Rough Diamonds

by Graham Ison

  Rough Diamonds

  Graham Ison

  © Graham Ison 1995

  Graham Ison has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1995 by Little, Brown and Company.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  One

  The sergeant of the police armed response vehicle acknowledged the call.

  “Did I hear that right, skip?” asked the driver. “Shooting at Hyde Park Corner?”

  “That’s what the lady said.” The sergeant looked out of his window at the traffic in Edgware Road and wondered what was happening at Hyde Park Corner that merited their special attention.

  “Where at Hyde Park Corner?”

  “Didn’t say. Just said Hyde Park Corner.”

  The driver sighed and thumbed down the siren switch. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we get back.” He adjusted his driving position slightly and cursed at a bus that seemed hellbent on running him off the road, siren or no siren. “Bloody ten to three,” continued the driver. “Isn’t it bloody marvelous? Ten minutes to booking-off time and we get a call to what’ll probably turn out to be a poxy car backfiring.”

  “Don’t you ever stop whingeing?” asked the sergeant, trying to complete the entry in his log book and not being helped by the way his colleague was throwing the car around. Deep down, they both knew that the constant cross-talk that went on between them was pure bravado. Minutes from now either one of them could be dead. But they would never admit to thinking about it. Even to themselves.

  A small car stopped in the center of the junction and its driver, a pensioner in a cloth cap, held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “Well, don’t sit there looking bloody helpless,” muttered the police driver as he braked hard and switched the siren from wail to yelp. “Where did you get your licence from, bloody Woolworths?”

  “The lights were in his favor,” said the sergeant mildly.

  “Whose side are you on, skip?” The police driver grinned and swung the car round the back of the obstruction, accelerating.

  Everything was at a standstill around Hyde Park Corner when the ARV arrived and three Traffic Division motorcyclists were attempting to maneuver some of it around a stationary cab near the Machine Gun Corps Memorial.

  “Never realized they were detachable,” said the ARV driver caustically, nodding at the three empty motor cycles as he and the sergeant got out of the car and made their way towards one of the policemen.

  “Where’s this shooting then, mate?” asked the sergeant of one of the motor-cyclists.

  “Over there, sarge,” said the traffic man. He waved at the stationary cab. “But you won’t need those.” He nodded at the pistols in the men’s hands. “It’s all over.” He grinned and turned to berate a van driver who had offended him.

  Still holding their firearms at the ready, the crew of the ARV strode purposefully towards the cab. A young, uniformed constable was standing by it talking to the driver. At the approach of the ARV crew, he turned a white face towards them.

  “What you got, son?” The sergeant lowered his Smith and Wesson so that it pointed at the ground.

  “A dead’un, sarge,” said the PC.

  The sergeant walked over and peered into the taxi. “Bloody hell!” he said.

  Sprawled on the back seat of the cab was a man of about forty-five. On his lap was an open executive brief-case. And there was a bullet hole between his eyes.

  *

  At New Scotland Yard, Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Fox, operational head of the Flying Squad, had just started to stir his afternoon cup of Earl Grey tea when the telephone rang. For a moment or two, he glared malevolently at it before snatching at the handset. “Fox,” he said tersely.

  “Tommy, it’s Alec Myers. Spare me a minute, will you.”

  Fox sighed. “Yes, sir.”

  “And bring your tea with you, Tommy,” Myers added. He was familiar with Fox’s routine.

  Commander Alex Myers, Fox’s immediate boss, was standing at the window of his office peering down into Broadway. He turned as Fox entered and waved towards a chair. “Have a seat, Tommy, and help yourself to a cigarette.” He pointed at the packet on his desk and then poured two measures of Scotch from the bottle on the flap of his open drinks cabinet. “Prefer that to tea, wouldn’t you?” he asked unnecessarily, putting the tumbler of whisky on the desk.

  Fox plucked carefully at his trousers before sitting down and then flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve. “I gather you want something, guv?” The offer of a cigarette was rare; a glass of Scotch even rarer.

  “New suit, Tommy?” Myers appraised Fox’s latest button-one-show-two acquisition from Hackett and placed the water carafe beside Fox’s whisky.

  “Not that new,” said Fox guardedly. “It’s just that I take care of them.”

  Fox’s reputation as an elegant dresser was widely known at Scotland Yard, but anyone who believed that he was a dandy was in for a nasty surprise. Many policemen had found that Fox was a very hard-nosed copper, and even more villains had made the same discovery, particularly one audacious robber whose near-fatal mistake of threatening Fox with a loaded pistol had landed him with a broken jaw. Too late, he had been made aware that it needed more than a firearm to stop the head of the Flying Squad from making an arrest; seconds later, Fox had felled him with a right-handed upper cut.

  “This shooting at Hyde Park Corner this afternoon, Tommy…”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You know about it, of course.”

  “Of course, sir,” said Fox in a tone of voice that implied that he knew exactly what was going on among the villainry and resented any suggestion that he didn’t.

  “The detective superintendent at Charing Cross, name of Semple—”

  “Oh God!” muttered Fox.

  Myers ignored the jibe. “He’s identified the victim—”

  “I should bloody well hope so,” said Fox.

