by Peter Murphy
How long he sat there without moving, he could not have said. But he was suddenly aware of Merlin standing in front of his desk. He had not heard him knock, or seen him enter the room.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,’ the senior clerk said, ‘but we’ve had a call from the police, a DI Webb. He would like to speak to you, and wonders if 2 o’clock would be convenient.’
Aubrey did not respond immediately.
‘Mr Smith-Gurney?’
‘Yes. Yes. I suppose 2 o’clock would be as good as any other time.’
‘I’ll let him know, sir.’ Merlin paused. ‘Isn’t DI Webb the officer in charge of that case that’s in all the papers this morning, the one about the murder – ?’
‘Yes, he is,’ Aubrey replied abruptly. ‘Is Mr Morgan-Davies in chambers?’
Merlin looked at Aubrey carefully for some seconds.
‘I believe so, sir. He’s reading some papers for a case next week. Shall I tell him you would like to see him?’
‘No, that’s all right, Merlin,’ Aubrey replied. ‘I’ll tell him myself.
‘Very good, sir.’
Merlin turned and left the room.
Aubrey sat for a few seconds more before making his way to see his head of chambers.
88
‘Come in, Aubrey,’ Gareth Morgan-Davies said cheerfully, as Aubrey put his head around the door.
‘Do you have a minute, Gareth?’
‘Of course. Sit down.’
Aubrey walked slowly forward, sat in a chair in front of Gareth’s desk, and pushed The Times across to him.
‘Have you seen this?’
Gareth laughed. ‘Yes, I was reading about it on the train on the way in: highly entertaining. The press must think it’s Christmas come early. It’s not often a story like this falls into their laps, is it? High Court judges on the run from the police, the bodies of exotic ladies found in their flats? Whatever next? What’s the world coming to? All we need to add is a touch of drugs or the Church and Bob’s your uncle – we’ll end up with one of the great scandals of our time; and what’s the betting that one or other will show up before too long?’
Aubrey did not laugh.
‘The thing is, Gareth… I’m involved, or at least I think I might be.’
Merlin showed the officers into Gareth’s room, and left discreetly, hanging an ‘in conference’ sign on the door before making his way back to the clerk’s room.
‘I’m Gareth Morgan-Davies, head of chambers, and this is Aubrey Smith-Gurney,’ Gareth said, extending his hand.
‘How do you do, sir? I’m DI Webb and this is DS Raymond.’
They all shook hands and took seats, Aubrey to Gareth’s right behind his desk, the officers in chairs in front of it. Raymond produced a notebook and pencil from his pocket.
‘Do I detect a Welsh accent, sir?’ he asked.
‘You do indeed,’ Gareth replied. ‘Cardiff. What about you?’
‘I was born in England, sir, but my family was from Llanelli originally. I never had the accent unfortunately, but I recognise it when I hear it.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Gareth said.
There was an awkward silence.
‘Actually,’ Webb said, ‘it’s Mr Smith-Gurney we wanted to talk to.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Gareth replied, ‘but I’m his head of chambers, and he wants me to be present: just for moral support and to see fair play, you know? I hope that’s not a problem. He’s not a suspect, is he?’
Webb sat back in his chair and looked at Gareth thoughtfully.
‘A suspect in what, sir?’
Gareth shrugged. ‘I don’t know: whatever you’re investigating, I suppose.’
Webb nodded. ‘I see you have this morning’s paper on your desk, sir, so I’m going to assume you know why we’re here.’
He turned towards Aubrey.
‘We’re just looking for information, Mr Smith-Gurney. Some barristers in his former chambers told us that you knew him well. In fact, they had the impression that you and he were good friends.’
‘That’s quite true,’ Aubrey replied. ‘I’ve known Conrad for almost my whole life. We went to school together, we went to Cambridge together, and we came to the Bar together. We’ve always been close.’
