by Graham Ison
The young woman to whom Fox had referred as Kate what’s-her-name was Detective Constable Kate Ebdon. A twenty-five-year-old Australian, she had only recently been posted to the Flying Squad from Leman Street police station in the East End of London where she had built a reputation as a determined and hard-working detective. Her colorful language had frightened quite a few villains and even more senior officers, but she had impressed Fox on the few occasions he had come into contact with her.
“Got a job for you, Kate,” said Rosie Webster.
“Right, skip. What is it?” Kate looked keen.
Rosie outlined the background to the houseboat murder enquiry and gave Kate the docket to read before the pair of them set off for Barnes.
Julie Lockhart looked distinctly nervous when she opened her front door to the two women officers. “Oh, er, hallo,” she said. “Er, look, it’s not really convenient at the moment.”
But Rosie Webster was not that easily dissuaded. She had deliberately not telephoned to make an appointment and, like Fox, she and DC Ebdon had called mid-afternoon in the hope that Julie Lockhart’s husband would be hard at work in his surgery.
“Are we interrupting something?” asked Kate.
“No, it’s not that, but my husband’s at home.”
“Oh, I see,” said Kate with a shrug. “Well, are we going to come in or what? We can have a chat here on the doorstep if you like.”
“No, you’d better come in.” Julie led the way into the sitting room and invited the two detectives to take a seat before perching nervously on the edge of the settee. Of Julie’s husband, there was no sign and Rosie wondered if the woman had pretended that he was there as a lame excuse for not wanting to talk to the police again.
“When I came down the other day with Detective Chief Superintendent Fox, Mrs Lockhart,” Rosie began, “you went over what had happened the night of Jason Bright’s death.”
“Yes.” Julie had been quite ebullient on the previous occasion Rosie had seen her, but she seemed oddly restrained this afternoon.
“Seems odd,” said Kate, who had made herself as conversant with the case as was possible from reading the docket, “that you didn’t see what happened.”
“Well, I didn’t,” said Julie defensively.
“Let me get this straight, Mrs Lockhart,” said Kate. “You were prancing about in the nude while Povey was waving a gun about and threatening Jason Bright. Right?”
“Yes.”
“But you said that you had your back to him when the shot was fired.”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear anything? Like Povey tripping over something? Or did he say anything?”
“No. I told the police, and I told you the other day…” Julie nodded at Rosie Webster. “I was scared and I was trying to get away, into the berth where Jason and I had—”
“Where you’d been screwing,” said Kate. Her Australian accent came out quite strongly.
Julie Lockhart wrinkled her nose in distaste at DC Ebdon’s coarse expression, although it was one she had used herself quite often in the past. “I didn’t see what happened,” she said, emphasizing each word.
“Are you shielding Povey, Mrs Lockhart?” Kate was not going to let Julie escape too easily. “Surely to God he doesn’t still frighten you, does he?”
“No, of course not, but that’s the truth.”
“When did you last see Kevin Povey, Mrs Lockhart?” Rosie Webster’s question came quietly and caught Julie off guard.
“I, er, well, the night of the murder.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“No, of course not.”
“Did he leave the country after Jason Bright was killed?” Kate returned to the questioning.
“I don’t know.” Julie’s hands were intertwined and she was clenching them with nervousness. “I told you. I keep telling all of you. I never saw him again.”
“Supposing you were to see him again, Mrs Lockhart. What would you do?”
“I’d tell the police, of course.”
“I sincerely hope you would, Mrs Lockhart. Otherwise it might be regarded as an obstruction of justice.” Kate Ebdon was determined to worry the woman.
“We omitted to ask you for a description of Kevin Povey when we were here last.” Rosie flipped open her pocket book.
“I gave the police a description of him at the time and I think they took a photograph album from his flat in Battersea—”
“How did you know that?” Kate interrupted with her customary bluntness.
Julie looked up sharply. DC Ebdon’s Australian accent grated on the ex-model’s ear and disconcerted her. “I think the police who were dealing with it must have told me,” she said.
