by Graham Ison
“I don’t imagine you came here to admire the fixtures and fittings,” said Mrs Bentley, “so perhaps you’d explain what all this nonsense is about Laurie having murdered someone.”
“What does your husband do for a living, Mrs Bentley?”
“Imports and exports,” said the girl promptly. “And he’s abroad at the moment, if you must know.”
“Oh? Where abroad exactly?”
The girl hesitated for a moment. “France, I think,” she said.
“You think? Don’t you know?”
“I can’t keep up with him,” said Mrs Bentley, reaching out for a packet of cigarettes, but not offering Evans one. “It all depends what he’s got on. If something crops up while he’s in France, he might go on to Germany or Italy, or God knows where. I got a call from him once from South Africa. He was chasing an order or something of the sort.” She sounded bored by the whole business.
“When were you married, Mrs Bentley?”
“We’re not, but we’ve been living together for three years. Why?”
“And your full name?”
“Andrea Bentley. It’s easier for me to use his name. But why d’you want to know all these things? I thought it was Laurie you wanted to talk to.”
“Do you have any other places of residence?” asked Evans.
“Places of residence?” Andrea Bentley repeated the phrase in a bantering tone and gave Evans a mocking smile. “If you mean, have we got another pad somewhere, the answer’s no. We’re not made of money.”
It was Buckley who made the first significant find. “Spare a minute, guv?” he said, poking his head round the sitting-room door.
“What is it, Roy?” Evans joined Buckley in the hall.
“A briefcase, guv, in the garden shed. It’s had the bottom removed, but not very well. It looks as though Povey was experimenting, but it wasn’t good enough. Could have been his first try at the one used to kill Proctor. And there are quite a few tools in there that you wouldn’t normally associate with the usual stuff a bloke keeps.” “Meaning what?” asked Evans.
“Well, most blokes keep hammers and screwdrivers, a couple of saws maybe, and possibly a wrench to change a washer on a tap. But this bloke’s got quite a sophisticated set of tools that’d do credit to an engineer.”
Evans nodded. “Tag the briefcase, Roy, but I’m not sure that the rest of the stuffs good enough to prove anything. Anyway, keep at it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Buckley.
“Does your husband do his own car maintenance, Mrs Bentley?” asked Evans as he returned to the sitting room.
Andrea Bentley looked momentarily mystified by Evans’s question and then she laughed. “We might live in Battersea,” she said, “but we don’t have to behave like the other animals who live here. Of course he doesn’t do his own car maintenance.”
On his return to the tool shed, Buckley had continued his search. “Now there’s a funny thing,” he said as he sighted a pile of logs in the corner of the shed.
“What’s funny about that, skip?” asked DC March.
“There are no fireplaces in the house, Ted,” said Buckley. “They’ve all been taken out, probably when the central heating was put in.”
With March’s help, Buckley began to take down the pile of logs. As he did so, a metal box came into view. It was only small, no more than a foot by six inches by four inches, but it was secured by a padlock.
“Hand me that crowbar, Ted,” said Buckley.
The young DC passed it across. “What d’you reckon skip?” he asked.
“Shan’t know till we open it, shall we, Ted?” said Buckley with a grin, and wrenched the padlock off with the tip of the crowbar. “Well, now, and isn’t that interesting?”
“What is it, skip?” asked March.
“Ammunition, my son.” The metal box contained several small unopened boxes, each containing fifty rounds of ammunition, some of .38 caliber and one of .22. “And, would you believe, a pistol.” Buckley turned to March. “Better get hold of Mr Evans, Ted. Let him have a look at this little lot.”
While Buckley had been ferreting in the tool shed, DC Sean Tarling had been searching the Bendeys’ bedrooms.
In the spare room, in a locked drawer which rapidly yielded to Tarling’s violence, he found a small quantity of white powder that experience told him was cocaine. And a wash-leather bag containing a quantity of diamonds.