‘Then perhaps you won’t mind helping us to find him, sir. Candidly, we’re worried about him. We know he’s had serious financial problems, and obviously now there’s a suspicion that he may have had something to do with the death of this lady, Greta Thiemann. He’s a man who has a high profile, and I’m afraid we can’t rule out the possibility that he might take his own life. We haven’t told his wife that, or the press, for obvious reasons, but it’s a concern; and if he is still alive, we would like to find him before he does anything stupid.’
‘If I knew where he was, I would tell you,’ Aubrey replied. ‘I don’t. But I’m pretty sure he hasn’t killed himself.’
‘Why do you say that? After all, he’s got himself into a lot of trouble, hasn’t he? He’s probably feeling desperate. I’m sure I would be, in his position.’
‘I know the man,’ Aubrey replied. ‘He won’t kill himself. He’s taken off; that’s what’s happened. But I don’t know where. He wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t tell anybody.’
‘Except whoever helped him escape,’ Raymond said.
‘What?’
‘Well, he must have had help from somewhere. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?’ Raymond continued. ‘We know he was at the Old Bailey until after 11 o’clock on Friday night because we were there as well. We were the investigating officers in the murder he was trying. By 8 o’clock the next morning he’s vanished into thin air. We’ve had every police officer in the country looking for him and we’ve put out alerts to all the ports and airports, and there’s no sign of him. I can’t see how he could have done that without help from somebody. When did you last see him, Mr Smith-Gurney?’
‘Last Thursday evening, at our Club. We had a drink; quite late, 9.30 to 10, I would think.’
Raymond offered his notebook.
‘Could we have the Club’s details, please sir?’
Aubrey wrote them down.
‘Can anyone confirm that, sir?’
‘Yes. The person you would want to talk to is a young man called Luke, who’s the steward in the main lounge.’
‘What did you and Sir Conrad talk about at that meeting?’ Webb asked.
Aubrey thought for some time.
‘All right. You’re going to find all this out sooner or later,’ he replied, ‘so I might as well tell you the whole story.’
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‘Conrad had confided in me several days before, just as he was starting the Henry Lang trial. He told me he had been gambling far too much, and he had lost a lot of money.’
‘Where was he doing his gambling?’ Webb asked.
‘At the Clermont Club in Berkeley Square.’
‘Blimey. You’d need a few bob to play in a place like that, I should think,’ Raymond commented.
‘Conrad wasn’t short of money,’ Aubrey replied, ‘at least, not at first. He was doing well at the Bar, and there was some family money on his wife’s side. The problem was that he got out of his depth. Greta Thiemann was his mistress. She encouraged him to play for higher and higher stakes because she liked the thrill of it all – as long as it was his money they were gambling with, rather than hers. Of course, his luck eventually deserted him and he lost a great deal of money.’
‘How much money?’ Webb asked.
Aubrey shrugged. ‘I’m not sure he told me the whole story. It couldn’t have been less than £30,000 to £40,000.’
‘Did his wife know anything about all this?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘If Greta lost him that much money,’ Raymond said, ‘i
t sounds to me like he had an obvious motive for killing her.’
Aubrey shook his head. ‘No. If Conrad killed her, it would have been a sudden loss of temper, a loss of self-control. He wouldn’t kill anyone in cold blood. I’ve known Conrad for many years. I’m sure of that.’
Webb smiled grimly.
‘Oh, please don’t tell me that, sir. We’ve just finished one provocation case. I’m not sure I could take another.’
‘I’m not saying he did kill her,’ Aubrey replied quickly. ‘I don’t know whether he did or not. All I’m saying is, if he did, it wasn’t premeditated.’
Webb nodded.
‘Well, let’s get back to the gambling. Had he managed to pay off his debts, or did he owe money to anyone?’
‘He owed money.’
‘Who to? The Clermont Club, or some people there?’
‘No. He borrowed money to pay for what he lost at cards. You have to, if you want to go on playing, especially somewhere like the Clermont. You can’t default on your gambling debts; and of course you have to have funds to keep playing so that you can chase your losses.’