  “Tommy, just shut up and listen for a moment, will you,” said Myers, beginning to tire of Fox’s interjections. “The victim is a villain called Wally Proctor. He’s got a string of previous for jewelery heists going way back, but nothing in the past five or six years.”

  Fox assumed a sour expression. “Why are you telling me all this, sir?” he asked. But he knew.

  “I want you to investigate it,” said Myers. “You see, Tommy, there are complications.”

  Fox groaned. “Aren’t there always,” he said.

  *

  Detective Superintendent Jim Semple of Number Eight Area Major Investigation Pool sat down at his desk in Charing Cross police station and glumly considered his immediate future. His first reaction to the news that a detective chief superintendent from the Commissioner’s Office, as policemen called New Scotland Yard, was to take charge, was one of relief that such a complicated case was about to be taken off his hands. But when he heard that the DCS concerned was Tommy Fox, he was overcome with a sense of foreboding based on previous experience and information received. Semple knew instinctively that he would
continue to investigate the extraordinary death of Wally Proctor, but that Tommy Fox would be breathing down his neck the whole time.

  “I think he’s here, guv.” A DC poked his head round the superintendent’s door. “Anyhow, a Ford Scorpio has just come into the yard.”

  “Haven’t you got any work to do?” asked Semple nastily.

  Seconds later, the tall immaculate figure of Tommy Fox appeared in the doorway of Semple’s office. “I’m reliably informed that you’ve got a sudden death that’s puzzling you, Mr Semple,” he said. “I take it you know Denzil Evans?” He indicated the Flying Squad detective inspector who was with him with a casual wave of the hand.

  “Evening, sir.” Semple stood up. “Yes, I know Denzil.” He nodded a greeting at Fox’s “bag carrier”.

  “Wally Proctor, yes?” Fox gazed enquiringly at the superintendent.

  “Yes, sir.” Semple fingered a slim folder on his desk.

  “Tell me about it.” Fox wandered across to Semple’s notice-board and started to read one of numerous pieces of paper on it, most of which were held in place by a single drawing pin. Fox was a great believer in reading other people’s notice boards; he always claimed that it gave him a greater insight into the efficiency of a CID office than any formal inspection would.

  “The cab driver picked Proctor up at the Agincourt Hotel in Park Lane,” said Semple. “Asked to be taken to Victoria Station. When they got to Hyde Park Corner, the driver heard a loud report from the back of the cab and when he looked round, he found that Proctor had been shot. Quite unnerved him, it did.”

  “Who? The cab driver… or Proctor?” Fox switched his attention to a memorandum about the slovenly preparation of Forms 151F for the Crown Prosecution Service, and hummed tunelessly.

  “No, the cab driver, sir.” Semple had heard about Tommy Fox’s obscure sense of humor, but decided to play it straight for the time being.

  Tiring of the notice board, Fox turned and sat down in a chair opposite the superintendent’s desk. “Do go on, Mr Semple,” he said. “I’m fascinated.”

  “We recovered the brief-case that Proctor was carrying—”

  “Oh!” said Fox. “He had a briefcase, did he?”

  “Yes, sir.” Semple was already beginning to feel oppressed and Fox had been in his office less than ten minutes. It did not bode well for the future. “It contained an ingenious device that shot Proctor the moment the case was opened.”

  “Good gracious,” said Fox.

  “Er, d’you fancy a Scotch, sir?” Semple posed the question hesitantly. He had heard that Fox was one of the few hard-drinking CID officers still left in the force.

  “Thought you’d never ask.” Fox turned to DI Evans. “I’d heard that they were very generous here at Charing Cross, Denzil, hadn’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, very,” said Evans and lapsed into silence once more. He had worked for Fox for some years now and had become wary of his sarcasm.

  “Are you going to show me this diabolical briefcase then, Mr Semple?” Fox lifted the glass of whisky and gazed at it reflectively, as if assessing its quality.

  “Oh, er, it’s gone for forensic, sir.”

  “By which, I take it, you mean it’s been submitted for scientific examination?” Fox believed in fighting his war against the misuse of the word “forensic” whenever the opportunity arose. As the Flying Squad had discovered over the years, Fox, despite his cockney accent, was a stickler for correct English. When it suited him.

  “Er, yes, sir. I didn’t realize that you—”

  “Good,” said Fox. “For one awful minute, I thought you were going to say that it was still languishing within the precincts of this police station.” He waved a hand airily around the office and took a sip of whisky. “What have your enquiries at the Agincourt Hotel revealed?”

  Nervously, Semple shuffled the papers in the folder on his desk. “I don’t seem to have had a result on that yet, sir.”

  “Oh dear!” Fox smiled. “But someone is out doing it, at this very moment, I imagine.”

  “Yes, sir, definitely.” Semple hoped that the detective sergeant who had been deputed to interview the hotel staff had already left the office.

  “Splendid. Now, this man Proctor. Got a bit of form, I believe.”