“Are these stones yours, Mrs Bentley?” asked Evans, displaying Tarling’s find.
Andrea Bentley gazed wide-eyed at the diamonds that Evans had spread on the coffee table in the sitting room. “I’ve never seen those before in my life,” she said. Glancing up at Evans, she asked. “Where did you get them from?”
“In a drawer in the spare bedroom,” said Tarling.
“But that drawer’s locked,” said Mrs Bentley.
“Not any more it’s not,” said Tarling with a grin.
Andrea Bentley was about to protest when the telephone rang. Picking up the handset from its base, she extended the aerial and flicked the switch. “Hallo?” she said. Then she shot a nervous glance in Evans’s direction. “Yes, they are. Laurie, what the hell’s going on? What have you done?”
Evans grabbed the handset from the woman and spoke into it. “Bentley?” he said. But the line had gone dead. Slowly, he retracted the aerial and replaced the handset on its base station. “What did he want to know?” he asked gently.
Slowly, Andrea Bentley sat down on the settee, her head in her hands. “He wanted to know if the police were here,” she said without looking up. “How on earth did he know you might be?”
Twenty-two
It was almost nine o’clock and beginning to get quite dark. Detective Inspector Henry Findlater was about to call it a day and send his surveillance team home when a Ford Mondeo drove into the road and turned on to the driveway of the Lockharts’ house.
A man leaped from the passenger seat, ran around to the driver’s side of the car and wrenched the door open.
“Christ, guv’nor,” said the DC in Findlater’s car, “I’m sure that’s Povey.”
With a pistol clearly visible in one hand, the man pulled a young woman from the driver’s seat and forced her towards the house where he banged violently on the front door.
Within seconds, Findlater and several of his officers were out of their cars and running.
“Hey!” shouted Findlater. “Povey!”
The man leveled his pistol and fired. The round went harmlessly over the heads of the nearest group of policemen.
“Bloody hell!” said DS Crabtree, “He’s got a shooter.”
“So it would appear.” Findlater, the dour Calvinistic Scot, was never given to exaggeration. He watched as the front door was opened by Julie Lockhart, and Povey forced his way in, pushing her and his hostage ahead of him. The door slammed and Findlater, pushing his owl-like glasses up to the bridge of his nose once again, returned to his car where he made an urgent radio call.
*
Fox had just left Linda Ward’s flat and was getting into his car when the call came through. He leaped out again and shouted across the street to Gilroy. “Did you get that, Jack?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right, let’s get down there. Fast.”
With uncharacteristic speed, Fox’s driver, Swann, affixed the magnetic blue light to the roof of the Scorpio and leaped back into the car.
“You mind you don’t get a bloody hernia, Swann,” said Fox. “Now get me to Barnes with all possible despatch.”
“Right, guv,” said Swann mournfully. With studied casualness, he moved the gear lever to “drive”, flicked on the siren and accelerated away from Earls Court.
*
Findlater’s radio call had brought several area cars into the vicinity of the Lockharts’ house, together with the local territorial support group consisting of an inspector, two sergeants and twenty constables. Minutes later, Fox’s Scorpio came into view.
“What
have you got, Henry?” asked Fox, joining Findlater whose car had been withdrawn to a safe distance from the Lockharts’ house.
Findlater related what had happened so far. “I’ve sealed off both ends of the road, sir—”
“I saw that,” said Fox, who had driven through the white tapes at one end of the road.
“And the TSG is in the process of evacuating the houses on either side and opposite. And SO19 are on their way.”
“Yes, I suppose they can’t wait to get in on the act,” said Fox, grudgingly admitting that, in the circumstances, the presence of officers from the Operational Firearms Branch was inevitable. “Have you spoken to him yet?”
“No, sir. It’s obvious that he’s not going anywhere, and he must know it if he’s looked out of the window. I thought it best to wait for you, sir.”
“What about a phone? Is there one anywhere?”