‘Borrowed from whom?’
Aubrey hesitated.
‘From a man who claimed to represent what he called a “syndicate”. He told me that Greta had introduced them.’
Raymond scoffed.
‘Oh, here we go. How much?’
‘£20,000, at a ruinous rate of interest, needless to say, and regular payments. He would have ended up paying half of what he borrowed in interest, in addition to the amount itself. And the man made very clear to him what would happen if he failed to pay. I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out for you.’
‘No, you don’t, sir,’ Webb replied. ‘We’ve come across people like that before, obviously. Any chance of a name?’
‘Daniel Cleary. Conrad said he was known as “Danny Ice”.’
Both officers sat back in their chairs. It was some time before either spoke.
‘Can I make sure I’ve got this right, sir? Sir Conrad told you that he had borrowed from Daniel Cleary? Are you sure about that?’
‘Yes. That’s what he told me.’
Webb shook his head.
‘Well, that’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it? Daniel Cleary turned up in our murder case – the one Sir Conrad tried just before he disappeared. The defendant in that case claimed that Cleary had threatened him, and scared him so much that he carried a knife with him – the knife he had on him when he was provoked to kill his wife. So, I’m to believe that the judge was sitting there, trying my case, listening to evidence about Daniel Cleary, while he was in debt to Cleary and receiving threats from Cleary himself, am I? Is that what you’re telling me?’
‘I can only tell you what Conrad told me, Inspector.’
The officers looked at each other.
‘So now we have another possible theory, sir, don’t we?’ Raymond suggested. ‘It’s possible that Cleary could have been involved in Sir Conrad’s disappearance.’
‘Let’s hope you’re wrong,’ Webb replied. ‘But if you’re right, Cleary might be on the hook for killing Greta Thiemann as well.’
‘With his record, I wouldn’t put it past him,’ Raymond replied.
Webb breathed out sharply.
‘I want scenes of crime to go over Rainer’s flat again with a fine-tooth comb, and this time they’re looking for evidence that Cleary was there, fingerprints, anything.’
‘Right you are, sir.’
‘All right,’ Webb said to Aubrey. ‘There’s just one more thing. The reason we went to the flat on Saturday morning was that we had received a complaint from three barristers in his former chambers, claiming that Sir Conrad had stolen money from them, in the form of cheques, presumably to cover his debts. But you know all about that, don’t you, Mr Smith-Gurney?’
Gareth had been sitting quietly beside Aubrey, saying nothing. But now he stirred and put a hand on Aubrey’s arm.
‘I’m not quite sure what you mean by that, Inspector.’
‘I don’t think Mr Smith-Gurney will deny it, sir. My information is that he attended a meeting with these three barristers and their head of chambers, and tried to reach a compromise with them, in return for their not telling us about it. Isn’t that true, Mr Smith-Gurney?’
‘Conrad felt very badly about what he’d done. They were colleagues and friends, and he had stolen from them, and he hated himself for it. He was anxious to repay them, but he couldn’t do that until he’d repaid Cleary – not if he wanted to stay alive and well. So I asked them to give him time to make good the loss.’
‘Some might call that being an accessory after the fact to theft,’ Webb said.
Gareth sat up in his chair.
‘This stops here’ he said decisively. ‘All that was going on was an attempt to resolve a situation so that no one lost out. The barristers would commit no offence simply by not referring the matter to the police, so Mr Smith-Gurney was entirely within his rights to act as he did. If you want to go down that road, you will have to caution him, and he will need a solicitor, and this meeting is at an end. Your choice.’
Webb sat back with a smile.
‘I have too much work to do to mess around with that, Mr Morgan-Davies. My priority is to find Conrad Rainer, and my next priority after that is to find out who murdered Greta Thiemann, and both of those things now seem far more complicated than they did on Saturday morning. So no, I’m not going to waste my time on a doubtful accessory to theft.’
He turned back to Aubrey.
‘Are you sure you don’t know where he is?’