  Myers had told Fox that in recent years, Proctor had not come to the notice of police. That is to say, he had not been convicted of any crime, but Fox knew villains, and he knew that Proctor had undoubtedly been “at it”. The fact that he had met an untimely end in a cab at Hyde Park Corner merely confirmed the theory. And the ingenious device which had killed him, only served to heighten the belief of Fox, well versed in the practices of the villainry as he was, that other villains had been involved in the murder.

  “Well known to police, sir,” said Semple, and pushed Proctor’s criminal record across the desk, pleased that he was able, at last, to come up with something positive. “That’s the printout from the microfiche,” he added. “It was in the dead section.”

  “How very appropriate,” said Fox and skimmed through Proctor’s criminal biography. “But what’s he been up to since his last conviction? According to this—” Fox slung the file on the desk. “—he came out in 1988 following a two-stretch. Then nothing.”

  “It all went quiet after that, sir, so it seemed.”

  “I gathered that,” said Fox. “What do your snouts have to say?”

  Semple looked unhappy. His informants, such as they were, were deployed to assist in solving the vast catalogue of outstanding crimes, with which, the Area Pool was dealing. There was little time for enquiring into the activities of those criminals who appeared to have gone straight. “There’s been no word on the ground, sir,” he said.

  Fox glanced at his watch. “Well, I can see that there’s little for me to do here, and I have an appointment.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you to do the groundwork then, Mr Semple,” he said. “Lay the foundations. See you in the morning.” He paused at the door. “I shall be interested to see the outcome of the enquiries at the hotel. There should be a sheaf of statements by, shall we say, half-past eight?”

  “Yes, of course, sir.”

  Fox beamed at the superintendent and then turned to DI Evans. “You take the car back to the Yard, Denzil,” he said. “I’ll take a cab. I suppose it’s safe enough,” he added drily.

  Once Fox was clear of the building, Semple strode into the main CID office. “Which of you bastards is supposed to be doing the enquiries at the hotel?” he asked.

  *

  Fox’s taxi set him down at a block of mansion flats behind Harrods of Knightsbridge. As usual, he opted for the stairs rather than the lift and made his way to the first floor.

  The woman who answered the door was in her mid-thirties, and was tall and slim with long brown hair. “Tommy,” she said excitedly. “I thought you weren’t going to get here.”

  “You should know me better than that, Jane,” said Fox, pecking her on the cheek and walking through into the large sitting room. “Got stuck with a murder enquiry.”

  “Oh!” Jane looked grave. Fox had investigated the murder of her sister, Lady Dawn Sims, the previous year, and the mere mention of murder evoked unhappy memories. But it had meant that Fox and Lady Jane Sims had become acquainted, a relationship which she was hoping would advance beyond mere friendship. “What sort is it?” She poured two measures of Scotch and handed one to Fox. “Another of your domestic murders?” she asked as she sat down opposite him.

  Fox sipped his whisky and stretched out his legs. “No, not this time. The Finger who got topped had got form as long as your arm. Looks as though another hood decided to take him out.”

  Jane Sims threw back her head and laughed. “What on earth does that mean?” she asked. “I’m sure you make up this language of yours just to tease me.”

  “It means,” said Fox slowly, “That one villain appears to have murdered another villain. Probably some vendetta, or he was double-crossed.” />
  “Was this the shooting at Hyde Park Corner that was on the news?” Jane glanced at the Regency cabinet that had been expertly converted to house her television set. The first time he had called on her, Fox had displayed a mild disapproval of the starkly functional decor of her flat, since when she had begun to replace some of the more austere items of furniture.

  “That’s the one.”

  “But they said he’d shot himself.”

  Fox took out his cigarette case and offered it to Jane. “That’s because I chose to let the media think that,” he said. “Don’t want the villains to know how much we know. Time enough when we nick them.”

  Jane shook her head at the proffered cigarette case. “But shouldn’t you be working on the case, Tommy?” she asked.

  “Good Lord no,” said Fox. “I have a vast team of accomplished detectives who are, at this very moment, combing the capital for information. I’m more like the conductor of a huge orchestra. I tell the musicians what to do and they do it.” But both he and Detective Superintendent Semple of Charing Cross knew that that was not the way it happened. Fox could not resist interfering at every turn.

  Jane laughed at his overt indifference to a job that she knew he took very seriously. “You’re a real enigma, Tommy, d’you know that?” She glanced at his immaculately suited figure, his McAfee shoes, his beautifully laundered Thomas Pink shirt – she noted, with pleasure, that he was wearing the silk tie she had bought for him from Liberty – and the gold Tissot watch on his wrist, and smiled. “You just don’t look the sort who spends all his working life mixing it with villains.”

  Fox chuckled at her use of the criminal vernacular. “That’s the mistake the villains make,” he said, “And usually too late.”

  Jane refilled Fox’s whisky glass. “Are we eating out tonight, Tommy?”

  Fox grinned. “No,” he said firmly. “I’m not taking you out in jeans and a sweater.”

  “Good,” said Jane. “Be a dear and open some wine.”

  *

  At Charing Cross police station, Detective Superintendent Semple glanced at the clock and sighed. Then he stood up and stretched before walking to the door of his office. “Got those statements ready yet, Ken?” he asked. “I need them by half-past eight tomorrow morning.”