“We could try one of the houses on this side, sir, until we can get something of our own rigged up.” Findlater glanced down the road as another police vehicle pulled up. “Ah, that looks like the Anti-Terrorist Branch.”
“Who the hell called them? Povey’s not a terrorist, for God’s sake.”
“I think they’re alerted automatically to a thing like this, sir,” said Findlater, who was far more in tune with modern methods than Fox would admit to being.
“Well, Henry, while we wait for the rest of the cavalry to arrive, we’ll give Mister Povey a bell. See what he’s got to say for himself.”
The two officers walked down the road, further away from where Povey was holding his hostages, and knocked at the door of a nearby house.
“Good evening,” said Fox, when a middle-aged man opened the door, “We’re police officers. I wonder if we might use your telephone.”
“Of course,” said the man. “Come along in.”
“What is it, dear?” asked a woman’s voice from somewhere inside the house.
“It’s the police, dear,” said the man and turned to Fox. “My wife,” he said, by way of explanation, and led the two detectives into a small room that was obviously used as a study. “There you are,” he said, pointing to the telephone.
“Oh, hallo.” The man’s wife, a gray-haired woman, poked her head round the study door.
“Good evening, madam. Sorry to disturb you.”
“That’s all right, but what’s going on? Martin and I saw all the police arriving. It’s the Lockharts, isn’t it?”
“It is, but you don’t seem surprised.”
The woman tossed her head. “Something to do with the dentist’s wife, I’ll be bound,” she said. “A right madam, that. Just because her husband pulls teeth, she thinks she’s something, that one. Always describes her husband as “medical”, whatever that means. It’s him I feel sorry for, you know, her carrying on. Poor man. She makes no secret of it, either. Men calling at the house when Mr Lockhart’s away. Disgraceful I call it.”
“I see,” said Fox, non-committally. He turned to the man. “D’you have a phone book by any chance?”
“Yes.” The man leaned down and took a telephone directory from a lower shelf of the bookcase. “We’ll leave you to it, then,” he said and left the room, closing the door after him.
Fox thumbed through the book until he found the Lockharts’ home number. “There you are, Henry,” he said. “D’you want me to ring him, sir?” asked Findlater.
“Of course, Henry. You know the rules. Junior officers negotiate because they can’t make instant decisions.”
“Very good, sir,” said Findlater and dialed the number. At the end of a short conversation, he replaced the receiver. “That was Peter Lockhart, sir,” he said. “Povey is holding them hostage—”
“Who is them?” asked Fox.
“Peter and Julie Lockhart and an unknown woman whose car Povey apparently hijacked.”
“Is he making any demands?”
“He wants free passage out of the country, sir.”
“I’ll bet he does. Where to?”
Findlater smiled. “Brazil, sir.”
Fox laughed. “If he thinks that Ronnie Biggs’ll greet him like a long lost brother, he’s got another think coming,” he said and paused reflectively. “D’you know, Henry, I’m almost inclined to let him go. Povey obviously doesn’t know that Brazil’s not a safe sanctuary any more. The Brazilian law would probably take every penny he’s got and then send him back. It’s very tempting, I must say.”
“What do we do now, sir?” asked Findlater.
“We get back to the center of things and sit and wait, Henry. That’s what we do.”
Outside, within an hour of Povey’s arrival at the Lockharts’ house, what is known as siege management was in place. An officer from Communications Branch had arranged with British Telecom for a line to be set up from the incident van which was staffed by Anti-Terrorist Branch officers. A catering van was serving hot drinks, sandwiches and hot dogs, with a promise of three-course meals to come. The press had started to gather, but had been held back by uniformed police at the taped-off ends of the road, where a press liaison officer from the Yard’s Department of Public Affairs was talking to them. And the commander arrived.
“What’s going on, Tommy?” asked Alec Myers.
Fox outlined the situation as he stared gloomily across the darkened street. “I’ve a bloody good mind to go in and get the little toe-rag myself,” he said.
