. The media never likes having this sort of muzzle put on them, but if we promise them full disclosure – including being honest about our first wrong turning – I think they’ll go along with us on this one.’
‘Thank you, sir. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if they were to say something about the search for Brooks being intensified with regard to a murder in Cornwall.’
‘I’ll do that now and let you know that they’ve agreed it.’
I’d only been back in the incident room for five minutes when Cleaver rang me there. ‘All set up, Harry. Now go out and find this guy.’
Cleaver’s predecessor would have dithered for half a day and then consulted the deputy assistant commissioner. But then he wasn’t a real detective.
That evening’s TV news bulletins did us proud. They reported that we were actively hunting Brooks in connection with the death of Sharp and Bailey, and the following day’s press went along with it.
It is well-known among detectives that even the most sophisticated of criminals will sometimes make the stupidest of mistakes that result in their undoing. And so it was with Robert Sharp.
We had put Sharp’s description on the Police National Computer and added copies of his photograph and the fingerprints found on Mrs Crosby’s table and steering wheel of Charles Lavender’s boat. Finally, we emphasized that neither the media nor the public must get to know of our desire to speak to him. His one-time alias of Norman Forbes was included in the information we put in the entry. On the eighth day, the trap was sprung, not by CID officers but by our old adversaries the Black Rats.
About the only sophisticated part of Robert Sharp’s scam was to steal a new car and, by dint of bribery, persuade a corrupt dealer to provide number plates that were identical with an exactly similar make, model and colour of car. The scam was made even easier now that the tax disc had been abolished and it became unnecessary to forge one. As a result, Sharp’s stolen vehicle was able to assume, to the casual observer, the legitimate car’s identity. Unfortunately for him, the police are not casual observers.
There are many simple errors that, in the past, have trapped the criminal mastermind, not that Sharp was in that class. Being stopped at night for having a defective rear light has, more than once, brought about an arrest for a multitude of crimes.
In Sharp’s case, the stupid part was to drive too fast on that section of the A40 out of London where a speed limit of forty miles per hour had been imposed. Which, as it turned out, proved the point that it’s possible to have too sophisticated a plan.
An unmarked police BMW was parked in a lay-by when a Ford Mondeo swept past at approximately seventy miles an hour.
‘I think we have a customer,’ said Tracy, the sergeant driver of the BMW, as she started the engine and accelerated in pursuit. To aggravate his offence the driver of the Mondeo frequently changed lanes and, on occasion, passed other vehicles on the nearside.
Waiting until he saw a suitably safe place to bring about a stop, Martin, Tracy’s co-driver, illuminated the blue lights secreted behind the radiator grille and switched on the siren.
The driver of the Mondeo, believing that all that would happen was a summons – which, of course, would go to the owner of the car that legitimately held the identical number plate – dutifully pulled into a lay-by.
‘Seventy-two miles an hour,’ said Tracy, ‘which is thirty-two miles an hour over the speed limit for this section of the carriageway.’
‘Good heavens! Really? Surely not.’
‘Changing lanes and passing other vehicles on the nearside on at least four occasions.’
‘I don’t think so, Officer.’
‘It’s all on our video recorder,’ said Tracy. They always say the same things, she thought, and always get the same answer. Why do they bother? ‘D’you have your driving licence?’
‘Not on me, no.’
‘What’s your name?�
��
‘Norman Forbes.’
‘Do you own this vehicle, Mr Forbes?’ It was like pulling teeth but Tracy wasn’t bothered about that. The moment she saw the man, she realized, from the photograph on the PNC, that she’d got the man wanted for questioning in connection with two murders. And when he’d said that his name was Norman Forbes it clinched it. Apart from which, he was not shown as the registered owner on the PNC.
‘Yes, it’s my car.’
‘Just step out of the car, Mr Forbes,’ said Martin, holding a hand-held device, ‘and place the forefinger of your left hand in here.’
Forbes knew that this device would check his fingerprints with the central database and this was to be avoided. Although having no previous convictions, he did not want the police to have his fingerprints as this might lead to much worse consequences than a motoring offence.
It was at this point that a routine traffic stop turned into something more sinister. Rather than doing as the traffic PC had asked, the Mondeo driver suddenly produced a gun, but Tracy’s knowledge that she and Martin were now dealing with a possible double-murderer had made her wary. And prepared.
The Mondeo driver’s gunslinging ability would not have secured him a part even as a walk-on non-speaking extra in a spaghetti western. Clearly unused to handling weapons with any degree of speed and efficiency, his movement was too slow to be threatening. Suddenly, he felt a crippling blow as Tracy’s baton, wielded with as much force as she could muster, fractured the wrist holding the weapon. As if that were not enough, he also received a debilitating discharge of fifty thousand volts from Martin’s taser gun and fell to the ground.
‘Oh dear! They will do these things,’ said Tracy as she donned protective gloves and retrieved the .22 pistol. It wasn’t loaded.
After a visit to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington where ‘Norman Forbes’ had his fractured wrist put in plaster, he was escorted to Paddington police station where his fingerprints were taken. When compared with the database, it confirmed that Forbes, also believed to be Robert Sharp, was wanted by DCI Harry Brock of HMCC (West). The PNC entry stated that Forbes was wanted in connection with the theft of a snuff bottle, but also suggested that he might be able to assist police with their enquiries into two murders. The CID were called and he was handed over to them.