Kate nodded. “Maybe,” she said. “Bit unusual though.”
“Anyway, if you’d care to tell me what you can remember, Mrs Lockhart, it would be a great help,” said Rosie Webster.
“Yes, of course,” said Julie and went on to describe as much as she could recall of Kevin Povey’s appearance.
“Thanks. I’m sure that’ll be a great help,” said Rosie as she closed her pocket book. She was about to stand up when the door to the sitting room opened.
A man stood in the doorway. He was about thirty years of age, was tall and quite good-looking in a rugged sort of way. But his hair was slightly disarranged and he appeared to be wearing nothing more than a short dressing gown. “Oh!” he said, looking at Julie. “Sorry, honey, I didn’t realize you had company.” He glanced admiringly at Rosie’s legs.
“You’re Mr Lockhart, I presume,” said Rosie.
There was a moment’s hesitation before the man replied. “Yes, I am,” he said. “Who are you?”
“We’re police officers, Mr Lockhart.”
“Oh! Sorry I interrupted,” said the man and promptly left the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
*
“You don’t think this bloke was her husband then, Rosie,” said Fox.
“No I don’t, sir. She was on edge the whole time we were there. At first I thought it was because she had something to hide, about Bright’s murder, I mean, but then this chap came in wearing a shortie dressing gown. It was obvious that he didn’t know we were in the house, and he disappeared again as soon as I told him who we were.”
“And this was three o’clock in the afternoon. Presumably her husband should still have been at his surgery at that time.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Rosie.
“Or filling cavities somewhere else,” said Kate Ebdon with a cheeky smile.
Fox grinned. “I suppose it wasn’t Povey?”
Rosie Webster looked at her chief with a pained expression on her face. “No, guv’nor it wasn’t,” she said.
*
Fox did not like leaving loose ends and although the suggestion that Julie Lockhart may have been entertaining a man friend in her husband’s absence had no direct bearing on the murders, the Flying Squad chief decided to make further enquiries. Himself.
The moment that they were ushered into the dentist’s presence, Rosie knew that the man she had seen at the house was not, in fact, Julie Lockhart’s husband. The dentist was much shorter than Julie’s visitor, had an almost bald head, a small toothbrush moustache and wore wire-framed spectacles. Fox thought he looked like Dr Crippen.
“Sorry to trouble you, Mr Lockhart,” said Fox, who was not sorry at all, “but I wonder if you’d have a look at this.” He produced the photograph of Povey that had been removed from Povey’s flat in Battersea.
Lockhart took the print and gazed at it. “Am I supposed to know this man, officer?”
For once, Fox had not introduced himself as a detective chief superintendent; that would have alerted the dentist to the fact that this was more than a routine enquiry. “We’re just making enquiries to see whether this man had visited anyone in the neighborhood.” Fox gazed around the surgery with all the apparent disinterest of a detective tired of making footling enquiries.
“No, officer, I’m sure I’ve never seen him before.”
Fox shrugged. “Sorry to have troubled you, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid that boring legwork forms quite a large part of our business.” He smiled disarmingly.
“What’s he done, officer?”
“He murdered someone, Mr Lockhart,” said Fox. “Good day to you.”
*
It was two days later that Detective Chief Inspector Leslie Balls of the Complaints Investigation Bureau appeared in Fox’s office and introduced himself.
Fox looked up. “And what can I do for you, Mr Balls?” he asked.
“I’m dealing with a complaint from a Mrs Julie Lockhart, sir,” said Balls.
“Oh?” Fox put his pen down on the desk and leaned back in his chair. “Sit down.”
“She stated in her telephone call, sir, that she has been harassed by police investigating a five-year-old murder. She names Detective Sergeant Webster and Detective Constable Ebdon, both of the Flying Squad.”
“Does she really?” Fox smiled. “Tell me, Mr Balls, when did you receive this telephone call?”
“This morning, sir.”
“My word, you chaps are quick off the mark, aren’t you?”