‘I don’t know where he is. If I did, I would tell you.’
‘And if he contacts you…?’
‘I will tell you.’
‘Do you believe him, sir?’ Raymond asked, as they made their way out of chambers into Middle Temple Lane.
‘No,’ Webb replied.
90
Friday 17 December 1971
The annual Christmas party at Two Wessex Buildings tended to follow a familiar pattern. Members of chambers were expected to be punctual and to entertain the numerous guests until 8.30, at which time the guests, with a few favoured exceptions, were expected to leave. Most members of chambers left shortly after, but there were a few who stayed on to enjoy a quiet drink or two afterwards. Bernard Wesley had started the tradition of inviting anyone who was still there at 9.30 into his room for a brandy. Gareth Morgan-Davies had continued the tradition. On this occasion, the cold and rain had driven most of the members of chambers and their guests away early, in the hope of getting home before the weather took the forecast turn for the worse. By 9.30, when Gareth Morgan-Davies produced his bottle of brandy, only Ben and Jess, Harriet, and Aubrey remained.
‘Well, I must say, you’re a dark horse, Harriet,’ Gareth said, toasting everyone. ‘We didn’t know about this man of yours. You’ve been keeping him up your sleeve, have you?’
‘She certainly has,’ Ben grinned. ‘We share a room in chambers, and I didn’t have a clue.’
‘Nor did your pupil-master,’ Aubrey added.
Harriet blushed.
‘When you grow up with a father who’s an ambassador, you get addicted to keeping secrets. I’ve been seeing Monty for about a year. He’s been keen to meet some of you, so I thought tonight I would take the plunge.’
‘I’m so glad you did,’ Jess said. ‘He’s charming.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And he’s a fellow in your father’s college?’
‘College fellow and University lecturer in anthropology.’
‘Well, it was a pleasure to meet him,’ Gareth said. ‘I’m sorry he had to rush off.’
‘Yes. He had to get back up to Cambridge for some faculty thing tomorrow morning. I’m going up there to spend Christmas, so he’ll have to
endure Christmas dinner with my parents. Poor man. If he survives that, he can survive anything.’
‘I’m sure your father is delighted,’ Aubrey said.
She smiled. ‘If he is, he probably won’t tell me. I’ll find out about it from my mother.’
She saw the newspaper on Gareth’s desk and saw her chance to change the subject.
‘Did you see the Standard this evening?’ She stood, picked the paper up and turned to the page she wanted. ‘Here’s a name we all remember.’ She began to read aloud.
BERMONDSEY MAN SENTENCED FOR BLACKMAIL AND ASSAULT
A Bermondsey man who threatened a West End art dealer with violence, and assaulted him with a crowbar over an alleged gambling debt, was jailed at the Old Bailey today for seven years. Daniel Cleary, 38, also known as ‘Danny Ice’, was described by Judge Milton Janner as ‘an exceptionally vicious and ruthless man who preyed on vulnerable men and women in need of money’. Passing sentence, the judge added that a long prison sentence was needed to protect the community from Cleary and to deter others who might be tempted to commit similar offences. The judge cautioned members of the public to resist the temptation to borrow money from people they did not know.
Ben glanced at Jess.
‘Any mention of Henry Lang?’
Harriet scanned the article again.
‘No, not a word. The victim’s name is Evans.’
‘Barratt would have told us if Henry’s case had been brought up, surely,’ Jess said.
Harriet continued reading.
Virginia Castle, defending, told the court that Cleary had a long history of drug addiction, and had given in to the temptation to act as an enforcer for men involved with organised crime, to make money to fund his addiction. She added that Cleary hoped to get help for his addiction while serving his sentence.
Jess laughed.
‘Good for Ginny. I’m sure Danny Ice will emerge from prison totally rehabilitated.’
‘I’ll bet Ginny will be representing him again within six months of his release,’ Ben said.
‘You are such a cynic, Ben, aren’t you?’ Gareth said. ‘I’m sure he’ll be a model citizen.’