“Don’t you dare, Tommy,” said Myers. “There are procedures for this sort of thing. Leave it to the people who know what they’re doing.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean, guv’nor?” asked Fox crossly.
“You know what I’m talking about, Tommy. You’re very good at catching villains, but there are other departments at the Yard who are much better at this sort of thing than you are. You’ve had no experience of sieges. It’s a very delicate situation, and there are three people’s lives at stake. By the way, a negotiator’s on his way.”
“Bloody hell,” said Fox gloomily.
*
At Scotland Yard, where the remaining officers of the Flying Squad had been retained on duty, Detective Sergeant Percy Fletcher took a telephone call.
“Is Detective Chief Superintendent Fox there?” asked the voice.
“No, he’s not,” said Fletcher in a tired voice. He had taken about six calls for the head of the Squad since the siege at Barnes had begun less than forty minutes ago. Each one was from a journalist seeking a short cut to information. “Who’s speaking?”
“It’s Geoffrey Cooper.”
“What can I do for you, Mr Cooper?”
“Your Mr Fox came to see me a few days ago aboard my yacht. The Windsong.”
“Yes, I know. What about it?” said Fletcher.
“I’ve just been watching the news on television. It mentioned a man called Laurence Bentley.”
“Yes, it probably did,” said Fletcher, wondering when Cooper was going to get to the point.
“Well, I know him, you see.”
“Do you? Perhaps you’d tell me about it, Mr Cooper.” Fletcher drew a pad of paper across the desk.
“I’m not sure that this is any good, but when Mr Fox came to see me, he asked if I’d ever taken Windsong to Brighton Marina, and I said no. But it’s just possible that Laurence Bentley did.”
“How’s that then?” asked Fletcher wearily.
“I met him on the Hamble about a year ago, perhaps a little less, and got to know him quite well. At first I thought he was a commercial traveler—”
“Oh?” said Fletcher, “And what made you think that? Did he say he was?”
“No, not exactly, but he always had a clean shirt on a coat-hanger in his car.”
Fletcher sighed and expressed an inward desire to be preserved from amateur detectives. “But he wasn’t, I take it.”
“No, he said he was in imports and exports, but that he was having a few weeks off and was spending them on his yacht which he said was moored there too.”
>
“Did you see his yacht?” asked Fletcher. “Go aboard it at all?”
“Well, no, I didn’t now you come to mention it. Anyway, when I told him that I had to go to the States for about six weeks, he offered to keep an eye on Windsong for me. Well, I was agreeable, of course. You’d be surprised how much stuff gets stolen from yachts these days, even in moorings like the Hamble.”
“Yes, I probably would, Mr Cooper,” said Fletcher, “but are you suggesting that Bentley may have taken your yacht to Brighton without your permission?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a possibility, isn’t it? I just thought that I ought to let Mr Fox know, that’s all.”
“Thank you for your assistance, Mr Cooper,” said Fletcher. He flicked up the switch on that line and pressed down the one next to it. “Flying Squad.”
“Is Mr Fox there?”
“Who speaks?” asked Fletcher.
“It’s Alec Clarke of the Daily—”
Fletcher flicked up the switch and lit a cigarette.
*
By one o’clock in the morning, the assembled police had settled in. There was little doubt that the operation would be a prolonged one. A detective chief inspector from Hounslow, a trained negotiator, had installed himself in the Anti-Terrorist Branch incident van alongside Fox, and had spoken to Povey several times.
“Well, what does he say now?” asked Fox as the DCI finished yet another conversation with the wanted man.
“He’s accepted the trade, guv,” said the DCI. “He’ll let the unknown girl go, if we promise to have an aircraft standing by at Heathrow, fueled up and crewed, ready to go to Brazil.”
Fox laughed. “These bastards will never learn,” he said scornfully. “When’s he going to release the girl?”
“Five minutes time, under instruction from SO19.”