“Serious things, complaints, sir,” said Balls.
“Indeed they are. And you’ve been appointed to investigate this serious complaint, have you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tricky,” said Fox.
“It seems fairly straightforward to me, sir.”
“Ah, but that’s because you don’t know the full facts, Mr Balls. You see, I also interviewed Mrs Lockhart. Then I sent the two officers to whom you refer to see her a second time. So they were acting under my specific orders, you see.”
“Oh!”
“Yes,” said Fox. “Creates problems, doesn’t it?”
“It means that I can’t investigate it, sir.”
“I imagine so,” said Fox.
“I’ll have to refer back to Mr Thomas, sir.”
“Yes, I suppose you will. Well, I’m sure that Commander Thomas will be happy to appoint a commander to investigate this. Rather lets you off the hook, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose it does, sir.” Balls closed the file that had been open on his knee and stuffed it into his briefcase.
“I’d be careful about opening your briefcase like that, Mr Balls,” said Fox. Balls looked up in surprise. “I’m currently investigating the murder of a man who opened his briefcase as you have just done. Blew his head off.”
“Really?” Balls smiled a sickly smile.
“Tell me,” said Fox. “What criminal offences have been alleged against my two officers?”
“No criminal offences, sir.” Balls stood up.
“Then why, might I ask, is an officer from your department investigating it?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that, sir. You’ll have to ask the commander.”
“I’ll do better than that,” said Fox. “I’ll ask the Assistant Commissioner.”
Eight
Fox made a number of snap decisions. Following the appearance of Detective Chief Inspector Balls with a complaint against two of his officers, Fox immediately made for Commander Alec Myers’s office. “I’ve just had some prat from Complaints come to see me, sir, belly-aching about a Mrs Julie Lockhart.”
Myers smiled and held up a hand. “Calm down, Tommy, and take a seat. Now, what’s it all about?”
Fox explained and then went on, “This is a deliberate attempt to obstruct an investigation into a case of murder, sir. In fact, into three cases of murder.”
“By whom?” asked Myers mildly.
“It’s bloody obvious, guv’nor,” said Fox. “This woman knows something. I’m convinced of that. She waited two days before making a complaint, and that tells me that she’s taken advice. Someone doesn’t want us poking about. We rattled her bars a bit and she doesn’t like it. Or more to the point, someone else doesn’t like it.”
“Like who?”
“Like Kevin Povey, I should think. Or the bloke who was giving her a seeing to when Rosie and DC Ebdon called on her.”
Myers smiled. “Are you sure you’re not jumping to conclusions, Tommy?” he asked.
“Look guv’nor, she’s very touchy about answering questions. She’s tried to row herself out of this thing altogether. She says that she didn’t see what happened the night that Bright was murdered—”
“Perhaps she didn’t.”
“Pah!” Fox snorted. “I don’t believe it. I think she knows more than she’s telling. And furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that she knows exactly where Povey is. Probably still seeing him.”
“I still think you might be jumping to conclusions, Tommy, but what d’you want me to do?” Myers refused to be excited by Fox’s outburst.
“I want this complaint held over until we’ve sorted this thing out, sir. If Balls, or worse, some uniformed commander, goes tramping about, taking statements from the Lockhart woman and God knows who else, it could completely bugger up my enquiries.”
Myers looked doubtful. “I don’t know, Tommy. It would mean getting the Deputy Commissioner’s approval.”
“Yes,” said Fox, and waited.
“All right,” said Myers. “I’ll see DACSO for a start.”
As good as his word, Myers spoke to Dick Campbell, the Deputy Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations, better known by the acronym DACSO, who in turn saw the Assistant Commissioner, Peter Frobisher. Frobisher listened carefully to the argument and reluctantly referred the matter to the Deputy Commissioner, who as disciplinary head of the Metropolitan Police was the only man who could withhold a complaint. After careful consideration, he agreed that Mrs Lockhart’s complaint that she was being harassed should be suspended. But, he ruled, it would be reviewed after two weeks. It was a partial victory.
*
The second decision that Fox made was to circulate details of Kevin Povey. In a welter of directions, he ordered that Povey’s description and his photograph should be circulated to the Police Gazette, to Interpol, and to every port and airport in the United Kingdom. Details were also forwarded to the National Criminal Intelligence Service and to the newly formed Europol.
That done, Fox sent for Detective Inspector Henry Findlater, the quiet, Calvinistic Scot who headed the Flying Squad’s unofficial surveillance team, and instructed him to mount a round-the-clock observation on Julie Lockhart. But not because Fox was much interested in Julie Lockhart. He was playing a hunch. The man seen by Rosie Webster when she and Kate Ebdon called on Julie Lockhart was, at the moment, a mystery to Fox. And he wanted to know more about him.
*
Mrs Linda Ward, the attractive widow who lived at Earls Court, had as good as confessed to having had an affair with Wally Proctor and that he had made off with her jewelery. And that interested Fox. Interested him because Proctor, masquerading as James Dangerfield, had first made Mrs Ward’s acquaintance in the South of France. It was possible, therefore, that Proctor may have had some criminal associates there. And knowing also that honor among thieves was a fable, it was also possible that one of them may have murdered him. For a start, Fox decided to interview Mrs Ward’s married daughter, Michelle, who, according to Dickie Lord, was married to a “filthy rich” architect nearly twice her age with whom she lived at Chalfont St Giles.
But it transpired that Michelle White’s husband was a property developer, not an architect. Fox assumed that Mrs Ward thought that architect sounded better.
Their house at Chalfont St Giles was sumptuous by any standards. The circular graveled drive would have accommodated about seven or eight cars, but when Fox and Gilroy arrived, there were just two. A Rolls-Royce, and a BMW that proved to be Michelle White’s runabout.
“Nice Roller, sir,” said Gilroy, admiring the Rolls-Royce.
“Bottom of the range,” said Fox dismissively.
“You must be from the fuzz.” The man who ans
wered the door wore a pale blue polo shirt, light trousers and a pair of moccasins. He was about forty-two, bronzed, overweight and had curly hair flecked with gray. “I’m Paul White,” he said. “Come in. My wife’s by the pool.”
White led the two detectives through the house and along a corridor into a room at the rear that contained a large oval-shaped swimming pool. The pool itself was tiled in blue as were the surrounds, and the floor-to-ceiling windows were hung with expensive curtains drawn back to reveal a huge, landscaped garden. Michelle White, wearing a scarlet one-piece swimsuit, was lying on one of the seven or eight recliners that were dotted around the pool.
“Mrs White, I’m Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Fox… of the Flying Squad, and this is Detective Inspector Gilroy.”
“Hallo.” Michelle White sat up and adjusted the backrest of her recliner to the halfway position but made no attempt to shake hands. She raised one knee and flicked her long brown hair over her shoulders so that it hung down her back. She certainly looked no older than the twenty-three that Dickie Lord had said she was. “I guessed you might be coming.” She smiled and looked at her husband. “Paulie, why don’t you get the gentlemen a drink?”
“No thank you,” said Fox, answering for both himself and Gilroy.
“Do sit down then.” Michelle waved nonchalantly towards the other recliners. “Mummy said that you’d been to see her. It’s quite awful about her jewelery, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Fox. “Quite awful. Did she tell you about James Dangerfield?”
“Oh, we’ve known about him for some time, haven’t we, Paulie?” Michelle glanced at her husband. “But Mummy was always secretive about him, once she got back to England that is. God knows why. Why shouldn’t she have it off with a fellah she fancies? After all, she’s still a young woman, and not bad looking either.” She looked at her husband again. “Is she, Paulie?”
“No, not bad,” said White.
“Did she tell you that it was almost certainly Dangerfield who stole her jewelery, Mrs White?”
“No!” Michelle sat up and stared at Fox. “Surely not.”
“His real name was Wally Proctor and he was murdered, in a taxi at Hyde Park Corner.”
